It took precious minutes before Tara could put weight on her feet, and more time passed while I walked her around the room until she could move on her own. Then I sent Lambie into the hall to make sure it was clear. When he put his head back through the door and nodded, Tara and I followed him in a hurry to the elevator. We ducked into the cage, and I pushed the lobby button just as a room door opened down the corridor.
We dropped to the floor and the elevator door began to slide. Through a crack I saw soldiers. Worse, I saw Colonel Carib Jerome, with a pistol leveled on the crack.
I dodged behind the metal door and hit the basement button as he fired. The lead slammed into the rear of the cage and ricocheted. It had to be magic that it hit none of us. Then the door closed and we went down. It took an hour by my count and we had to be mere minutes. I knew Jerome and company would be on our heels in the other car. If there was no transportation in the garage or if the ramp was blocked, David Hawk would be out of one more operative. Tom Sawyer would lose his daughter and Noah, bless his faking heart, would lose one hell of a good man.
Where Noah’s other man was, I didn’t ask myself. Probably dead. If Jerome had snowed Caco into letting him out of the office with a bribe, Caco had a bullet coming. The colonel was resourceful. It was obviously a mistake to have left poor, simple Caco alone with such a sharpie.
The elevator cage squashed on the air buffer at the basement floor, and we were in the garage. There were lots of cars here, appropriated from the evacuated guests and staff, but I didn’t expect keys in them and I couldn’t spare a second to look. A military truck was parked at the bottom of the ramp; it would probably be ready to move on short notice. But it looked to be a mile away. I pointed at it.
“You two make a run for that,” I said. “Get it started while I keep the elevator bottled up.”
They sprinted, Lambie holding Tara’s arm, the girl still not sure-footed but game to make the try. I saw them start, then faced the elevator. The indicator needle moved, tracking the descent, then stopped. The door began sliding open in front of me.
When it was two inches apart I poured lead in, heard a scream and hoped it was Jerome. I kept firing as the crack widened and there were more cries until somebody had the wit to start the car back up. I shot until the door closed, then ran for the truck. Lambie was in the back under the canvas top. Tara had the engine roaring and had left the driver’s seat for me. I thanked her for that. If it had been Mitzy Gardner, I’d have had an argument and there just wasn’t time. As it was, I still didn’t know what I’d run into outside.
I got under the wheel and gunned up the ramp in second gear. There was no barricade at the top. I headed for the road. At the front of the hotel I took a quick look and saw Jerome and soldiers erupting from the door. They stopped on the top step to throw rifle fire after us, but they hurried too much. The shots went low.
I careened from side to side to further spoil their aim and heard Lambie blasting with his short gun from the rear. I yelled at him to lie low behind the tailgate, but either he didn’t hear me or was too keyed-up to think. Then it was too late. I heard a short scream. In the rear-view mirror I saw Lambie stagger and pitch out of the jeep. He was lying very still in the middle of the drive.
The whole front of his shirt was soaked in blood. More bullets riddled his body, as if Jerome was making Lambie die for those of us he couldn’t reach. A shot exploded into Lambie’s head, taking half of it away. I concentrated on my driving; it took away some of the sickness at the pit of my belly.
The firing stopped. The mirror showed Jerome and his troops running for cars parked around the hotel entrance. We were still a long way from home. At the boulevard I skidded the rear wheels for the turn, straightened out and tramped the gas pedal against the floor. The truck was powered to carry heavy loads but not built for racing. We had a head start, but not enough to outrun the colonel.
We were past the shuttered city, bearing on Noah’s hotel, with decisions to make. I couldn’t beat Jerome on the shore highway. The choice was between hiding the truck in the old hotel’s shed and holing up inside or tackling the goat trail over the mountains. I thought the colonel probably knew about Noah’s use of the place and could trap us there. He wouldn’t even need to risk a fight. The building was tinder. He could burn it around us.
So it was the mountain trail. Our heavy truck could probably grind through the potholes with less damage than the lighter cars behind us, and they couldn’t cover the ground any faster than I.
Their headlights hadn’t picked us up by the time we hit the turn. I cut our lights, threw the wheel over, and was out of sight in the jungle growth when two jeeps clattered past on the highway. That was just fine with me. I stopped, took the flashlight out of its bracket, and went around to investigate the back of the truck. Maybe Lambie had dropped his gun inside. My ammo was running low.
There was no gun among the clutter of rope, shovels, excavation equipment, and three crates. As I turned away, the light beam fell on a stenciled word on a box. “Dyamite.” With a hand on the tailgate, I swung over it. The box was open and some of the sticks were gone, but most of them were still bedded in the sawdust packing.
Colonel Jerome wouldn’t go far on the highway when he saw I was not ahead of him. He would be back. And now I could be ready for him. We were a hundred yards into the jungle track. I dropped out of the truck, worked as I ran back toward the intersection, and had a charge put together by the time Jerome’s jeeps showed up. They came fast, made the turn, their lights sweeping over me where I crouched in the brush. Then they discovered the dark truck and bumped toward it with triumphant yells. As the lead car came on, I fit the fuse. When it went by, I threw the stick in the rear seat and dropped flat, burying my nose in the vines.
The explosion was immediate and close. The shock wave picked me up and threw me back in the road, stunned but in better condition than the men who’d been in the car. I lay dragging breath, hearing Tara’s voice and the sound of her feet as she came running toward me. I got up before I wanted to, waving her back, seeing the deep crater blown out of the road. Behind me a second jeep was nearing the turn. The girl and I made it to our truck, were in gear and moving when the jeep jammed to a stop at the crater. The rear-view mirror showed me Jerome’s tall figure scrambling to the ground, standing in the lights. Lead reached for us, fell short, and we pulled away.
Tara was all questions. I explained my find, bent to kiss her briefly while I fought the road.
“We’re all right now,” I told her. “They can’t come past that hole unless they cut some trees, and that’ll take awhile. Just set yourself for a roller-coaster ride.”
In the dark I almost rammed a tree at a turn. That made me realize we needed light to drive by and I switched them on. My watch showed me the night was waning. By the time we reached the roughest spots, there should be enough dawn to help. Under the roof of leaves where we were now there was only blackness, my headlights tunneling through. We ground ahead, Tara hanging onto the door to keep from being tossed against the top of the cab. She took it in silence for some miles, then gave me an apologetic laugh.
“Nick, I do believe I’m not cut out for this. I came on like gangbusters at the idea of coming here to help Dr. Fleming. It seemed very romantic.” Her laugh was embarrassed. “Now I see what it’s really like.”
“You learn if you’re in it.” I grinned at her.
So she was scared, talking to build herself up. We were coming to the top and she was going to be more scared. It gave me a very good excuse for relaxing both of us. I cut the motor. It was very quiet. I got down, opened Tara’s door and pulled her out. I led her into the bright beam ahead of the truck where I could see that we wouldn’t bed down on a snake or a porcupine. I took her in my arms.