“Whoa!” Ham rolled his eyes and winked exaggeratedly at Mike. “I love tough-talkin’ women, don’t you, Gooder?” “Shut up, Tyler.”
Close against the left side of the still-idling van, they moved cautiously toward its rear doors.
It was one of the Visitors’ regular land-transport vehicles rather than one of their armored carriers, which seemed unusual. Donovan frowned. It also appeared to be deserted, which was even stranger. There was usually at least one guard riding shotgun behind a transport on a motorcycle or in a car. On the other hand, the Visitors may not have wanted to call any special attention to this shipment by using a lot of armed troopers or an escort.
Slowly they edged around the rear, Ham leading. “Just for laughs,” Tyler said, triggering the Uzi he still held. The little machine gun chattered loudly in the still, hot air. “That should have smoked any lizards out.” Ham gestured with his lasergun. “Come on.”
Weapons ready, they positioned themselves facing the back of the van. Ham blasted the handles into twisted and smoking metal, and the doors fell open.
It had gone flawlessly. Mike allowed himself a small smile as he put one foot on the rear bumper—and stared up into the raised barrel of a lasergun.
Three Visitors in heavy body armor pushed up their helmets as they stepped forward from the front of the van. The center one grinned and aimed his weapon at Donovan’s head.
Moments seemed to blur and elongate as Mike stared into the tiny round face of his own death. He felt like a cameraman again, dispassionately noting every detail, the afternoon sun glinting off the shiny alien metal of the lasergun, the way the Visitor’s finger squeezed down on the trigger—
“Mike!” Margie shouted, blue-white streaked past his shoulder, and the Visitor in front of him caught the blast from her lasergun full in the face. His hideous, ululating death cry tore the air as he pawed at the smoking, charred remnants of his eyes and pitched forward past Mike onto the street, dead.
Ham used the distraction to blast one of the other two Visitors in the stomach while Mike hit the ground and rolled, coming up with weapon blasting, and the third Visitor was hit high in the shoulder.
The female officer that Ham had injured tried to spit venom at the stocky ex-CIA man, but he covered his face and grabbed her arm, pulling her onto the ground and kicking her in the face. Her false skin split across her nose and cheekbone as she snarled up at him, some imprecation in her native tongue. Donovan thought he heard Ham mutter, “This one’s for Chris, you scaly bitch,” as he slammed the Uzi viciously across her throat, then stood impassively watching as she convulsed into agonized death spasms. Finally she lay still.
Snarling, Mike’s victim clutched his green-stained shoulder as Donovan relieved him of his lasergun. “Move it—here comes the Visitor cavalry,” Ham yelled, taking aim, and the injured Visitor fell out of the van, his midriff charred into a smoking ruin of alien entrails and burned meat.
Mike’s stomach lurched sickly at the barbecued-chicken smell, and even more in the face of Tyler’s execution-style treatment of the prisoners, but there was no time to remonstrate with the ex-CLA agent. Another, more streamlined ground vehicle was roaring at full speed up the street behind them.
“Shoulda known somebody would be riding shotgun after all. Let’s go, kids.”
The three of them jammed into the cab, which had clearly been designed for just two passengers. Ham slid behind the wheel, Donovan beside him, and Margie squeezed next to Mike on the right side. “For once I’m glad Chris sat this one out,” Ham muttered, glancing down at the strangely smooth floorboard. “We’d never have fit. Christ on a pony, where’s the damned gas pedal?”
“Try the left hand control.” Donovan glanced nervously in the side-view mirror at the rapidly approaching Visitor vehicle. “Any day you’re ready, Ham.”
“This thing got a gearshift?” Tyler pushed experimentally at one lever.
Sun-bright streaks of laser light suddenly slogged the road beside them, peppering the side of their van with tiny concrete missiles.
“For God’s sake, Tyler!” Mike yelled, reaching over for the steering wheel just as their van suddenly leaped ahead, skidding a little. He was slammed back into his seat and Margie fell against his shoulder as Ham took the first turn wide, narrowly missing a car parked close to the comer.
The van lurched drunkenly, almost as though it resented being brought under human control. They bounced over the curb and down again at the next comer while lasers whined in the air next to them, leaving an ozone smell behind.
