Somewhere in that open area or in the next tunnel, we've got to take out that spotter. Suggestions?"
Before anyone could answer, the tunnel lit up with laser light. "Spotter's reported we're still in here,"
Alamzad said tightly. "We're going to be up to our necks in Security men in a minute if we don't get moving."
"Yeah. Braune? Anything?"
"Couple of standard laser rifles," the other reported, lifting them out. "Nothing that'll take out an aircraft."
"Not easily, anyway," Caine gritted. "Alamzad—did you get a good look at that spotter? It looked like a standard prewar TDE design to me."
"Yeah," Alamzad agreed. "A Hap-Kien Two-oh-something, I think. Heavy shielding on sides and belly for laser defense."
"Has it got any weaknesses?" Pittman put in.
Alamzad shrugged helplessly as another burst of laser fire flicked at them. "All I can think of are the two intake grates on top, just beside the canopy. If we can get a clear shot at those, we might be able to disable the thing."
"Close enough," Caine said. "All right, here's what we'll do—and we'll hope whoever it is has normal reflexes. Get your gloves, battle-hoods, and goggles on while I talk."
He outlined his plan briefly, cut off all attempts at protest, and in a fresh flurry of laser blasts they piled into the cars and spun off toward the end of the tunnel.
Caine, alone in the now-battered Security car, took the lead, leaning on the accelerator as hard as the unfamiliar road would permit. The end of the tunnel rushed toward him—he was out in the fading sunlight again—
And the waiting spotter shot across his path.
He ignored the obvious warning, pushing his speed up a bit more. The road made a gentle curve to the right through a jagged cut in the mountain; ahead, the mouth of the next tunnel became visible—
And abruptly his left arm was awash in laser fire.
Another warning, clearly; the shirt blackened but the flexarmor beneath it took the blast without trouble. Gritting his teeth, Caine kept going, hoping they wouldn't switch intensities before he reached the relative safety of the tunnel. Behind him, the mirror showed their second car had made it around the curve and was gaining on him. Caine let his car swerve a bit, hoping to hold the spotter's attention a few seconds longer.
The laser beam cut off as the pilot pulled out of his collision course with the mountain ahead, and in almost the same instant the darkness of the tunnel snapped closed about Caine.
The knife blade flickered with reflected light in his peripheral vision as he sprang it from its forearm sheath and leaned over as far as he could without losing control of the car. The accelerator was of the piezoelectric pressure type; jabbing the tip of the blade into the center console, Caine wedged the haft onto the plate. The car's speed faltered, then stabilized as he got the brace in position.
Straightening up, he glanced out the side window to see the other car had caught up and was pacing his a meter away. Ahead, the tunnel exit was growing larger, barely a handful of seconds away.
Pulling out a shuriken, Caine wedged it into the gap between steering wheel and column. Then, in a single motion, he swung open his door and jumped.
Braune and Colvin, in the front and rear seats on that side of the other car, were ready. Caine's outstretched arms came in through the open window and were caught instantly by the two men.
Bracing his feet against the side of the car, Caine clenched his teeth as Pittman tromped on the brakes. The Security car shot on ahead into the sunlight... and as Pittman brought them to a skidding halt the tunnel echoed to the sounds of a thunderous crash.
Pittman and Alamzad were out their side of the car before Caine and his human anchors could disengage themselves, racing toward the tunnel mouth with their appropriated laser rifles at the ready. Caine and the others followed, to discover that the spotter pilot did indeed have normal reflexes.
The Security car had shot off the road to the right, crashing through the barrier and down the cliff to the creek below. The pilot, perhaps startled thoughtless by the apparent accident, had followed it down and was just coming to a hovering stop overhead.
Leaving its upper side exposed to the road above.
And the beams from the two lasers lanced out together, striking the intake vents dead on.
They took barely half a second of the fire before the pilot jumped the spotter out of position like a scalded bat. But the action was too late, and even as he brought the spotter around toward the road it was clear he was starting to lose altitude. His lasers fired once, too low, and then he gave up, and a moment later the spotter came to rest beside the ruined Security car.
Caine licked his lips briefly, arms trembling with reaction. A certifiably crazy stunt... but it had worked. "Let's get out of here," he told the others, as calmly as he could. "He may have enough range even in these mountains to whistle up reinforcements."
Apparently he didn't. Fifteen uneventful minutes later, they were once again within the teeming anonymity of Denver.
Chapter 11
Quinn set the phone down and turned to Galway with an expression that was just short of murderous. "I trust you're satisfied now," he bit out. "That brings us up to two deaths from that fiasco—a second man's just died from brain hemorrhaging. And for nothing."
Galway forced himself to return the general's glare steadily. "Would you rather have left them stuck out there with no transportation?" he asked.
Quinn snorted. "So instead we have them running around Denver in an untrackable vehicle. Great.
Just great."
"It's not my fault that someone tried to steal their car," Galway said stiffly. "It's also not my fault Caine got back at the wrong moment. I could point out that if your men had bothered to make a surveillance pass first they would have seen that Caine had things under control and could have just kept going with no one the wiser."
"Oh, right." Quinn was heavily sarcastic. "And I suppose if the central router had been omniscient we could have saved the wrecked car and spotter, too."
Galway sighed. "We both assumed it was the others in the stolen Security car, General—don't try to push all that off onto my shoulders."
"Why not? You're the one who claims to know these bastards—why the hell didn't you recognize Caine's voice?"
"What difference would that have made? Really? All right, suppose I had realized it was Caine's team in those two cars. He knows that Security dispatchers aren't stupid enough to fall for such a simple charade—he'd have been suspicious as hell if we hadn't made some reasonable response. All right, so we've temporarily lost them. So what? As long as Postern is alive and unsuspected, we're still on top of things."
Quinn snorted and turned away, stomping over to where the monitor duty officer was still tracking the marked car. Galway took a deep breath and went the other direction, to the situation room's main communications board. The officer there looked up with a face that was studiously neutral. "Yes, sir?"
"What have you got on the three people Caine's team took out?" Galway asked.
The other shrugged. "Smugglers, it appears, though we won't know exactly what they were smuggling until we get their car back—maybe not even then if they were on their way to a drop when they stopped. It's nothing particularly unusual—Denver's a sewer sludge of criminal types."
Galway pursed his lips. Smugglers. Caine had mentioned smugglers when he talked to the dispatcher on that wild ride back to Denver. Had he simply pulled that out of the air, or had he had time to interrogate the failed car thieves before the Security team blundered onto the scene? Though he couldn't see offhand what difference it made either way.
Aegis Mountain.
Galway shivered. So he'd been right about Caine's target—the team's afternoon trip virtually assured that. There was nothing else in that area that could possibly be of interest to the commandos.