Even in retrospect, all these years later, I don’t quite know how Sister Theresa did it, but that day, with that conversation, she brought me to one of the rare satoris of my life.
That night, I dreamed of ants and birds and fish, and in the morning, as I was brushing my teeth, I understood why Corbett Ormond could kill his wife’s entire family and then his son, and still the world could be right in its design.
PART 4
380 MILES TO MORDOR
|?25?|
Bridget was so absorbed in the challenge posed by driving blind and fast under the influence of psychic magnetism that she seemed to be in a trance.
Everything beyond the windshield and in the three mirrors was apparitional, an eerie phantasmal landscape: dimly visible, chalky soil in the foreground, seemingly as insubstantial as a low-lying toxic fog; lakes of darkness in the distance; bristling clumps of strange and insectile vegetation jittering past as if they, not the Explorer, were in motion; vertical forms, so pale and blurred by the downpour that they were less like thrusting formations of stone than like manifesting spirits cloaked in ectoplasm. Black rain inked the night, but in the backwash of the dashboard light, the drops were dull silver when they burst against the windshield.
The military transport raced close after us, driven by someone wearing night-vision goggles that no doubt provided him with a view to inspire confidence, for there is always light in the infrared spectrum that we can’t see unassisted. In the starboard-side mirror, the rain-veiled grille of the truck suggested the snarl of a ghostly menace in a dream. The vehicle was so close that if Bridget jammed her foot on the brake pedal, we would be tail-ended with such force that our fuel tank would burst; when we tipped and rolled in a ball of fire, whatever power had chosen us to be aluf shel halakha would be terribly disappointed in us.
“Oh, shit!” Bridget exclaimed. Anticipating the threat before it appeared, she pulled the wheel hard to starboard as a second all-terrain transport swept in from the right and flashed past us as though the driver’s intention had been to ram the Explorer. If that vehicle was as armored as it appeared to be, it might have been able to T-bone us with no cost to itself or to those riding in it.
Four things were obvious to me. First, the Internal Security Agency was as determined to get us as Wile E. Coyote was committed to snaring the Road Runner. Second, the ISA’s budget was humongous, and its equipment far more formidable than any traps or weapons the coyote could purchase from Acme. Third, these transports were large enough to carry seven people in addition to the driver, which amounted to fourteen agents who would be heavily armed, who would be pissed off about how things had gone down at Beane’s Diner, and even more pissed off about the two dead agents at the Sweetwater Flying F Ranch. Fourth, until now, I hadn’t taken seriously enough Bridget’s presentiment that at least one of us would die in the near future.
She swung west again so sharply that I felt as if we were in a carnival ride. Although not as focused as Bridget was, I began to feel the irresistible pull of psychic magnetism and sensed that our only hope lay straight ahead and that speed was of the essence. She accelerated to thirty-five, to forty, plowing through low brush that raked the undercarriage. We dropped a few feet into a barren swale, soared out of it, dropped into another and exited it as well, the tires stuttering across stony ground. The Explorer encountered soft terrain that clutched at the tires and slowed it, but at least one wheel found traction, pulling us out of that slough. We accelerated again.
On our port side, about twelve feet away, the second transport, the one that tried to T-bone us, pulled parallel with the Explorer. In the sheeting rain, the lightless vehicle appeared to shimmer like a mirage. Evidently, the windows were heavily tinted; I couldn’t see the driver or any passenger in the cockpit.
A glance at the side mirror confirmed that the first transport had dropped back until the night and storm allowed only the merest suggestion of a pursuer. I assumed this meant the two ISA drivers, in communication, were agreed that the newcomer would take the lead in bringing us to heel.
“If he was crazy enough to try to T-bone us,” I said, “then he’ll side slam us.” The military-style transport was heavier than the Explorer and had a lower center of gravity. SUVs like ours were prone to roll in extreme conditions, and being repeatedly bashed by a five-ton vehicle was the definition of extreme. “He’s going to side slam us for sure.”
Bridget had blanched zombie white, the instrument-panel glow painting morbid green highlights on her brow and cheeks, and her jaws were clenched, and her teeth were exposed in a fierce grimace, and a fine sweat sheathed her face from brow to chin, one fat salty bead depending from the tip of her nose. She looked fabulous.