“No way!”
“You’re here. You wanted me to drive you here, and I did. We’re good.”
“I’m way early for my flight,” she complained. “The inside of the jet is way cool. That’s it, right over there.” She pointed. “I’m telling you, you’re going to totally love it.”
“I’m not jumping the fence, that’s nuts. It’s, like, a federal crime or something.”
“Are you afraid?”
“No. I’m just not going to do it.”
“Because you’re afraid…”
“No. Because I can just walk through Sun Valley Aviation and get to the same place.”
“At some point,” she said, “my father’s going to look for me, we both know that. Tonight, tomorrow? When he does, he’s going to check everywhere. He doesn’t do anything halfway. If you and me go through Sun Valley Aviation, we’ve been seen together. And then, when I’m suddenly not around…”
“Which is why this is where you get out.”
“That’s not going to happen.”
“Yes, it is,” he said. “Seriously, I’ve got to go. Have a safe flight.”
She yanked the keys from the ignition, popped open the door, and sprinted for the fence. She climbed the fence like a cat. Through the chain link, she grinned playfully, dangling Kevin’s keys from her finger. She glanced furtively to either side, wondering if she’d been seen, then was all the more obnoxious when she realized she was in the clear.
“If you want ’em, you’re going to have to come and get ’em.” She slipped the keys into the tight front pocket of her jeans. “Throw my suitcase over, while you’re at it.”
He left the suitcase in the car and climbed the fence, landing flat-footed on the tarmac.
She backed away, her right hand still guarding the keys in her pocket.
“Your bag for the keys,” he said, looking around hotly, terrified of being caught.
“Come and get it,” she said.
She sprinted toward one of the jets.
He caught up to her just as she was slipping a key in the jet’s lock. The top half of the jet’s hatch lifted up as a set of stairs simultaneously lowered with the bottom half.
She grabbed Kevin by the front of his shirt and pulled him toward her. Then, as their lips were about to touch, she spun around, placing her backside against his crotch, and pulled his right hand down around her, his fingers inching into her pocket.
It was warm inside the pocket. And terrifying.
“They’re yours, if you want them.”
His fingers touched his keys. She forced his hand lower, deeper into the pocket. It was like a furnace down there.
He grabbed his keys, pulled them out, stuffed them in his pant pocket.
She pulled his now-free hand against the skin of the jet.
“Now that you’ve touched it,” she said, confusing him, “don’t you want to see it?”
“I… don’t think so,” his voice cracked. He looked back at his car.
“One beer,” she said. “Have a look around. Stay or don’t stay. Whatever you want. But I’ve got time to kill, and we might as well kill it together.”
Her warmth lingered on his fingertips.
Now that you’ve touched it…
He followed her up the stairs.
37
Having set the charge in the golf cart, Roger McGuiness had met up with Matt Salvo, who’d had a much easier time stealing the logging truck than on his first try.
McGuiness dropped the semi into a low gear, and they drove off, leaving behind Sun Valley Company’s Cold Springs base camp, an area of collected construction equipment and material.
“We’re good?” Salvo said.
McGuiness replied, “I must have passed a dozen patrol cars headed north.”
A siren whooped from behind them.
“Heads up!” McGuiness said, his attention on the truck’s wing mirror.
Salvo checked the opposing mirror and he pounded the truck’s dash. “Shit!”
“Chill. We’ve got this,” said the driver.
The GREENHORN/EAST FORK traffic light was just ahead. Less than a quarter mile past the light, and slightly downhill, was the highway bridge, a three-lane concrete span.
Salvo reached over and picked up the fat black electric cable that lay between the seats. The rest of it ran out of the cab’s sliding rear window to the load of logs chained to the truck bed. Attached to the cab end that Salvo held was a black button switch.
The cop car had pulled to within a few feet of the red safety flags stapled to the ends of the longer logs.
“Not yet,” McGuiness said.
“The fucker is right there!”
“And what’s he going to do, run us off the road? Do not detonate those charges, Matt. Hold off.”
Salvo’s thumb hovered over the button.
The truck ran the light, speeding toward the bridge.
“Timing is everything,” McGuiness said. “I set those charges. I know how this thing is going to work. Don’t freak out over some cop car.”
The cop car jerked out into the turn lane and pulled up alongside. Oncoming traffic swerved to avoid it.
A hundred yards and closing.
Salvo’s thumb loomed over the button.
“You strapped in?” McGuiness said, double-checking.
“Yeah.”
“Good. Hold on.”
McGuiness tugged the steering wheel sharply left, quickly corrected, and then applied the brakes. The tires squealed and smoked as the cab and trailer drifted in slow motion, first in unison, then like the tail wagging the dog, as the truck jackknifed into a graceful skid. The move got the cop’s attention-one second, alongside the rig; the next, about to be crushed by it. He veered off the highway, spewing a rooster tail of dust and crashing head-on into the berm that supported the bike path.
McGuiness had landed the cab and trailer squarely between the bridge’s opposing guardrails. A thing of beauty.
“Now!”
Salvo pushed the button.
A great cloud of gray smoke arose from a series of small explosions along both sides of the trailer. The giant logs tumbled from the trailer in both directions.
It happened exactly as Cantell had proposed-a nightmarish tangle of enormous logs, rolling and bouncing off the truck. The truck shuddered to a stop, complaining steel squealing. McGuiness had jackknifed the truck into the mouth of the bridge like a cork in a bottle.
“Nice,” Salvo said, as he grabbed the chainsaw at his feet.
“See you at the rendezvous,” McGuiness said, sliding down out of the cab.
Salvo made his way through the fallen timber, and, keeping an eye on the damaged patrol car, climbed to the bike-path bridge, dragging the chainsaw with him.
He tugged its cord and the saw sputtered to life. He planted its blade into a power pole.
He looked away, avoiding the spray of wood chips and sawdust, only to see cars everywhere. In both directions, traffic had come to a stop, causing a few rear enders, and leaving the highway in chaos.
He made a second cut with the saw. A wedge of wood broke loose and fell out. He started a third cut.
The driver of a pickup truck climbed out and started shouting at him. The man ran for the wrecked police car.
Sirens called from the north. He looked south. No sign of cops coming from there, just as Cantell had planned.
He leaned his weight into the chainsaw. The power pole popped and splintered. Then it teetered and fell.
Overhead, wires sparked and flashed. Salvo had failed to remember he was bringing down a few thousand volts with the pole. A half dozen wires now sparked and jumped on the ground. He dropped the saw and took off south across the bridge. Car horns sounded. He took them as applause for a job well done.
He sprinted across the highway, jumped down an embankment, lost his footing, and rolled to the bottom. He got to his feet and took off running.
Some hero had left his car and was coming after him. “Hey, asshole, hold up!” the man shouted.