Read Lone Wolf #12: Phoenix Inferno for Free Online Page B

trapped in war, that was all—but the skillful way in which the fire had been returned, the way in which the Fleetwood was being maneuvered, and what it had done to their windshield—
    “I’m losing control,” the younger man said, his voice peculiarly calm despite all indications in his history that he would have been the one to have broken. “I can’t see a fucking thing and now I think he’s got the tires.”
    “The tires?”
    “The fucking tires,” the driver said, and there was another impact, the can began to slide slowly, almost gracefully toward the side of the road. The older man knew from experience that they were going out of control; he knew what the feeling of a car was when it was no longer taking the road but succumbing to it. Something hit the windshield again and the driver shrieked. Then the Fleetwood in a trick of vision was coming upon them, moving in reverse at fifty miles an hour. What had really happened was that the car had braked down suddenly, but the illusion was complete, the feeling that the fins of the vehicle were coming upon them made the older man gasp and dive under the dashboard. Meanwhile, the driver, screaming and cursing all the way, was fighting with the Bonneville to brake it down. He wrenched the wheel and the car went into a desperate spin, lost road adhesion, turned around and landed off the road, turning completely around and landing in an improvised ditch. At the end of the last spin there was a dull sound and then a little explosion, like a grapefruit hitting a wall, and then it was very, very quiet.
    The older gunman looked up and looked at the driver. Sprouting blood, he now lay back against the seat, little shards of glass coming out of his forehead like the silver sprinkles on Christmas ornaments, his head the bulb of an ornament running rich red. The older man shuddered from his crouched position but did not move. There was nothing to be done for the driver. He was dead. What was important, the only thing to do to try and save the situation was to stay under cover. Where was the Fleetwood? Where was Wulff? Maybe the Fleetwood had gone off the road, too, but that was not likely. That was not damned likely at all.
    It was quiet here in the desert, quiet and hot. With the car wrecked and the air-conditioning gone, the assassin could already feel the heat beginning to work its way through to him. The windows had been up tight to facilitate the air-conditioner, of course. Now the temperature in the car must have been over ninety. In just a matter of minutes it would be a hundred and twenty, even beyond that … they would have to do nothing in the Fleetwood except to lay siege to him; he would not be able to live in this car for more than an hour. Amazing. It was amazing how quickly the situation could shift in one of these deals, the assassin thought; one moment you were on the prowl and the next you were at bay. Well, that was life, maybe, the constant switching of roles, the reversals that at any time could tumble you top to bottom. But this was not something you could ever learn to handle in a philosophical way, not even if you were forty-two and had been dealing with death all your life.
    He looked cautiously over the ridge of the dashboard, blinked in the dazzling light, saw that the Fleetwood had pulled over at a considerable distance up the road, maybe as much as a quarter of a mile, and was just lying there, no movement at all of the doors. It was impossible to detect movement in the car at this distance, of course, but it did appear to be unnaturally quiet, no hint of shifting light within from which he might have been able to deduce movement. They might be playing possum, of course, but then again they might have been hurt, either in going off the road or by one of his shots. It was possible that he had pierced the rear window and gotten a lucky hit on one or the other, although this was not at all likely. Still, you had to have hope, and this was as likely an