I steered the sedan through the bushes and found myself on a steep hill dotted with large rocks and trees. When the first branches cleared, I still had limited vision because of all the other trees. Then I saw the Porsche smack into a midsize oak and carom to one side. The car slid sideways another fifty feet before it finally stopped.

Sphinx was down.

Let’s go get the bad guy!

Chapter 108

Chapter 108

MAHONEY AND I WANTED Sphinx, and it was personal with me, maybe with both of us. I let our sedan roll another fifty or sixty yards. Then I braked and the car stopped. Mahoney and I jumped out. We almost slid down the steep hill, which was slippery with mud.

“Crazy son of a bitch!” Ned Mahoney shouted, as we stumbled ahead.

“What choice did he have? He had to run.”

“I mean you. You’re crazy! What a ride.”

We saw Brendan Connolly lurch out of the damaged Porsche. He held a handgun aimed our way. Connolly fired off two quick shots. He wasn’t good with a gun, but he was shooting real bullets.

“Son of a bitch!” Mahoney fired a shot and hit the Porsche—just to show Connolly that we could shoot him if we wanted to.

“Put the gun down,” Mahoney shouted. “Put the gun down!”

Brendan Connolly started to run down the hill, but he was stumbling a lot. Mahoney and I kept gaining on him until we were only thirty yards or so behind.

“Let me,” I said.

Brendan Connolly looked back over his shoulder just then. I could tell he was tired, scared, or both. His legs and arms were pumping in a disjointed rhythm. He might work out in some gym, but he wasn’t ready for this.

“Get back! I’ll shoot!” he shouted—almost right into my face.

I hit him, and it was like a speeding tractor-trailer back-ending a barely moving compact. Connolly went down, rolling crazily. I stayed upright. Didn’t even lose my balance. This was the good part. It almost made up for some of our misses and failures.

Connolly’s ignominious roll finally stopped after twenty feet, but then he made his biggest mistake—he got back up.

I was on him in a second. I was all over Sphinx, and it was where I wanted to be. Mano a mano with this bastard. He had sold his own wife—the mother of his children.

I threw a hard right-handed shot into the bridge of Connolly’s nose. The perfect shot, or close to it. Probably broke it, from the crunch I heard. He went down on one knee—but he got up again. Former college jock. Former tough guy. Current asshole.