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At last they left the tunnel-like raht He looked up and was vastly relieved to see a diaround felt like a graveled road and there were no lights to be seen anywhere In the shadows off to his left he dinized the outline of a car

Pulling Lariratefully dropped Moran like a bag of sand and cautiously circled around, approaching the car from the rear

He froze into iainst the shadowless landscape, and listened The engine was running and htly rolled up and Suvorov right

assumed the air conditioner was on

Silent as a cat, he crouched andlow and out of any reflection in the side-view mirror on the door The inside was too dark to ue form behind the wheel If there were others, Suvorov's only ally was the element of surprise

The car was a stretch-bodied li as a city block From the raised letters on the rear'of the trunk, he identified it as a Cadillac He'd never driven one and hoped he would have no trouble finding the right switches and controls

His groping fingers found the door handle He took a deep breath and tore open the door The interior light flicked on and the man in the front seat twisted his head around, histo shout

Suvorov shot hih the rib cage under the armpit

Alan to spurt, Suvorov jerked the driver's body out of the car and rolled it away frohly crowded Larimer and Moran into the back seat Both ripped by shock to even notice or care No longer the power brokers of Capitol Hill, they were as helpless as children lost in the forest

Suvorov dropped the shift lever into drive and jammed the accelerator to the floor ravel for fifty yards before finally gaining traction Only then did Suvorov's fuht switch and pull it on

He sagged in relief at discovering the big car was hurtling down the precise middle of a rutted country road

As he threw the heavy, softly sprung lian to take stock of his surroundings

Cypress trees bordering the road had great tentacles offroested they were somewhere in the Southern United States He spotted a narrow paved crossroad ahead and slin to a stop in a swirling cloud of dust

On the corner stood a deserted building, n illuhts: GLOVER CULPEPPER GAS & GROCERIES Apparently Glover had packed up and moved on many years before

The intersection had no marker, so he ave way to groves of pine and soon he began passing an occasional far Only one car and a pickup truck passed hi in the opposite direction He ca post designating it as State Highway 700 The nu to him, so he made another left turn and continued on