CHAPTER 81

THE SLED CLOSEST TO us started forward at half the dead point man’s pace.

The others prowled behind him.

The element of surprise was gone. They were expecting something.

Sampson gave it to them. As the first and second sleds came around the corner slowly, with their drivers resting their weapons over the tops of their windshields, he opened fire from the brush with short, controlled bursts from the machine pistol.

The windshield and helmet visor of the first rider spiderwebbed and shattered. He fell off the back. His sled kept going and stopped between us, almost on the cable.

John swung on the second rider, shot. The rider fell. His sled kept going, crashed sideways, and blocked the trail.

Sampson charged forward once again, ripped another machine pistol and magazines off the harness of the nearest dead Maestro rider, and wrenched off his helmet and the helmet of the dead female behind him.

Beyond him, I could hear the other sleds idling, but I’d lost track of the two that were trying to circle us. John sprinted to us. He threw the machine pistol and one of the spare magazines to Bree and the helmets to both of us.

“Comms,” he said. “We’ll know what they’re doing. You two take this sled. Turn off your microphones. Go to the cache. Get the other guns. I’m right behind you.”

We could hear the snow machines outside the woods, the ones circling. They were almost to the north side of the last trees.

“We’re not leaving you,” I said.

“I’ll cover you both, then take the sled that’s out there in the meadow,” Sampson insisted. He ran around us and forward to the last scattered trees.

Hobbling, I pulled on the helmet, turned off the mic, and straddled the machine. I heard Bean’s voice immediately in the speakers:

“Almost around this damned piece of woods. Blown-down trees everywhere.”

Helmet on, Bree sat with her back to mine to cover our six as Toomey answered on the helmet radio, “Same here. But we’ve got them now.”

“The other guys are coming behind us, Alex!” Bree shouted and began shooting into the trees.

I twisted the throttle. Our sled lunged forward.

The Maestro drivers in the woods shot back at us.

We blew free of the timber, passing Sampson, speeding out into the meadow, then slowed hard because the other sled was sitting right there in the middle of the packed trail. John opened fire on the gunmen in the trees, covering us.

Over the helmet radio, I heard Malcomb say, “They are getting away, Bean!”

“No, they’re not, M. Not today.”

“Definitely not today,” someone else said. “I see them right out in front of me.”

That last transmission was from Toomey. As I drove off the trail into deeper powder snow to circle the stopped sled, I looked to my right and saw the janitor about two hundred yards away and coming at us.

“Got them too!” Bean said.

I looked left, and there was the former British SAS man, less than two hundred yards out and closing fast.

“Go, Alex!” Bree shouted.

I wrenched back on the throttle. The tracks spun.

But instead of hurling us back up onto the packed trail, the sled bogged down and slid sideways toward even deeper snow.

“Get off!” I shouted and felt her weight leave immediately.

The tracks spun but then gained purchase, and the sled jumped up onto the road; it almost went off the other side before I could stop it.

Malcomb said, “Kill them all, Bean. I’m tired of this.”

“Straightaway, M.”

Sampson opened fire from behind us, shooting into the trees, then out at Bean, then back at Toomey, both of whom were closing on us as Bree struggled to get up the bank.

Bean swerved off at John’s cover fire. So did the janitor.

Bree finally got up onto the packed trail and shot at Bean from a hundred yards away. The former SAS operator ducked and stopped his machine behind some bushes.

Bree jumped on, yelled, “Wait, Alex, we’ve got to give John cover!”

I looked over my shoulder, saw Sampson running from the scattered trees toward the idling sled and us; he was no more than forty yards away.

Bree twisted and shot at Toomey, who was arcing his sled at us, just out of range.

“Go!” Sampson yelled when he was twenty yards from the other sled.

“Once more at Bean!” Bree said, twisting again to shoot at him.

But the Maestro operator had left his sled and moved to his right. He was on his knees when he pulled the trigger.

Sampson shuddered, spun ninety degrees, fell onto the side of the sled, and crumpled beside it in the snow twenty feet from us.

“Go!” John gasped into the mic, talking over the helmet radio. “Go!”