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patrolled and even monitored by radar, he let the needle on the speedometer climb and climb. When it hit close to a hundred, the van trembled slightly and fell into its maximum pace like a thoroughbred into the proper trot.
        In the cargo space, the furniture rattled and banged against the walls. A table lamp fell with a crash of broken glass.
        Leland looked in the mirror. The cop either had not started after him or had not started quickly enough. The road back there was empty.
        Nevertheless, he held the van at a hundred miles an hour. The road roared beneath him. The flat land spun past like rapidly changed stage settings. And little by little the panic died in him. He gradually lost the feeling that everyone was watching him, that everyone's hand was against him, that he was transparent, and that he was being relentlessly pursued by forces connected with but not really identified by that state policeman. As he barreled westward, he quickly became a part of his machine once more. He guided it with a safe and measured touch. When he had gone seven or eight miles, he let the speed fall back to the legal limit; and even though only minutes had passed since he left the diner, he could not recall what had made him panic in the first place…
        However, he suddenly did remember Doyle and Colin. The Thunderbird was somewhere behind him, to the east. Perhaps it was still parked in the shadow of that enormous sign at Harry's Fine Food. Even if it were on the road again, Doyle and the kid were miles to the rear, out of sight. Leland did not like that at all.
        He let his speed drop even further. As he began to realize that now they were following him , his ever-present fear took on a familiar edge. The gray road seemed like a tunnel now, a trap with one exit and no way to turn back.
        Then ahead, another rest area loomed on the right, shielded from the highway by a double row of pines. Leland braked and drove in there, went up a slight incline. He parked on the square graveled plateau, facing the highway so that he could watch the traffic between the thick brown trunks of the trees.
        All he had to do now was wait and watch the road. When the Thunderbird passed, he could fall in behind it, catch up to it in two or three minutes. He was enormously relieved.
        
        The trooper was getting out of the patrol car even before George Leland realized that he had driven into the rest area. Leland had been watching the highway beyond the pines for a full five minutes, and he must have been somewhat mesmerized by the bright sunshine and the spurts of westbound traffic. One moment he thought he was alone-and the next moment he was aware of the Ohio State Police patrol car angled in beside the van. Half in the shadows cast by the pines and half in the slanting sunlight, it looked unreal. The dome light was flashing, though the siren had not been used. The trooper who got out was in his early thirties, sober and hard-jawed. He was the same man who had been taking his lunch in Breen's, the one who had called to Leland outside the little diner.
        Leland remembered some of the reasons for his previous panic. Again the world appeared to close in on him. Darkness crept up at the corners of his vision, inward-spreading ink stains. He felt bottled up and vulnerable, an easy target for those who meant him harm. These days everyone seemed to be after him. He was always running.
        He rolled down his window as the cop approached.
        “You alone?” the lieutenant asked, stopping far enough from the van to be out of the way of the door if Leland should suddenly swing it open. He had one hand on the butt of his holstered revolver.
        “Alone?” Leland asked. Yes, sir. “Why didn't you stop when I called to you?”
        “Called to me?”
        “At the restaurant,” the lieutenant said, his voice crisp and older than his smooth face.
        Leland looked perplexed. “I