That left the “saloon.” It was much cleaner inside and along one wall was a homemade bar. It looked only a few years old. The rest of the long room was relatively empty except for some fast-food containers scattered on the floor.

He examined it again, this time searching for anything that might have the attraction of a trap, but couldn’t find anything. He walked back onto the front walkway and looked beyond the building. Then he thought he heard something up on the ridgeline where he had parked. Stepping back into the shadow of the saloon, he watched and listened for a few minutes but heard nothing else.

Fifty yards farther into the property he could see a foot trail disappearing into a stand of low trees. He started to follow it, and when he was halfway to the tree line, he saw a white paper bag, a twig driven through it holding it to the ground. He bent over and picked it up. It was from Sargasso’s restaurant and it smelled of garlic. Next to it was a 30-06 casing, untarnished by the weather.

As Vail bent over to retrieve it, a shot rang out from behind him on the hill. He dove to the left and rolled, holding on to the shotgun. From the sound of the shot, he could tell it was a heavy-caliber hunting rifle, probably a 30-06.

He half crawled, half ran back to the dilapidated buildings. That’s when he felt the wetness against his shoulder. He reached up and brought back his hand with blood on it. He felt the wound again; his trapezius had been nicked. Three inches to the left, it would have severed his spine.

As he worked his way behind the buildings, he tried to remember if he had loaded the deer slug first or the buckshot. The slug could reach two hundred yards, but with the shotgun having only a bead on the end of the barrel, it would take lottery luck to hit anything that far uphill. The buckshot would be useless at that distance.

When he got to the edge of the structure, he pumped all the rounds out of the gun, then picked up the three slugs off the ground and reloaded them along with five more from the cartridge belt.

Peeking around the corner, he tried to find a route to the top of the ridge with at least some cover. There were a few boulders, but they were thirty to forty yards apart. The advantage Vail had was that if the rifle did have a scope—which the difficulty of the first shot indicated—it would be hard for the shooter to get a bead on him if he kept moving and changing direction. And it probably was a bolt action, meaning it took a second or two to chamber each round, something, with a little bit of nerve, Vail could use to his advantage.

He snapped off the shotgun’s safety. He stepped out from behind the building and counted, “One idiot, two idiot, three idiot,” then jumped back behind the building as another rifle shot rang out.

He ran, zigzagging. He dove behind a rock just as another round hit somewhere behind him. Although he still hadn’t seen the shooter, Vail knew that he was in the outcroppings near where Vail had left his car.

Taking a deep breath, Vail raised the shotgun over the rock he was hiding behind, took a quick sight along the barrel, and fired. As he started running to the next spot, he heard the oversize slug he had fired ricochet off the rocks somewhere in the vicinity of the sniper.

Another rifle shot came from above, again exploding into the ground ten yards to his left. It meant that the shooter was firing wildly, more concerned with pinning Vail down than with hitting him.

The reason Vail had chosen this route was that he figured once he had reached the spot where he was now, the sniper could no longer see him moving. The shooter, realizing that, may have taken that last shot out of desperation. Either way, Vail could work his way up the hill without being exposed to the sniper’s line of sight. He ejected the rest of the slugs and reloaded with double-aught buck from the bandolier. If the single-shot rifle was the only weapon that the sniper had, the closer Vail got, the more effective the spray of .32-caliber pellets would become. But first he had to get up there.

Snaking through the outcroppings, Vail maneuvered his way up toward the ridge, being careful not to expose himself. Of course, the shooter could move and possibly surprise Vail, something he had to remain aware of.

Vail heard another shot, somewhat muffled. And then another.

It took him another ten minutes to reach the top. The sniper was gone, but behind Vail’s car, he could see another set of tire tracks in the loose dirt. The last two shots had taken out Vail’s rear tires.

While he waited for the rental company to send someone to tow him to a gas station, he checked his wound. It had almost stopped bleeding. Draping a handkerchief over it, he slipped his shirt and jacket over it. A tow truck arrived and took him to a gas station, where both tires were repaired.

An hour later he was on the 101 heading south toward L.A. Apparently there were more than five people in the Pentad. Today’s shooter was number six. Although Radek had set up Vail with the Italian dinners, someone else was trying to kill him now. Which didn’t make any sense. All the money was gone and the accomplices were dead. Why call attention to yourself by doing this? And why Vail? Did he know something that would reveal the identity of the last person? It was the only reasonable possibility. Was there actually someone from the Los Angeles FBI involved? It wasn’t Pendaran, because he was in custody. Obviously it was someone comfortable with firearms, because the heavy-caliber rifle had a punishing kick to it. Plus, it took a certain confidence to hunt a man in the open.

VAIL PULLED INTO the hospital’s emergency room parking lot and walked in. The doctor who had stitched up his back after the tunnel drop was again on duty. “You do understand we don’t give frequent-flier miles.”

Vail laughed. “This one wouldn’t even get me to the airport.” He took off his shirt.

“Gunshot?”

“Walked into a door.”

“Thank goodness,” the doctor said sardonically. “Otherwise I’d have to report it. You make me wish it was possible to short-sell life insurance on certain individuals.”

The doctor cleaned the wound and started putting a thick bandage on it. “Do you have anything a little less noticeable?” Vail asked. “I’ve got a date for dinner.”

The doctor put a thinner square of gauze over the laceration and taped it tightly into place. “Hold on a minute and I’ll take those stitches out of your back, or do you think you’ll be back in a day or two?”

“I know every waiter in L.A. is actually an actor, but I didn’t realize the doctors were comedians.”

“What’s frustrating is all the sick people that keep coming in here. Talk about no sense of humor. And comedy, after all, is all about feedback. Around here I get almost no reaction.” When he had taken the last suture out, Vail started putting on his shirt. “Do you want anything for pain?”

“I’m good, thanks.”

The doctor gave him a spool of tape, some extra gauze bandages, and a tube of ointment. “You can use these to dress the wound yourself. Or just save them for the next time you get shot.”

TWENTY-EIGHT

T HIS LOOKS NICE,” VAIL SAID.

“I hope you like Chinese.”

The restaurant was large and busy. The waiters spoke a minimum of English and the busboys none. The noise level was considerably higher than Sargasso’s. He wondered if Kate had reconsidered her offer and was sending him a message. She ordered a diet soft drink, apparently not wanting to test her resistance to both Vail and alcohol again. It was probably for the best anyway. If he should have the opportunity to take his shirt off later and she saw the bandage on his shoulder, a new round of trust disputes would be sparked.

“You’ve seen me eat. Do you think there’s anything I don’t like?”