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Caine ducked involuntarily as, with a sleet of thrown gravel, their car spun around and raced for the road. "Damn!" he spat, jumping to his feet and hurling a shuriken toward the nearest tire with all the power he could muster. But the clouds of dust and wild fishtailing worked against him, and over the noise he heard a thunk as the star hit somewhere in the car's bodywork.
"What the hell?" Pittman panted from behind him.
"I guess he was farther along at getting it started than I thought," Caine said grimly. All their supplies, everything but the emergency packs they had with them—all of it gone. Damn! "Come on," he said as the others came up, "let's get moving. If Security doesn't have reinforcements already on the way, they will soon."
"Which car do we take?" Braune asked, already moving to obey.
"Both," Caine told him. "You and me in the Security car, everyone else in the other. Pittman, you drive. And you go first—we may need to pretend that we're chasing you."
Both sets of keys were in the appropriate starter locks, and half a minute later they were roaring down the road back toward Denver. "What do we do if Security sends more cars or aircraft against us?" Braune asked, his voice studiously casual. "It's a fair distance back to Denver."
"True." Caine's lips felt dry. "But remember that they've presumably got some distance to come, too.
The guys in this car were probably just patrolling and happened upon a suspicious group near—"
A blare from the car's radio interrupted them. "Car Em-Jay Forty-six, what is your mark-fourteen?
Repeat, your mark-fourteen?"
"What the hell is a mark-fourteen?" Braune muttered.
"I don't know," Caine shot back. "Situation code, probably." Gritting his teeth, he pulled the slender microphone from its clip. "Car Em-Jay Forty-six," he said, hoping the noise of tires on pavement would disguise his voice enough to get by. "Tailing possible smuggling suspects east on one-onenine.
Request all units stay clear of area to avoid spooking them."
A new voice came on the line. "Do you require air backup, Em-Jay Forty-six?"
"Negative," Caine said.
"What happened with the mark-twenty-one?"
The confrontation by the road? "No problems," Caine said, feeling sweat gathering on his forehead.
The longer this conversation went on, the better the chance he'd say something so far out of normal parlance that they'd tumble to the charade.
"Okay. Mark-four, Em-Jay Forty-six. Stay on it."
"Smugglers?" Braune asked as Caine replaced the mike.
"Best I could come up with on the spur of the moment," Caine told him. "I'm not at all sure he bought it, though. Better signal the others to watch for company."
Braune nodded and reached for his tingler.
—
They'd covered perhaps half of the thirty kilometers back when the reaction finally came.
It came from both air and ground, and was clearly more than simply a routine check. Rounding a gentle curve, Caine caught a glimpse of a Security car parked sideways three hundred meters ahead, directly in front of one of the short tu
"Have Pittman drop back; I'm passing," Caine snapped to Braune, swinging into the other lane and leaning hard on the accelerator. Once, Lathe had demonstrated that Security cars on the planet Argent were routinely built tough; Caine hoped to hell that pattern held here, too.
Ahead, the Security men grouped behind their car suddenly realized what he was intending, and laser flashes lanced ineffectively out as they tried to fire while dashing madly for cover. Caine aimed toward the rear of the blocking car and braced himself... and with a horrendous crash they were past and into the relative safety of the tu
"Signal the others to pull over," he told Braune, confirming via mirror that the second car had successfully followed them through the ruined roadblock. "When we get out, check the trunk and see if we've got anything heavy enough to take out that spotter."
A moment later the cars were side by side in the darkness. "We've got to lose that air cover," he told the others through their side window as Braune rummaged in the Security car's trunk. "If I remember the road properly, there's another tu
Somewhere in that open area or in the next tu
Before anyone could answer, the tu
Alamzad said tightly. "We're going to be up to our necks in Security men in a minute if we don't get moving."
"Yeah. Braune? Anything?"
"Couple of standard laser rifles," the other reported, lifting them out. "Nothing that'll take out an aircraft."
"Not easily, anyway," Caine gritted. "Alamzad—did you get a good look at that spotter? It looked like a standard prewar TDE design to me."
"Yeah," Alamzad agreed. "A Hap-Kien Two-oh-something, I think. Heavy shielding on sides and belly for laser defense."
"Has it got any weaknesses?" Pittman put in.
Alamzad shrugged helplessly as another burst of laser fire flicked at them. "All I can think of are the two intake grates on top, just beside the canopy. If we can get a clear shot at those, we might be able to disable the thing."
"Close enough," Caine said. "All right, here's what we'll do—and we'll hope whoever it is has normal reflexes. Get your gloves, battle-hoods, and goggles on while I talk."
He outlined his plan briefly, cut off all attempts at protest, and in a fresh flurry of laser blasts they piled into the cars and spun off toward the end of the tu
Caine, alone in the now-battered Security car, took the lead, leaning on the accelerator as hard as the unfamiliar road would permit. The end of the tu
And the waiting spotter shot across his path.
He ignored the obvious warning, pushing his speed up a bit more. The road made a gentle curve to the right through a jagged cut in the mountain; ahead, the mouth of the next tu
And abruptly his left arm was awash in laser fire.
Another warning, clearly; the shirt blackened but the flexarmor beneath it took the blast without trouble. Gritting his teeth, Caine kept going, hoping they wouldn't switch intensities before he reached the relative safety of the tu
The laser beam cut off as the pilot pulled out of his collision course with the mountain ahead, and in almost the same instant the darkness of the tu
The knife blade flickered with reflected light in his peripheral vision as he sprang it from its forearm sheath and leaned over as far as he could without losing control of the car. The accelerator was of the piezoelectric pressure type; jabbing the tip of the blade into the center console, Caine wedged the haft onto the plate. The car's speed faltered, then stabilized as he got the brace in position.
Straightening up, he glanced out the side window to see the other car had caught up and was pacing his a meter away. Ahead, the tu
Pulling out a shuriken, Caine wedged it into the gap between steering wheel and column. Then, in a single motion, he swung open his door and jumped.
Braune and Colvin, in the front and rear seats on that side of the other car, were ready. Caine's outstretched arms came in through the open window and were caught instantly by the two men.
Bracing his feet against the side of the car, Caine clenched his teeth as Pittman tromped on the brakes. The Security car shot on ahead into the sunlight... and as Pittman brought them to a skidding halt the tu