"My God," Malone said. "Easy."
Barbara said: "Did she win?"
"She won," Malone said with what he felt was positively magnificent understatement.
"Good," Barbara said, and lost interest at once.
Malone had seen the lights of a car in the rear-view mirror a few minutes before. When he looked now, the lights were still there—but the fact just didn't register until, a couple of blocks later, the car began to pull around them on the left. It was a Buick, while Boyd's was a new Lincoln, but the edge wasn't too apparent yet.
Malone spotted the gun barrel protruding from the Buick and yelled just before the first shot went off.
Boyd, at the wheel, didn't even bother to look. His reflexes took over and he slammed his foot down on the brake. The specially-built FBI Lincoln slowed down instantly. The shotgun blast splattered the glass of the curved windshield all over—but none of it came into the car itself.
Malone already had his hand on the butt of the .44 Magnum under his left armpit, and he even had time to be grateful, for once, that it wasn't a smallsword. The women were in the back seat, frozen, and he yelled: "Duck!" and felt, rather than saw, both of them sink down onto the floor of the car.
The Buick had slowed down, too, and the gun barrel was swiveling back for a second shot. Malone felt naked and unprotected. The Buick and the Lincoln were even on the road now.