"Don't shoot," Isaac Mannheim shouted as he saw the unshaven, barefoot man roll next to him, an Uzi giving off bursts of rounds.
"Get down," Vance yelled back, then shoved him onto the asphalt beside the blue-and-white Agusta. "You picked a hell of a time to come visiting. There're some new natives, and they're not overly friendly."
"Who are you?" The old man's ancient eyes were brimming with alarm and confusion. "What are you doing here?"
"At the moment I'm trying to keep you alive." Vance checked the clip of the Uzi. There were about seven rounds left. With three hoods out there, all with Kalashnikovs, seven rounds would not go very far.
Was anything usable in the Agusta? he asked himself. He peered through the glass of the cockpit, searching. It looked empty. Except for-
A blast of fire careened by the canopy, and he again yanked Mannheim down onto the asphalt. Then he cautiously raised up enough to recon the situation.
The hoods were all advancing now, scurrying forward from building to building as they gave covering blasts from their automatics. However, the two farthest back did not seem to be overly enthusiastic.
"They're going to kill us, too," Mannheim stammered. "Can you-?"
"Just stay down," Vance interrupted him. "I'm probably the one they want to get rid of. If they'd wanted you dead, believe me, you would be by now."
He opened the door and hurriedly surveyed the cockpit more closely. Yes, he had seen it right…
Attached to the back firewall, ready for emergency use, was a rack of smoke grenades, factory fresh, the kind used for signaling in case the helo went down.
He remembered that grenade smoke was designed to cling to the ground rather than rise, and with a burn time between one and two minutes, a good grenade could produce a quarter million cubic feet of HC smoke.
Maybe, he thought, I just got lucky.
He peeled one off the rack and checked it over. Yep, American M-18, which everybody knew was the best. The can was about the size of a Diet Coke, and it was military gray. It even gave the flavor on the side-this one was red, but they also came in yellow and white. Nice to have around if you went down in wooded terrain.
He looked toward the gunmen approaching and made the decision on the spot. With a quick motion he clenched the handle with his right hand and yanked the steel pin with his left. When he looked up again, they had closed the distance, now only about thirty yards. Time for a touchdown.
He drew back and lobbed the can directly at the lead terrorist.
The time delay was one and a half seconds. It landed just in front of the first man, bounced once, and blew-an eruption of red that engulfed him.
Beautiful.
With a quick twist he yanked the rack from the side of the cockpit and began hurling the cans as fast as he could. Finally, he grabbed the startled old professor by the arm, then dropped the last grenade at their feet.
"Time to move the party. There's cover in the rocks up there."
Mannheim stumbled backward as the smoke bomb exploded, and Vance realized he would never make it. He would have to be dragged, or carried. And since dragging was out of the question, there really was only one option.
He bent down and grabbed the old man around the waist, then lifted him over his shoulder. It turned out he was hardly more than skin and bones, maybe a hundred and fifty pounds, tops. After spending the last four days heaving the tillers of the late, lamented Odyssey II, the load seemed like a feather.
Some more random gunfire exploded behind them as he struggled and stumbled up the rocky slope, but now a dense cloud of red completely obliterated the scene below. The M-18 grenades were still billowing, totally obscuring the landing pad and the roadway.
When they reached the first clump of brush leading up the mountain, he settled Mannheim onto the ground. The old professor was choking from the smoke, totally disoriented, and babbling. Vance clapped a hand over his mouth, then urged him onward.
"No talking. If they find us, we're going to have some really lousy odds."
He removed his hand, and immediately Mannheim started again.
"Whoever you are, I guess I have to thank you for saving my life." He puffed over the stones. "Who are you?"
"I'm a friend of Bill Bates, the man supposedly in charge around here."
"I'm Isaac Mannheim. This project-"
"The godfather." Vance looked him over. "Bill's talked about you. MIT, right?"
“The Cyclops is my-"
"Nice to meet you. Now who in the hell are these thugs?"
"I have no idea."
"Well, we can assume they're not part of Bill's technical support team." He glanced down the hill, toward the drifting cloud of red smoke, then back at the old man. "But if you've been involved in this project, then you must know the layout here."
"I know it very well. But-"
"Good. We're going to have to keep moving, at least till it gets dark, but while we're doing that, I want you to get me up to speed on where things are. Give me the setup. And tell me how many personnel are here and where they are."
Mannheim pointed down the hill, at a point just past the storage sheds. "The people are housed in the Bates Motel, which is over there, beyond that row of buildings."
Vance looked it over. At the moment it seemed deserted.
"Where's the entrance?"
"You can go in directly from the connecting corridor underground, or you can use the front entrance, there."
"What if the entrance topside were locked? Then it would he secure, right?"
"I suppose so." He still seemed disoriented, though he was recovering. "Of course there are fire exits at various places in the underground network, as well as the security lobby over there. And then, the storage sheds can be accessed from below."
"But all of those entry-points can be sealed, right?"
"Yes. In fact, they can be sealed electronically, from Command. The staff controls everything from there."
Vance looked down at the white surf rippled across the blue. "So if somebody wanted to take over this place, that's where they would start, right? Hit that and you're in like a bandit. It's the head office."
“That's correct." Mannheim nodded.
"Good. We know where to focus. Now you're going to tell me how I can get there."