SMOKE WAS POURING, FUNNELING out of the French doors, swirling like a tiny tornado into the fog. Celia stopped, wiped rain from her eyes, smelling the smoke, which added yet another rich smell to the wetness and the grass. A city person, it had been a long time since she smelled the natural world, and it gave her a high, sent her heart pumping while she stood gasping from the run, a stitch in her side. Greco leaned over, hands on knees, fresh air being gulped into his lungs.
“Way to go,” he said, nodding back toward the house. “We got telepathy, Slats. Great trick with the fire …”
“But what about now?”
“Got any good ideas?”
“Yup,” she said, “I do.”
The angry beeping of a tardy smoke alarm floated toward them.
“Mason and Arnold …” he panted. “They’re waiting for the Director. Looks like everybody in the world wants to kill him …”
“I’m not so sure. I can’t figure out Mason at all—he’s working for Mason, I think. I wonder if any of them knows what’s going on… They’re going to come after us, you know that …”
As she spoke they saw the figure of Arnold lurch out onto the balustrade, batting away smoke that seemed to cling to him. He looked out into the fog. She’d have thought he was bound to see them, but he stood still, trying to will the mists to part. Mason, a smaller blur, joined him. He had the shotgun again.
“First,” Celia said, “we can try to get to the car. Have you still got the keys?”
Greco nodded, patted his pocket.
“Okay,” she said, “let’s move it.”
Staying far enough away, wrapped in fog, they began circling the house, careful not to let it slip away, using it as the center point of their compass. It was dark now, though somewhere up above them, above the fog and the rain and the clouds, the sun had to be shining. The yellow lights of the house hung like distant flares, diffused on each drop of water. The grass was long and slippery underfoot, treacherous if they moved too quickly. She was beginning to wonder if they’d somehow gotten turned around, when suddenly they reached the gravel of the driveway, felt its reassuring crunch. Holding hands to keep from losing one another, they moved toward the house along the gravel.
“They’re not gonna try to get out the driveway.”
It was a voice so close she felt she could reach out and touch it, and she heard feet on the gravel, stopping.
“You’re right. If they try to run their car through the gates it’ll be like going through a shredder.”
Celia felt her heart come to a full stop.
The voices of Mason and Arnold were right on top of them. Footsteps edged closer to where she stood. She felt Greco drawing her away, deeper into the fog.
“The fog does funny things to sound.” Greco was whispering at her ear. “Bounces it around. They can’t see us. We can’t see them.”
“But they’re right, Peter,” she breathed. “The car won’t do us any good. I forgot about the fence—”
“Yeah, me too. Any other ideas?”
“Sure. Plan B,” she whispered.
The footsteps on the gravel faded away, back toward the house.
Celia pushed off into the murk, Greco holding on tight. All she could do was try to judge distances, knowing that she’d seen a huge old oak beside the driveway, just before the greenhouse and the garage. Find the oak and you’d find the greenhouse and know where you were. You’d be halfway to the destination she had in mind.
But somehow the oak never did reveal itself. She didn’t see the greenhouse until she ran into it, reached out and touched the chilly, water-streaked panes of glass. She felt her way along the side of the building and reached the end, where she turned left and kicked a bucket and hoe across a cement sidewalk. The sound was deafening, and she instinctively drew back, bumping into Greco, who grunted and swore.
“What the hell was that?”
The voices echoed from farther away this time, from the courtyard, trapped by the fog and the walls of the house, barn, garage, and greenhouse, all bouncing sound back and forth. “Where did it come from?” That was Arnold.
“I can’t tell. Where are you?”
“Over here. By the cars …”
“I think”—that was Mason—“they’re by the greenhouse now. Blandings? Greco? We’re not going to hurt you …”
Celia pulled Greco forward, moving along behind a low shed and stacks of pots, tools, flower tubs, discarded lawn furniture. The greenhouse, now twenty feet away, was gone, but she had it locked in memory and was sure they were moving parallel to it. They were behind the garage when they heard clanking from inside, then an engine coughing into life, a motor revving.
They were past the garage and Celia was jogging through the fog, looking for what she knew must lie ahead. There it was, the second ramp to the horse barn, leading not into the courtyard but out the other end, into the fields beyond. The motor was racing in the garage, then it dropped back into gear and some kind of vehicle rattled out into the courtyard.
Suddenly, glimpsed between the corners of the barn and the garage, a powerful yellow fog light swept across the courtyard, probing, casting a kind of chartreuse glow into the fog.
“Up the ramp,” Celia said, pulling Greco behind her.
