Текст книги "The Kingdom"

Автор книги: Clive Cussler

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Текущая страница: 8 (всего у книги 20 страниц)

13

LANGTANG VALLEY, NEPAL

“A dig?” Sam repeated. “Why would King be conducting a dig?”

“No way to tell for sure,” Remi said, “but what’s going on here breaks about a dozen Nepalese laws. They take archaeological excavation very seriously, especially anything dealing with fossils.”

“Black market trade?” Sam speculated.

“That’s the first thing that popped into my head,” Remi replied.

In the last decade, the illegal excavation and sale of fossils had become big business, especially in Asia. China in particular had been cited as a primary offender by a number of investigative bodies, but all of them lacked the teeth to enforce penalties within her borders. The previous year, a report by the Sustainable Preservation Initiative estimated that of the thousands of tons of fossil artifacts sold on the black market, less than one percent of them are intercepted-and, of these, none led to a single conviction.

“It’s big money,” Remi said. “Private collectors are willing to pay millions for intact fossils, especially if it’s of one of the sexier species: Velociraptor, Tyrannosaurus rex, Triceratops, Stegosaurus. . .”

“Millions of dollars is pocket change to King.”

“You’re right, but there’s no denying what’s in front of us. Wouldn’t this qualify as leverage, Sam?”

He smiled. “It would indeed. We’re going to need more than pictures, though. How do you feel about a bit of skullduggery?”

“I’m a big fan of skullduggery.”

Sam checked his watch. “We’ve got a few hours until nightfall.”

Remi turned around and retrieved their digital camera from her pack. “I’ll make the most of what daylight we have left.”

Whether a trick of light or a genuine phenomenon, twilight seemed to last hours in the Himalayas. An hour after Sam and Remi hunkered down in the foliage to wait, the sun began dipping toward the peaks to the west, and for the next two hours they watched dusk ever so slowly settle over the forest until finally the bulldozers’ and trucks’ headlights popped on.

“They’re finishing up,” Sam said, pointing.

Along the perimeter of the pit, digging crews were emerging from the tunnels and heading toward the ramp.

“Working from dusk till dawn,” Remi remarked.

“And probably for pennies an hour,” replied Sam.

“If that. Maybe their pay is, not getting shot at.”

To their right they heard a branch snap. They froze. Silence. And then, faintly, the crunch of footsteps moving closer. Sam gestured to Remi with a flattened palm, and together they pressed themselves against the ground, their faces turned right toward the sound.

Ten seconds passed.

A shadowed figure appeared on the trail. Dressed in olive drab fatigues and a floppy jungle hat, the man carried his assault rifle diagonally across his body. He walked to the edge of the pit, stopped, and gazed down. He raised a pair of binoculars to his eyes and scanned the pit. After a full minute of this, he lowered his binoculars, then turned, stepped off the trail, and disappeared from view.

Sam and Remi waited for five minutes, then rose up onto their elbows. “Did you see his face?” she asked.

“I was too busy waiting to see if he was going to step on us.”

“He was Chinese.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

Sam considered this. “Looks like Charlie King’s got himself some partners. One bit of good news, though.”

“What?”

“He wasn’t carrying night-vision binoculars. Now all we have to worry about is bumping into one of them in the dark.”

“Ever the optimist,” Remi replied.

They continued to watch and wait, not only for the last of the men and equipment to make their way up the ramp and out of sight but also for any signs of further patrols.

An hour after night had fully fallen, they decided it was safe to move. Having decided against bringing rope of their own, they tried the organic approach and spent ten minutes quietly rummaging about the forest floor until they found a vine long enough and strong enough for their needs. After securing one end to a nearby tree trunk, Sam dropped the coil over the side into the pit.

“We’ll have a drop of about eight feet.”

“I knew my paratrooper training would come in handy someday,” Remi replied. “Give me a hand.”

Before Sam could protest, Remi was wriggling sideways, sliding her lower body over the edge. He grasped her right hand as she clamped onto the vine with her left.

