Free Recoil by Brian Garfield Page A

o’clock.”
    â€œWhat the hell, we’re on vacation.”
    She was watching the boy swim across the pool. “I wouldn’t call it that. For God’s sake stop patronizing me, I’m not made out of bone china.” Finally she looked straight at him. “I’m not going to pieces. You can stop treating me as if I were.”
    â€œOK. I’m sorry.”
    â€œAnd quit apologizing all the time.”
    â€œI’m sor—” And then they both laughed. But it was uneasy laughter.
    Mathieson hitched his aluminum chair six inches closer to Jan’s. “Been thinking about where we go?”
    She pulled the sunglasses down off her forehead and adjusted them on the bridge of her nose. Now he could no longer see her eyes; but her face kept turning toward the pool. “My mind’s still blank. I wish I could think.” Her face dipped. “It’s so damned unfair.”
    â€œWe’ve got to make up our minds, you know. We can’t stay here. Glenn’s itching to get us out of here.”
    â€œI know—I know.”
    Ronny climbed the ladder, perched at the top of the slide, made sure he had an audience and chuted into the water. He went in straight, feet first, holding his nose. When he surfaced at the ladder he said, “I wish they had a diving board.”
    â€œDo your surface dives,” Mathieson told him.
    â€œYeah but it’s not the same thing.” But the boy went off the ladder step, curving neatly through the blue water.
    5
    Bradleigh went out first. Mathieson heard his soft talk: “All right?”
    â€œAll clear.”
    Bradleigh waved them out. Mathieson went ahead of Jan and Ronny. “Feels a little foolish.”
    â€œLet’s just play it by the rules,” Bradleigh told him. They walked through the archway to the back parking lot. Phosphor lamps on high arched stalks of aluminum threw pools of white light around the tarmac. The three cars were drawn up side by side. Caruso was feeding luggage into an open car trunk.
    Bradleigh opened doors for them and stood to one side. “You understand the drill?”
    â€œSeems melodramatic to me,” Mathieson said.
    â€œI know. Think of it as a game you’re playing.”
    Ronny said, “Funny kind of game if you ask me.”
    â€œIt won’t last long,” Bradleigh said. “A couple of days you’ll be up in those Arizona mountains learning how to be an Indian scout.” He gripped Jan’s hand. “You take care of each other now.”
    â€œGlenn, you told us not to thank you but—”
    â€œThat’s right.” But Bradleigh smiled a little; Mathieson took his firm brief handshake. “Look after them, Jason. I’ll check in with you in a few days.”
    Jason W. Greene . “Take care, Glenn.”
    Then they were in the back seat of the Plymouth and Caruso was sliding in behind the wheel. The doors chunked shut, starters meshed, headlights stabbed across the lot. The car on Mathieson’s right pulled away and Caruso drove after it. Mathieson looked around: The third car rolled into place behind them.
    They went up along the freeways with the two outrider cars bracketing them front and rear. Caruso kept a steady hundred feet behind the point car. Three in the morning: There was no traffic. Caruso’s small talk dried up quickly. In the back seat Ronny fell asleep between them. Mathieson tried to sleep. He thought of the Gilfillans, the rubble that had been his own house, Phil Adler’s complacent fat smile. He felt buffeted by events and resentful of his own passivity; but an innocent civilian on the battlefield couldn’t make the war stop. You could only run for cover and hate yourself for it.
    At El Centro the convoy stopped for gas and breakfast: Caruso made a phone call; after a while they were on the road again.
    Ronny became restive; Jan gave him her place by the window but everything was shut