Dark Rivers of the Heart

the finger.
        Passing to the left was impossible at the moment. Visibility was limited, and what highway they could see was occupied by a steady stream of oncoming traffic.
        Spencer looked at his watch. They had only fifteen minutes left from the two-hour safety margin that Ellie had estimated.
        The man in the pickup, however, seemed to have all the time in the world.
        "Jackass," she said, and whipped the Rover to the right, trying to get around the slow vehicle by using the shoulder of the highway.
        When she pulled even with the Dodge, it accelerated to match her speed.
        Twice Ellie pumped more juice to the Rover, twice it leaped forward, and twice the pickup matched her new pace.
        The other driver repeatedly glanced away from the road to glare at them.
        He was in his forties. Under a baseball cap, his face revealed all the intelligence of a shovel.
        Clearly, he intended to pace Ellie until the shoulder narrowed and she was forced to fall in behind him again.
        Shovelface didn't know what kind of woman he was dealing with, of course, but Ellie promptly showed him. She pulled the Rover to the left, bashing the pickup hard enough to startle the driver into shirring his foot off the accelerator. The pickup lost speed. The Rover shot ahead. Shovelface jammed the pedal again, but he was too late: Ellie swung the Rover onto the pavement, in front of the Dodge.
        As the Rover lurched left then right, Rocky yelped with surprise and fell onto his side. He scrambled into a sitting position again and snorted in what might have been either embarrassment or delight.
        Spencer looked at his watch. "You think they'll hook up with local cops before they come after us?"
        "No. They'll want to keep locals out of it."
        "Then what should we be looking for?"
        "If they fly in from Vegas-or anywhere else-I think they'll be in a chopper. More maneuverability, flexibility. With satellite tracking, they can pinpoint the Rover, come right in over us, and blow us off the highway, if they get a chance."
        Leaning forward, Spencer peered through the windshield at the threatening blue sky.
        A horn blared behind them.
        "Damn," Ellie said, glancing at her side mirror.
        Checking the mirror on his side, Spencer saw that the Dodge had caught up with them. The angry driver was pounding his horn as Ellie had pounded hers earlier.
        "We don't need this right now," she worried.
        "Okay," Spencer said, "so let's see if he'll take a rain check on a shootout. If we survive the agency, then we'll come back and give him a fair whack at us."
        "Think he'd go for that?"
        "Seems like a reasonable man."
        Pressing the Rover as hard as ever, Ellie managed to glance at Spencer and smile. "You're getting the attitude."
        "It's contagious."
        Here and there, scattered along both sides of the highway, were businesses, houses. This wasn't quite yet Cedar City, but they were definitely back in civilization.
        The shoeless slug in the Dodge pickup pounded on the horn with such enthusiasm that every blast must have been sending a thrill through his groin.
        On the display screen in the open attache case, relayed from Las Vegas, was the view from Earthguard, enormously magnified and enhanced, looking down on the state highway just west of Cedar City.
        The Range Rover was pulling one reckless stunt after another.
        Sitting in the back of the chopper, with the open case on his lap, Roy was riveted by the performance, which was like something out of an action movie, though seen from one monotonous angle.
        No one drove that fast, weaving lane to lane, sometimes facing down oncoming traffic, unless he was drunk or being pursued. This driver wasn't drunk. There was nothing sloppy about the way the Rover was being handled. It was rash, daredevil driving, but it was also skillful. And from all a earances, the Rover was not being chased.
        Roy was finally convinced that the woman was behind the wheel of that vehicle. After being alarmed by the satellite trace-back to her computer, she would never take comfort from the fact that no pursuit car was racing up her tailpipe. She knew that they either would be waiting ahead for her at a roadblock or would take her out from the air. Before either of those things happened, she was trying to get into a