“What are they doing?” Grant said.
“Making a mistake,” Locke said.
The dump truck rolled forward, crushing the hoods of both vehicles into an origami of steel. The men beside the cars dove out of the way.
Locke pulled even with the 200-ton behemoth, trying to find a way on board, when he heard the clatter of an AR-15. Bullets tore into the hood, and steam and oil spurted up, coating the windshield. The engine sounded like it was grinding itself to pieces.
Locke pounded his fist on the dashboard and pulled to a stop. The Jeep was destroyed. No way could they follow in it. He watched the gigantic truck as it rolled toward the hurricane security fence, which it would rip through like a damp Kleenex.
Locke threw open the door and got out. They needed a vehicle, but the nearest ones were back at the hangar more than a quarter mile away. By the time they ran back there to get another car, the truck would be long gone.
Grant, who was on the other side of the punctured hood, pointed at something past Locke’s head. “Tyler, behind you.”
Locke whirled to see the wide-eyed stares of five people who had been testing the Tesla sports car. Next to them was a trailer, but he didn’t see their service vehicle. He recognized one of the men, who stood there slack-jawed.
“Del, where’s your Jeep?” Locke said.
“Fred used it to go get us some lunch,” Del said.
Then Locke’s eyes settled on the Tesla.
“Del, Grant and I are going to borrow your car.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
“You drive,” Locke said to Grant. “Let’s toss the targa.”
The Tesla had a removable targa roof, and Locke knew the only way to catch the men in the Liebherr was to get aboard it too, which would be easier if he didn’t have to climb through the Tesla’s window. He flipped a couple of latches, and Grant did the same. Then they picked up the roof section and pitched it backwards where it clattered to the ground.
Grant squeezed himself into the driver’s seat and punched the accelerator even before Locke had his door closed. Except for the squealing of tires and high-pitched whine of the electric motors, the car was eerily silent, which made the roar of the lumbering dump truck even louder.
Locke hated to see the truck damaging his beloved TEC. The Liebherr plowed its way across the dirt obstacle course, mowing down everything in its path. Even concrete and steel was no match for the huge truck. Once it got out of the TEC, no one would be safe, and there would be virtually no way to stop it.
Locke remembered a few years back in San Diego when a psychotic had stolen a tank from a National Guard armory. Although the tank’s gun was disabled, the impregnable vehicle rampaged through city streets at a stately 20 miles per hour, dozens of police cars following. There was nothing anyone could do. It destroyed homes, cars, RVs, telephone poles. The police had been reduced to watching the destruction, hoping the tank would run out of gas. The only reason the rampage stopped was because the driver stranded the tank on a concrete median. It was only then that police could assault the tank and kill the driver.
This was worse. That tank was a slow, Vietnam-era M60. Maybe 50 tons. The Liebherr 282 B weighed four times that, was 25 feet tall, and could reach a top speed of 40 mph. Nothing short of a precision-guided bomb would be able to stop it.
This escape couldn’t be the hijackers’ original plan. It was too noisy and dangerous. They wanted something from the Hayden wreckage, but for some reason they weren’t able to sneak it through the TEC front gate. The intruders had seen the Liebherr, and going through the gate would be unnecessary if they could steal the dump truck.
Whatever the hijackers had was worth an awful risk to obtain. That meant Locke needed to get it back.
The local police would already be on their way to track the truck by helicopter. There was no possibility the truck would be able to slip away. But Locke thought the hijackers would know that and have some kind of escape plan. In the meantime, there was a 200-ton truck under Gordian’s responsibility that was about to blast through suburban Phoenix.
Because the Tesla was a low-slung sports car, it wasn’t able to take the direct path that the Liebherr had taken. It made up for the difference with speed and handling. Grant steered it onto the smoother parts of the dirt course, careful to avoid the rubble the truck was creating.
