The headlights picked out a narrow gulch between two ribbons of rock, and he headed into it gratefully, judging that once he was in it the walls would be high enough to provide some cover. There was a danger that he might corner himself, but for the time being he was far more anxious about what was behind him than what he might meet up front.

He dumped a few mines in the mouth of the gully but two of the bandits swung sideways to run a parallel course without actually descending into the gulch, while the third turned its guns on the ground and blew the mines prematurely. Their vehicles obviously had good sensors and competent simulatorsa"which meant that they were almost in the same cla.s.s as his own. The blaze of light which accompanied the explosion of the mines was spectacular, but the sim told him that it was all futile so far as disabling the enemy was concerned.

Pasco was firing at the vehicle behind, cursing his failure to hit it. No doubt the gunner in the vehicle was cursing in very similar fashion.

"Who are these guys'?" Pasco complained.

"Certainly not gangkids," Carl muttered. "This is enemy action in no uncertain terms. Has to be corp men."

"How come they got between us and the Kid?"

"Just luckya"unless the opposition have interceptors scattered all over the western semi-desert. Unlessa"

He had to stop in order to squeeze around a tight bend, lurching horribly. One of the vehicles on a parallel track had found better ground and was gaininga"if it got level its crew or its computer would be sure to start tossing grenades into his path, and that was the last thing he wanted.

What he'd been going to say, thougha"as Pasco surely had worked out for himselfa"was that these guys might have been out here for two days and more, since before the disc had even gone missing. They might have been part of the contact squad which was supposed to collect the disc from the thief and run it on to wherever it was supposed to go.

The gully was much shallower now, and Carl had the option to climb out of it. He checked the positions of the other three vehicles in the sim and was pleased to see that they were now quite widely separated. He had only a couple of seconds to weigh up the alternatives, but it looked most sensible to swerve to the right and try to close with the vehicle that was almost levela"that way, he could at least stop worrying about grenades.

He hauled the wheel over, and began climbing the slope to his left. There was a lot of loose dirt on the slope and for a moment he thought the wheels might lose their purchase, but they carried him up and over and he heard Pasco whoop as the six-millimetre levelled up and gave him a clear shot. No doubt the computer would have whooped too, if it had had a voice.

"Rat-a-ta-ta-tat!" carolled Pasco, to signify that he'd scored hitsa"and Carl watched them register on the sim's counter. But the other vehicles weren't souped-up production models armoured with kitchen-foil; they were the real thing. The bullets had bounced off and the other guy was still coming, autocannon blazing.

Carl swung right around in order to line up the missile-launcher. It was a do-or-die kind of manoeuvre, but there was no way he could play narrow percentages with three bad boys on his tail. The sim showed him that he and the other vehicle were now so close that the other guy had no chance at all to duck and weave, and the missile went homea"but in the meantime, the sneaker had to weather a hail of shot which wasn't all bouncing off. The sim racked up the shots taken with as much verve as it racked up the ones scored, and the news looked bad. Carl knew that his armour was good, but it couldn't take much more Pasco had ducked, cursing Carl for a crazy foola"but Carl knew that the big man didn't really mean it by the way that he yelled when the warhead went up. Neither of them needed to check the windscreen to know that the target was a flamer.

In fact, it was far better than that: the flamer was a rolling bomb, and it was heading straight for the guy who'd been down in the gully with Carl, and who was doing his level best to get back on Carl's tail.

The threatened vehicle had time to take evasive action, so that the flamer went past him, but the evasive action turned him side-on to Pasco's six-millimetre, and Pasco let him have it full-blast. The driver tried to turn again, too fast, and his near-side front wheel must have hit a boulder. It couldn't have been a very big boulder because it didn't show on the sim, but the guy was trying to drive every which way at once, and the impact was enough to flip him over on to his side.

Carl swerved back, joyously, knowing that he only had make a single pa.s.s while Pasco and the computer combined forces to shoot up the naked cha.s.sis and the wheels at point-blank rangea"while the other car was on its side it couldn't fire back at all.

