a few topographical features — as well as Federal Highway 93.
When Valerie didn’t hesitate before turning east on the highway, Spencer said, “Why not west?”
“Because there’s nothing in that direction but Nevada badlands. First town is over two hundred miles. Warm Springs, they call it, but it’s so small it might as well be Warm
“So where are we headed?”
“It’s several miles to Caliente, then ten more to Panaca—”
“They don’t sound like metropolises, either.”
“Then we cross the border into Utah. Modena, Newcastle — they aren’t exactly cities that never sleep. But after Newcastle, there’s Cedar City.”
“Big time.”
“Fourteen thousand people or thereabouts,” she said. “Which is maybe all the bigger we need to give us a chance to slip surveillance long enough to get out of the Rover and into something else.”
The two-lane blacktop featured frequent subsidence swales, lumpy patches, and unrepaired potholes. Along both shoulders, the pavement was deteriorating. As an obstacle course, it provided no challenge to the Rover — though after the jolting overland journey, Spencer wished the truck had cushier springs and shock absorbers.
Regardless of the road condition, Valerie kept the pedal down, maintaining a speed that was punishing if not reckless.
“I hope this pavement gets better soon,” he said.
“Judging by the map, it probably gets worse after Panaca. From there on, all the way into Cedar City, it’s just state routes.”
“And how far to Cedar City?”
“About a hundred and twenty miles,” she said, as though that was not bad news.
He gaped at her in disbelief. “You’ve got to be kidding. Even with luck, on roads like this — roads worse than this! — we’ll need two hours to get there.”
“We’re doing seventy now.”
“And it feels like a hundred and seventy!” His voice quavered as the tires jittered over a section of pavement that was as runneled as corduroy.
Her voice vibrating too, she said, “Boy, I hope you don’t have hemorrhoids.”
“You won’t be able to keep up this speed all the way. We’ll be getting into Cedar City with that hit squad right on our ass.”
She shrugged. “Well, I’ll bet people around there could use some excitement. Been a long time since last summer’s Shakespeare Festival.”
At Roy’s request, the magnification had been increased again to provide a view equivalent to the one that they would have had if they really had been two hundred feet above the target. Image enhancement became more difficult with each incremental increase in magnification — but fortunately there was enough additional logic-unit capacity to avoid a further processing delay.
The scale of the wall display was so much larger than before that the target rapidly progressed across the width, vanishing off the right-hand edge. But it reappeared from the left as Earthguard projected a new segment of territory that lay immediately east of the one out of which the target had driven.
The truck was rushing east, instead of south as before, so the angle now revealed some of the windshield, across which played reflections of sunlight and shadow.
Roy Miro stared at the wall display, trying to make up his mind whether to bet the bank that the suspect vehicle contained at least the woman, if not also the scarred man.
Occasionally he glimpsed dark figures within the Rover, but he couldn’t identify them. He couldn’t even see well enough to be sure how many people were in the damn thing or what sex they were.
Further magnification would require long, tedious enhancement sessions. By the time they were able to obtain a more detailed look inside that vehicle, the driver would have been able to reach — and get lost in — any of half a dozen major cities.
If he committed men and equipment to stopping the Range Rover, and if the occupants proved to be innocent people, he would forfeit any chance of nailing the woman. She might break cover while he was distracted, might slip down into Arizona or back into California.
To justify going after the Rover, a lot of assumptions had to be made, with little or no supporting evidence. That Spencer Grant had survived when his Explorer had been swept away in a flash flood. That somehow he had been able to alert the woman to his whereabouts. That she had rendezvoused with him in the desert, and that they had driven away together in her vehicle. That the woman, realizing the agency might resort to orbital-surveillance resources to locate her, had gone to ground early Saturday, before the cloud cover dissipated. That this morning she had broken cover, had started up-linking with available surveillance satellites to determine if anyone was still looking specifically for her, had been surprised by the trace-back program, and had just minutes ago begun to run for her life.
That was a series of assumptions long enough to make Roy uneasy.
“Too damn fast for the roads in that area,” Ken Hyckman said. “It’s her, and she’s scared.”
Saturday and Sunday, Earthguard had discovered two hundred sixteen suspect vehicles in the designated search zone, most of which had been engaged in off-road recreation of one kind or another. The drivers and passengers eventually had gotten out of their vehicles, been observed either by satellite or chopper overflight, and proved not to be Grant or the woman. This might be number two hundred seventeen on that list of false alarms.
On the other hand, this was the best suspect they’d had in more than two days of searching.
And ever since Friday afternoon in Flagstaff, Arizona, the power of Kevorkian had been with him. It had brought him to Eve and had changed his life. He should trust in it to guide his decisions.
He closed his eyes, took several deep breaths, and said, “Let’s put a team together and go after them.”
“Yes!” Ken Hyckman said, punching one fist into the air in an annoying, adolescent expression of enthusiasm.
“Twelve men, full assault gear,” Roy said, “leaving in fifteen minutes or less. Arrange transport from the roof here, so we don’t waste time. Two large executive choppers.”
“You got it,” Hyckman promised.
“Make sure they understand to terminate the woman on sight.”
“Of course.”
“With extreme prejudice.”
Hyckman nodded.
“Give her no chance—
“To give you the quality of satellite look-down you’ll need in the field,” Hyckman said, “we’ll have to remote- program Earthguard to alter its orbit temporarily, nail it specifically to that Rover.”
“Do it,” Roy said.
TWELVE
By that Monday morning in February, Captain Harris Descoteaux, of the Los Angeles Police Department, would not have been surprised to discover that he had died the previous Friday and had been in Hell ever since. The