“Can’t you drive?” Margie snapped, and Mike put his arm around her to prevent her from being thrown against the door again. The doors were featureless slabs of metal, with no locks-—at least none he could identify. Glancing at Ham’s tight-jawed face and then at the dashboard, he realized the problem was even worse than he’d thought. A lot of the standard controls weren’t where they were supposed to be—and all of them were labeled in Visitorese.
“Don’t look at it, Ham, just drive!” he yelled above the protesting whines of the engine as they accelerated sharply again, then abruptly slowed.
Another blast made an angry noise like tearing metal somewhere in the back of the van, and Ham cursed. “If they hit those power packs, we’re all history,” he said, twisting and throttling the wheel side to side as more bolts tore up the street around them.
“They’re gaining, Mike!” Margie said, taking a cautious look out the window. Rounding a curve, she got off two quick blasts, then ducked as the laser scored the side of her door.
“Where the hell is our backup?” Ham said, opening the alien throttle wide. “Hang tight, kids, we’re going for broke.”
Bored and too hot in his leather jacket, Kyle Bates pulled his helmet off his head for the second time in three minutes to wipe the sweat pooling at the back of his neck. He was leaning against a fence, his Yamaha idling low and smooth underneath him. He listened to the sound and brought the throttle up a little, then down ... up, down. . . .
It felt like he’d been waiting in this alley off New Hampshire Avenue, half a block from Wilshire Boulevard, for hours, but it had only been maybe twenty minutes. Mike and the others were due anytime ... or maybe a little overdue.
Frowning, Kyle checked his watch again and glanced up the street. The original plan was for them to intercept and capture the Visitor truck on Mariposa, cut east down Third, then south on New Hampshire. Kyle was to escort them from there, or draw off pursuit, if necessary.
But suppose something had gone wrong? Kyle was used to thinking of anything that had Mike Donovan and Ham Tyler behind it as a practically guaranteed success. Still, there was Marjorie Donovan. In his book, she was an unknown quantity.
He was a little sorry Elizabeth hadn’t been around to “psych” her out—Elizabeth was sometimes good at picking up impressions from people—but she and her mother were holed up studying, and she had avoided him ever since their conversation yesterday afternoon.
Kyle bounced restlessly on the saddle of his bike. Dammit, he was only twenty-four. The care and feeding of cars and motorcycles were far more in his league than answering thorny questions about Life with a capital L. Why did she have to look to him to provide all the answers? Why did he have to be the source of the wisdom of the ages for the eighteen-month-old Starchild?
He knew she loved him, and he loved her, in a cautious, protective sort of way, but he couldn’t imagine treating her like a human woman, making love to her. She was still so much a child emotionally; could any love withstand for long the kinds of pressure their different heritages put them under? And yet, love was love, wasn’t it? Or was it a case of—
Tires screeched a protest up the street behind him, and Kyle jerked out of his thoughts to see the Visitor van skid sideways
as it came around the comer too fast. He tensed, feeling the adrenaline rush of excitement rise in him as he revved up.
Then he saw the other vehicle, smaller, meaner looking som
ehow, zipping in close behind the first. Laser fire blossomed like a deadly flower in the sidewalk beside the larger van, and two children playing on a nearby lawn screamed and cowered on the grass as the vehicles streaked past.
Kyle fumbled his Police Special out of its holster and waited until the pursuit vehicle was almost on top of him, then he squeezed off some shots, aiming at the windshield. The glasslike surface starred, and the gleaming white shape swerved dangerously. Pulling up to the driver’s side of the front vehicle, he gave a quick thumbs-up to Ham. Then he dropped back to blast at the second vehicle again, like a Chihuahua worrying a Great Dane.
At Wilshire, Ham peeled right, Kyle left—but the van followed Ham. Cursing under his breath, Kyle did a skidding, foot-braced U-turn, cars braking and honking to either side of him. He had hoped to draw them off, that they would think him and his hand weapon an easy target—not laiowing he had a lasergun hidden under his jacket. But they were still in screaming pursuit of the Visitor transport van. Kyle leaned on the throttle, and the Yamaha roared ahead.
“I see the kid behind us again,” Margie reported, glancing in the side mirror again. “He’s maybe fifty feet behind the second car. Obviously, they didn’t fall for it.”