The third pursuer had seen what had happened too, though, and he wasn't about to give Carl a clear run. The driver was already zooming down into the gulch and he gunned the engine hard as he came to the second slope, intending to come up it like a bat out of h.e.l.l. Fortunately for Carl, his good intentions paved him a road in the opposite direction, and his tyres suddenly lost their grip on the loose stuff.

Carl came around to make his pa.s.s without any real opposition, and Pas...o...b..asted the target long and hard in the naked underbelly. Nothing explodeda"the tank was too well-shieldeda"but Carl was pretty certain that no more flak was going to come from that direction.

He was able to turn back towards the third pursuer before the other driver had quite got out of trouble, and he felt another missile being loosed off by the computera"but the angle changed too fast and the rocket soared away into the desert before blasting all h.e.l.l out of a few rocks which had never done anyone any harm.

Carl thanked his lucky stars that the three bandits didn't have any missiles of their own. If they had had equal firepower, he would have been a dead duck.

The other guy finally managed to get up and over, and he came straight at Carl. It was another do-or-die move, but the driver must have figured that two down and one to go put him at the disadvantage. The autocannon was rattling away, and there was no way Carl could get out of the line of fire. The windscreen was as unbreakable as gla.s.s could be, but gla.s.s was only gla.s.s; it imploded.

Carl ducked, but didn't swerve until the computer had had time to line up and fire the fourth missile from its pod. When he felt it go he pulled the wheel over as hard and as far as he could, and prayed that nothing got in their way. The other vehicle went up like a Roman Candle, but the shock-wave hit the sneaker hard, and sprayed it with shrapnel and burning fuel. Without a windscreen there was no way of keeping it all out, but Carl had turned the car so far that only a tiny fraction of it got through to the cabin.

The sim, impartially recording the hits, told him that the armour was taking a h.e.l.l of a battering, and the engine was beginning to squeal. Carl felt a knot of fear tighten about his heart while he was half-convinced that they were going to lose power, but the vehicle ploughed on.

The sneaker survived the series of blows which followed on the heels of the explosiona"but only just. One of its tyres was completely shredded and it lost two of its guns. The vehicle stayed right way up, but by the way its axle-housing ground upon the rocks Carl knew that it had been a d.a.m.nably close-run thingaand when he slowly let the vehicle come to rest, he knew full well that it wouldn't be going anywhere for some considerable time to come.

He and Pasco were alive and fighting fita"but they were stranded in the middle of nowhere, and Kid Zero was getting further away from them with every second that pa.s.sed. And just to cap it all, somewhere behind them were sixty bikers thirsting for their blood.

"Aw, s.h.i.t!" said Pasco, when they had come to a stop.

It seemed as apt a comment as any Carl could think of, so he made no observation of his own, but was content for the moment just to let the night air flow in and out of his lungs.

2.

While Carl Preston was sending out a mayday Pasco took a flashlight and a crowbar from the storage unit behind the seats and made his way over to the limo which lay on its side. It was black, with no corporation markings, but it was a top grade fighting-machine, only marginally less capable than SecDiv's finest. He went carefully, because there was a reasonable chance that someone was still alive in there, and in a condition to retaliate. He came up on the blind side and switched the flashlight on abruptly, in order to blind anyone who might be lying in wait.

There were two men in the vehicle. One was dead; the other, though still alive and conscious, wasn't in a shooting mood. His legs had been shot up by machine-gun bullets fired through the cha.s.sis, and he was evidently in a great deal of pain.

Pasco signalled to the guy to release the lock on the door, and after a moment's hesitation he obeyed. There was no point at all in staying inside, and he knew it. Pasco managed to lever the door open and unclipped the stricken man's belt. He removed the piece from the wounded man's shoulder-holster; thena"as gently as he coulda"he lifted the other clear of the wreck. He wasn't a small man, but he wasn't big enough to be much of a problem for Pasco.