“See you at the bottom,” she said with a smile and dropped from sight. Sam watched her descend to the bottom of the vine, where she let go, hit the ground, and performed a shoulder roll that brought her back to her knees.

“Show-off,” Sam muttered, then went over the side. He was beside her a few moments later, having performed his own roll, though not as gracefully as his wife. “You’ve been practicing,” he told her.

“Pilates,” she replied. “And ballet.”

“You never did ballet.”

“I did as a little girl.”

Sam grumbled and she gave him a conciliatory kiss on the cheek. “Where to?” she asked.

Sam pointed to the nearest tunnel entrance fifty yards to their left. Hunched over, they dashed along the pit’s earthen side and followed it to the entrance. They crouched just inside.

“I’ll have a peek,” Remi said, then slipped inside.

A few minutes later she reappeared beside him. “They’re working on a few specimens, but nothing earth-shattering.”

“Moving on,” Sam replied.

They sprinted to the next tunnel and repeated the drill, with similar results, then moved on to the third tunnel. They were ten feet from the entrance when, on the far end of the pit, a trio of pole-mounted klieg lights glowed to life, casting half the pit in stark, white light.

“Fast!” Sam said. “Inside!”

They skidded to a halt inside the entrance and dropped to their bellies. “Did they spot us?” Remi whispered.

“If they had, we’d be taking fire right now,” Sam replied. “I think. One way or another, we’ll know shortly.”

They waited, breaths held, half expecting to hear the pounding of footsteps approaching or the crack of gunshots, but neither happened. Instead, from the ramp area they heard a woman’s voice shout something, a barked command.

“Did you catch that?” Sam asked. “Is it Chinese?”

Remi nodded. “I missed most of it. Something like ‘Bring him,’ I think.”

They crawled forward a few inches until they could see around the corner of the entrance. A group of two dozen or so workers were walking down the ramp flanked by four guards. At the head of the column was a small female figure in a black jumpsuit. Once the group reached the bottom of the pit, the guards herded the workers into a line facing in the direction of Sam and Remi’s hiding spot. The woman continued walking.

Sam grabbed his binoculars and zoomed in on her. Sam lowered the binoculars and looked sideways at Remi. “You’re not going to believe this. It’s Crouching Tiger, Scary Lady herself,” he said. “Zhilan Hsu.”

Remi grabbed her camera and stared snapping pictures. “I don’t know if I got her,” she said.

Hsu stopped suddenly, whirled on the assembled workers, and began shouting and gesticulating wildly. Remi closed her eyes, trying to catch the words. “Something about thieves,” she said. “Stealing from the site. Missing artifacts.”

Hsu stopped abruptly, paused, then pointed an accusatory finger at one of the workers. The guards were on him immediately, one slamming the butt of his rifle into the small of his back, sending him sprawling forward, a second guard heaving him back to his feet and half dragging, half walking him forward. The pair stopped a few feet before Hsu. The guard released the man, who fell to his knees and began chattering.

“He’s begging,” Remi said. “He has a wife and children. He stole only one small piece . . .”

Without warning, Zhilan Hsu drew a pistol from her waistband, took a step forward, and shot the man in the forehead. The man toppled sideways and lay still.

Hsu began speaking again. Though Remi was no longer translating, it took little imagination to understand the message: if you steal, you die.

The guards began shoving and prodding the workers back up the ramp. Hsu followed, and soon the pit was empty again save the man’s corpse. The klieg lights flickered out.

Sam and Remi were silent for a few moments. Finally he said, “Whatever sympathy I’d developed for her just went out the window.”

Remi nodded. “We need to help these people, Sam.”

“Absolutely. Unfortunately, there’s nothing we can do tonight.”

“We can kidnap Hsu and feed her to-”

“With pleasure,” Sam interrupted, “but I doubt we could do that without raising the alarm. We wouldn’t make it a mile before we’d be caught. The best we can do is blow the whistle on King’s operation.”