Up ahead, the Liebherr had reach the oval track and ran across it. It bounced up a twenty-foot-high berm — built so that curious photographers couldn’t spy on track testing — and then dropped over the other side. The truck was so tall that he could still see part of it above the top of the berm. Then it reached the outer fence. Thirty yards of hardened steel mesh were torn apart and flew up and over the truck.
They had at best two minutes before the truck reached a populated area. They couldn’t follow over the berm, so Grant sped through the tunnel.
Locke got on the walkie-talkie.
“Open the gate immediately! Grant Westfield and I are in the red car. Do not shoot! Acknowledge!”
“Who is this?” came the response.
“This is Tyler Locke! Repeat, do not shoot at the red car! That’s an order!”
“Yes, sir!”
The Tesla shot out of the tunnel, and the gate was ahead, still sliding open. Grant didn’t let up on the accelerator. Locke grimaced as they whizzed through the gate, missing it by inches.
Grant wrenched the wheel around and aimed for the bright yellow dump truck, which was now a half mile ahead. There was no chance they would lose it. It was like watching a McDonald’s restaurant suddenly take off and barrel down the road.
The Tesla quickly reached 100 mph. Within 30 seconds, they caught up with the Liebherr. Looming ahead was the first sign of civilization, a warehouse district outside of Deer Valley. The truck showed no signs of slowing down.
Police cars were now following, their sirens blaring, and the few cars in front of them scattered at the sight of the approaching behemoth. Locke used his cell phone to tell the police to stay back. He didn’t want any more crushed cars, and there was nothing the police could do. Armed with pistols and shotguns, they couldn’t damage the truck in any significant way. It would take a bazooka to make a dent in the truck’s 12-foot-diameter tires. And the engine itself weighed 20,000 pounds. Bullets would just bounce off. It would take a miracle to hit anything vital.
Grant pulled up behind the truck.
“We need to stop it,” Locke said.
“You do realize that it outweighs us by about 398,000 pounds,” Grant said. “I can’t exactly run it off the road.”
“That’s why I need to get on it.”
Locke would rather just hold back and follow safely behind, but the thought of innocent bystanders getting killed by a truck that was in Gordian’s hands made him sick. If it crashed through a mall, the casualties would be horrendous.
He wouldn’t have to take out the driver. The Liebherr’s engine bay was exposed on both sides for ease of maintenance. Halfway up the right-side stairway, he could access the engine and shut the truck down. Then when it came to a halt, he’d let the police take over.
The driver’s accomplice was the biggest problem. Locke would have to disable the gunman so that he wouldn’t be shot while tinkering with the engine.
Locke told Grant his plan.
“You are nuts,” Grant said.
“Can’t argue with that,” Locke said.
“But that’s what I like about you. No fear.”
Locke glanced at Grant and gave him a wry grin. “None whatsoever. Now let’s do this before I come to my senses.”
Grant accelerated until he was next to the rear wheels. There was little chance that the Liebherr would be able to swing over and crush the nimble Tesla, especially with Grant driving, but Locke braced himself for that possibility anyway.
Instead, the second gunman leaned over the platform that surrounded the cab and looked out over both sides of the truck. He aimed the AR-15 and let loose a volley. B
ullets pinged off the ground around the Tesla, and Grant fell back behind the truck out of the gunman’s sight.
“Now what?” Grant said. “With those huge rear-view mirrors, they can see which side we’re coming up on.”
“Then let’s take care of those mirrors.”
On each side of the Liebherr, there was a mirror the size of an end table. It allowed the driver, who sat in the cab in the middle of the truck, to back up to the massive loaders that fill the bed with ore. With one man driving, the other hijacker would have to cover both sides with the AR-15. The driver must be directing him as to which side the Tesla was approaching.
Locke took the Glock out of its holster, glad that he’d brought it with him on this trip. When he nodded, Grant gunned the engine and pulled around to the left side. The gunman was out of sight, and before he could move to their side, Locke popped up and squeezed off six rounds at the mirror. Two bullets hit, disintegrating it.
