Part 33 (1/2)

The pickup hit the gates dead center with a terrible grinding crunch. The heavy chain in the center held, but the hinges on either side gave way. The pickup carried both gates forward for a few yards before they flipped over the top and crashed to the ground behind the truck.

There was a screech of brakes as one edge of the gates dug into the highway and the other edge reached out for the winds.h.i.+eld of the leading van behind them.

The van hit the gate with a loud crack that starred but did not break its winds.h.i.+eld. The following van also slammed on its brakes to avoid a collision, and the gap behind the pickup widened rapidly.

It wasn't until they reached Boulder City that the vans caught up with them again. Boulder was virtually deserted, most of the residents having long since moved away, not wanting to live adjacent to a nuclear bomb site.

”Government plate CDD7605,” Sam said out loud, reading the plates of the closest van.

”Don't let them get in front of you,” Tyler warned. ”They're trained to do that.”

The vans tried several times, on the left or the right, sometimes both sides simultaneously, but Dodge countered them with violent swings of the big pickup.

”I got a signal,” Sam cried out, just out of Boulder. It was weak, but it was there.

They were climbing now. Hilly peaks to the right and scrubland to the left as they closed in on Lake Mead and the historic Hoover Dam.

A sharp burst of gunfire came from behind them as they straightened out after a sweeping right-hand curve, and there was a series of thuds from the truck's bed.

”I think they're running out of ideas,” Dodge said, swinging the truck around corner after corner.

”They've changed their minds,” Tyler said.

”Changed their minds about what?” Sam asked.

”Taking us alive,” Tyler replied.

”Give me the gun,” Vienna said in a voice that was little more than a rasp.

”Are you okay to-” Tyler started.

”Just give me the gun.”

She wound down her window and aimed the pistol backward, letting off two quick shots, coughing weakly as she did so.

”How's that site coming?” Dodge asked.

”Almost in,” Sam said.

It was a Virtual Private Network, and he had to crack the PPTP to gain a foothold.

One of the vans hurled itself up on the right, and Dodge slammed the pickup over into it with a juddering crash that threw Sam's hands from the keyboard. The van stuck there for a moment as if glued to the side of the pickup, then dropped back as Dodge twisted the wheel around farther, forcing them off the road.

The other van was making a run on the left-hand side, inching its way in front of them to block their path. Dodge wrenched at the wheel, and the tires of the pickup screamed as they veered onto an off-ramp to Hoover Dam.

”You can't get across the dam anymore,” Tyler yelled. ”They closed it to traffic when they opened the bypa.s.s!”

”Got nowhere else to go,” Dodge yelled back.

”There's a vulnerable TCP port in the NetBIOS,” Sam said, poking around the LoJack server. ”The session services in the message block.”

Another hammering burst of fire sounded behind them, and the rear window starred and cracked. Vienna fired twice again, the gunshots cras.h.i.+ng like thunder inside the cab of the truck.

”Can you discover the Windows shares?” Dodge asked through gritted teeth.

”Already got them,” Sam said. ”Trying to wriggle into the RPC.”

”Here they come again-get down!” Tyler yelled as the vans took advantage of a pa.s.sing area to attack from both sides, raking the pickup with automatic fire as they accelerated alongside.

Dodge forced the left van toward the rocky wall, ignoring the firing from the right until the left van fell back; then he swung the pickup violently over to the right.

The right-hand van slammed on its brakes to avoid being shunted off the side of a cliff, and fell back in behind the pickup with a squeal of protest from its tires.

”Hang on!” Dodge shouted.

Sam looked up to see concrete crash barriers in a line across the road in front of them. He braced himself against the front seat and hugged the precious laptop to his body.

The bull-bar of the pickup truck smashed into the barrier at the narrow gap between two of the units. Concrete exploded past both sides of the truck, and Sam's seat belt slammed into his chest, the laptop almost flying out of his arms. But the concrete barriers gave way, bunted to each side to make a gap for the flying pickup truck. Then they were through and on the old road across the top of the dam.

”Okay, I'm in,” Sam cried. ”What's that plate again?”

”CDD7605,” Vienna rasped over the sound of gunfire close behind.

Sam keyed it in and poised the cursor above the Remote Shutdown b.u.t.ton.

”Hold it,” Dodge said. ”I'll tell you when.”

Through the left window, Sam could see water. To the right, the vast concrete structure fell away from them into a deep canyon. Stretching between the walls of the canyon, impossibly high, was the ma.s.sive arch of the bypa.s.s road, pencil-thin concrete towers supporting a narrow ribbon of bridge.

Another concrete barrier came and went with the same shattering explosion of concrete chips and dust. Then they were across and careening around a tight curve beneath a rocky cliff face. Sam's eye was caught by a ma.s.sive drainpipe, surely a hundred yards high, that disappeared into the rock face to the right. Another tire-screeching corner and they were rising up a gently curving road toward a hairpin bend.

”There,” Dodge said. ”Right on the bend.” He gunned the engine toward the corner.

Sam looked back and saw a dark shape leaning out the window of the nearest van, readying another shot.

”Shake her around a bit,” he yelled, and Dodge jerked the steering wheel back and forth, spoiling the man's aim. The driver's-side mirror cracked and starred, but the rest of the volley went wild.

Then they were on the curve, the pickup lifting and tilting as Dodge forced it around at high speed.

For a moment, Sam thought they were going to roll, but the huge tires of the pickup steadied and straightened out of the curve.

”Now!” Dodge yelled.

Sam hit the b.u.t.ton on the laptop just as the first van entered the apex of the curve. For a half second, he thought nothing would happen; then the nose of the van, which had been riding high, suddenly dropped as the engine lost power.

On a steep rise, on a hairpin bend, it had almost the same effect as slamming on the brakes of the van, and there was a screech and a thud from behind it as the following van swerved hard to the left to the outside of the bend, clipping the rear of the lead van and spinning it around 180 degrees. It slid over toward the side of the road, hit the safety railing with a crunch, and stayed there.