bike sped up, trying to gauge whether they could really get through the opening in time. He didn’t think so.
He hollered,
Incredulous, Joe looked over his shoulder to see the gate lock shut behind them. He hadn’t imagined what had just happened after all.
“How did you do that?” Joe asked Nate, but it sounded more like an accusation than a question.
“Don’t know,” Nate yelled back. “I just opened up all the way and closed my eyes.”
The taillights they’d been following were less than 200 yards ahead of them now. The vehicle had slowed and was swinging into a parking lot outside the front vestibule door of the power plant.
“Here,” Nate said, handing back his .454 to Joe. “You might need this to start blasting as we go. I think Robert might have seen us, and you know how he is.”
“Remember,” Joe said. “We need Stenko alive.”
And it was if someone had flipped on a switch for the sun. Joe, Nate, and the bike were bathed in brilliant white light. They hadn’t heard the helicopter coming because of the whine of the dirt bike engine.
“Not us, you idiots!” Joe yelled, looking back into the blinding lights and pointing ahead of them with the muzzle of Nate’s .454. “Put the light on Stenko and Robert! They’re up ahead of us!”
And thinking what a bad idea it was to be waving a handgun in the air at an FBI chopper that had already gunned down a man just that morning who did the same exact thing . . .
ROBERT SAID, “Shit. They’re all over us.”
Although the spotlight had yet to find them in the parking lot, it was bright enough behind them to illuminate the few rows of cars and trucks that belonged to the midnight shift. Instead of parking the car, Robert killed his lights and roared forward across a small lawn toward the front doors.
He said to Stenko, “That helicopter is going to find us any second, Dad, and I see flashing lights out on the road coming from town!
But Stenko wouldn’t move. He slumped against the passenger window, his cheek pressed to the glass. His eyes were wide open, but without expression. Robert saw the open empty morphine bottles on the floor of the car, said, “Stupid old man,” and shoved Stenko in the arm hard, trying to wake him. Stenko’s head lolled back, his mouth open, a string of saliva like a slug trail connecting his upper and lower lips. The front doors of the vestibule were right outside his window now, and Robert braked.
“Ten steps, Dad,” Robert pleaded, his voice cracking. “
But Stenko refused to move, and he disappointed Robert once again.
Robert cursed and ripped the lanyard out of his father’s fist. He’d do it himself. Get inside, take the elevator to the top, and open the hatch to the hanging boilers. But he wouldn’t jump in. Opening the hatch would do enough damage. Robert had his life and his mission still ahead of him. What good would it do anyone to become a martyr for the cause? He wasn’t like his old man, after all.
He threw open the door and bounded up the front steps, rejoicing that the spotlight on the helicopter hadn’t found him yet. As he approached the vestibule, he looked over his shoulder and saw the beam flashing over the cars in the parking lot like the vengeful eye of a Cyclops.
He swiped the key card, and a red light on the box switched to green. But the door didn’t give when he yanked on it. That’s when he saw the dial pad on the side of the lock box and the LED display that flashed ENTER THREE- DIGIT CODE. Damn that Lucy, he thought. She hadn’t mentioned a code.
He said to no one in particular, “Fucked again!
The night was suddenly incredibly loud and obtrusive. There was the thumping of the blades from the helicopter that still hadn’t located him, the sirens of every cop car in Rangeland bearing down on the power plant, and a high whine getting higher by the second.
When he keyed “6-6-6” he heard the lock click open.
As he reached for the handle he looked over his shoulder and saw the bike coming straight at him from the parking lot. The driver wore a war helmet and had blond hair streaming behind. Instead of slowing down for the three concrete steps to the vestibule landing, the bike veered to the right toward a handicap ramp incline and then sped up. Someone dropped off the back of the machine and rolled away. And before he could untangle his pistol from his shirttail, his vision was suddenly filled with an extreme close-up of a muddy, knobbed tire . . .
JOE ROLLED TO HIS BELLY and looked up as Nate shot up the stairs and jumped the bike full speed into Robert standing in front of the glass doors as if pausing before he entered. The impact made a fat hollow sound followed immediately by broken glass as Robert’s body was hurled through the vestibule into the reception area inside. Both Nate and the bike lay in heaps on the landing. The alarm system in the power plant whooped, and emergency lights on the walls flashed.
Getting his legs under him, Joe stood up uneasily in the grass. He brushed gravel and dust off his shirt and spit a pebble out of his mouth. Nate’s gun was near his feet, and he picked it up and cocked it.
Inside the building, he could see the soles of Robert’s splayed shoes on the floor. Robert was flat on his back and not moving. As Joe approached, he saw the blood—rivers of it running across the marble floor from gaping, pulsing holes in Robert’s throat, neck, and groin where he’d been slashed by the broken glass. The distinct impression of a motorcycle tire could be seen on Robert’s face, which was dented in. His pistol had been thrown to the far side of the room and was under a chair, well out of his reach.
“Is he dead?” Nate asked, scrambling to his feet and standing shoulder to shoulder with Joe on the landing.
