The other thought that flooded into his brain was to try to recall what kind of fuses the grens had. Twelve sec-onds? Ten?
Five?
Doc and Lori were helpless, hanging onto the steering oar at the stern. J.B. was nearest, but the bulk of the mast obstructed him. Jak was the one with the fastest reflexes, but he was kneeling at the front of the raft, gun drawn, looking up at the monklike figures who hung on the bridge above them.
Krysty Wroth began to move. Despite having part-mutie sight and hearing, her reflexes were no faster than any normal person’s.
Which left it in Ryan Cawdor’s court.
As he started to dive for the implo-gren, he remem-bered about the fuse.
They were generally eight seconds.
Chapter Four
the metal was cold, slippery with the waters of the Mohawk.
Ryan’s fingers closed on the gren, and he hefted it from the sodden logs, cocking his arm to throw it over the side of the raft. The rope bridge above them replaced a four-lane highway bridge that had crumbled in the first min-utes of the nuking of 2001. Even now, a century later, some of the original stone and girders still lay in the river, just below the surface. At that moment the laden craft struck some relic of the ruined bridge, jarring into it with a sickening crunch.
The raft swung into a sullen half circle, throwing Ryan completely off guard. He stumbled, fighting for balance. He tried to dump the grenade over the side, but his fin-gers had locked over it as he fell. At the last moment he struggled to roll on his shoulder, but the slick cold wood betrayed his footing and he tumbled sideways. His shoul-der thumped against the stump of the mast, and he half rolled on top of Krysty, who snatched at his coat to check him from falling over the side into the Mohawk. The im-plo-gren slipped from his hand, clattering under both their bodies.
The crowd on the spiderwork bridge gave a ragged cheer, waving their fists at the clumsy craft beneath them.
Ryan groped for the fallen grenade, feeling the raft hit again, with a jagged, splintering sound, holding it in the
38
same place. Even as he touched the icy metal, his brain screamed to him that he was way too slow, that the eight seconds were up and gone. The metal would disintegrate and he would be sucked into the hissing vacuum and de-stroyed, along with everyone on the doomed raft.
He dropped the gren twice more, until he was finally able to grip it securely, sitting up and holding it in his right hand. Ryan was almost unable to believe their good for-tune. Above him the cheers turned to screeching anger.
“It’s a fucking malfunk!” Jak yelled. “Lemme chill the monsters.”
“No. Let’s get out,” Ryan called. “Doc? Push us off with that steering oar.”
“Consider it done,” the old man replied.
“Throw it, lover,” Krysty said, face white with shock at their narrow escape.
“Sure.” He looked up at the horde of cowled figures hanging from the network of creepers and shouted, “Here, have the bastard back!”
Once, about eight years ago, Ryan had been with the Trader when they’d broken into a small redoubt, a long way west, in a valley of the Rockies. They’d found some old vids stashed away and a sealed battery player. Most of the tapes had rotted and crumbled, but they’d watched a few minutes of one of them. It had been a film of a foot-ball game. Ryan couldn’t recall the names of the teams or the players, but he still remembered the grace and power of the man who’d thrown the football, flexing his arm and letting it go, soaring upward and on.
He hefted the implo-gren and heaved it toward the watchers on the bridge, hoping to hit one of them and maybe even pitch him into the river. The raft was already starting to roll uncontrollably down the Mohawk, and it wasn’t worth wasting any ammo.
39
He watched the scarlet and blue bands revolving in the cool, damp air.
The sound of the grenade detonating was unmistak-able a muffled, inward, whooshing sort of noise, as the implosion sucked everything into itself. The gren had been at its highest point, hanging in the air only a few yards from the bridge, when the fuse finally worked.