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Max looked up. It was as if the canal’s featureless rock walls reached the heavens. They dwarfed the ship, and, up ahead, the automobile and railroad bridges looked as light and delicate as girders from his boyhood Erector set.
The tramp freighter continued to charge through the canal, and, to Eric’s credit, he kept it dead center, using the Oregon’s athwartship thrusters with such delicacy that the flying bridges never once touched the side. Max chanced stepping out on one and walking all the way to the end. It was foolish and dangerous. If Eric made a mistake, a collision at this speed would tear the platform off the superstructure. But Max wanted to reach out and touch the stone. It was cool and rough. At this depth, the canal remained in shadow for most of the day, so the sun never had the chance to warm it.
Satisfied, he hurried to the bridge just as the Oregon heaved slightly and the railing smacked the canal wall. Eric shifted their heading infinitesimally, so as not to overcorrect, and centered them once again.
“Linda’s van is just about at the New National Road bridge,” Gomez called over the intercom. “I can see the Chairman, too. He’s still got a good lead on the jeep chasing him.”
“On my way down,” Max said, and moved for the elevator.
THE DAMAGED TIRE finally shredded a quarter mile from the bridge, and they covered the distance riding on the rim, sparks shooting from the back of the van like a Catherine wheel. The sound was like fingernails across a chalkboard, something Linda hated more than any other noise in the world. She wasn’t sure what made her happier when they reached the center of the span: that they were almost home free or that the unholy shriek had ended.
Franklin Lincoln threw open the side door as soon as they stopped. He could see the Oregon fast approaching and heaved three thick nylon climbing ropes off the bridge. The ropes were secured around the van’s seats and through a frame member that was exposed in the cargo area. They uncoiled as they fell through space and came up just ten feet shy of the sea.
Linda quickly jumped out of her seat and donned her rappelling gear—harness, helmet, and gloves—while, two hundred feet below them, water frothed at the Oregon’s stern as reverse thrust was applied to slow her. With the power of her massive engines, she lost headway almost immediately.
Linc had already strapped himself into a harness used by tandem parachute jumpers, and, with Eddie’s help, they had clipped an unconscious Kyle Hanley to him. The three of them then secured themselves to the lines and waited for word from down below.
On the Oregon, crewmen at the bow grabbed the dangling ropes and guided them aft as the vessel crept forward, making sure they didn’t become entangled with the superstructure, communications antenna, or any of the hundreds of things that could snag them. As soon as the men reached the aft deck, Max ordered his people to go.
Never one to be bothered by heights, Linda stepped onto the guardrail and started lowering herself from the bridge. Eddie was on one side of her, and Linc, carrying Kyle, made his way down the other. They lowered themselves down the bridge’s underpinning girders, and then, suddenly, they were dangling two hundred feet over their ship, nothing holding them in place but the three-quarter-inch lines.
With a whoop, Linda shot down her rope like a runaway elevator. Eddie and Linc quickly followed, almost free-falling through space before using their rappelling harnesses to slow their descent. They touched down at almost the same time, and stood still so that their crewmates could unhook them from the ropes. The lines’ trailing ends were quickly knotted around cast-iron bollards bolted to the ship’s deck.
Breathless from the adrenaline rush, Linda said, “Now for the fun part.”
Watching the action on deck from the closed-circuit television system, Eric Stone didn’t wait for orders. He eased the T-handle throttle forward slightly to edge the ship farther up the canal. The slack in the ropes vanished in an instant, and then they quivered for a second before the ship’s thrust rolled the rental van over the guardrail. It plummeted like a stone, smashing into the water just behind the Oregon’s fantail. The impact flattened its roof and blew out all its windows. The weight of its engine caused the van to upend, like a duck diving for food, and it bobbed in the ship’s wake for a moment before filling with water and sinking out of sight. They would tow the ruined vehicle well into the Aegean before cutting the ropes and allowing the van to sink to the bottom.
The van was rented by a disguised crew member using false identification, and there would be no link back to the Corporation. And only one more person needed to rejoin the ship for the mission to be considered a success, even if they had to go so deep into their playbook that they had to use plan C.
CABRILLO RACED TOWARD the Corinth Canal, flashing by villages and small farms in a blur. In the moonlight, stands of conical cypress trees looked like army sentries guarding the fields.
No matter how recklessly he took corners or how brutally he punished the jeep’s transmission, he couldn’t shake his tail. Denied returning their kidnapped member, the men chasing him wanted blood. They drove just as hard, using both lanes of the road and often skidding into the gravel verge in their pursuit. They had managed a few potshots at Cabrillo, but at the speeds they were traveling there was no chance to fire accurately, and they’d stopped, presumably to conserve ammunition.
Juan regretted not raising the windscreen as he squinted against eighty-mile-an-hour wind. It didn’t help that a breeze had picked up, and grit as nebulous as smoke drifted across the road and scoured his eyes. He flashed past the site of ancient Isthmia. Unlike other ruins dotting Greece, there was nothing to see on the low hillock, no temples or columns, just a sign and a tiny museum. What he noticed most, however, was a sign stating the modern town of Isthmia was two kilometers ahead. If the Oregon didn’t get into position soon, he was going to be in trouble. The jeep’s gas gauge was staying above EMPTY on the sheer force of his will.
He heard his name in his earbud and had to adjust the volume on his radio. “Juan here.”
“Chairman, it’s Gomez. Linda and the others are safely aboard. I’ve got you on the drone, and Eric’s making his calculations now, but you might want to slow down a touch.”
“You do see that other jeep behind me, right?”
“I do,” the chopper pilot drawled. “But if we don’t get this just right, you’re going to end up like a fly on the wrong side of a swatter, if you know what I mean.”
The simile was more than apt. “Thanks for the mental picture.”
The road started to descend down to the coast. In order to save fuel, Juan mashed the clutch and let momentum and gravity take over for a few seconds. He drove with one eye on the side mirror, and a few seconds after spotting the Responsivists’ headlights he eased off the clutch to let the engine engage again.
The motor sputtered. It caught instantly, but gave another weak cough. Cabrillo used an old stock-car driver’s trick, weaving the jeep to slosh the gasoline in the tank. It seemed to work because the engine purred.
“Juan, Eric’s finished with his number crunching,” Adams said. “You’re eight hundred and seventy meters from the bridge, meaning you’re too close. You need to slow down to fifty miles an hour if we’re to make this happen.”
The pursuing jeep was eighty yards back and closing. The road was too straight for Juan to do much maneuvering, and, when he tried to swerve again so they would waste a shot, the motor wheezed. He cursed.
“I’m coming in hot. Tell Eric to goose the old girl and meet me.”
He entered the town of Isthmia, a typical Greek seaside village. He could smell the sea and the io
dine taint of drying fishing nets. The buildings were mostly whitewashed, with the ubiquitous red-tiled roofs. Satellite dishes grew from many of them like high-tech mushrooms. The main drag opened on a small village square, and Cabrillo could see the stanchions that raised and lowered the narrow bridge to cross the canal beyond.