“What the hell for?” He stood panting at the top of the ramp, straw clinging to his wet shoes, to the knee of his pants where he’d fallen down.
“Look, we’ve got to get as far away from these bozos as possible, somewhere safe. Right? We’ve got to be able to strike—”
“Strike? Jeez, Slats, commando talk—”
“Strike at seven when the Director settles down to watch Dan Rather. That’s a little over an hour. We’ve got to assume the original plan is still in effect—Cunningham to kill him, on schedule—”
“But what about Mason and Arnold?”
“We don’t know about them, they’re not on the scorecard. First we’ve got to get away, and then we’ve got to be able to get back, so what does logic tell us?”
“Oh, no, I know what you’re thinking.”
“The noble horse. Now let’s take a look.”
The voices came from the courtyard again. “Point that thing at the greenhouse, damnit!” Then the sound of the shotgun clattering on the paving stones, a sharp cry right behind it.
“Are you okay? What happened?”
“What the hell does it sound like? I fell down. Shit! Damn slippery stones …”
“I can’t ride a horse!” Greco insisted, panicking.
“You can ride a horse to save your life,” she said, moving ahead into the barn. “It’s amazing what people can do when they have to. Now be very quiet and easy, don’t spook these big guys.”
Fog had infiltrated the barn. Horses blew and snuffled at them as they passed between the stalls, their great rubbery nostrils and lips reverberating. Birds cooed and twittered in the dark upper reaches. Hooves stomped and rattled against the wooden slats of the stalls, thumped on the straw.
“What about a saddle?”
“I rode bareback in the movie—”
“But I wasn’t in the goddamn movie!”
“Shhh.”
“I don’t like this.”
“It’s the only way they can’t get us. We’re unarmed, all we can do is get away, hide.”
She found a big chestnut that was watching them amiably over the gate to his stall. She leaned across and began talking to him, trying to do what she’d remembered the wranglers on the movie doing. She stroked the long nose, whispering the news that he was a very nice horse, wasn’t he? For better or worse she climbed over the gate and threw a leg over the huge back, settled down on him, stroking the powerful column of neck. “Nice horsey, we’re going for a ride …”
“Listen, why don’t you just go ahead? I’ll make the best of it here—”
“Get on, you oaf. This is a nice horsey, aren’t you, Roger?”
“Roger? You know this horse?”
“His name’s on the gate. Good, Roger, nice, Roger … come on, climb up.”
Greco climbed up. Roger gave him a slightly bemused nudge with his muzzle. “He doesn’t like me—”
“He adores you.”
Greco settled in behind her. “I’m gonna fall off the minute he moves.” Roger stamped one foot impatiently. “I’m too old, I’ve only got one eye, I’ll get another concussion—”
“You all set back there? Put your arms around my waist, get down low, head on my back …”
She leaned forward against the muscular neck, fingers of one hand laced into the mane. She stretched and lifted the latch, pushed the gate away. She coaxed Roger out of the stall, tugged the mane, pulling him to the left. Here, she thought, goes nothing. “Thatta boy, that’s a good Roger.” Roger ambled toward the rear ramp. Greco was clearly holding on for dear life.
A man, indistinct in outline, appeared on the ramp, fog blowing past him in shredded wisps. He peered into the darkness of the barn and for an instant didn’t recognize the horse for what it was.
Celia turned to Greco. “Don’t let go now.” To Roger she said: “Go, honey, go,” and jabbed her heels into his ribs.
Roger liked the idea, a break in the day-to-day routine. With a blustery blowing of his nose and a shake of his head, he broke into a trot. Within a few strides he was bearing down on the man in the doorway at the top of the ramp.
It was Mason, his face reddened and scorched on one side, a pad of gauze wrapped around one hand, his mouth skewed open in surprise and anger and fear as he stared up into Roger’s flaring nostrils and wide eyes.
The shotgun swung up, almost in self-defense, and Roger pranced sideways to miss Mason, but Celia kept telling him to go, go, go, baby. Mason tried ducking sideways, tripped in the straw, and plunged off the side of the ramp, disappearing from view.
The shotgun discharged as he fell.
Wood splintered in the eaves of the barn.
The air was suddenly filled with terrified birds, including a few bats roused from their day’s sleep.
Someone else—it must have been Arnold—came pounding and thrashing out of the fog behind them. A pistol shot cracked and a bullet sizzled past Celia’s head.
“Run, goddamnit!” Greco shouted. He, too, dug his heels into the ribs, massive as barrel staves, but Roger had already flicked his tail and taken off into the fog.
Greco prayed old Roger came equipped with radar.