The tail, an Olds 98, swung in close behind him when he turned off Hillcrest Road. Only twenty or thirty feet behind him, Devlin could see two men in the front seat and one in the back. Devlin stepped on the gas. He wanted them to catch him, but he couldn’t be obvious about it. In the rearview mirror he could see the front seat passenger talking on a cellular telephone. Was there a second car? That would make getting caught a lot easier. He put the gas pedal to the floor, and the Plymouth lurched ahead. This two-lane road was mostly straight for about five miles before it reached the Taconic Parkway, Devlin remembered. The Olds, back a bit, seemed to be maintaining its distance. Devlin had to conclude that there was a second car somewhere in front of him. He was doing almost seventy, about the limit for the car on a crowned, undulating road. His heart was pounding. If he had misunderstood these guys, he would be dead in only a few more minutes. The fear made him feel sick to his stomach. The Plymouth reached the top of a rise—and at the end of a quarter-mile straight, the white Lincoln was turned across the road to block both lanes. Devlin took his foot off the gas pedal and let the Plymouth coast as the occupants of the Lincoln got out and moved around behind the vehicle. One had a rifle or shotgun. If Devlin was right, what he couldn’t do was defend himself. He continued to let the car coast.

The Oldsmobile fell back. In his rearview mirror Devlin could see the front passenger still talking on the telephone. Six of them altogether. If he stopped the Plymouth out of pistol and shotgun range of the Lincoln, maybe the Olds would follow suit. If they didn’t want him alive, he might be able to force them to keep their distance until he was able to stumble onto the standoff.

Devlin stopped the Plymouth in the middle of the road, the nose facing the Lincoln, the tail pointed toward the Olds. Behind the Lincoln, a guy was talking on a cellular telephone. He said something to the guy with the rifle—A rifle: using the hood as a rest, the guy took aim at the Plymouth. Devlin ducked below the dashboard. He didn’t hear the shot. The Plymouth pitched forward, down and to the right. The tire. Now the Plymouth lurched to the rear. Devlin was being shot at in stereo—but they did want him alive.

“Come on out, Devlin! We can make it real unhappy for you!”