Vehicles and given a bunch of munitions upgrades that made them even deadlier, but call them whatever you wanted, one of those swift automotive killing machines was highballing straight at him. He had no time to wonder who had launched it. The vehicle was fully manned and armed. That was enough for him to know his party was in desperate trouble.
He lowered the binocs, looked urgently around for cover.
Cerberus’s steep grade was banded by a thirty-foot zone of loose, pebbly scree. No protection on that side. A large block of stone heaving up out of the sand near the fractured left slope was their only bet.
Scarborough grabbed Bradley’s elbow. “We have to move, get to that outcrop.”
She eyed the oncoming assault vehicle, emitted a breathless gasp of confusion and horror. The LSV had almost reached them. Long kerchiefs of sand streamed back from its spinning tires. The crewmen wore crash helmets, face masks, snow goggles, and wind-resistant camouflage outfits that melted seamlessly into the terrain. Scarborough made the heavy weapon sandwiched between the antitank tubes on its roof as an M-2.50-caliber machine gun. The man in the gunner’s station was gripping its black metal handlebar triggers. In front of the passenger seat’s occupant was a pintle-mounted M-60 machine gun — smaller but no less capable of blowing a human being to bits and pieces.
“My God.” Bradley was frantic. “That car… Alan… the
His shouted warning finally snapped Payton out of his daze. Scarborough motioned him toward the outcrop and then broke for it, clinging to Bradley’s arm, half dragging her along at his side. A slight woman, she weighed about 115 pounds under the bulk of her packs and clothing, and would be unable keep pace without help.
Scarborough and Bradley had almost reached the big protuberance of rock, Payton trailing by a step or two, when their attackers opened fire. The rattle of the machine gun was deafening as its ammunition slapped the ground at their backs. Scarborough shoved Bradley behind the outcrop, dove after her, landed on his belly. He heard another crackle of gunfire on the other side, a grunt, and pushed himself to his knees, dirt spilling from his trouser legs. A hurried glance around the rock’s edge confirmed what he’d feared. Payton was sprawled on the ground, his garments ruptured with bullet holes, steam rising into the air from his wounds. There was blood on him, around him, everywhere.
Warm red blood flowing from his gaudy red coat into the parched-red cold-desert sand.
Scarborough dropped back into cover, looked at Bradley.
“You okay?” he whispered.
She stared at him wordlessly as if the question hadn’t registered. Then a shadow fell over their huddled forms. The LSV had jolted to a halt just beyond the rock, practically on top of them.
He reached out and gripped her arm again. “Are you okay?”
This time she nodded.
“Good,” he said. “Listen, Shevaun. We’ve got to surrender to these people.”
Bradley seemed astonished by the idea. She rejected it with a shake of her head.
“No, no, we can’t,” she said. “We don’t even know what they
“Doesn’t matter. We want to live.”
She hesitated. “Payton… did you see… is he…?”
“It’s too late for him.” Scarborough heard the LSV’s engine purring with soft, certain threat. “Giving ourselves up is our only chance. But I won’t make the call. We both need to decide this.”
She took a couple of sharp, agitated breaths.
Scarborough waited. He could hear the engine purring. It sounded like an eager jungle cat.
“All right,” she said. “I’m with you.”
He saw her start to tremble, reached out for her hand, held it. “When we stand up, put your arms above your head. And keep them there. Okay?”
Bradley nodded.
“Don’t let go of me,” she said. “I can do this. But don’t let go.”
Scarborough eased his head above the edge of the rock. The vehicle had stopped not five feet away, its crew facing him in impassive silence. Sunlight glinted off the four racked headlamps on its impact bar. He tried to keep his eyes off the machine guns positioned above them, off Payton’s limp body on the ground below. Tried to tunnel his gaze onto the man in the driver’s seat. He wasn’t sure he could continue suspending his panic otherwise.
“We’re American researchers!” he shouted. “We have no weapons!”
More silence except for the steady idling hum of the vehicle’s engine.
Scarborough swallowed past a lump in his throat. “Do you understand?
There was another tick of silence. Then the LSV’s driver turned to the man in the passenger seat, spoke to him in a language Scarborough didn’t understand, turned back toward the outcrop.
“Move away from the rock,” he said. His English was thickly accented. “Now.”
Scarborough looked at Bradley. He could feel her fingers pressing into his hand through its double layer of gloves, and tightened his own grip.
“Ready?” he asked her.
“Ready.”
The two of them rose, slowly, their arms raised high, his right hand still clutching her left. Then they stepped out from behind the outcrop.
“Stop where you are,” the driver said, studying them. “Turn toward me.”
They complied with his orders, hands linked above their heads, sharing their strength, their courage, facing their unknown attackers together.
That was the way they were standing when the man in the passenger seat trained the long black barrel of his machine gun upon them and also did precisely as he’d been ordered.
TWO
With its arctic-blue body, coral side coves, and beige vinyl interior, the ’57 Corvette roadster was the car of Pete Nimec’s dreams. A bolt of glorious inspiration captured in streamlined fiberglass and a classy flourish of chrome, delivering decisive 283 dual-four-barrel go without showoff extravagance. Just over six thousand of them had hit showroom floors across the USA, and just
A ’57 Corvette fuelie. Reconditioned to its original Chevrolet standards, including minor production-line imperfections. Probably worth upwards of a hundred, a hundred fifty thou, assuming you could find one for sale or auction.
And it was Nimec’s.
Which is to say, he owned it outright.
Owned it from the crossed-flag badge over its toothy front grille back to the big twin exhaust pipes at its tail. Owned it from the removable hardtop down to the wide whitewall tires. Owned it, his dream car, and by surprise no less, having received it at his condominium with a decorative red bow and handwritten note of appreciation taped to its wraparound windshield, an unexpected present from the man he admired most in all the world.
On any other morning, Nimec would have been in an unsinkable state of bliss. And he had been while driving to UpLink’s Rosita Avenue headquarters with his Wonderbar dash radio tuned to an oldies station, while pulling the ’Vette into his reserved underground parking slot, while riding the elevator to his office on the twenty-fifth floor.
But now that mood was heavy and flat, punctured by a single click of the mouse next to his computer.
He checked his watch as his telephone bleeped. Nine o’clock. Gordian would have already arrived at work.
