I climbed on. It was cold in the shadows beneath the trees, but the walk warmed me. Soon I was sweating into my shirt. I’d bought a bottle of water at the bus station with my last dollar. I stopped near the top of the hill to take a sip. I checked my watch. It was five minutes after noon. Assuming he was on schedule, Richard Yarrow would be starting his trip from Centerville. Judging by my map, he would be at the Indian Canyon Bridge in about twenty minutes. I had to hurry.
When I reached the crest of the hill, I found a clearing where I could stand and look out at the other hills to the west and north. They spread out in front of me, rising and falling expanses of autumn trees. They looked peaceful from where I was. For a moment or two, the view held me there. I stood and gazed at it without thinking. I would’ve liked to have remained standing there that way a long time. But I blinked and came back to myself and headed down the hill.
With gravity helping out, the trip down was quicker. I spilled along the side of the mountain, the rocks and dirt tumbling out from beneath my feet. Sometimes I had to grab at trees to keep from falling. It wasn’t long at all before I began to sense I was getting close to the road. I still couldn’t see it, though-not at first.
Then, suddenly, there it was. The forest ended and gave way to a short expanse of rocky cliffs. Underneath the cliffs was the Indian Canyon Bridge.
The setting was amazing, really majestic. Below me and to my right, the forest just seemed to open wide. The trees parted on two sheer rock walls that plunged down into a gray stone canyon six or seven hundred feet below. On the far side, you could see the winding highway appearing and disappearing through the gaps in the hills. Finally, it emerged for a last stretch of straightaway and then reached the canyon itself. There it became the graceful arch bridge of gleaming steel, a narrow manmade passage that seemed almost to leap from one side of the gulf to the other. The bridge was at least as long as the gorge was deep, and the steel lacework of the arch structure that held it up looked so light it seemed to float impossibly in the empty space.
The moment I came out over the edge of the rock to see the bridge, I had to drop to my belly so I wouldn’t be spotted. The police were already there. I hadn’t expected that. Slowly, carefully, I inched my head up over the rock again until I could see them.
There were two state police cruisers, one parked just below me at one end of the bridge, the other stationed at the far end, where Yarrow’s motorcade would soon be. Between the two cruisers was another car-dark blue, unmarked-parked in the bridge’s center. There was one man standing by each car, a state trooper in khaki beside each cruiser, and a man in a dark suit standing by the unmarked car in the middle.
This was bad, really bad. I glanced at my watch. It was twenty after twelve. By my calculation, Yarrow’s motorcade should be coming into view around the final bend in the road any minute. How could I get down to the road, cross the bridge, get in front of Yarrow’s motorcade, and stop him before he was attacked-without the police spotting me and arresting me first?
I racked my brain to think of a plan. Obviously, the easiest way to avoid the police would be to work my way to the other side of the bridge through the forest, skirting the canyon. But was there enough time for that? I figured I had no choice but to find out.
But before I could, the killing started.
I was just about to move back into the trees when the man in the blue suit-the Secret Service agent standing by the unmarked car in the middle of the bridge-lifted his hand to his ear. I could tell he was listening to something-a message of some kind coming in over his earpiece. He stood like that a second or two, then he came away from the side of the bridge and stepped out in the middle. He lifted his hand to his mouth. I guessed he was talking into a microphone.
The state troopers at either end of the bridge reacted. They came away from their cars too. They moved to the center of the road, the same as the agent. They were looking at him. He lifted his hand and waved them toward him, first one then the other.
The state troopers hesitated a second. This wasn’t what they were expecting. Then they started to come forward, approaching the agent from either side.
A movement in the corner of my eye caught my attention. I turned and saw the first car of the secretary’s three-car motorcade appear on the road in a gap between the hills. It didn’t look to be that far away. I figured it would reach the bridge in about five minutes, maybe less. That settled it. There was definitely no time for me to make my way through the woods to the other end of the bridge before the cars arrived. I would have to go straight down and warn the police already stationed there. I would just have to hope they believed me and stopped the motorcade. There was no other choice. I was out of time.
I was about to head to the end of the bridge and crawl down onto the pavement where one of the state cruisers was parked. I took one last look and saw the two state troopers now approaching the agent from either end. The agent waited until they were about ten feet away.
Then he went into his jacket and pulled out a gun.
My lips parted. I understood at once. The man in the blue suit: it was Orton.
I was about to shout out a warning. But I had no chance-and I was too far away; they wouldn’t have heard me anyway. All I could do was stare as the man in the blue suit pointed his pistol at the state trooper on his far side and fired. There wasn’t much noise, only a muffled report. But I saw the hole open in the trooper’s chest. He started to fall but before he did, the man in the blue suit turned around and fired again, hitting the second trooper just where he’d hit the first.
The first trooper had fallen to his knees. Now he toppled over onto the surface of the road. The second trooper was staggering backward. Then his legs folded under him and he went down.
As I lay there, gasping, staring, the man in the blue suit-Orton-calmly slipped his pistol back inside his coat. He walked to the unmarked car parked by the side of the bridge. He pointed his key at the car and pressed a button. I heard an electronic chirp. Then the trunk slowly came open.
From my position on the rocks, so far from the center of the bridge, I didn’t have a clear view of the trunk’s contents. I didn’t need one. I could see there was some sort of mechanism in there, and it wasn’t hard to guess what it was.
The car was a bomb. Orton was going to wait for the secretary’s motorcade, then blow up the bridge and send him and everyone with him crashing to their deaths in the canyon below.
Almost as the thought came to me, I was off the rock, racing to the edge of the bridge. I slid down the last part of the incline and tumbled onto the road. Then I was on my feet, running over the bridge as fast as I could.
There was no more time to think or plan or do the smartest thing or the safest. I had to get to Orton. That was all I knew. I had to reach him-I had to stop him- before he destroyed the bridge and everyone on it.
CHAPTER THIRTY
The Battle for the Bridge It wasn’t far-but it was the longest run of my life.
Orton was at the center of the bridge. He had his back to me. He was leaning over the trunk of his car, working on the mechanism inside-activating the bomb, I guessed. I flew toward him, pumping as hard as I could, knowing that any second he might hear me, might turn and see me and gun me down as he had the troopers.
One of the dead troopers lay between us in a spreading pool of blood. It was a horrible sight. But I didn’t stop. I couldn’t. I had to push past it. I had to get to Orton.