31
The tram moved slowly out of the station, passing another tram going in the opposite direction. Though it picked up speed until it was gliding over the rails at nearly thirty miles an hour, Pitt felt as if the tram were crawling and he wanted to get out and help push it. Stations designated in the letters of the alphabet came and went, each one met with their expectation of security guards flooding on board and seizing them. When the tram exchanged passengers at W Station, Pitt's hopes began to rise, but at X Station, their luck ran out.
Six black uniformed security guards boarded the end car and began checking the passengers' identification tags, which Pitt only now observed were carried on bracelets around their wrists. He cursed himself for not knowing earlier so he could have stolen the bracelets from the furniture movers. Too late, it occurred to him that the guards would make a special effort to search for people without them. He also noted that they seemed to be taking extra time to check any workers wearing red or yellow coveralls.
'They're working their way closer,' Giordino noted without emotion, as the guards entered the second car of the five-car tram.
'One at a time,' said Pitt, 'move casually to the first car.'
Without a word passing between them, Giordino went first, followed by Megan and then Pat, with Pitt bringing up the rear.
'We might make the next station before they reach this car,' said Giordino. 'But it's going to be close.'
'I doubt if we'll get off that easy,' Pitt said grimly. 'They'll probably be waiting there, too.'
He walked forward and peered through the window of the door leading to a small control cab in the front of the car. There was a console with lights, buttons, and switches, but no driver or engineer. The tram was fully automatic. He tried the door latch, but wasn't surprised to find it locked.
He studied the symbols and markings on the console panel. One in particular struck his eye. Gripping the Colt, he rapped the barrel against the glass window and shattered it. Ignoring the startled looks of the car's passengers, he reached inside and unlocked the door. Without the slightest pause, he reached out and moved the first of five toggle switches connected to the tram's electronic couplings. Next he reset the computer that actuated the speed of the tram.
The desired effect gave him a surge of pleasure. The four rear cars detached from the lead car and began to fall back. Though each car had its own power source, their preset speed was now slower than that of the forward car. The security guards could only contact other search teams and watch helplessly as the distances between the cars rapidly widened and their quarry gained a growing lead.
Four minutes later, the car with Pitt and the others swept past Y Station without stopping, to the frustration of a team of security guards and the dumb expressions of the workers who stood on the platform. Pitt felt as if his stomach were being squeezed by a cold hand, and his mouth felt as though it were stuffed with dry leaves. He was playing a desperate gamble, with the dice loaded against him. He glanced behind him into the car and caught sight of Pat, sitting with an arm around Megan's shoulder, one arm still clutching the attache case, her face pale and strangely sad and forlorn. He walked back and ran his hand through her streaming red hair.
'We'll get through this,' he said, with an air of conviction. 'Old Dirk will take you over the water and the mountains.'
She looked up and managed a faint smile. 'Is that a guarantee?'
'Ironclad,' he said, with a growing conviction inside him.
Half a minute passed. Pitt walked back into the control cabin and saw that they were approaching the marina at the stern of the ship. Up ahead, he could see the tracks begin their curve toward the marina, where the tram, he was certain, was supposed to stop at Z Station before continuing around the ship. He didn't need mystical powers to know security guards had reached the station platform first and were waiting to blast them with an arsenal of weapons.
'I'm going to slow the car to about ten miles an hour,' Pitt said. 'When I give the word, we jump. The edge of the tracks is planted with vegetation, so our landing should be fairly soft. Try to roll forward when you hit. At this point we can't afford to have anybody suffer a fractured ankle or leg.'
Giordino put his arm around Megan. 'We'll go together. That way you'll have lots of fat to cushion your fall.' It was a broad misstatement. Giordino didn't have an ounce of fat on his muscular body.
Pitt reset the controls and the car slowed abruptly. The instant the red numbers on the speed scale dropped to ten miles an hour, he yelled, 'All right, everyone out!'
He hesitated, making sure they all had leaped from the tram. Then he punched up the numbers until the dial read sixty miles an hour, before running from the cab to the door and jumping as the tram car quickly accelerated toward its fastest speed. He struck soft earth feet first before rolling with the momentum of a cannonball into a bed of ornamental bonsai trees, crushing their distorted branches and mashing them into the soil with his weight. He staggered to his feet, one knee protested in pain, but he was still capable of active movement.
Giordino was beside him, helping him regain his balance. He was relieved to see Pat and Megan, their faces clear of expressions of pain. They seemed more concerned with brushing the soil and pine needles from their hair. The tram had disappeared around the bend, but the stairway leading to the first pier was no more than fifty feet away, and no guards were nearby.
'Where are we going?' Pat asked, regaining a small measure of composure.
'Before we catch our plane,' answered Pitt, 'we have to take a little boat trip.'
He caught her by the arm and dragged her behind him, as Giordino hustled Megan along. They ran along the track until they reached the stairs leading down to Pier Number One. As Pitt suspected, the security guards had encircled the station at Z Section two hundred yards farther up the track in the center of the marina. Confusion reigned, as the tram car shot past the station and around the next bend on its way along the port side of the ship. The guards, completely deluded into thinking their prey was still hiding in the speeding car, hurriedly launched a pursuit, as the security director in command ordered the power circuits for the tram system to be closed down.
Pitt figured it would take them another seven minutes before the guards could reach the stopped car and realize that it was empty. If he and the others weren't off the ship by then, capture was a foregone conclusion.
None of the workers on the pier paid any attention to them as they calmly strolled down the steps and onto the pier. There were three boats moored between the first and second piers, a small twenty-four-foot sailboat, a vessel that Pitt recognized as a forty-two-foot Grand Banks cabin cruiser, and a twenty-four-foot classic runabout. 'Climb aboard the big powerboat,' said Pitt, walking placidly across the pier.
'I guess we're not going to retrieve our dive gear,' said Giordino.
'Pat and Megan could never make it back alive in the water. Better we take our chances on the surface.'
'The runabout is faster,' Giordino pointed out.
'True,' Pitt agreed, 'but the security force will be suspicious of a fast boat speeding away from the shipyard. The Grand Banks powerboat, cruising calmly across the water, won't create near the attention.'
There was a dockhand hosing down the deck when Pitt walked up and stopped at the gangway. 'Nice boat,' he said, smiling.
'Heh?' The dockhand looked at him, unable to understand English.
Pitt moved up the gangway and gestured at the no-nonsense lines of the Grand Banks 42. 'She's a nice boat,' he repeated, boldly stepping into the bridge cabin.
The dockhand followed him inside, protesting his trespass on the boat, but once they were out of sight of other workers on the pier, Pitt lashed out with his fist and decked him with a solid blow to the jaw. Then he leaned out the doorway and announced, 'Al, cast off the lines. You ladies, all aboard.'
Pitt stood for a moment and studied the instruments on the console. He turned the key and hit the twin starter buttons. Down below in the engine compartment, a pair of big marine diesel engines turned over, the fuel inside their firing chambers compressing and igniting to the tune of high-pitched clacking. He slid open the starboard window and peered out. Giordino had untied the fore and aft lines and was climbing on board.
Pitt engaged the reverse drive and very slowly began edging the boat away from the pier and backing it toward the open water twenty yards astern. He passed two dockworkers installing a railing around the pier, and