The gunman appeared and trained his weapon on them, but Grant was already pulling around the back of the truck to the right side. Locke put another six shots into the right mirror.
“Nice shootin’, Tex,” Grant said.
The driver was now blind to what was behind him. They’d have a 50/50 shot at getting to the stairways at the front of the truck without being seen. At least it was better than no chance at all.
Grant whipped the Tesla around the left side and raced to the front of the truck, which crushed the rear ends of two cars crossing through an intersection as if the vehicles were made of balsa. Locke instinctively ducked under the debris flying over his head, and Grant barely missed colliding with one of the destroyed vehicles.
Locke loaded his only reserve magazine and replaced the pistol on his hip, readying himself for the jump to the stairs.
There were three stairways: one each on the left and right sides of the engine bay, and a third stairway that crossed the radiator diagonally from the right side at the top to the left just above the ground. The left-side and radiator stairways met at the bottom left corner of the engine block at a small platform.
The Tesla pulled even with the platform. If he were Catholic, this is when Locke would cross himself. Instead, he just muttered, “What am I doing?”
He leaped across the four-foot gap onto the platform and clanged onto the steel, grasping the railing so that he wouldn’t slip off. Not only would a fall at 40 mph result in a spectacular case of road rash, but he’d most likely be flattened by one of the truck’s tires.
He steadied himself and gave the thumbs up to Grant. He pulled out the Glock again and crept up the radiator stairway, air whistling past him into the howling engine. As planned, Grant wheeled the Tesla away to draw attention away from Locke.
It worked. The gunman sprayed another round of shots in Grant’s direction. When Locke reached the top, he saw the man leaning over the railing, looking toward the rear of the truck. He took aim to shoot the guy in the back. Not very sporting, Locke thought, but screw him. He made his choice when he killed those two deputies.
Before Locke could pull the trigger, the glass of the cab shattered, and bullets ricocheted off the metal around Locke, sending him ducking down the stairway. The driver was using his weapon to defend the cab.
The second gunman appeared at the top of the staircase. Locke got off a shot with his Glock, but the gunman knocked it out of his hand and over the side using the rifle’s muzzle. Locke grabbed hold of the man’s shirt, and they both tumbled down the stairs. In an effort to catch himself, the man let go of the AR-15, which fell over the railing.
As they rolled down the stairs, Locke desperately tried to slow himself, the image of those massive tires in his mind. He came to rest at the ground level landing and found himself on top of the gunman, who thrashed underneath him. Locke held him down, trying to get leverage either to knock the man unconscious or toss him off the truck. He didn’t care which.
Locke heard the beep of a car horn tooting. He looked up and saw Grant in the Tesla next to him yelling and pointing straight in front of him.
With his knees on the gunman’s chest, Locke twisted his head around and felt every muscle in his body tighten like guitar strings when he saw what Grant was pointing at. Locke was about to slam into a brick wall.
TWENTY-NINE
As soon as Locke’s head had appeared over the front of the cab platform, Cutter realized what had happened. Driving the Liebherr had been as easy as he thought it might be, and he had tasked Simkins with patrolling the perimeter of the platform to make sure no one got close enough to take pot shots at him in the cab.
The suitcase sat on the floor next to Cutter. He couldn’t destroy it back at the Gordian compound, which meant he’d had to steal it. The Liebherr had presented a unique possibility, and the plan had worked perfectly. He just needed to make sure he could get to his impromptu escape point before they could figure out a way to stop the truck. Once there, he could flee along with the crowds. If he was stopped before that, there would be no way off the truck without being spotted. He would be surrounded easily. He couldn’t let that happen.
With the mirrors, he had kept his pursuers at bay, using Simkins as his sniper. Locke had figured out how to thwart that tactic. Cutter had guessed it was only a matter of time before Locke tried something else.
Then he’d seen Locke’s face pop up. Simkins had rushed over without checking over the side and got surprised by Locke, who pulled Simkins down. Cutter had lost sight of them both. But he knew the stairs in front of the radiator went almost to the ground. If they were still on it, Cutter had an excellent way to take care of the problem.
