He went down, already starting his roll. He pivoted and went under the truck.
“Here!” somebody shouted.
As he came back out, Shayne banged against a moving body. They grappled for an instant. Something touched him on the side of the face, unmistakably the muzzle of a gun.
All the lights flashed on at once. There were too many guns in this fight, all on the wrong side, and Shayne went back under the truck. He saw running feet, a masked face, a gun.
He struck his shoulder painfully against the hump of the axle as he rolled. Another gun went off somewhere else, and the figure looking in at Shayne pitched sideward, making a hurt sound. A hand came down and pulled him to his feet. Shayne counted legs. He got to five. There must have been one more he missed.
He pulled around, seeing movement in another direction, and saw a bicycle wheel. Frieda was back. He waited for her to find him.
The others were moving away. After a time, she called his name softly. Crawling out, he went toward the sound. They met at the wrecked car.
“Three of them. You hit one. Where the hell are the cops?”
“Coming.”
Taking her hand, he pulled her to the payloader. In the high cab, he started the engine but left the headlights off, and picked up the transmitter.
His own words came rushing back at them from all sides. “Give up. There’s no way you’ll get out of this. Give up.”
“I’m impressed,” Frieda said when silence returned. “Why aren’t they?”
“I heard them say they killed somebody. So they’re going to try to get by us. What happened with Gold?”
“I couldn’t stop him, Mike. He went straight through the barrier. Caved in the whole front end, but he kept going.”
“Here they come,” Shayne said, bringing up the lights. “Give them a couple of shots to keep their heads in.
Shayne had guessed the direction wrong. The payloader had four gears in reverse. He started at the top of the range instead of the bottom and stalled. The other vehicle, a light-duty tow truck, was headed away from the highway. Shayne came about and ran up quickly through the forward gears. The tow truck hit a swinging gate and went through without slowing.
“We won’t catch them in this,” Frieda said.
“I don’t see anything faster.”
He reversed and backed up to the control trailer. Inside, he turned on the lights and found the phone. He had to look up the number. After that, he listened to the phone ring for some time before a voice said, “Highway Patrol.”
“You got a call about a break-in at the Homestead construction site. They’re in a tow truck traveling east on a dirt road out of the interchange. The road’s not on the map. It must come out by the air base. Three people, and they’re armed.”
“The trouble is,” the voice said, “I already dispatched all the cars. They’re coming in from two sides. I know that road, but I couldn’t get anybody in there in time to cut them off. Who is this calling?”
Shayne replaced the phone slowly.
“No?” Frieda said from the doorway.
“Too late. But that’s all right. We know a couple of new things, and we have Canada.”
“We have Canada,” Frieda repeated. “What good does that do?”
“When he wakes up, he’ll think we’re the ones who kidnapped him. That opens up all kinds of interesting possibilities. Let’s get him out of here.”
Frieda went for the van while Shayne examined the Cadillac. The blows from the bucket had knocked the body out of square, and neither of the rear doors would open. Canada was firmly wedged between the two seats. He was giving off a strong smell of chloroform. Shayne was about to back out. Then he leaned all the way in and picked an empty syringe off the floor. He sniffed it. If Canada had been given a full load of this, he would be out for the rest of the night.
At first, Shayne considered getting a wrecker and taking the whole car. That would still leave the problem of getting the big man out somewhere else, so he swung the payloader into position, coming in at an angle with the bucket all the way down. The sharp front lip dug deep beneath one of the Cadillac’s rear tires. Shayne lifted straight up, flipping the big car over on its side. Then he raised the bucket, lowered it onto the car, and stepped up the downward pressure slowly, checking at intervals until the body was back in square. He unslung a long double chain and hooked it to the frame between front and rear doors. He lifted; the Cadillac came up easily, not exactly in balance. The door could be opened now, but Canada was still jammed. Shayne remembered a jerking technique which the operator had used to shake sticky materials out of the bucket. He swung the big car over a sand pile and jerked the lifting lever forward and back quickly, producing a powerful grating shake. The Cadillac danced and jangled at the end of the chain. After the second shake, Canada came tumbling out to a soft landing in the sand.
Shayne was getting the hang of. it now. He worked the lever again, dropping the bucket sharply, which dislodged the hook. The Cadillac, like a mouse tossed by a cat, flew through the air and ended up on the gravel bank. At that point, it had probably lost most of its resale value.
“A marvelous toy,” Frieda called up. “And we ought to be going, Mike.”
Shayne meanwhile had continued to improve on his original idea. He turned the bucket completely upside down, swung hard, and caved in one corner of the big equipment trailer, partially jarring it off its blocks. He worked the bucket edge into the opening and came back, peeling off one of the side panels. He tilted the bucket forward. Jumping down, he climbed into the trailer, which was brightly illuminated by the payloader’s headlights. He gutted it completely, throwing everything into the bucket-torches, jackhammers, welding machines, drills, hand tools, one huge payloader wheel and tire. Frieda had the van in position with the rear doors open. Shayne swung the bucket and tipped it all in.
Then he picked up Canada, getting a good deal of sand in the same bite. He tilted the bucket slowly. When Canada started to slide, Frieda guided him into the van.
The back of the van had two fitted bunks, a small stove, and a smaller ice chest. Shayne raised one of the bunks, moved the fat man underneath, and lowered the bunk again. The clutter of stolen equipment around him would keep him from rolling.
“Well, I don’t get it,” Frieda said, “but unless we want to meet those police cars on the highway-”
“We’re going out the back door.”
He pointed at the dirt road the others had used. At the gate, she paused briefly while Shayne looked at the lock. It had been clipped off with bolt cutters. They drove on. Seeing the first revolving light behind her, she braked sharply and cut her own headlights.
“You better drive, Mike,” she said after a moment. “I can’t see a thing.”
“I’ll lead you.”
He found a small pencil flash in the glove box. Jumping down, he set off at a fast walk. When they reached a line of trees, he came back in the van and she turned on the lights.
Almost at once, they came to the empty tow truck, abandoned at the side of the road.
“Here’s where they changed cars,” Shayne said. “Don’t stop. I want to be back on a paved road before they start talking about us on the shortwave.”
“Next time we rob a construction site,” Frieda said, “let’s take a payloader. They’d make lovely pets.”
With its heavy load, the van was giving them a surprisingly stable ride. Sometimes, even on pavement, it had a slight tendency to wander. The road gradually improved, skirting the Homestead Air Base, and came out on Route 1.