“If it caught the APC,” Doc offered.
“Armored personnel carriers are not famous for their speed or durability,” Mildred said, allowing herself to breathe once more. “The best would be an Apache gunship with heat-seeking Sidewinder missiles.”
“Any chance we might find one of those at the armory?” Dean asked.
“Could be a lot of choppers there,” his father said, watching the temperature gauge. “But that’s not a wag you can operate by guessing, like a tank or PT boat.”
On the horizon, the southerly volcano belched forth a tremendous black cloud of ash, laced with geysers of white steam. A minute later, the roadway trembled, and the companions fought to control their shaking bikes.
“By gadfrey, I think an eruption is imminent!”
Doc said, slowing his bike. “Mayhap we should take the next exit ramp and abandon this expedition.”
“Relax, that was just a pressure quake,” Mildred shouted as the vibrations began to lessen. “The volcano is balancing itself.”
“No danger?” Dean asked, trying to watch the bypass and the volcano at the same time.
“Not until the lava arrives,” Ryan replied. “And then it’s too bastard late.”
The bypass continued for a couple more miles, then started to bank inland toward a wide highway. Only the pillars that supported the ancient skyway still stood, topped with wild twists of iron rods, and the broken ends of steel girders. The beltway that once encircled the metropolis was gone, reduced to piles of rubble on the ground.
Slowing, Ryan gave a sharp whistle as he rolled along the side of the roadway, craning his neck to look at the buildings and stores below. There were plenty of signs along the berm, but the wind and weather had reduced them to blank steel rectangles carrying no more information than a dead man’s eyes.
“Military wags over there,” Krysty announced, pointing.
Set in a small park, near a dried lake, was a stout granite building with a curved roof and a massive concrete wall. A garage stood with its doors swung up, a collection of assorted civilian vehicles in the parking lot. An iron-spike fence topped the massive wall, and the only entrance in sight was closed with a steel gate and a large guard kiosk. But only half of the enclosed area was present. The edge of the mesa cut the rest of the location in two, the leafy tops of trees visible over the rim of the cliff. The thick jungle stretched for miles to the base of the live volcano.
“That’s got to be it,” Ryan said over the purring engines.
“Half of it’s gone,” Dean complained. “All this way for nothing.”
“Might as well see what we can salvage,” J.B. said, removing his hat and straightening the brim. “Even an old 60 mm recoilless rifle would give us enough punch to remove the spider and the droids.”
Taking the ramp, the companions braked to a halt and were forced to walk their bikes onto the sloped grass to get past a bad crash. Several cars had plowed into a military half-track embedded into a bus full of tourists. The grinning skeletons in swimsuits had been brutally crushed under the tonnage of the military wag.
“Tourists heading for the beach,” Mildred muttered, an unexpected lump in her throat. “Poor bastards.”
“Hell of a crash,” Ryan agreed, stepping onto his bike. “Good thing they were chilled already.”
Mildred blinked. “What was that? Well, yes, they would have to be, from the neutron wave,” she reasoned aloud. “First they died, then they crashed.”
“Unless they knew the war was coming before anybody else,” Krysty said, steering her motorcycle through a clump of weeds to reach the street.
“Not possible,” J.B. agreed, pausing to clean a few tiny bugs off his wire-rimmed glasses, squashed trophies garnished from the lengthy bike trip.
“Verily, not a soul knew the sword of Damocles was falling,” Doc whispered, so softly that nobody else could hear the words. “Except for the fools who cut the string themselves.”
Chapter Fifteen
That section of the mesa had been hit hard by the concussion from the aerial blast of the neutron bomb. Most of the structures were smashed flat, the overpass lying on the ground in jumbled piles of broken concrete and rust-eaten steel girders.