Remi considered this, then nodded. “Pictures won’t be enough,” she reminded him.

“Agreed. One of those trailers up there has to be an office. If there’s any hard documentation, that’s where we’ll find it.”

After waiting until they were fairly certain the commotion had died down, they visited each of the tunnels in turn, Sam standing watch as Remi took pictures.

“There’s a Chalicotheriumspecimen in there. It’s in almost pristine condition.”

“A what?”

“ Chalicotherium. It’s a three-toed ungulate from the Lower Pliocene era-a long-limbed horse-rhino hybrid. They died out about seven million years ago. They’re very interesting, really-”

“Remi.”

“What?”

“Maybe later.”

She smiled. “Right. Sorry.”

“How valuable?”

“I’d just be guessing, but maybe half a million dollars for a good specimen.”

Sam scanned the ramp and clearing for signs of movement but could see only one guard patrolling the area. “Something tells me they’re not so worried about people getting in as they are about people getting out.”

“After what we just saw, I’d have to agree. What’s our plan?”

“If we stay low, we’ve got a blind spot almost to the top of the ramp. We stop there, wait for the guard to pass, then sprint to that first trailer on the left and dive under. From there, it’s just a matter of finding the office.”

“Just like that, huh?”

Sam gave her a grin. “Like taking a fossil from a billionaire.” He paused. “Almost forgot. Can I borrow your camera?”

She handed it over. Sam sprinted into the middle of the pit and knelt beside the corpse. He searched the man’s clothes, then rolled him over, took a picture of his face, then sprinted back to Remi.

He said, “By morning, Hsu will have the body buried in this pit. It’s a long shot, but perhaps we can at least let his family know what happened to him.”

Remi smiled. “You’re a good man, Sam Fargo.”

They waited for the roving guard to again disappear from view, then slipped from the tunnel and ran along the pit’s wall to where it met the ramp. They turned again and followed this route to the base. Thirty seconds later they were lying on their bellies near the top.

They now had a mostly unobstructed view of the entire clearing. On either side of it were eight trailers, three in a line to the left, five in a wide crescent to the right. The curtained windows of the left-hand trailers were lit, and Sam and Remi could hear the murmur of voices coming from inside. Of the five trailers to the right, the closest three showed lights and the last two were dark. Directly ahead of where Sam and Remi lay were four warehouse-style Quonset huts; between these, the main road leaving the camp. Mounted above the door of each hut was a sodium-vapor lamp, casting the road in sickly yellow light.

“Garages for the equipment,” Remi guessed.

Sam nodded. “And if I had to put money on which one of these trailers is the office, I’d go with one of the dark ones.”

“I agree. Getting there is going to be the tricky part.”

Remi was right. They did not dare head straight for the trailers in question. All it would take was the sudden appearance of a guard or a glance out a window, and they’d be caught.

“We’ll take it slow and use the first three trailers for cover.”

“And if the office is locked?”

“A bridge we’ll cross if we have to.” Sam checked his watch. “The guard should be along anytime now.”

As predicted, twenty seconds later the guard walked around the corner of the nearest Quonset hut and headed for the trio of trailers on the left. After scanning each trailer with a flashlight, he walked across the clearing, repeated the routine with the other five, then disappeared from view.

Sam gave him twenty more seconds, then nodded at Remi. In unison, they stood up, jogged up the remainder of the ramp, then veered right for the first trailer. They stopped at its back wall and dropped down, using one of the trailer’s support pylons as cover.

“See anything?” Sam asked.

“All clear.”

They stood up and crept along the back wall to the next trailer, where they stopped again, looked and listened, before moving on. When they were stopped behind the third trailer, Sam tapped his watch and mouthed the word “guard.” Through the wall above their heads they could hear voices speaking in Chinese and the faint strains of radio music.

Sam and Remi spread themselves flat on the ground and went still. Their wait was a short one. Almost precisely on time, the guard walked into the clearing to their left and began his flashlight scan. As he drew even with their trailer, they watched, collective breath held, as the flashlight beam skimmed over the ground beneath the trailer.

