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resigned to the worst. "But you pick the road, okay?"
        A thousand feet farther along, Tucker pointed to a narrow gap in the almost solid wall of thick pine trunks, said, "That one, on the right, ought to lead in the general direction of the mansion."
        Shirillo drove into the weed-choked track with all the caution of a man who fully expected it to be generously laced with land mines. The Mustang sighed, sank down in the damp earth with its thick carpet of pine needles, the springs singing unpleasantly. It trembled coltishly, bounced into and out of a muddy hole, making a grinding noise as it pressed brambles, grass and milkweed plants out of the way, moving slowly but deliberately forward.
        They rode in silence for more than a mile and a half before the compact car settled abruptly into a pool of black muck and refused to come out of it again, even though Tucker and Harris assisted with a push.
        Shirillo finally shut off the engine and got out of the car. He said, "She's wedged in there until someone brings a wrecker after her."
        "We'll walk now," Tucker said.
        Actually, Shirillo was feeling better than he had fifteen minutes before, because he had never expected a Mustang to get this far over that kind of terrain. That it had lasted as long as this seemed to be some sort of omen that the job wouldn't turn out so bad after all.
        Tucker took the lead as they followed the overgrown trail into the woods, Shirillo second and Harris bringing up the rear with his heavy artillery. The older man carried the Thompson snout forward, at the hip, like a wary infantryman going through a suspected enemy position. That was, in fact, pretty much the case.
        Although Tucker was aware of the woods around him and was on the lookout for Baglio's gunmen, the greatest part of his attention was on the problem of the botched robbery. In the past three years he had pulled off thirteen perfect operations, a couple of which were already legend in the business. Each job had its hitches, of course, but each had turned put right in the end. At twenty-eight he'd begun to build the kind of reputation among other freelancers that Clitus Felton had retired on. Reliable Mike Tucker. He liked the sound of that, even though the Tucker part of it was not his real name. It had been his alias for three years, and he felt that, given another five years of continued success, he wouldn't give a damn about any name except his assumed one; he would be Tucker then. Already, he was more concerned about upholding Tucker's reputation than about what was said against his real name and family. There was nothing to be proud of in his real name, nothing at all. Tucker, however, was a name to be reckoned with. A botched-up job… Remember Tucker's first disaster, the Baglio robbery? After that, it was all downhill for him, right on to that job when he… No. Not failure. He wouldn't permit it to remain a failure, because that would be playing right into his father's hands-not Tucker's father, of course; the real father. He refused. He would not provide anyone with a reference point for the beginning of his decline. Before he was finished he would have those damned suitcases, or three others exactly like them, filled with money.
        He looked at his watch as he walked along the rutted, unused track, was surprised to see that despite all that had happened this morning it was still only a few minutes past eleven o'clock. A great deal could be done yet today-if they were lucky enough to find their way off the mountain unobserved.
        Ten minutes after they abandoned the Mustang, the woods began to thin out around them. The trees were smaller, farther apart, the underbrush thicker. Tucker gave all of his attention to the landscape now; the planning could wait until later. The woods seemed deserted except for them, but Baglio might have men stationed along the perimeter. Whether they had a chance or not was all