Killer Summer

37

Having set the charge in the golf cart, Roger McGuiness had met up with Matt Salvo, who’d had a much easier time stealing the logging truck than on his first try.

McGuiness dropped the semi into a low gear, and they drove off, leaving behind Sun Valley Company’s Cold Springs base camp, an area of collected construction equipment and material.

“We’re good?” Salvo said.

McGuiness replied, “I must have passed a dozen patrol cars headed north.”

A siren whooped from behind them.

“Heads up!” McGuiness said, his attention on the truck’s wing mirror.

Salvo checked the opposing mirror and he pounded the truck’s dash. “Shit!”

“Chill. We’ve got this,” said the driver.

The GREENHORN/EAST FORK traffic light was just ahead. Less than a quarter mile past the light, and slightly downhill, was the highway bridge, a three-lane concrete span.

Salvo reached over and picked up the fat black electric cable that lay between the seats. The rest of it ran out of the cab’s sliding rear window to the load of logs chained to the truck bed. Attached to the cab end that Salvo held was a black button switch.

The cop car had pulled to within a few feet of the red safety flags stapled to the ends of the longer logs.

“Not yet,” McGuiness said.

“The fucker is right there!”

“And what’s he going to do, run us off the road? Do not detonate those charges, Matt. Hold off.”

Salvo’s thumb hovered over the button.

The truck ran the light, speeding toward the bridge.

“Timing is everything,” McGuiness said. “I set those charges. I know how this thing is going to work. Don’t freak out over some cop car.”

The cop car jerked out into the turn lane and pulled up alongside. Oncoming traffic swerved to avoid it.

A hundred yards and closing.

Salvo’s thumb loomed over the button.

“You strapped in?” McGuiness said, double-checking.

“Yeah.”

“Good. Hold on.”

McGuiness tugged the steering wheel sharply left, quickly corrected, and then applied the brakes. The tires squealed and smoked as the cab and trailer drifted in slow motion, first in unison, then like the tail wagging the dog, as the truck jackknifed into a graceful skid. The move got the cop’s attention-one second, alongside the rig; the next, about to be crushed by it. He veered off the highway, spewing a rooster tail of dust and crashing head-on into the berm that supported the bike path.

McGuiness had landed the cab and trailer squarely between the bridge’s opposing guardrails. A thing of beauty.

“Now!”

Salvo pushed the button.

A great cloud of gray smoke arose from a series of small explosions along both sides of the trailer. The giant logs tumbled from the trailer in both directions.

It happened exactly as Cantell had proposed-a nightmarish tangle of enormous logs, rolling and bouncing off the truck. The truck shuddered to a stop, complaining steel squealing. McGuiness had jackknifed the truck into the mouth of the bridge like a cork in a bottle.

“Nice,” Salvo said, as he grabbed the chainsaw at his feet.

“See you at the rendezvous,” McGuiness said, sliding down out of the cab.

Salvo made his way through the fallen timber, and, keeping an eye on the damaged patrol car, climbed to the bike-path bridge, dragging the chainsaw with him.

He tugged its cord and the saw sputtered to life. He planted its blade into a power pole.

He looked away, avoiding the spray of wood chips and sawdust, only to see cars everywhere. In both directions, traffic had come to a stop, causing a few rear enders, and leaving the highway in chaos.

He made a second cut with the saw. A wedge of wood broke loose and fell out. He started a third cut.

The driver of a pickup truck climbed out and started shouting at him. The man ran for the wrecked police car.

Sirens called from the north. He looked south. No sign of cops coming from there, just as Cantell had planned.

He leaned his weight into the chainsaw. The power pole popped and splintered. Then it teetered and fell.

Overhead, wires sparked and flashed. Salvo had failed to remember he was bringing down a few thousand volts with the pole. A half dozen wires now sparked and jumped on the ground. He dropped the saw and took off south across the bridge. Car horns sounded. He took them as applause for a job well done.

He sprinted across the highway, jumped down an embankment, lost his footing, and rolled to the bottom. He got to his feet and took off running.

Some hero had left his car and was coming after him. “Hey, asshole, hold up!” the man shouted.

Salvo reached for his knife. He stitched his way through a thicket of aspens and found himself in a yard next to a tool shed. He ducked around the side, silently begging his pursuer to give it up.

But the hero came crashing through the aspens a moment later, and Matt, who’d grown up in Sparks, Nevada, in a neighborhood where survival required a degree in viciousness, timed the blow perfectly. He swung around the corner of the shed just as the hero arrived, delivering the hilt of the knife to the man’s forehead.

The guy dropped like a rock.

“Nice try,” he told the hero.

He then looked around to get his bearings, wondering how long Lorraine and McGuiness would wait for him.