Lightning

love and pity and a profound respect.
    He said, "You'll tell them that when you and Danny turned the curve at the bottom of the hill and started up, there were
three
cars in the roadway: the Jeep parked here along the embankment, the Pontiac in the wrong lane just where it is now, and another car was stopped in the northbound lane. There were… four men, two of them with guns, and they seemed to have forced the Jeep off the road. You just came along at the wrong time, that's all. They pointed a submachine gun at you, made you pull off the road, made you and Danny and Chris get out of the car. At one point you heard talk about cocaine… somehow it involved drugs, you don't know how, but they were arguing over drugs, and they seemed to have chased down the man in the Jeep—"
    "Drug dealers out here in the middle of nowhere?" she said scornfully.
    "There could be processing labs out here—a cabin in the woods, processing PCP maybe. Listen, if the story makes at least
some
sense, they'll want to buy it. The
real
story makes no sense at all, so you can't rely on it. So you tell them the Robertsons came over the crest of the hill in their pickup—of course you don't know their name—and the road was blocked by all these cars, and when he braked the pickup it started to slide—"
    "You've got an accent," she said angrily. "A slight one but I can hear it. Where are you from?"
    "I'll tell you all of that in a few days," he said impatiently, looking up and down the snow-blasted road. "I really will, but now you've got to promise me you'll work with this false story, embellish it as best you can, and not tell them the truth."
    "I don't have any choice, do I?"
    "No," he said, relieved that she realized her position.
    She clung to her son and said nothing.
    Stefan had begun to feel the pain in his half-frozen feet again. The heat of action had dissipated, leaving him racked by shivers. He handed her the belt that he had taken off Kokoschka. "Put this inside your ski jacket. Don't let anyone see it. When you get home, put it away somewhere."
    "What is it?"
    "Later. I'll try to return in a few hours. Only a few hours. Right now just promise me you'll hide it. Don't get curious, don't put it on, and for God's sake don't push the yellow button on it."
    "Why not?"
    "Because you don't want to go where it'll take you."
    She blinked at him in confusion. "Take me?"
    "I'll explain but not now."
    "Why can't you take it with you, whatever it is?"
    "Two belts, one body—it's an anomaly, it'll cause a disruption of some kind in the energy field, and God only knows where I might wind up or in what condition."
    "I don't understand. What're you talking about?"
    "Later. But, Laura, if for some reason I'm unable to come back, you better take precautions."
    "What kind of precautions?"
    "Arm yourself. Be prepared. There's no
reason
they should come after you if they get me, but they might. Just to teach me a lesson, to humble me. They thrive on vengeance. And if they come for you… there'll be a squad of them, well armed."
    "Who the hell
are
they?"
    Without answering, he got to his feet, wincing at the pain in his right knee. He backed away, taking one last, long look at her. Then he turned, leaving her on the ground, in the cold and snow, against the back of the battered and bullet-pocked Jeep, with her terrified child and her dead husband.
    Slowly he walked out into the middle of the highway where more light seemed to come from the shifting snow on the pavement than from the sky overhead. She called to him, but he ignored her.
    He holstered his empty gun beneath his coat. He reached inside his shirt, felt for and located the yellow button on his own travel belt, and hesitated.
    They had sent Kokoschka to stop him. Now they would be waiting anxiously at the institute to learn the outcome. He would be arrested on arrival. He probably never again would have an opportunity to take the Lightning Road to return to her as he had promised.
    The temptation to stay was great.
    If he stayed, however, they would only send someone else to kill him, and he would spend the rest of his life running from one assassin after another—while watching the world around him change in ways that would be too horrible to endure. On the other hand, if he went back, there was a slim chance that he might still be able to destroy the institute. Dr. Penlovski and the others obviously knew everything about his meddling in the natural flow of events in this one woman's