“You see, they know him. He’s with them,” Mitch said. “That’s why they’ll wait. Now are you with us? I’m telling you, there won’t be anything for you in El Paso, even if you got there. This is gonna get a whole lot worse yet.” He looked at Keene. “We could fit a couple more in, right?”
Keene just showed his hands and shook his head. “Why not? Sure.” He didn’t know. It wasn’t a time to be calculating liftoff weights.
The two truckers looked at each other in bewilderment. “What do you think, Luke?” Buff asked, seemingly willing to be sold now.
“I dunno. . . . Goin’ off somewhere all that different. Where is it? Saturn out there some place? . . .”
“There isn’t going to be anything for you here,” Mitch said. He looked from one to the other. “What do you have? Any folks you can get to?”
Buff looked down at the ground. “Mine were in Virginia. . . . I don’t want to think about it.” Luke just shook his head bleakly. Keene turned his head away, not sure how much more of this he was going to be able to take. Mitch seemed about to say something, then stopped, trying to let the obvious speak for itself.
Finally, Luke said, “Maybe, if it’s like they say. . . . We should give it a try, I reckon.”
Buff looked back at Mitch, tightened his mouth for a second, then nodded. “I still think you’re crazy. But Luke’s usually right. We’ll do it.”
Leaving Keene to give Buff and Luke a hand filling the cans, Mitch went back to the rendezvous point to round up the others. “So who else you got with you in that group back there?” Luke asked Keene as they moved on to check another tank.
“One’s from SICA—one of the guys who went with the Kronians on their tour. There’s a scientist from the tracking labs in California. And then we have one of President Hayer’s aides from the White House.”
“Holy shit,” Buff breathed, shaking his head.
The others appeared in a gaggle, Mitch in front, Legermount shepherding from the rear. With the soldiers taking some of the cans, Buff and Luke led the way through to the rig they had found. It was an eighteen-wheel Freightliner, aluminum sided full-box, its windows still intact and showing just a few dents in the trailer. “Are you sure this will handle in the wind?” Mitch yelled dubiously to Buff, looking up at it.
“There’s only one way to find out. It’ll run. That’s the main thing. You wanna go looking around the whole of San Antonio for something better, go right ahead.”
The two troopers helped Buff and Luke finish filling the tank, while the others loaded whatever they could find that might come in useful. Then everyone climbed aboard except Mitch, who would ride up front in the cab. Buff closed the rear doors. A minute or so later, the truck began moving.
It started rocking violently almost at once. As they went into a turn, Keene sensed it veering erratically, trying to lift. Moments later, there was a crash as they struck something, followed for a few seconds by a rending noise outside. A short distance farther on they halted again.
“Don’t tell me this isn’t going to work,” Cavan muttered, sounding worried.
“I suppose they are truckers,” Colby mused. “Did anyone think to check their licenses?”
“Colby, you’re insane,” Cynthia told him.
“That was a prerequisite for anyone wanting to work in the White House,” Colby said. The truck remained at a standstill.
“Seems like they’re having a conference up front,” Keene observed. The troops sat stoically, waiting for what they couldn’t change to reveal itself.
Cavan produced his pocket radio, usable at short range, and buzzed Mitch. “What’s the problem?” he said into the mike end. There was a short pause. “He says something about a shopping trip,” Cavan told the others. “Don’t ask me. I don’t understand it either.”
At last the truck pulled away again. For what felt like a mile or two it slowed, speeded up again, turning and stopping several times. It didn’t feel as if they were on a highway or making discernible progress anywhere. All the time, the trailer heaved and bucked, seeming a couple of times to be on the verge of turning over. Then they stopped again, reversed slowly, and a few seconds later the shock came of the tail hitting something, accompanied by crashing and the sound of breaking glass. The gears shifted, and the truck moved forward again and stopped. Doors slammed up front. Moments later the rear was opened to reveal Mitch and Luke.