Derik scrambled back to the Suburban that they'd arrived in and screamed something Lucas didn't understand to the red-haired agent, who was behind another vehicle. The red-haired man looked back wildly, shouted something, then dug in his pocket, found some keys, and threw them at Derik. Derik crawled into the Suburban, and Lucas, on hands and toes, scooted over to that vehicle. Derik was lying across the front seats, and when Lucas heard the engine turn over, he climbed through the back door and said, "What are we doing?"

"Gonna back it up," Derik grunted. "Can't see shit. Hold on."

Lucas peeked over the top of the backseat. He couldn't see any more muzzle flashes from Rinker, but the agents were still pouring fire into the dark. Derik, kneeling on the passenger seat, locked the steering wheel in place with one hand, and with the other shifted the truck into reverse, then reached down and pressed on the accelerator. They started backing, fast, wobbling, and Lucas risked another peek and said, "You're doing fine, doing fine-faster, though, faster. Hold it straight…"

They backed up a hundred feet, running on two flats, lurched twice into the curb, and then cut an angle with the building where they'd seen the muzzle flashes, and were out of her line of sight. Lucas shouted, "Whoa, stop!" and the Suburban lurched to a stop, and Derik shouted, "What?" but Lucas was already out of the truck. He jerked open the driver's-side door and shouted, "Let me in."

Derik pulled back and Lucas gunned the truck in a circle, climbed the far curb, onto the grass, bounced around, cut back into the street and headed back toward the entrance boulevard, the flats slap-slap-slap-slap outside the open passenger door, then Derik managed to get up and he pulled the door shut and Lucas pushed the truck up to forty and they bounced down to the exit and Lucas cut across it.

NOTHING HAPPENED.

The gunfire was dwindling, and Lucas realized that he hadn't heard the stuttering bursts from the automatic weapon.

"She's running," he said. "Where is she? There must be another way out. You hang here, I'm gonna try to get back."

"Hang on a minute, they'll freak out and shoot you if you just come running up," Derik said. He slipped a radio from his pocket and got Sally. "Davenport's coming back on the road-tell everybody he's running up the road." She acknowledged, and Derik nodded at him. "Go."

Lucas, gun in hand, ran back up the road toward the terminal, then to the left toward Executive Air. Nobody had touched the lights, and the whole place still looked like a soundstage. And more than that, they had music: Bonnie Tyler's "Total Eclipse of the Heart" was bleeding out into the night, through speakers in the open hangar, Lucas thought, as he ran toward the island of light.

Most of the agents and the Dallaglios were still huddled behind the four vehicles of the original convoy. Three people were flat on the ground, and somebody had dragged Dallaglio's body behind one of the Suburbans. Sally and the red-haired agent were both missing, and when Lucas came up, he shouted, "Where's Sally?" and somebody shouted back, "They went after her," and pointed into the dark.

Lucas said, "Ah, man," and ran that way. As he came up to the first building, he shouted, "Sally…"

She called back, "This way, this way."

He went that way and found Sally and the red-haired agent, both armed with long guns, working their way between the buildings. "Anything?"

"No. We think… I think… she ran."

"Not in a car," Lucas said. "We had the road blocked, and we didn't see anyone going out ahead of us. She must be on foot. She must have a car ditched outside somewhere."

"Dallaglio's dead," said the red-haired agent.

"No shit," Lucas said. "Anybody else?"

"Two guys wounded, leg wounds. She was taking out tires."

"Goddamnit," Lucas said.

"Maybe…"

"What?"

The red-haired agent laughed ruefully and said, "I was gonna say, maybe we could get dogs." He looked off into the dark and said, "Fuck me. Dogs."

SIRENS. AMBULANCES AND cop cars. They started back between the buildings toward the road, walking at first, then breaking into a trot. The two wounded agents were still on the ground, each with an agent sitting next to him. Another agent and two bodyguards sat next to Dallaglio's body, and Jesse Dallaglio sat on the ground a few feet away, making a keening cry that Lucas thought might have been romantic to read about, but in practice sounded like a broken dental drill. The girls were out of sight, and Lucas thought they were probably back in the Lincoln, where they wouldn't be able to see their father.

The first of the ambulances arrived, and the paramedics looked at Dallaglio and then went straight to the two wounded agents, who were loaded into the first ambulance and sent on their way. Another ambulance came up and they also looked at Dallaglio, and then one of the paramedics lifted Jesse Dallaglio to her feet and led her back toward the Lincoln and the girls.

Lucas had nothing to do but stand around. He wouldn't be working with the crime-scene people, except perhaps to identify the spray of. 45 shells as coming from his gun. Sally was walking around, saying a few words to each of the agents, then came back to Lucas and said, "She had a machine gun."

"Probably got it from Baker," Lucas said. "He neglected to mention it. Probably an illegal conversion."

"What were we supposed to do? What could we have done?"

"Nothing. You may get some shit, but there's nothing you could have done except lock Dallaglio in his basement."

They were looking at Jesse Dallaglio, who stood next to the Lincoln, talking through the now-open back door. The paramedic was still supporting her. "Poor kids," Sally said.

Lucas was staring at the dark sky past the lighted diamond of the control tower. He didn't respond, and after a minute, Sally asked, "What?"

"Huh. Something… I think Clara just screwed up."

"Yeah? Tell me."

"Well," Lucas said, "think about what just happened…"

RINKER HAD NEVER had any intention of driving out of the airport. She'd seen too many car chases on television, the kind where the guy never escapes from the helicopter. She'd walked in, found a spot behind a low concrete drainage wall, where she could prop the gun. She'd dug up a square of sod to use as a rest, and it worked perfectly.

When the convoy arrived, she waited patiently until Dallaglio got out in the open, then nailed him with a single shot, a round of. 223 hollowpoint.

Then, flipping the selector switch, she sent the rest of the thirty-round magazine into the body and at the row of vehicles, concentrating on the tires. The agents and bodyguards scattered like dust, and when the magazine ran out, she slapped in another and fired carefully spaced bursts at each of the trucks and cars.

Halfway through, she became aware of return fire, but never heard or felt anything passing close by. Never felt threatened, as she was showing nothing but three inches of forehead and rifle. Then one of the trucks began backing away, and out of sight. Time to go. She hastily hosed the rest of the magazine into the line of trucks, then turned and ran.

She ran down the length of the airport, invulnerable in the darkness. She ran across a beanfield, down the rows of thigh-high plants, letting the rows guide her back toward her car, feeling the kind of excitement she'd felt as a kid, playing war in the fields around Tisdale. She ran almost a mile, in all, the last part of it across a golf course, and took, she thought, about seven minutes to do it.

When she got to the car, she tossed the AR-15 into the backseat and eased the car out of its parking spot and up a narrow lane through a residential area. Just before she lost sight of the airport, she stopped for a last look-there were ambulances coming in now, and she could see tiny dark figures dancing in the splash of light.