“Hell,” Ham said tonelessly. He swung the wheel hard to avoid a collision with a city bus, and then their vehicle groaned and squealed around the comer onto Wilshire Boulevard, heading toward Santa Monica. “Well, Gooder, got any of your famous great ideas?”
Mike looked at him. “Not a one. I hope Kyle has his lasergun.”
As if in mocking answer, bright light sheared the air beside them, and the side mirror disappeared in a puff of smoke.
“Somebody’d better think of something in a hurry,” Margie said, pressing herself even harder into Donovan’s lap. “If they hit those power packs with one like that, it’s all over.”
They continued dodging and twisting around cars. Their
Visitor pursuers weren’t so careful, sideswiping a Toyota as they roared closer.
Mike glimpsed the green expanse of Hancock Park ahead on the right through the concealing trees. The La Brea tar pits and museum located there had been one of Sean’s favorite haunts years ago, when his son had been going through his dinosaur phase. Sean had enjoyed the skeletons of the woolly mammoths and giant saber-tooth tigers. Mike wondered if he was going to live long enough to ever see his son again.
Kyle was gaining, being able to slip in and out of traffic. As he wrestled the lasergun free from his jacket, he thought they all made a pretty strange-looking caravan—only now the parade was over. Balancing himself on his bike as traffic cleared in front of him, he aimed the weapon carefully at the red Visitor logo on the pursuit vehicle in front of him.
The blue-white blast caught the right rear wheel full just as the vehicle was rounding a curve. The pursuit car careened wildly out of control, crashed through a chain-link fence beside it, and sailed over the slight rise. Tar, pitch, and water cascaded up in a giant, slow-motion geyser as it plunged into the tar pit and mired like some ancient sloth who had strayed too far in search of water.
The pit already had its own denizen, a giant gray statue of a mastodon, its trunk and massive tusks lifted pleadingly toward its wild-eyed mate and calf on the land beside it. The concussion sent the life-sized statue rocking, then its base broke, and it crashed on top of the vehicle.
Tourists were gathering on the top of the observation platform as Ham slowed to a halt near the broken fence. A few cheered as one Visitor scrabbled out of the sinking vehicle and fell into the tar pit, thrashing in the black ooze; nobody seemed inclined to rescue him.
Pulling up alongside Ham and the others, Kyle pulled off his helmet, ran a hand through his thick dark hair, and grinned. “That put the lizards back in the slime, where they belong. ”
“Now all we need are the feathers,” Donovan said, grinning back, and Margie smiled up at him.
“Nice shooting, kid,” said Ham.
“Nice driving, old man. I bet—”
Sirens began whooping in the air, and Ham fumbled the van back in gear. “Let’s go,” he said. “Catch you later, hotshot.”
Replacing his helmet, Kyle waved and moved on ahead of them. They eased back onto Wilshire Boulevard—and a laser bolt angled from above blasted down, catching Kyle’s rear wheel.
“Jesus Christ!” Ham swerved hard to avoid the bike as it went down, pitching Kyle to the right, and more bolts tore up the pavement in front of them as the Visitor skyfighter swooped low past them and began circling back.
Twisting over Margie, Mike strained to catch a glimpse of Kyle, but they were moving too fast and erratically. “Tyier, we’ve gotta go back for him!”
“No way, Gooder.” Ham braked and swung left, barely moving out of the way of oncoming traffic. “He knew the risks, and these lizard batteries are too important.”
“Listen, you icy-hearted son of a bitch—”
“Maybe Kyle’s okay, Mike,” Margie said softly, squeezing his arm. “It didn’t look like he took a direct hit. Anyway, Ham’s right. We can’t risk the whole shipment of power packs for one person.”
Mike settled into grim silence as they raced along, running a red light at the next intersection in front of a police car. The siren began behind them—then abruptly ceased, and the squad car made a quick right turn. Evidently the officer had seen the Visitor logo on closer inspection of die speeding van and had decided there was more pressing police business elsewhere.
The skyfighter swooped low again, and a couple of people near a hotel screamed and fell to the sidewalk as more laser blasts strafed alongside the speeding van. A hapless Volkswagen truck on their right caught one in the rear, sending its two passengers scrabbling for cover as smoke and flame licked up its exhaust pipe.
