“But—”
“But nothing,” Tyler said, his eyes narrowed. “It’s a good plan, and probably our only hope, but you’re not the person to do it. You’re just not well enough. I’ll drive the Shelby.”
Vienna began to protest, but it turned into another coughing fit, and she collapsed back in her chair.
“Get her to a hospital,” Sam said to Wheeler. “She inhaled the dust in Vegas. See what they can do for her.”
Wheeler looked grave but nodded.
“Grab your stuff out of the Shelby,” Tyler said. “I’m gonna make tracks.”
“Tyler—” Dodge started.
“Don’t argue with me, Dodge,” Tyler said. “There’s no time, and you know it.”
“Thanks, Tyler,” Sam said, shaking his hand. “I …” He stopped, unsure of what to say.
“Don’t get dead,” Dodge said. “I’ll see you on the other side of this.”
Tyler grinned and ran his fingers through his hair, slicking it back. “See you on the flip side.”
He is a cool guy, Sam thought.
He walked over and kneeled down in front of Vienna as Tyler left. Her eyes were closed, but she opened them.
“Get out of here,” she rasped.
“We’re about to leave,” Sam said, picking up one of her hands with his. It felt limp and cold. “They’ll get you to a hospital. You’re going to be okay.”
With an effort, she rolled her eyes and shook her head.
“Sam, you’re such an egg,” she said.
The heavy, armored army Humvee felt more like a tank than a car.
Wheeler had spent a couple of minutes showing Sam how to use the automatic gears and the pedals. There was nothing to it, really.
Dodge was making some final modifications to the Plague virus, a power cable snaking from the laptop to the cigarette lighter on the dash.
They were only five minutes into their run when Wheeler came on the radio. “I just got word of a lot of activity happening up in Wyoming at the air force base,” he said. “Lot of soldiers getting loaded into transport choppers, attack choppers, the whole nine yards. Looks like they’re getting ready to hit something real hard.”
“Let’s hope they don’t find us,” Sam said into the radio.
“That ain’t the worst of it,” Wheeler said. “We have reports coming in that over in Missouri at the Whiteman Air Force Base, a lot of planes are getting prepped. Lot of bombs getting loaded. Looks like nukes.”
53 | DIVERSION
Tyler drove as though the devil was at his back.
The big engine of the Shelby growled like a wildcat as it ate up the highway east toward Kansas.
The road still groaned under the weight of the refugee traffic, but he was no longer concerned about being noticed and used the power of the big car to weave his way along the blacktop, veering onto the left side of the road for long stretches, as there was little oncoming traffic.
The farther he got, the more time he spent running, the better the chances that Dodge and Sam had of making it to Cheyenne.
Even close to Colorado Springs would be good enough, he thought, as Fort Carson would have thrown up a protective screen by now. If they could make it that far, they could probably make it all the way.
He scanned the sky constantly as he drove. Early warning of an attack might be his only chance.
He could dodge; he could weave. If it came to it, he could leap from the car and try to make a run for it.
Deep down, he knew that he had little to no chance of survival if they found him, when they found him. But there was no point in thinking like that.
The first hour of the journey was monotonous, uneventful, and fast. Sam drove and Dodge worked on the laptop.
They passed through a small town, Trinidad, at high speed, ignoring road signs and the startled glares from the people on the streets.
Sam caught a glimpse of one sign as they left the town behind them, curving around to the north: FREEDOM ROAD.
Somehow that seemed weirdly appropriate.
Other towns flashed by: Aguilar, Walsenburg.
But the trouble didn’t start until they got to Pueblo.
The radio suddenly went wild with shouted orders, the sound of heavy machine-gun fire, and the thunder of the rail guns on the Abrams tanks.
The airwaves were full of shouts and screams, and Sam could not tell what was going on or who was winning.
In front of them, the rumble of gunfire sounded above the engine and the radio, and flashes lit the horizon.
There was a long sustained period of heavy firing and a series of booming explosions; then the radio suddenly went quiet.
“That didn’t sound good,” Sam said.
“How far away are we?” Dodge asked.
“Less than an hour,” Sam said. “That’s just a guess, really.”
“This thing go any faster?” Dodge asked, turning back to his work.
“Only if it had wings,” Sam said.
• • •
The choppers came out of the south, just as Tyler passed the turnoff to Patterson Crossing. He saw them when they were still dark dots on the fading sky, and he knew what they were before they evolved into their menacing, wasplike shapes.
Helicopters—Apaches.
He stamped on the brakes and swung the car around the intersection, away from the constant stream of traffic on the highway.
Maybe at Patterson Crossing he could find somewhere to hide the Shelby: in a barn, behind a tree, anything.
Here, there was nothing but grassy scrub for miles on either side. Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide.
He urged the car forward, roaring toward the tiny town. They had found him. That was enough, wasn’t it?
That had created the diversion. Now if he could hide the car or just distance himself from it, he might survive after all.
He passed a couple of grain silos and briefly contemplated trying to hide behind them but dismissed the idea.
The Apache helicopters had him in their sights by now. The silos offered no protection.
A large building of some kind loomed to his right.
Perhaps if he could make that …
A flash in his rearview mirror. A smoke trail heading toward him from the first of the two choppers.
Tyler slammed on his brakes.
The rocket must have triangulated on the speed of the car, because it passed well over his head and impacted on the road in front of him, throwing up a storm of tarmac and dirt.
He slued the car to the side, narrowly avoiding the erupting crater, and swung back on the highway behind it.
Time to get out of the car now!