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, damn it, 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.

Malone had his revolver out. He fired the first shot without even
realizing fully that he'd done so, and he heard a piercing scream from
Barbara in the back seat. He had no time to look back.

A .44 Magnum is not, by any means, a small gun. As handguns go--
revolvers and automatics--it is about as large as a gun can get to be.
An ordinary car has absolutely no chance against it.

Much less the glass in an ordinary car.

The first slug drilled its way through the window glass as though it
were not there, and slammed its way through an even more unprotected
obstacle, the frontal bones of the triggerman's skull. The second slug
from Malone's gun followed it right away, and missed the hole the
first slug had made by something less than an inch.

The big, apelike thug who was holding the shotgun had a chance to pull
the trigger once more, but he wasn't aiming very well. The blast
merely scored the paint off the top of the Lincoln.

The rear window of the Buick was open, and Malone caught sight of
another glint of blued steel from the corner of his eye. There was no
time to shift aim--not with bullets flying like swallows on the way to
Capistrano. Malone thought faster than he had imagined himself capable
of doing, and decided to aim for the driver.

Evidently the man in the rear seat of the Buick had had the same
inspiration. Malone blasted two more high-velocity lead slugs at the
driver of the big Buick, and at the same time the man in the Buick's
rear seat fired at Boyd.

But Boyd had shifted tactics. He'd hit the brakes. Now he came down
hard on the accelerator instead.

The chorus of shrieks from the Lincoln's back seat increased slightly
in volume. Barbara, Malone knew, wasn't badly hurt; she hadn't even
stopped for breath since the first shot had been fired. Anybody who
could scream like that, he told himself, had to be healthy.

As the Lincoln leaped ahead, Malone pulled the trigger of his .44
twice more. The he