I moved aside and, somewhat hesitantly, holstered my weapon.

Mannie gripped the door.

I doubted that even my friend Ralph Hawkins, who was a former All-American high school wrestler and Army Ranger, would’ve had the strength to pry the door loose from the car, but Mannie was a human mountain, and though he strained mightily from the effort, he managed to twist it to the side and tilt it upward. Then he torqued it off the car and tossed it aside.

He was winded—even for him, it’d been a challenge.

I tried to get the driver free, but with the way the car was crushed, it wasn’t going to happen.

“I’ll lift it,” Mannie said. “You slide him out.”

“You’re going to lift the car?”

“Yeah.”

“You could try, but I’m not sure we—”

Before I could finish, another vehicle came screeching to a stop nearby, although it was out of sight from where we were in the ditch. I was hoping it was Greer, and I was relieved when he appeared at the roadside.

He identified Mannie and reached for his gun.

“Hold on,” I said. With the two of them, they just might be able to pull it off. “C’mon down. If you two can lift the front, I think I can get the driver out.”

Greer looked momentarily confused, but when I called for him to hurry, the urgency in my voice registered, and he scurried down the embankment to join us.

I still didn’t know where Mannie had come from or why he was here, but we could settle all that in a minute. Right now all I cared about was helping save the driver.

Greer and Mannie positioned themselves at the front of the car, and working together, they hefted the vehicle just high enough for me to slit the man’s seat belt with my automatic knife, free his leg, and ease him out onto the ground.

I yanked the seat belt to get enough webbing, then cut off a length of it near the buckle and used it as a tourniquet while a spark started a fire somewhere in the engine, and smoke began curling out toward us.

Hurry, Pat.

An ambulance siren cycled through the late morning, coming our way from the hospital down the road. I figured that if we’d been any farther out, this guy’s chances would be close to nil, but with the hospital this close, he just might make it.

While Greer supported his neck, Mannie and I carried the driver to a flat patch of ground about ten meters from the car.