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“What the hell are you doing?” Terry asked.

He had the car moving before the door had closed.

He wound it up in first, and touched the brake only as he reached the end of the lane of cars. As he turned left, the windshield of the Porsche suddenly reflected light all over.

There was a boom.

“You cocksucker!” Matt said, slamming on the brakes.

The object in the man’s hand obviously was not a softball bat.

There was another boom. Part of the windshield fell out.

Matt dove out of the car, and half rolled, half crawled, between two parked cars.

He pulled his Colt Officer’s Model. 45 from the small of his back and worked the action. A cartridge flew out. He’d had one in the chamber.

That leaves five.

He ran between the cars, dropped to his knees, and peered very carefully around the bumper of one.

The two were climbing the chain-link fence at the end of the parking lot.

Matt stood up, held the pistol in both hands, and called out, “That’s it. Just drop to the ground.”

One of them dropped to the ground and one didn’t.

For a moment, Matt didn’t know what to do.

Then the second one dropped to the ground, reached into his jacket, and came out with a semiautomatic pistol and started firing it wildly.

And then there was another boom, immediately followed by the sound of heavy lead shot striking metal and glass near him.

Matt fired four times, taking out the shotgunner first, and then the man with the pistol. The shotgunner went down and stayed there. The man with the pistol didn’t. He began to scream in agony.

Matt took the spare clip to the. 45 from where he had concealed it-behind the white handkerchief in the breast pocket of the dinner jacket- ejected the empty clip from the pistol, and slipped in the spare.

Then, holding the weapon in both hands, he carefully walked up to the two men on the ground. The one with the shotgun was on his back, his head in a pool of blood. One of Matt’s shots had struck him, straight on, in the right cheek.

The other one was screaming.

Matt saw the pistol-at first glance in the dark, it looked like a Browning. 380-and keeping his eye on the man, bent over, carefully picked it up with two fingers on the grips, and then put it in his hip pocket.

“You got anything else?” he asked, and patted the writhing man down to make sure he didn’t.

Then he went back and picked up the shotgun on the ground near the body, and turned and walked quickly toward the Porsche and the victims.

The first thing he saw was that only one headlight was working. And then he saw the pellet holes in the hood and door and windshield frame, and what was left of the windshield. Then he first smelled and then saw gasoline running from under the Porsche.

“Jesus,” he said. He laid the shotgun on the roof and jerked Terry’s door open.

She looked at him without comprehension.

And then he saw that her face was bleeding.

“Are you all right?”

“All right?” she parroted.