There he is. I see him.
Sutton was off the walk in a single stride. The gun whipped out of his pocket and at his second stride it talked, two quick, ugly words.
The man behind the bush bent forward on his knees, swayed there for a moment, then flattened on his face. His gun fell from his fingers, and in a single swoop Sutton scooped it up. It was, he saw, an electronic device, a vicious thing that could kill even with a near-miss, owing to the field of distortion that its beam set up. A gun like that had been new and secret twenty years ago, but now, apparently, anyone could get it.
Gun in hand, Sutton wheeled and ran, twisting through the shrubbery, ducking overhanging branches, plowing through a tulip bed. Out of the corner of one eye, he caught a twinkle…the twinkling breath of a silent flaming gun, and the dancing path of silver that it sliced into the night.
He plunged through a ripping, tearing hedge, waded a stream, found himself in a clump of evergreen and birch. He stopped to get back his breath, staring back over the way that he had come.
The countryside lay quiet and peaceful, a silvered picture painted by the moon. No one or nothing stirred. The gun long ago had ceased its flickering.
Johnny's warning came suddenly:
"Ash! Behind you. Friendly…"
Sutton wheeled, gun half lifted.
Herkimer was running in the moonlight, like a hound hunting for a trace.