Gideon’s Sword

It confirmed a key fact: the roof would support the weight of a man.

He approached the back corner of the shed, where the bricks had tumbled, leaving a hole. One quick darting move and he was through the hole, inside the shed. The two loaders glowed bright green in his goggles.

Keeping flat against the rear wall, he crept up to the closest Cat, reached up and eased open the cab door, which had been left ajar. With one quick movement he swung himself up and ducked inside, silently closing the door.

The key was in the ignition.

He checked his watch: Mindy had now been in place for at least ten minutes.

Time for round one. He set the controls, placed his hand on the key, and turned the ignition.

The machine sprang to life with a deep-throated rumble. Very good. It had an easy joystick control that almost any idiot could use, or so the literature claimed. He quickly lowered the stabilizers and raised the loader bucket into a vertical position, above the cab, as protection against what was about to happen. Then he activated the backhoe joystick controller and took a deep breath.

With a smooth movement of his fingers, he raised the massive quarter-ton bucket fast and hard, like a man pumping his fist over his head. It struck the inside of the roof with a crash, bucking it upward with a groan of rotten timbers and a shower of water. For a moment it seemed as if the whole roof would come off; then the bucket punched up through the rotting timbers and rusted tin and the roof slammed back into position with a crash, showering him with debris.

With another violent motion he jammed the bucket sideways, the boom tearing a long hole in the roof. Then he retracted it, closing the bucket on a roof beam and pulling down hard. Everything came crashing down: rotten timbers, boards and twisted pieces of corrugated tin, along with a gush of water. A couple of wild pistol shots clanged off the loader bucket, indicating he had guessed exactly right: Nodding Crane had taken position on the roof of the shed, where he not only commanded a bird’s-eye view of the burial field and the trenches, but also could fire on anyone coming for the backhoes.

Without hesitation Gideon folded the boom into traveling position, raised the stabilizers, jammed the shift into forward, and drove the machine out onto the field, swinging the loader rearward to form a shield against small-arms fire. Almost immediately, a fusillade of shots ricocheted off the back of the loader, ringing it like a bell, but protecting Gideon inside the cab.

The bastard must’ve gotten the surprise of his life when the backhoe punched through the roof. A damn shame he hadn’t broken his neck. But it proved Nodding Crane wasn’t the invulnerable, all-seeing killing machine Garza had described.

Gideon drove the backhoe across the muddy field at full throttle. The fire from behind grew more accurate, bullets snapping through the roof of the cab, spraying him with plastic and insulation. He crouched low, driving blind as more bullets blew holes in the windshield. The loader couldn’t provide one hundred percent cover.

He ducked up briefly to check his position, saw he was almost there. Two more bullets went past, one practically parting his hair. Another moment — and then Gideon halted the machine, flung open the door, and jumped out, taking a flying leap from the edge of the trench and falling over the lip. He tumbled down and landed in a wallow of mud and water at its bottom, then scrabbled back up to the rim, sweeping the field with his night vision. The shooting had finally stopped.

He had possession of the trench; Mindy had not yet revealed herself; his adversary had miscalculated and—​with any luck—​might even be hurt.

A feeling of something like euphoria swept over Gideon. So far, he was kicking Nodding Crane’s ass.

65

He turned his attention to the exposed wall of boxes. Down here in the trench, he was safe from fire — and Mindy, he hoped, was in position in the trees, ready to take down Nodding Crane if he tried to advance over the field. Nevertheless, there was no time to waste. He pulled off the goggles, stuffed them in his backpack, do

He examined the numbers of the top row: 695-1078 MSH, 695-1077 SLHD, 695-1076 BGH. He thought: 1076 minus 998 equals 78. So Wu’s legs would be seventy-eight boxes back. A quick glance told him the number he was looking for wasn’t in the exposed row of boxes. He yanked a pickax out of his pack and swung it at a box at the bottom of the row, piercing it with the point. Prying the box from the wall, he caused the entire row to come toppling down with a crash, many of the boxes breaking open, decaying arms and legs flying everywhere, tags fluttering. The stench rose up like a wet fog.

The collapse of the front row exposed the next wall of coffins. He examined them with the light but most were covered with mud, the numbers obscured. He began wiping them off, one at a time, and examining the numbers.

As he worked, he suddenly heard an ominous sound: the second backhoe firing up. That was when he realized his mistake: he had left the keys in the other machine.

A roar told him the backhoe was out of the garage and coming down the field at full speed.

He put on the goggles and scrambled back up to the lip of the trench. The second backhoe was approaching, mud flying, wheels churning, bucket raised like the stinger of a scorpion. Nodding Crane had positioned the loader in front as a shield, using it just as Gideon had.

He had perhaps a minute before it arrived.

There was only one thing to do. Grasping a root at the edge of the trench, Gideon pulled himself out and scrambled into his own backhoe, still idling nearby. A volley of bullets tore through the cab as he lowered the loader, protecting him but blinding him at the same time.

He adjusted the loader so he could just see the top edge and then headed directly for the other backhoe, throttle shoved in forward, twenty tons of steel lumbering down the muddy field. He jammed his backpack on the accelerator, keeping it floored, so he could stand up and lean out with his Beretta, squeezing off a few shots. But his shots weren’t accurate and the rounds clanged harmlessly off the shovel of the approaching Cat. They were closing fast on a collision course, each moving twenty miles an hour. Nodding Crane returned fire with his more accurate weapon, sending Gideon scrambling back for cover.

They were now fifteen, maybe twenty seconds from collision. Gideon braced himself for the impact, frantically buckling himself in, his mind calculating a hundred possible responses to follow.

The collision came with a tremendous jolt, a deafening clash of steel against steel, throwing him forward, buckling his cab and shattering the already-holed windshield. He instantly threw the machine into reverse, backing and turning frantically as he fingered the joystick controller. Nodding Crane was doing the same with his backhoe, the wheels churning as he maneuvered into position.

Gideon extended the boom and, wielding the backhoe bucket like a club, pivoted it sideways at the other machine’s cab; the quarter-ton piece of steel swung around with a whine of hydraulics. But Nodding Crane anticipated the move, raising his own backhoe to block it, and the two booms struck each other with a violent, deafening crash.

The blow knocked Gideon’s backhoe sideways, spraying hydraulic fluid, and almost immediately a fusillade of shots tore through his cab. One struck the Kevlar vest that covered his chest, kicking him back, knocking his wind out.