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Max looked up It was as if the canal’s featureless rock walls reached the heavens They dwarfed the ship, and, up ahead, the autoirders from his boyhood Erector set
The trah the canal, and, to Eric’s credit, he kept it dead center, using the Oregon’s athwartship thrusters with such delicacy that the flying bridges never once touched the side Max chanced stepping out on one and walking all the way to the end It was foolish and dangerous If Eric made a mistake, a collision at this speed would tear the platform off the superstructure But Max wanted to reach out and touch the stone It was cool and rough At this depth, the canal remained in shadow for most of the day, so the sun never had the chance to warm it
Satisfied, he hurried to the bridge just as the Oregon heaved slightly and the railing s infinitesiain
“Linda’s van is just about at the New National Road bridge,” Gomez called over the intercoood lead on the jeep chasing him”
“On my way down,” Max said, and moved for the elevator
THE DAMAGED TIRE finally shredded a quarteron the ri from the back of the van like a Catherine wheel The sound was like fingernails across a chalkboard, so Linda hated more than any other noise in the world She wasn’t sure what made her happier when they reached the center of the span: that they were almost home free or that the unholy shriek had ended
Franklin Lincoln threw open the side door as soon as they stopped He could see the Oregon fast approaching and heaved three thick nylon clie The ropes were secured around the van’s seats and through a frao area They uncoiled as they fell through space and came up just ten feet shy of the sea
Linda quickly juear—harness, helloves—while, two hundred feet below theon’s stern as reverse thrust was applied to slow her With the power of her ines, she lost headway almost immediately
Linc had already strapped himself into a harness used by tandem parachute jumpers, and, with Eddie’s help, they had clipped an unconscious Kyle Hanley to him The three of them then secured themselves to the lines and waited for word from down below
On the Oregon, crewuided the sure they didn’t becoled with the superstructure, cos that could snag them As soon as the o
Never one to be bothered by heights, Linda stepped onto the guardrail and started lowering herself fro Kyle, made his way down the other They lowered theirders, and then, suddenly, they were dangling two hundred feet over their ship, nothing holding them in place but the three-quarter-inch lines
With a whoop, Linda shot down her rope like a runaway elevator Eddie and Linc quickly followed, al harnesses to slow their descent They touched down at almost the same time, and stood still so that their crew ends were quickly knotted around cast-iron bollards bolted to the ship’s deck
Breathless from the adrenaline rush, Linda said, “Now for the fun part”
Watching the action on deck from the closed-circuit television system, Eric Stone didn’t wait for orders He eased the T-handle throttle forward slightly to edge the ship farther up the canal The slack in the ropes vanished in an instant, and then they quivered for a second before the ship’s thrust rolled the rental van over the guardrail It plu into the water just behind the Oregon’s fantail The impact flattened its roof and blew out all its s The weight of its engine caused the van to upend, like a duck diving for food, and it bobbed in the ship’s wake for a ht They would tow the ruined vehicle well into the Aegean before cutting the ropes and allowing the van to sink to the bottom
The van was rented by a disguised crewfalse identification, and there would be no link back to the Corporation And only one more person needed to rejoin the ship for the o so deep into their playbook that they had to use plan C