With a sudden burst of energy, he lunged forward and slammed the butt of the pistol into the back of the trooper’s hooded head. The blow was answered by a soft grunt and the blue-coated trooper crumpled across the passenger seat, unconscious. He shoved the legs in, shut the door, and moved around to the driver’s side. Shin got in and put the truck into gear. He took off down the road, as fast as he could. He was almost out of sight before he heard a voice on the radio.
“He got away in Wyatt’s truck! Suspect is fleeing south on the Parks in a trooper F250, license AST-198.”
“Where’s Wyatt?”
“She’s in the truck with him.”
Shin looked over at the unconscious trooper twisted uncomfortably in the seat next to him. He pulled the hooded head back and saw that it was indeed the face of a woman, Korean by her features.
“Excellent!” he said in his native tongue. “Looks like I have a good hostage.”
Two squad cars pulled up behind him, one in each lane, lights rotating. Shin pulled the truck into the center of the two lanes. Neither trooper could get in front of him. He accelerated to eighty miles per hour, following the curve of the road in the big truck.
The unconscious Trooper Wyatt slid down the seat into an even more uncomfortable position on the floor, facing back up toward Shin. Her limp body bounced like a ragdoll in the spacious cab of the truck as he sped over every bump and dip.
Chapter 44
Parks Highway
Hurricane Gulch
20 December
05:32 Hours
Marcus peered over the edge as PO3 Forth prepared to belay down the valley wall on a rope to verify that the man was actually dead, and if not, to find a trail to continue the chase of the North Korean commando. Forth had gotten about ten feet past the edge when a frantic voice sounded on the radio.
“He got away in Wyatt’s truck. Suspect is fleeing south on the Parks in a Trooper F250, license AST-198.”
Marcus shouted into his radio, “Where’s Wyatt?”
“She’s in the truck with him.”
Marcus raced back to the snowmobile, started it, and shot across the powdery white surface toward the waiting cruisers. As the machine came to a halt, he leaped off and ran to the nearest vehicle.
“Two are already after them!” shouted a nearby trooper sergeant. “We’ve also called the helicopter back, but it’s too cold for his engine. He wasn’t sure he could make it up here.”
Marcus looked around frantically, then said, “I’m taking one of your cruisers!”
The sergeant was about to protest, but Marcus had already run past him and jumped into the driver’s seat of one of the running police cruisers. In ten minutes he caught up to them as they passed through a seasonally deserted tourist town high in the mountains. The buildings stood high on the edge of a precipitous gorge along the banks of the Nenana River. During the summer, the river surged with class four and five rapids that roared into Denali National Park. Now, just like everything around it, the river lay in frozen silence deep in the canyon, hundreds of feet below the boarded-up hotels and shops that waited quietly until the surge of tourists returned in the spring.
Marcus followed on. A hundred yards ahead of his vehicle, one of the cruisers inched forward and nudged the big truck on the rear driver’s side corner. The driver of the truck was skilled, obviously well trained in defensive driving. He swung with the bump to avoid being knocked out of control.
The trooper attempted the maneuver again, this time with considerably more force. When the truck countered the bump again, the second patrol car quickly accelerated. It slammed into the corner on the rear passenger side of the truck sending it into a slide that brought the rear into a forty-five degree angle, straddling the lane lines. The truck driver corrected and pressed the accelerator hard.
The radio erupted with a voice. “Do that again and I will kill the lady Trooper! Do you understand?”
One of the troopers replied, “Pull the truck to the side of the road and get out now!”
There was no reply from the truck. With every part of his being, Marcus wanted to tell the troopers to stop, to keep from endangering Lonnie more. But any hint of weakness would embolden the driver of the truck.
For twenty years, Marcus had lived the policy of never negotiating with terrorists. If he tried to save Lonnie by giving in, thousands could die from the terrorist’s weapon of mass destruction.
The road suddenly opened wider as a broad shoulder expanded on both sides of the pavement. The patrol car on the left lunged forward with a burst of speed until he was parallel to the truck. The trooper attempted to slam sideways into the driver’s side front wheel. Before he made contact, the driver of the truck tapped the brakes. The sudden deceleration suddenly put the patrol car several feet in front of him.
Once the patrol car’s rear wheel was directly in front of the corner of the truck, the terrorist slammed hard to the left, smashing just behind the wheel well and sending the cruiser into an uncontrolled high-speed spin across the frozen pavement.
As the troopers vehicle spun three-quarters of a turn, the truck driver moved over to the left lane. He punched the accelerator again, this time smashing the front driver’s side fender hard enough to send the vehicle into a fresh spin. The Crown Victoria careened into the second patrol car that was still following.
