Free Hanging on by Dean Koontz Page B

led the procession, traveling nearly as fast as the motorcycle. Its head lamps struck Danny Dew like a spotlight zeroing in on a star stage performer. The car passed him, jolted across the first floor beam, lights bobbling wildly, and kept on going across the bridge. At the other end, it slammed down onto the roadbed again and disappeared around the bend two hundred yards beyond the river, hidden from them now by a rise in the land and the thickening forest. It had never even slowed down.
        "Luck," Major Kelly said.
        "God's on our side," Slade said.
        "Here comes another," Beame said.
        The second armored car was coming fast, though not nearly so fast as the one before it. This driver seemed less sure of himself than his predecessor had been; he was hunched over the wheel, fighting the ruts and the hump in the center of the pavement where the lane had hoved up like a hog's back. He would be too busy with the unresponsive steering of the cumbersome vehicle to take much notice of Dew. However, the five other Germans with him would have more time to look around.
        They glanced at Kelly, Beame and Slade as they went by, then looked ahead at Danny Dew.
        "Here it comes," Kelly said.
        The car hit a rut, bounced high, slewed sideways, and nearly went off the road. The driver fought, kept control, plunged through the entrance to the bridge and accelerated. In a few moments, he was gone, and still Dew stood at the bridge.
        Beame closed his eyes and let his head fall forward with relief. He sucked cool night air into his lungs, then reluctantly raised his head and looked eastward, toward the convoy.
        The third armored car came much more slowly than either of the first two. It carried four Germans in addition to the driver, and it weaved uncertainly from one side of the lane to the other. Battered, splattered with mud, it had obviously seen better days. The left rear fender sported a six-inch shell hole. The windshield was cracked and yellowed.
        "Why's he coming so slow?" Slade asked.
        "Is something wrong with him?" Beame asked. "I can't hear the sound of his engine with the tanks and all; is he breaking down?"
        Kelly said nothing. He knew, if he opened his mouth, he would scream.
        The armored car passed them, the engine making a peculiar grinding noise. An inordinate cloud of exhaust fumes trailed them. A minute later, they thumped over the bridge approach, slid through the entrance in what seemed to be slow motion, and went across without stopping.
        Major Kelly still didn't feel good about Danny Dew standing out there pretending his eyes were blue and his hair yellow, because the Panzers were next. All twelve of them. In each of the Panzers, the captain of the tank stood in the hatch on the top of the turret, watching the way ahead, sometimes calling orders down to the driver in his forward cubbyhole. The driver, in each case, had only a slit to see through and was too busy with navigation to pay attention to a sentry. But the tank commander, topside, would have Danny Dew fixed in his sight for long, long seconds. A minute or more.
        "We're all dead," Major Kelly said. He began beating his head against the steering wheel once more.
        "You're beating your head against the steering wheel," Slade said.
        Kelly beat even harder.
        "No SS officer ever loses control like that," Slade said.
        For once, Slade was right about something. Kelly stopped beating his head against the wheel and contented himself with gripping the wheel in both hands and trying to break it loose of the steering column.
        "Better be careful about that," David Beame said, nodding at Kelly's whitened knuckles. "If you break it off, Maurice will assess you for it."
        That was true enough. But he had to do something, and he couldn't very well climb into the back seat and pulp Lieutenant Slade's face, as he wanted to do.