The beam stopped suddenly. It tracked backward to the support pylon shielding Sam and Remi, then stopped again. They were lying side by side, their arms pressed against each other, when Sam gave Remi’s hand a reassuring squeeze. Wait. Don’t move a muscle.

After what seemed like minutes but was probably less than ten seconds, the beam moved on. The crunch of the guard’s boots on the gravel faded away. Cautiously, Sam and Remi got back to their feet and circled the trailer. Looking left and right for signs of movement, they crept around the front of the trailer and picked their way to the steps of what they hoped was the office.

Sam tried the knob. It was unlocked. They shared a relieved smile. Sam eased open the door and peeked inside. He pulled back, shook his head, and mouthed “Supplies.” They moved to the next trailer. Again, thankfully, the door was unlocked. Sam checked inside, then stuck his arm back through the door and gestured for Remi to enter. She did, and carefully swung the door shut behind her.

The back wall of the trailer was dominated by filing cabinets and storage shelves. A pair of battered gray-painted steel desks with matching chairs flanked the door.

“Time?” Remi whispered.

Sam checked his watch and nodded.

A few moments later the guard’s flashlight beam flickered through the trailer’s windows, then disappeared again.

“We’re looking for anything with detail,” Sam said. “Company names, account numbers, manifests, invoices. Anything investigators could sink their teeth into.”

Remi nodded. “We should leave everything as is,” she said. “If anything goes missing, we know who’ll get the blame.”

“And a bullet. Good point.” He checked his watch. “We’ve got three minutes.”

They began with the filing cabinets, checking each drawer, each folder and file. Remi’s camera could hold thousands of digital pictures, so she photographed anything that looked remotely important using the ambient light from outside the trailer.

As the three-minute mark approached, they stopped and went still. The guard passed by, performed his scan, and was gone again. They resumed their search. Four more times they repeated the cycle until satisfied they’d collected all they could.

“Time to go,” Sam said. “We’ll retrace our steps to the Rover and-”

Outside, an alarm began whooping.

Sam and Remi froze for a moment, then he said, “Behind the door!”

They pressed themselves flat against the wall. Outside, doors banged open, footsteps pounded on gravel, voices shouted.

Sam asked Remi, “Can you make out anything?”

She closed her eyes, listening intently. Her eyes sprung open again. “Sam, I think they found the Range Rover.”

14

LANGTANG VALLEY, NEPAL

Before Sam could reply, the trailer door swung open. Using his fingertips, Sam stopped the door a few inches from their faces. One of the guards stepped across the threshold, his flashlight skimming through the space. The guard stopped. Sam saw his shoulders begin to pivot, signaling a turn in their direction.

Sam hip-bumped the door closed, took a single stride forward, then lashed out with a toe kick that stuck the guard behind the knee. As he fell, Sam grabbed his collar and heaved forward, smashing the man’s forehead on the edge of the desk. He groaned and went limp. Sam pulled him backward and dragged him behind the door. He knelt down, checked the man’s pulse.

“He’s alive but won’t be waking up anytime soon.”

He rolled the man over, tugged the slung rifle off his shoulder, and stood up.

Wide-eyed, Remi stared at her husband for several seconds. “That was very James Bond-ish.”

“Dumb luck and a steel desk,” he replied with a shrug and a smile. “An unbeatable combination.”

“I think you deserve a reward,” Remi replied with a smile of her own.

“Later. If there is a later.”

“I’d like there to be a later. You have a plan?”

“Auto theft,” Sam replied.

He turned around, moved to the nearest of the trailer’s rear windows, and pulled back the curtain. “A tight squeeze, but I think we can make it.”

“You check the front,” Remi said, “I’ll get the back window.”

Sam walked to the front window, fingered back the curtain, and peeked outside. “The guards are assembling in the clearing. About ten of them. I don’t see the Dragon Lady.”

“She probably just stopped by to do King’s dirty work.”