After depositing his burden on the nearest convenient patch of bare ground Pasco went back to the car and took a good look round the cab; then he went through the driver's pockets, removing everything. By the time he got back to the living man he had the ID sorted out. The driver's name was Enrico Zucchi, and he supposedly worked for a small independent trucking companya"except, of course, that there weren't any small independent trucking companies any more. In the modern world, everybody had to be dependenta"the big boys saw to that. The question was: who did Mr Zucchi's trucking company depend on?

Pasco knew that he could radio through to home base and get a full check run on Mr Zucchi, but that would take time. He figured that he could put two and two together as well as any computera"besides which, he had an equally reliable source of information stretched out on the dirt at his feet.

Pasco took the wounded man's wallet from his inside pocket, and swiftly checked the ID. He wasn't in the least surprised to find out that the survivor was also called Zucchi. The wounded man was Bernardo of that ilk; the younger brother.

Bernardo Zucchi was watching Pasco from behind half-lowered eyelids, and Pasco knew that he was paying attention.

Pasco squatted down, so that he wouldn't have to speak so loudly.

"Okay, Bernardo," he said gently. "You and I both know the score. You're the head of the family now, and that means the family honour rests with you. That probably means that when I start twisting your shattered legs you aren't allowed to tell me a d.a.m.n thing, and that you have to die in agony. But that would be futile, wouldn't it? Much better if we could play a little game, in which I could make guesses and you could just nod if I happened to get them right. That way, you wouldn't be telling me anything at all. Shall we try it?"

There was no response, so Pasco tried twisting the wounded man's leg a little. Bernardo tried to hold out, but in the end he nodded.

"That's what I thought," said Pasco softly. "But this doesn't quite add up, docs it? I have to admit that I'm puzzled. All the evidence points one way, but it's a crazy waya"even the fact that you don't want to talk. That's omerta, right? You're a family man."

He stopped, and waited for Bernardo to nod. Bernardo didn't, so Pasco gave him a little more encouragement. In the end, Bernardo nodded.

"That's what I thought," said Pasco again. "But what I don't understand is what the freakin' h.e.l.l three mafia mobmobiles are doing this far westa"and I certainly don't understand why you were trying to get between GenTech Security and its target. I mean, I'm really puzzled about that. If you were M-M or Chromicon, or even the freakin' CIA, I wouldn't have batted my one good eyelid, but the one party in all America with whom GenTech don't have any quarrel whatsoever is the Mob."

Bernardo was listeninga"hanging on every word. Pasco liked that. It showed an intelligent interest in what was going on. It was always easier to get information out of an intelligent and imaginative man; the ones who wouldn't co-operate tended to be the dumb ones who didn't know any better.

"One thing I am sure of," said Pasco pensively, "is that our Mr Blay was not of Sicilian descent, or anything resembling it. He was Anglo-Saxon through and through. He was not one of yours. Nor have your old men any reason in the world to think that what he took was of any interest to you. Nora"to dispose also of the absurd hypothesesa"have you any conceivable reason for wanting to protect Kid Zero. Ergo, Bernardo, you are working for someone else. This is odd, because if mafiosi did not have a horror of working for anyone else, there wouldn't be a mafia in this day and agea"it would have been swallowed up by one or other of the corps. Am I right, Bernardo?"

Bernardo didn't move a muscle, though the question was entirely innocuous. Pasco wanted Bernardo to answer a few innocuous questions first, just to get him in the habit.

"Come on, Bernardo," he said tiredly. "You don't have to talk to me. You don't have to tell me anything. Your lips are sealed. But if you don't nod your freakin head I'm going to start dismantling your kneecaps, piece by b.l.o.o.d.y piece. You don't have to tell me anything, because I'm smart enough to guess it all, but you have to let me know how warm I am, okay? I have my honour too, right? Nowa"it's odd, isn't it, that the mob have become involved in this."

Bernardo didn't move a muscle until Pasco gave him a little encouragement, but he was only playing by the rules. As soon as Pasco hit the agony switch, Bernardo nodded.

