Primal Threat - Earl Emerson [114]
Incredibly, Stephens found himself next to Polanski, who forced him to fight for the smoothest sections of the road; Muldaur was somewhere behind. Whoever lost each of their small battles fell behind slightly when he had to ride the rougher section. And then another blast of filthy air crept up their backs, and Stephens felt something sting his arm. The air was swirling with hundreds of tiny burning cinders.
The heat began increasing at a phenomenal rate. Tiny cinders singed his neck, and one even burned through the sleeve of his jersey. By now Stephens had lost twenty bike lengths on Polanski. He cocked his head to one side and saw Giancarlo another hundred yards down the hill, pedaling in a labored motion, zigzagging from side to side.
A wall of flame rose up behind Giancarlo, and he was limned by yellow. It was hard to judge how close the fire was, but Stephens guessed the cyclist below him would be dead in a minute or less. Forty yards in front of the trio the top of a Douglas fir burst into flame, and one by one they gravitated to the other side of the road as they passed it, each feeling the radiated heat from the flames.
52
Surely the cyclists had to be lying when they said Morse came to them with an unloaded revolver. Kasey had been having misgivings about the incident all day, but no matter how many times he replayed those few seconds before Finnigan shot Morse, he could not honestly view it as a peace talk. What he remembered most was Morse trying to gull them into complacency seconds before he pulled out the gun.
Actually, now that he thought about it, Morse had been somewhat limp-wristed with the pistol. But then, after he got shot the first time, he raised the gun again, and that was when Kasey knew he’d meant to hurt them all along. In addition, had not Scooter checked afterward and found the revolver loaded? Why would Scooter lie about that? As he drove up the mountain in reverse, Kasey decided the cyclists were the true liars. They had to be.
“They don’t have the balls to shoot us,” Scooter said. “That guy this morning tried and choked. That’s what gave Fred the edge.”
“I don’t know about balls, Scooter. You saw the way they killed Chuck’s dog.”
“That wasn’t pretty,” said Roger Bloomquist from the backseat.
“It was loaded, wasn’t it?” Kasey asked.
“What?”
“That revolver you took off the guy Fred shot. It was loaded?”
“I said it was, didn’t I? Besides, even if it wasn’t, a guy pulls a gun, you have every right to shoot. The cops would.”
“I’m not sure he wasn’t trying to hand us the gun the way he said he was.”
“Don’t believe that for a minute. It was the perfect con. He was going to shoot you. You go back down that road and you’ll find the bullets. I can show you exactly where they are.”
It was an odd assertion, Kasey thought, because this morning only moments after he supposedly tossed them, Scooter hadn’t been able to locate them, or didn’t want to.
“Hey. I have an idea. We’re going to be passing those guys in a minute. Let’s bump them off the mountain. We could make it look like an accident.”
“I don’t think so,” Kasey said.
“It’s a long ride up this hill on a bicycle,” said Bloomquist. “They’re not going to make it to safety before the fire gets them.”
Kasey didn’t pay a whole lot of attention when they passed the first three cyclists, and despite Scooter’s urging to do otherwise, he drove with care. So did Jennifer. People had been injured and killed, but so far Kasey had accomplished none of the damage, and he was beginning to see the percentage in keeping it that way.
On top of the mountain, trees were blowing in all different directions, some of the younger firs bent almost to the ground. The Cayenne rocked from side to side in the winds, hot smoke blowing around the interior. Several times Kasey had been forced to slow because of the smoke in the road.