“It looks like they’re trying to decide what to do. We’ll know in a second if they realize they’re missing a man.”

“Window’s open,” Remi said. “It’s about an eight-foot drop to the ground. There are some thick trees about ten feet away.”

Sam let the curtain slip back into place. “We might as well go now before they have a chance to get organized.” He unslung the rifle and examined it. “This is state-of-the-art.”

“Can you handle it?”

“Safety, trigger, magazine . . . hole where the bullet comes out. I think I’ll manage.”

Abruptly the alarm went silent.

Sam walked to the front door and locked it. “It might delay them,” he explained.

He grabbed the nearest chair and carried it to the rear window. Remi climbed up and began squeezing out the window. Once she was down and clear, Sam followed.

They ducked into the tree line and began picking their way toward the Quonset hut. When the rear wall came into view through the trees, they stopped and took a few moments to scan their surroundings. In the distance they could hear the guards still shouting over one another.

Sam and Remi moved forward, Sam in the lead, his rifle lowered and tracking back and forth. They reached the Quonset hut. Remi whispered, “Door,” and pointed. Sam nodded. Remi now in the lead, they slid along the wall until her shoulder bumped the jamb. She tried the knob. It was open. She opened the door silently and peeked her head through. She pulled back.

“There’s two trucks inside, parked side by side. They look military-green, double tires, canvas sides, a tailgate.”

“Feel up to driving?” asked Sam.

“Sure.”

“You get behind the wheel of the one on the left. I’ll disable the other one, then join you. Be ready to start the engine and tear out.”

“Got it.”

Remi opened the door just wide enough for them to slip through. They were halfway to the trucks when they heard footsteps pounding on the road outside. Sam and Remi skidded to halt against the right-hand truck’s tailgate. Sam peeked around the corner.

“Four men,” he said. “They’re climbing into the trucks, two in each cab.”

“Part of their emergency plan?” Remi suggested.

“Probably,” Sam replied. “Okay, Plan B. We stow away.”

Almost in unison, the trucks’ engines rumbled to life.

Stepping carefully lest their shifting weight alert the guards, Sam and Remi mounted the truck’s bumper, then high-stepped over the tailgate. With a loud thunk, the transmission engaged, and the truck surged ahead. Arm in arm, Sam and Remi stumbled and fell face-first into the bed.

Their truck was in the lead. Lying flat in the relative darkness of the bed, with the second truck’s headlamps glowing green through the tailgate’s canvas flap, Sam and Remi allowed themselves to take a full breath for the first time in ten minutes. On either side of them, wooden crates of various sizes were strapped to eyebolts in the truck’s bed.

“We made it,” Remi whispered.

“Cross fingers.”

“What’s that mean?”

“I’m pretty sure this is a Chinese Army truck.”

“You’re not suggesting what I think you’re suggesting, are you?”

“I am. It seems clear King is in bed with someone in the Chinese military. The guards are Chinese, and so are their weapons probably. And we know what’s in these crates.”

“How far to the border?”

“Twenty miles, maybe twenty-five. Four hours, give or take.”

“Plenty of time to make our exit.”

“The question is, how far from civilization will we be?”

“You’re starting to spoil my otherwise sunny disposition,” she said, then laid back in the crook of Sam’s shoulder.

Despite the hardness of the truck’s bed and the constant jostling, Sam and Remi found the muffled growl of the engine soothing. They half dozed in the twilight, Sam occasionally waking to check his watch.

After an hour of traveling, they were jolted awake by the squeal of the truck’s brakes. The following truck’s headlights enlarged and brightened through the rear flap. Sam sat up and pointed the rifle toward the tailgate. Remi sat up beside him, her eyes questioning, but she said nothing.

The truck slowed, then ground to a halt. The following truck’s headlights went dark. Cab doors opened, slammed shut. From either side of the bed came the crunch of footsteps. They stopped at the tailgate, and voices began murmuring in Chinese. Sam and Remi could smell cigarette smoke.