Ahead was some kind of outdoor storage facility for a building supplier. Piles of bricks were stacked for shipping, each pile taller than the last and at least six feet thick.
All Cutter had to do was run into them. The truck would absorb the impact without even slowing down. Even if the stairs weren’t completely crushed, being hit by a ton of bricks would take care of Locke.
Too bad about Simkins, though. He was a good soldier, and he would die like one.
* * *
Grant, who kept the Tesla parallel to the dump truck, watched in horror as the Liebherr purposely approached the piles of bricks, spaced out at 50 foot intervals to allow forklifts to carry the brick pallets out. The first was 10 feet high, the one behind that 15 feet, and the third one twenty feet. He was certain the driver knew Locke was on the stairs.
He saw Locke get his warning. Locke kneed the man who had fallen down the stairs with him and scrambled up the radiator stairway. The gunman, still holding his midsection, was at the bottom of the stairs when the truck hit the first pile.
The hijacker was pulverized by the bricks, which also ripped apart the stairs just below Locke’s feet. He lost his footing for a moment, and Grant held his breath. Locke recovered and pulled himself up five more feet, out of the way of a second pile of bricks that exploded against the front of the truck, its hardened-steel radiator grill merely dented by the mass of bricks. Grant had seen him cheat death too many times to think Locke would fail now, but he still couldn’t believe his friend’s luck.
Locke leaped up to the top of the stairs just as the third pile wrenched the stairs loose from the top, and Grant was sure Locke was going to fall.
He blinked and saw that one bolt still held. Locke dangled from a piece of railing that jutted out in front of the engine. He was too far from the right side staircase to swing himself over. If he fell, it was twenty feet to the ground at 40 mph. Grant didn’t care how lucky Locke was, there would be no surviving that.
Grant had to help him somehow.
The Tesla started pinging. Grant looked at the instrument panel and saw the issue. The batteries of the all-electric car were almost out of juice. He could already feel it starting to slow down, which meant he had one chance to help Locke.
The Liebherr driver, probably thinking he’d killed Locke, had swung back onto the main road, trailed by a gaggle of police
cars, headed toward some unknown destination. He obviously felt impervious high up in that cab.
Grant forced the Tesla over in front of the truck, his foot jammed to the floor to keep the sports car from slowing down. He lined himself up under Locke, who was straining to keep hold.
The back of the Tesla was mere feet in front of the enormous truck. Locke’s feet swung high above Grant’s left shoulder. Grant couldn’t get close enough for Locke to land in the car’s passenger cabin. If Locke hit the trunk, he’d most likely bounce off and under the truck’s undercarriage. Grant would have to try something else, something even he thought was crazy.
He swung the Tesla so that it was alongside with the right-side stairway that went straight down to the bottom front of the truck. It had survived the battering by the brick piles. He hit the cruise control and took one final look ahead to make sure he had enough straight road. The adrenaline was flooding through him just like he was about to jump out of an airplane, except this was about 100 times more dangerous. He shouted at the top of his lungs to pump himself up.
He stood on the seat, stabilizing the steering wheel. Then in one fluid motion, Grant jumped up and leaped onto the Liebherr’s right-side stairway. He gave another shout for making it.
With the steering wheel uncontrolled, the Tesla swung left and disappeared under the truck’s massive wheels. Grant heard the crunch of smashed metal. The Tesla was gone.
He turned and saw Locke still hanging by two hands, but his grip seemed to be fading. Grant braced himself against the railing of the steeper right-side staircase and leaned out as far as he could stretch. Locke let go with one hand. They could just barely grab each other’s hands.
“On three!” Grant yelled. “One! Two! Three!”
He yanked Locke’s hand as Locke released his grip on the railing. He plunged down, and Grant reeled him in like a prize tuna. For a second, Locke’s feet bounced against the asphalt. Grant heaved and pulled him up.
The Ark tl-1 Page 18
