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The flatbed car was loaded with two pickup trucks of unknown origin powered by an electrical motor Shiny new, they looked to be fresh off the boat Without a word between them, Pitt and Giordino threw open a door and slipped into one of the truck's cabs, crouching down below the s and the dashboard Their ti couldn't have beenpast the train, lights flashing as they raced after the bus

Pitt looked pleased "Our little maneuver was missed by the cameras or they'd have come after us instead of the bus"

"About time we had some luck"

"Stay put," instructed Pitt "I'll be right back"

He opened the door on the side of the train away from the road and lowered hi from front to back, he removed the chocks and tie-down chains that held the pickup truck to the rail car Then he scrambled back inside

Giordino looked at hiely "I can read yourtrain into a tunnel that's blocked on both ends"

"We'll worry about it when the time comes," Pitt tossed off placidly

There is nothing on earth that re machine

The TBM that dug the tunnels under Nicaragua from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific shore stretched over one hundred and twenty yards in length, followed by another hundred yards of its equipment train

An incredibly coe of a Saturn rocket, it was driven by an electric variable-speed drive that elie and pollution The Specter TBM fractured flakes of bedrock by the continuous rotation of a series of carbide cutters mounted on a massive steel cutter head that could cut a circular tube through hard rock fifty-two feet in diameter at the rate of one hundred and fifty feet a day The body that enclosed the cutter head also contained the drive motors that provided the enormous power it took to thrust the cutter's teeth into the rock, and the hydraulic presses that exerted the irind away the rock

The giant machine was articulated, and its operator, as positioned at the front of the machine, could automatically steer it with the use of a laser while he monitored the operation The excavated muck was transported to the rear section of the TBM and passed through a rock crusher that mashed the rock into fine sand From there, the conveyor belt carried it back toward the opposite end of the tunnel, where it was pumped out into the sea

The train stopped two hundred yards behind the TBM and beneath the overhead conveyor to unload at a supply depot and terht through the roof of the tunnel A group of women in white jumpsuits exited one of the elevators and cliled close to them and overheard one woht hours so a report-could be sent to company headquarters above

It made no sense to Pitt Headquarters? Where above?

No one seemed to mind as he casually drove the truck fro dock and down a ramp to the concrete road Then he pulled over and stopped behind a row of three other electric trucks

Giordino looked around the busy area, where at least thirtythe mass of machinery "That was too easy"