Sam turned his head and whispered in Remi’s ear. “Stay perfectly still.” She nodded.

Moving slowly, carefully, Sam curled his legs beneath him, then rose into a crouch onto the balls of his feet. He took two crab steps toward the tailgate and turned his head to listen. After a moment, he turned back to Remi and held up four fingers. Four guards were standing on the other side of the tailgate. He pointed to his rifle, then in the direction of the soldiers.

She handed him the rifle. Sam laid it across his legs, then pressed his wrists together. She nodded. He gestured for her to lie flat. She did so.

Sam made sure the rifle’s safety was off, adjusted himself and took a deep breath, then reached up with his left hand, grasped the canvas, and jerked it aside.

“Hands up!” he shouted.

The two soldiers closest to the bumper spun around while simultaneously backpedaling. They stumbled into their comrades, who were struggling to unsling their rifles.

“Don’t!” Sam said, and raised his rifle to his shoulder.

Despite the language gap, the soldiers got the message and stopped moving. Sam gestured with the barrel of his rifle several times until the men got the message. Slowly each man unslung his rifle and let it drop to the ground. Sam backed them up a few feet, then climbed over the tailgate and hopped down.

“All clear,” he said to Remi.

She dropped to the ground beside him.

“They look terrified,” she said.

“Perfect. The more terrified they are, the better for us,” Sam said. “Would you do the honors?”

Remi collected their rifles and dumped all but one into the truck bed. Sam said, “Safety off?”

“I think . . .”

“Lever switch above the trigger on the right side.”

“Got it. Okay.”

Sam and Remi and the four Chinese soldiers stared at one another. For ten seconds, no one spoke. Finally Sam asked, “English?”

The soldier on the far right said, “Small English.”

“Right. Okay. You are my prisoners.”

Remi sighed heavily. “Sam . . .”

“Sorry. I’ve always wanted to say that.”

“Now that you’ve got that out of your system, what do we do with them?”

“We tie them up and . . . Oh, no. That’s not good.”

“What?” Remi glanced at her husband. Sam’s narrowed eyes were staring over the heads of the soldiers toward the cab of the second truck. She followed his gaze and saw a silhouetted figure sitting in the cab. The figure ducked down suddenly.

“We miscounted,” Sam muttered.

“I see that.”

“Get in the driver’s seat, Remi. Start the engine. Check for-”

“You can be sure of it,” she replied, then turned on her heel and sprinted toward the front of the truck. A moment later the engine started. The four soldiers shuffled nervously and glanced at one another.

“All aboard!” Remi shouted out the cab window.

“Coming, dear!” Sam replied without turning.

Sam shouted at the soldiers, “Move, move!” and gestured with the rifle. The men sidestepped away, leaving Sam a clear shot at the truck’s radiator. He raised his rifle and took aim.

The fifth man, until now hidden in the second truck’s cab, suddenly stuck his torso out the driver’s window. Sam saw the silhouette of his rifle coming around toward him.

“Stop!”

The man kept twisting his body, the rifle coming around.

Sam adjusted his aim and fired two shots through the windshield. The soldiers scattered, diving into the underbrush bordering the road. Sam heard a crack. Something thudded into the tailgate beside him. He ducked down, lurched sideways around the opposite bumper, turned again, and snapped off a trio of shots into what he hoped was the truck’s radiator or engine block. He turned, raced to the truck’s passenger’s door, jerked it open, and climbed in.

“We’ve worn out our welcome,” he said.

Remi put the truck in gear and mashed the accelerator.

They hadn’t gotten a hundred yards before realizing Sam’s gunshots had either missed their mark or had been insufficient. In the side mirrors, he and Remi saw the truck’s headlights pop on. The four soldiers scrambled from cover and hopped aboard, two in the cab, the other two in the bed. The truck surged forward.

Remi called, “Narrow bridge ahead!”

Sam looked. Though still a couple hundred yards away, the bridge in question looked not just narrow but barely wider than their truck’s girth. “Speed, Remi,” he warned.

