Blood risk

duck walk.
        When they reached a point where they could get atop the banks that had hedged the trail all the way down the slope, Tucker looked back to see how visible they were from above. He couldn't see any of the road beyond the overturned Dodge; good, it was safe to assume they couldn't be seen, either. He sent Pete Harris to the left, took Shirillo with him on the right, climbed the now diminutive bank, slipping once, scraping his knee on loose shale, ignoring the flash of pain When they were in the woodlands that lay above the road, he looked across and waved at Harris, who signaled with his machine gun in response. Cautiously, they made their way back to the spot where the Dodge had flipped on its side, edged to the brink of the shale walls and looked down.
        The Mustang was parked twenty feet above the wreck, doors open. The two men who had been in it moved warily in on the Dodge, pistols drawn.
        "Don't move at all," Tucker told them.
        They were good, if surprised, and they listened.
        "Remove the clips from your pistols-but keep them pointed at the ground. You're covered from both sides of the road."
        The two men did as they were told, reluctantly but with the evident resignation of professionals who knew they were cornered. Both were large in the shoulders, dressed in lightweight summer suits that didn't seem to belong on them. Gorillas. Figuratively and almost literally. They would look much more at home in a zoo, railing at visitors through iron bars.
        "Now," Tucker said, "look up at me."
        They looked up, shielded their eyes from the bright sky, grimaced at the shotgun.
        "Now look across the road."
        They turned as if connected, stared up at the Thompson in Pete Harris's hands. Tucker couldn't see their faces, but he knew they were properly impressed, for he could see their shoulders draw up in an instinctive urge to crouch and run.
        "Now throw your guns up here," he told them. When he had both pistols tucked into his belt, he pointed at the dirt-streaked Mustang and said, "Who was driving?"
        "Me," the taller of the gorillas said. He jammed both hands into his pants pockets like a sulking child and looked up at Tucker from under his brow, waiting to see what came next.
        "You a good driver?"
        "I do okay."
        "Which of you is better?"
        The man who had not been driving pointed at the man who had and said, "He is. He drives for Mr. Baglio when-"
        "Enough!" the driver snapped.
        The smaller man blanched and shut up. He looked at Tucker, then at his partner. He rubbed at his mouth as if he could scrub out what he had already said.
        "Get back in the Mustang," Tucker told the driver, "and bring it right up to the Dodge."
        "Why?" the driver asked.
        "Because, if you don't, I'll kill you," Tucker said. He smiled. "Good enough for you?"
        "Good enough," the driver said, starting for the Mustang.
        Tucker said, "Don't try backing out of range. That gentleman over there could blow the car apart before you'd gone ten feet." To the second gorilla Tucker said, "Stand over against the wall. Stay out of the way and be good."
        "You won't get away with this," the gorilla said. Clearly, though, he expected that they would. His grainy, broad-nosed face was covered with more than a patina of defeat; the expression was deeply rooted. He was one of those who hadn't any faith in himself unless he could get his hands on his adversary. At this distance he was feeling exceedingly inferior.
        "Let's get this moving," Tucker said.
        The driver stopped the Mustang when its front bumper was a foot from the underside of the overturned Dodge. His window was rolled down, and he leaned out and said, "Now what?"
        "Move it ahead until you feel it make contact."
        The driver didn't ask questions. When a solid thunk proved he'd obeyed, he leaned out his window again and waited to hear the next part of it. While the man standing against the wall across the road seemed unable to comprehend what was happening, the driver knew what Tucker wanted. He was going to wait for Tucker to say it just the same.
        Tucker hunkered down at the top of the bank, brushed away a swarm of gnats that rose out of the grass at his feet, pointed the shotgun at the driver's face. "I want you to put the gas to it, slowly, build up the pressure until