‘You’re wrong,’ breathed Shearson, leaning forward and resting his arms on the back of Ed’s seat. ‘Last night was the craziest night of your life. The night you announced to 250 million Americans that they were probably facing imminent starvation. That was the craziest night of your life.’

Ed said nothing. He still hadn’t mentally got to grips with what had happened last night, and right now, pushing this 7-litre Lincoln down a tortuous mountain road, he didn’t have the time to. He flicked his eyes across to the mirror again, and the Chevy’s headlights were still there, still dancing and jiggling close behind him, occasionally obscured by the flapping lid of the Lincoln’s trunk.

They flashed past a sign, and Della said, ‘Fall River, two miles. We’ve almost made it.’

Shearson said, ‘I’ll have your scalps for this. I hope you understand that. You, Hardesty; and you, my dear; and that pontificating Charles Kurnik at the FBI. Three scalps, to add to my collection.’

‘Shut up, senator,’ said Ed, and at the same moment one of the Lincoln’s front tyres burst. There was a loud, flabby report, followed by the slap-slap-slap of tom rubber on the road, and then the huge limousine was swerving and sliding from side to side, with Ed spinning the steering-wheel in a desperate struggle to keep the car out of the trees.

‘Hold it!’ shrieked Shearson, in an unnaturally feminine voice. ‘For God’s sake, hold it!’

The Lincoln’s trunk swung around to the left, and sideswiped the trunk of a roadside pine. Then the car screeched around in the opposite direction, its front wheels banging and shuddering over a line of rocks. Ed, gripping the wheel, saw trees, darkness, sky, and more trees, and then his whole world tilted sideways and he was hit on the bridge of the nose by something as hard as an iron bar.

A whole minute of silence passed by. Ed raised his head. His nose felt as if it had swollen three times its normal size. He looked painfully around him and saw that the limousine had dropped down an eighty foot slope, and was now resting at an angle of forty five degrees in a narrow rock-strewn gully. There was no sound but the ticking of the engine as it slowly cooled down, and the whistling of black-capped chickadees in the trees.

Beside him, Della was holding her head in her hands. The pump-gun had dropped to the floor. In back, Senator Jones suddenly started moaning, and saying, ‘My finger. God damn it, I’ve broken my finger.’

Ed said, ‘Della, are you okay?’

Della nodded dumbly. Ed turned to Senator Jones and asked, ‘Is it just your finger? Nothing else broken?’

‘Isn’t a finger enough?’ snarled Shearson.