“I’m going as fast as I can.”

“I meant, slow down.”

“Joking. Hold on!”

The truck hit a rut in the road and slewed sideways, lurched upward, then slammed back down. The bridge loomed in the windshield. Fifty yards to go.

“Oh, of course,” Remi said, annoyed. “It had to be one of these.”

Though wider and more heavily buttressed, the bridge was simply a larger version of the one they’d crossed on foot earlier that day.

The truck lurched again. Sam and Remi were bounced from their seats, heads hitting the cab’s roof. Remi grunted, wrestling with the steering wheel.

The bridgehead was almost upon them. At the last second, Remi slammed on the brakes. The brakes squealed, and the truck skidded to a stop. A cloud of dust enveloped them.

Sam heard the clank-clank of gears and looked over to see his wife shifting the transmission into reverse. “Remi, what’s on your mind?” he asked.

“A little reverse chicken,” she said with a grim smile.

“Risky.”

“As opposed to everything else we’ve done tonight?”

“Touche,” Sam conceded.

Remi slammed down on the accelerator. With a groaning whir from the engine, the truck started backing up, slowly at first but rapidly gaining speed. Sam glanced in the side mirror. Through the dust cloud created by Remi’s hasty stop, all he could see of the second truck was headlights. He leaned out the window and fired a three-round burst, then a second. The truck slewed sideways, out of Sam’s view.

Eyes fixed on her own mirror, Remi said, “They’re stopping. They see us. They’re backing up.”

Over the roar of the engine they heard the pop-pop-pop of gunfire. They ducked down. With her head below the dashboard, Remi leaned sideways for a better view of her mirror. The pursuing truck was in full reverse mode now, but the combination of Remi’s collision-course ploy and Sam’s gunfire had clearly rattled the driver. The truck careened from one side to the other, the tires bumping over the berm alongside the road.

“Brace for impact!” Remi shouted.

Sam leaned back in his seat and jammed his feet against the dashboard. A moment later the truck jolted to a stop. Remi glanced at her mirror. “They’re off the road.”

“Let’s not stick around,” Sam prompted.

“Right.”

Remi shifted back into drive and pressed the gas pedal. Once again the head of the bridge appeared.

“It didn’t take,” Remi announced. “They’re back on the road.”

“Persistent, aren’t they? Hold the truck steady for a bit,” he said, then opened his door.

“Sam, what are-”

“I’ll be in back if you need me.”

He slung the rifle around his neck and then, using the cab’s door-frame for support, climbed down onto the running board. With his free hand he grabbed the canvas side cover and jerked, ripping free the snap enclosures. He grabbed the vertical brace, hooked his left leg over the side, then pulled himself into the bed. He crawled to the cab’s rear wall and slid back the slot window.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hi, yourself. Hold tight, I’m closing your door.”

Remi jerked the truck to the right, then to the left. Sam’s open door banged shut. She asked, “What’s your plan?”

“Sabotage. How close are they?”

“Fifty yards. We hit the bridge in ten seconds.”

“Got it.”

Sam crawled to the tailgate. In the dim light, he groped along the truck bed until his hand found one of the other rifles. He picked it up and dropped his own, then hurriedly collected the other magazines.

“Bridge!” Remi shouted. “Slowing down!”

Sam waited until he heard the overlapping thud of the truck’s tires bumping over the planking, then stuck his upper torso through the rear flap, aimed the rifle at the bridge deck, and opened fire. The bullets thudded into the wood, punching through the gaps and sending up plumes of wood chips. He ducked back through the flap, changed magazines, then opened fire again, this time alternating between the bridge deck and the oncoming truck, which had just crossed onto the bridge. Their truck swerved left, bumped into the side rail, then straightened out. Sam saw an orange muzzle flash from the window. A trio of bullets slammed into the tailgate below him. He threw himself backward onto the bed. Another salvo of gunfire shredded the rear flap and peppered the cab wall.