Staring at the column of smoke in the distance, his eyes wide with panic, Butterfield was shouting into the microphone.

"This is Agent Butterfield on Highway Ten. They just rocketed the lead car. Repeat, rocketed. Diehl and Allan are dead. And now they're coming for us…"

"Out!" Horton screamed at his partner. "Get your shotgun."

Horton grabbed his eight-shot Ithaca 12-gauge from under a blanket on the back seat. He paused only to take a flashlight, then ran for the open desert.

Behind him, Butterfield shouted the number of highway miles from the last town, Ozona. Then he, too, grabbed his shotgun and sprinted through the gravel and mesquite.

"They said at least fifteen minutes before they can get a helicopter out here."

"Out there," Horton corrected him, pointing into the desert.

"Right!"

They ran through the darkness, distant lightning flashes throwing long shadows behind them. Horton, more agile and more familiar with Texas terrain, led the way. He dashed through gaps in the creosote brush, following the white pathways of sand. A lightning flash revealed the black slash of a gully.

Horton stepped off into it, sidesliding a few feet to the tangle of dry weeds and sand at the bottom. Butterfield hopped down an instant later.

A rocket shrieked. Punching through the Dodge, the warhead sprayed thousands of bits of exploding white-hot fragments into the night. An instant later, flames engulfed the hulk.

Tires screeched as a four-wheel-drive pickup fish-tailed to a stop on the asphalt. Four autoweapons flashed from the back of the pickup, the gunmen sweeping the burning Dodge and the roadside with bursts.

Crouching low in the gully, the two FBI agents ran north. Overweight and out of shape, Butterfield panted, stumbled. Acrid black soot from their burning car's tires clouded into the air above them. They heard the clang-crumpof 40mm grenades.