"Right," said Pasco amiably. "Right answer. Easy when you try, isn't it? So let's you and me go for the harder ones, now. There's something else odd about your being here, isn't there? This is far enough west to be Yakuza territory. Ever since the families lost their toehold in Hollywood and their power-base in Las Vegas they've been an east coast operationa"Chicago, New York, Boston, Washington D. C. That's where your old men live, rubbing shoulders with all the other old money. Funny, ain't it, how they used to be old money when you were still new, but now you've crossed the fence into their part of the pasture? I said, Bernardo, it's funny, ain't it?"

Bernardo nodded.

"And that's why you're here, isn't it? n.o.body hired you, because you ain't that kind of outfit. They came to your old men cap in hand and they asked for help. They spoke of brotherhood and marriage, of cla.s.s and the club, and your old men lapped it upa"because that was the one thing they'd always craved and never had: social acceptance by the true aristocracy. Am I right, Bernardo?"

Bernardo seemed to be a real stickler for the rules, because he wouldn't nod his head, and Pasco had to do some substantial damage to his right lega"without getting any further resultsa"before he was finally satisfied that the reason Bernardo wouldn't nod was that Bernardo couldn't. Pasco knew that he probably didn't know in any case. Bernardo was only a soldier, following orders.

"Aw, s.h.i.t," said Pasco, and shot Bernardo in the head. Then he went back to see how Carl Preston was getting on with the wheel.

Preston had changed the tyre, and the sneaker was roadworthy again, but it was by no means in tiptop condition.

"We have to get back on the road and make what speed we can," said Preston. "It'll be three hours before they can get someone out to us. With luck, we might just stay ahead of the Atlas Boysa"with luck."

"Yeah," said Pasco unenthusiastically. "And we have to stay as close to Kid Zero as we can. We don't stand a cat in h.e.l.l's chance now of getting to him before Bernardo's friends do, but the Kid may not be any more anxious to talk to the Mob than he is to talk to us. If he can duck and dive long enough, he might be able to save himself until we get to him. With luck."

"Mob?" queried Zarathustra's man.

"The freakin' mafia. We're only up against the freakin' mafia."

"Way out here?" said Preston sceptically.

Pasco didn't like to have his word doubted, but he knew that the other man was only expressing surprise, so he merely echoed him. "Way out here," he said.

They both got back into the sneaker, and Preston put it into gear. They moved off slowly, heading for the road.

"You think the dons have made a deal with one of the other corps?" asked the BioDiv man warily.

"Nope," said Pasco. "I think they've made a deal with the American Dream. They've thrown in with the dinosaurs. Question is, what exactly are the dinosaurs playing at? They're not interested in trading industrial secrets; they're interested in recovering a slice of the power and influence that they used to have, and which they still regard as theirs."

"Which dinosaurs are we talking about here?" Preston asked. "Congress?"

"Not exactly," said Pasco. "The people behind Congressa"the people for whom the federal government used to front. The old plutocratsa"the ancien regimea"the dinosaurs. When the mafia began to plough their money back into legitimate concerns in the fifties and sixties they made the first tentative steps towards joining the establishment, but the establishment didn't want to let them in. Now, faced with the power of the corps, the old guard arc ready and willing to take their allies where they can find them. They probably think they're only using the mob, but they're fooling themselves."

"It's a nice story," said Preston, "but it's all conjecture."

"Sure it is. But in a world everything anybody tells you straight out is a lie, conjecture is the only chance a guy ever stands of getting to the truth, right?"

"Maybe," the other conceded cautiously.

Pasco looked at his companion in disgust. It was bad enough that Zarathustra had used his weight to intrude his pet poodle into SecDiv business, without the guy coming over all steadfastly unimaginative.

"I don't suppose," said Pasco acidly, "that you have the least idea what's on this freakin' disc we're chasing."

"The Doc's data," said Preston amiably.

"Data about what?"

"Can't say for sure. Stuff about his body-rebuilding techniquesa"maybe some other stuff too."

