Dance Of Death

SIXTY

D'Agosta listened to the sirens coming across the dunes. They grew louder, receded, then grew louder again. From his days with the Southampton P.D., he recognized the ti

They'd sat here in the shadow of a sand dune, hiding, assessing the situation, at least five minutes. If he remained on the beach, there was no way their truck was going to escape dune buggies. And yet if he went back on the street, he'd be nabbed immediately, now that they knew his approximate location, vehicle, and license plate.

They were now near Southampton, D'Agosta's old stomping ground, and he knew the lay of the land, at least in general terms. There had to be a way out. He would just have to find it.

He started the truck, popped the emergency brake.

"Hold on to your seat," he said.

Pendergast, who had apparently finished making a string of cell phone calls, glanced over. "I am in your hands."

D'Agosta took a deep breath. Then he gu

Shit. They were closer than he'd expected.

D'Agosta jammed the pedal to the floor as the pickup topped the dune. For a moment, they were airborne. Then they landed on the far side, bottoming out in the loose sand, churning and grinding their way through a patch of dense brush. The preserve ended, and the path ahead was blocked by several grand Hampton estates. As he fought with the wheel, D'Agosta quickly arranged the local topography in his head. If they could just get past the estates, he knew, Scuttlehole marsh lay beyond.

The dunes leveled out and he bashed the truck through a slat fence, emerging onto a narrow road. On the far side was a high boxwood hedge, surrounding one of the great estates. He tore alongside the hedge, and where the road curved up ahead, he saw what he was looking for-a sclerotic patch in the foliage-and he veered off, aiming directly for it. The pickup truck hit it at forty, bashed through the hedge, tearing off both mirrors in the process, and then they were accelerating across a ten-acre lawn, a huge Georgian mansion on the left, a gazebo and covered pool on the right, the way beyond blocked by an Italian rose garden.

He flashed past the pool at speed, ripped through the rose garden, nicked the arm off a sculpture of some naked woman, and crashed through a raised vegetable bed that lay beyond. Up ahead, like a green wall, stood another unbroken line of hedge.

Pendergast looked back through the rear window of the pickup truck, a pained expression on his face. "Vincent, you're cutting quite a swath," he said.

"They can add nude statue molestation to my growing list of crimes. For now, though, you'd better brace yourself." And he accelerated toward the hedge.

They hit it with a shuddering crash that nearly stopped the vehicle dead. The engine coughed and sputtered, and for a moment D'Agosta feared it would die. But they fought their way out the far side of the hedge, still ru

For the past couple of weeks it had been cold-very cold. Now D'Agosta was going to find out if it had been cold enough.

He tore along the road until he found a break in the fence, then pointed the truck through it and went off-road again. He was forced to slow down as he wound through the sparse jack-pine forest that surrounded the marsh. He could still hear the sirens coming faintly from behind. If he had gained ground cutting through the estate, it was precious little.

The stunted pines gradually gave way to marsh grass and sandy flats. Ahead, he could see the dead stalks of cattail and yellow marsh grass. The pond itself seemed lost in the gray light.

"Vincent?" Pendergast said calmly. "You're aware there's a body of water ahead?"

"I know."

The pickup accelerated over the frozen verge of the marsh, the wheels sending shards of crackling ice skittering away on either side like a wake. The speedometer edged back up to thirty, then thirty-five, then forty. For what he was about to do, he was going to need all the speed he could get.

With a final slapping sound, the cattails scattering in their wake, the pickup truck was on the ice.

Pendergast gripped the door handle, the lattes forgotten. "Vincent-?"

The truck was moving fast across the ice, breaking it as they went with a machine-gun chatter. D'Agosta could see in his rearview mirror that the ice was cracking and shattering behind them, some pieces even flung up and skittering away, black water slopping up. The sound of fracturing ice boomed across the lake like the reports of ca

"The idea is they won't be able to follow us," said D'Agosta through clenched teeth.

Pendergast didn't answer.

The far shore, lined with stately homes, steadily approached. The truck felt almost like it was floating now, rising up and down like a powerboat on the continuously breaking crust of ice.

D'Agosta could feel he was losing momentum. He applied just a little more gas, being careful to ease down slowly on the accelerator. The truck roared, wheels spi

Two hundred yards. He gave it more gas, but it just spun the wheels faster.

The amount of power being transferred from the wheels to the slick surface was steadily decreasing. The truck jerked, bounced, slowed, and began to slew sideways as the craquelure of failing ice spread out from them in all directions.

This is no time for half measures. D'Agosta jammed the pedal to the floor once again as he spun the wheel. The engine screamed, the truck accelerating, but not quite enough to stay ahead of the horrible disintegration of ice.

One hundred yards.

The engine was now screaming like a turbine, the truck still yawing sideways, moving now on inertia alone.

The far shore was close, but the truck was slowing with every passing second. Pendergast had scooped up the laptop and police radio under his arm, and seemed to be preparing to open his door.

"Not yet!" D'Agosta gave the wheel a sharp check, just enough to straighten out the truck. The nose, the heavier part, was still up, and as long as it stayed that way…

With a horrible sinking sensation, the front of the truck began to settle. There was a moment of breathless suspension. And then it nosed down sharply and slammed into the forward edge of ice, stopping the truck cold.

D'Agosta flung open the door and launched himself into the freezing water, clutching at the breaking edge of ice, gripping it, hauling himself up onto a jagged floe. He scrambled away crablike onto solid ice as the bed of the pickup truck swung upward vertically, the back wheels still spi

After the truck had vanished, there, on the far side of the gaping hole, stood Pendergast, standing on the ice as if he'd merely stepped out of the truck, computer and radio tucked under one arm, black coat dry and unruffled.

D'Agosta rose unsteadily to his feet on the groaning ice. They were a mere dozen yards from shore. He glanced back but the dune buggies had not yet appeared on the shore of the pond.