"Hold it right there," I said. But then, too late, I saw he was wearing a walkie-talkie. Then I heard the other two who had leaped from the other side of the truck. They were also equipped with walkie-talkies and I heard them shouting into their sets.
"Its your man, Anderson," the one shouted. "He's a ringer."
I heard the sound of two car engines roar into life. One pulled away in a fast take-off with screaming tires, the other moved forward and I saw its headlights bouncing as it raced into the dam area. The driver of the truck tried to get tricky. He whirled and dove for the undercarriage, figuring to get under and out the other side. I fired once, through the splashing gobs of cement, and he lay still. In a few minutes he'd be the truck, a mass of sliding, gray cement covering it and running down on all sides. But the car doors were opening and I heard Bonard's voice yelling orders. I stood still to listen. I counted four sets of footsteps on the run, besides Bonard. That made the two from the truck, four others and Bonard, seven altogether. And they were spreading out to move toward me on both sides of the truck. I started to run, down along the lower edge of the dam, past the tall scaffolding. I heard them meet around the truck and come after me. Suddenly I paused, picked up a big sledge hammer lying on the ground, and looked up at the tall array of scaffolding. Bonard and the others were racing toward me. I swung, with all my might, smashing the heavy hammer against the joint of the scaffold. It gave way with a splintering noise and I leaped to one side as one entire section of the scaffolding came down. I heard one man's cry of gasping pain, but most of them managed to fall back in time to avoid the lengths of wood and steel that cascaded down on them. But the curtain of debris had given me another moment's jump on them. I saw a ladder leading up and I leaped for it and started to climb. It led up into the scaffolding and on further, all the way to the top of the dam where a wooden ledge simulated the gentle curve that the concrete would take when it was finished.
Suddenly I felt the ladder tremble and I saw them coming up after me. Looking beyond, I saw others moving up another ladder, some hundred feet away but paralleling the one I was on. I had no way to go but up, so I kept climbing, to the very top of the dam, or what would someday be the top of the dam. Then I glanced to my left. Two others were moving up another of the long, scaffold ladders which I realized now were placed every hundred feet or so apart for the workmen. I was nearly at the top, but so were they, on my left and on my right and just behind me on the same ladder. I was trapped, with no place to hide and nowhere to run. As you can't shoot in two directions at once, blasting my way out was also impossible. I stopped, poised at the top of the curving wood ledge. Bonard was on the ledge already, walking toward me, gun in hand. One of his men was coming in from the other direction.
"Give me your gun," he said. "Slowly and carefully. One false move and you're dead."
I wasn't in any position to argue. I needed to play for time. I handed Wilhelmina to him, slowly and carefully, just the way he wanted it done.
"Now start back down, slowly," he said. "We'll be on either side of you, watching."
I began the long, slow climb down, with guns from three sides trained on me — from the left, the right, and underneath. They were waiting for me when I reached the ground and they hustled me toward Bonard's car. We were just passing the spot where I'd hit the scaffold joint with the sledge hammer. Pieces of that section hung loosely and I saw that one of the adjoining sections was buckled at the bottom joint. It wouldn't take much to snap it. Bonard, in his anger and frustration, had forgotten about Hugo. I tensed my muscles, bulged them out against the leather sheath and the stiletto dropped into my palm.
The man to the right of me was walking a half step behind, his gun held loosely in his hand, pointed at the ground. I waited, calculating every second's move and then, as we passed the buckled scaffolding joint, I whirled, slashing out with Hugo. The man's cry was cut short as the stiletto severed his jugular in one swipe. The others, startled for a moment, grabbed for me but I was already leaping to the side, slamming my shoulder into the scaffolding joint. It snapped — and the second section of scaffolding came down onto their heads. Only this time I was under it, too.
A length of wood caught me in the back and knocked the wind out of me for a second. I flattened myself against the wooden molds of the newly poured concrete base of the dam as more aluminum rods and wood hurtled down. I ran along the edge of the dam, hurdling the scaffolding, and shots cracked around my ears as they recovered from their second rain of scaffolding.
I changed course and streaked across a work area with piles of steel girders and rolls of wire cable lying along the ground. A big tractor stood in the midst of all the construction materials and; clusters of hydraulic gas in tall cylinders dotted the area. I dove behind one cluster of the tall tanks. An acetylene torch lay on the ground. I picked it up as a prospector picks up a gold nugget.
"Spread out," I heard Bonard say. "The bastard's in here someplace."
I stayed huddled behind the tanks, peering out through the opening where their nozzles didn't meet at the top. The men had moved out and were picking their way amid the litter of girders and cables. Two of them were circling the big tractor, one from each side. Then I heard footsteps nearby and saw the figure moving toward the tanks. I waited. The torch would go on with a whooshing sound and I had to time it just right or he'd be forewarned.
I crouched low. As be peered carefully around the tanks, I turned on die torch and shoved it in his face. He let out a scream that split the night apart, falling backwards with both hands to his face. His gun was on the ground where he'd dropped it. I scooped it up, fired one shot at the others who were coming on the run, and took off. They were professionals. They left the man screaming and writhing on the ground and kept on after me. I was leaping girders and coils of cable like a hundred-yard hurdler. I saw the small shack painted bright red with the one word emblazoned in white across its sides: "Explosives."
I yanked the door of the shack open, pretty certain of what I'd find. The sticks of dynamite were packed in cartons. One box on top had been made up six in a cluster, already fused. I grabbed one cluster and ran out as Bonard, leading the others, came running up. I ducked around the side of the shack and streaked for a straight passageway between six-foot-high stacks of steel girders. They came pounding after me. Not breaking my pace, I fished my cigarette lighter from my pocket, lit the fuse on the dynamite and then whirled and tossed it at them. Bonard, in the lead, saw the object hurtling through the air. As I ran I saw him skid to a halt, falling as he did so, get to his feet and dive toward one of the rows of steel girders. It was too late for the others, following just far enough behind him. The dynamite exploded right in their faces with a gargantuan blast.
I was knocked forward, maybe ten yards, I guessed, hitting the ground in a rolling, spinning cartwheel. But I'd been prepared for it and I let myself go, falling loosely onto the shaking ground. I stayed there quietly, until the earth stopped trembling. Then I got up.
Two were already accounted for, the one I'd knifed at the- scaffold and the one who got the acetylene torch. I was moving forward through the acrid haze of smoke, stepping over one of the bodies with enough life in it to moan, when the shot rang out at close range. I felt the sharp pain as it tore through my shoulder and out the other side, ripping muscle and tendon as it went.