"Listen, Preston," said Pasco impatiently. "Are we on the same side or not? I don't give a d.a.m.n, one way or the other, but I'd like to know. If this is one of those cases where Gen Tech's left hand ain't supposed to know what the right hand is doing, just tell me straight out, and Zarathustra can go whistle for his lousy data. If I'm putting my life on the line here, I want to know, okay?"

Preston seemed to understand and sympathize. He wasn't such a bad guy, after all, Pasco thoughta"and he could certainly drive.

"All I know," he replied, "is that we were out in the field collecting mutantsa"weird kids, some weird animals. Any kind of freak we could find, in fact. Standard thinking about the increase in their numbers is that it's the result of mutagens pumped out into the rivers or used as fertilizers before the land went sour on us, but the Doc seems to think there's something more than that going ona"maybe something worse."

"Enemy action?"

"Whose enemy? h.e.l.l, Ray, I don't know. You think anybody tells me anything? You got all I got to give, and that's all conjecture. You tell me where it points to."

"It sure as h.e.l.l doesn't point to your everyday industrial espionage," said Pasco in a low tone, as much to himself as to his companion. "This is political with a big P. Your runner was going to the Mob, not M-M or Chromicon, and if the mob were running interference for the dinosaursawho know what kind of s.h.i.t is going to hit the fan? You and me, Carl, we got to be careful here. Our a.s.ses are in a sling."

"You're right," said Carl Preston, softly. "Look at the sima"then check the rear-view mirror."

According to the simulator, there was a cloud of blue gnats on the road behind them. According to the rear view mirror, the gnats were fireflies. Pasco didn't need much in the way of powers of conjecture to be pretty d.a.m.n certain that the fireflies were the headlights of the Atlas Boys.

"Aw, s.h.i.t!" he said. "Can we keep ahead of them until the interceptors arrive?"

"Who knows?" said Preston. "But with two guns disabled and holes in our armour you could stick your fist through, we'd sure as h.e.l.l better hope that we can. They may only be toting pea-shooters, but if they get their hands on usa"those boys are big."

"Yeah," said Pasco unenthusiastically. "I noticed." He put the word "politics" out of his mind, and reached for his gun.

3.

The only phone in Melendez, New Mexico was in the diner, so that was where Sammy Ulinski headed for as soon as he came into town. It was virtually a ghost town now, though some traffic still came through on the railroad. The railroad had been famous in its daya"when it was part of the Acheson-Topeka-Santa Fea"and Melendez had been quite a town, but all that was long gone. Now it was home to scabs and sandrats, and the only reason the diner hadn't closed down was that every time somebody shot the owner there was another fool in line desperate enough to take his place.

The current owner called himself Geronimo, though he had no more Indian blood in him than Sammy Ulinski. He didn't look much but he was as mean as they came. When Sammy came in Geronimo fixed him with the particular kind of stony stare which he reserved for people who owed him money. Sammy figured that he didn't really deserve such treatment, because it was only a few lousy bucksa"though it would probably have been more had Geronimo been willing to extend his credit.

He glanced round at the other customers before sidling over to the bar. They were all regulars except for one character who was wearing silly mirrorshades in spite of the fact that it was dark outside and the lights in the diner were hardly garish. Sammy favoured the oddball with a doubletake, but he was a little guy in an absurd white linen suit and he was drinking something disgusting which looked like orangeadea"he had "tourist" written all over him.

"Ron," said Sammy, "I gotta use your phone."

"The phone is for customers only," said Geronimo lazily. The phone was visible behind the counter but Geronimo didn't even look towards it, let alone reach for it "Are you a customer, Sammy?"

"Sure I'm a customer," said Sammy.

"Paying customers, that is," Geronimo said, thoughtfully adding the qualification.

"I can pay for the freakin call!" Sammy complained.

"If you got coins in your pocket," said Geronimo, "you can pay off some of your slate. When you've paid it all, and bought a drinka"with casha"you can use the phone."

"It's a matter of life and death," said Sammy, with conviction.

"Ain't my life or death," observed Geronimo. "Whose is it?"