“Turn and head back downtown,” Margie said, checking her lasergun. “Our only hope is losing them under a bridge or among taller buildings.” Leaning out of her window, she tried to get a few shots at the skyfighter, but it was moving too fast.
They were less than ten minutes away from the downtown section, but to Donovan, it was one of the longest stretches of his life. At times, as they weaved around the traffic on Pico Boulevard, it seemed as though the skyfighter was playing with them, and he wondered why they hadn’t been blasted into smithereens a dozen times over.
Then he remembered their cargo. Any laser fire hitting this many power packs would set off a chain reaction which would level ten square blocks of downtown Los Angeles. Apparently the Visitors were trying to herd them to a less populated area and then kill them without destroying the truck.
Ham drove around the monolithic glass slab of the Hyatt-Regency, and for an elated moment, they thought they’d lost their pursuers. Then the Visitor craft was banking high overhead again, and Donovan thought he glimpsed another white van with red Visitor logo pulling out from an alley on their right—
“Over there!” Margie shouted suddenly, pointing to a low, open garage. A sign over its entrance proclaimed “BILL’S CARWASH” in bright blue letters. “A perfect hiding place!” “Or a tomb,” Tyler muttered.
“There’s no place else,” Mike said. “Go for it!”
Ham braked, and the van screeched and skidded into the opening, then jolted to a halt. The sudden darkness after the bright California sunshine seemed total and final.
Something metallic scraped against the wheels, took hold, and the van was pulled along on the track.
“Hey!” A fat middle-aged man came running out of the office just inside the entrance, his expression furious. Waving a cigar at them, he shouted, “Hey, you can’t just come in here without paying!”
“Shut up,” said Ham, tapping the door of the truck. “This is official business.”
“I don’t care what kind of . . .” The man stopped, suddenly taking in the Visitor logo. Then a weak smile settled onto his well-fed features, and the cigar was raised in a conciliatory gesture as he backed off. “Hey, anything you say. Alwa
ys glad to help out. Wash ’n’ wax on the house, no problem.”
“Chalk up another victory to the Ham Tyler School of Charm and Persuasion,” Mike said.
“Yeah, well, I’d hate to die in a dirty car,” Ham said. “Who said we’re going to die?” Margie glared at him. “If it hadn’t been for me seeing this place—”
“Honey, in case you hadn’t noticed, we’re caught here tighter’n bugs in a Roach Motel, if the lizards happen to be waiting for us on the other side.”
“And maybe we lost them,” Donovan said. “Anyway, it didn’t seem like we had a lot of choices, particularly with the way you were driving.”
“And you think you would do a hell of a lot better, Gooder, the way those lizards were riding up our asses? Listen, you—”
Water and soapsuds suddenly sprayed into the open windows, literally drowning his words. Long-fringed brushes swiped the windshield, then thrust into the crowded cab like begging hands.
“For God’s sake, roll up the damn windows, will you?” Margie sputtered as Donovan and Ham, cursing, searched vainly for the window controls on the incomprehensible dashboard. Margie buried her face in Mike’s chest as foam poured into the cab.
For tense moments they waited, dripping and silent, as the van majestically rolled through more suds, water, spray wax, and giant blowers. Finally they were facing the square of sunshine that was the carwash’s exit, and the van jerked to a halt at the end of the automatic track.
Slowly, his clothes squooshing with every motion, Ham inched forward and turned back toward Pico Boulevard.
People strolled down the sidewalks, cars moved and honked on the street, the sun shone down—and there wasn’t a Visitor vehicle in sight.
“1 don’t believe your luck, Gooder,” Ham said.
Donovan was more exultant. “It worked!” He hugged Margie hard, one battle comrade to another, but then her arms were around his neck, and she was kissing him passionately on the mouth.
He might have responded if soapsuds hadn’t chosen that moment to drip into one eye. Jerking his head back, he rubbed furiously for an instant, then he looked at Ham, then at her. They were all soaked, soap clinging comically to their hair and clothing. Ham had developed one massive white-foamed sidebum on his left cheek, and Margie had a splotch of suds right on the tip of her nose.
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