If Rockecenter succeeded in getting war declared, control of all the oil companies, which he had already, would come right back into his hands. And so would the other things he already controlled, such as banking. He still owned all the governments by way of international finance. The only thing Heller would have effected would have been the removal of the threat of nuclear war, by destroying Russia. And maybe Rockecenter would build that up again somehow so he could sell arms once more.
Heller did not care what happened to Rockecenter himself now. The man had committed the cardinal sin of breaking his word and, to a Fleet officer, that ended off any mercy that Rockecenter might expect if it came to a final showdown. They had given him what was really a fair out: he had taken advantage of it like a thief, even to the point of stealing their wallets.
Driving at a good speed, he opened the glove compartment of the cab. No gun. He glanced into the back seat. No gun. Bang-Bang had probably put the regulation Colt.45 Heller had been issued in the shoulder satchel. If the tank stopped again, it left Heller with no weapons. All he could do was hope he wouldn't have to go bare-handed up against a tank.
He turned several curves. Suddenly Entrance 4 of the Palisades Interstate Parkway loomed. He shot out onto its broad expanse.
Too late, he saw the limousine and tank a mile ahead.
The officer must have been looking back. Heller had been seen!
The tank swerved out, let the limousine pass it and fell in behind the car.
Heller was hastily checking his speed.
He didn't check it fast enough.
A burst of machine-gun fire slashed the trees to his right!
The tank turret was coming around.
Heller braked hard.
BLAM!
The tank shell hit the road in front of the cab and screamed over the top of it in a ricochet.
Heller slued the cab over into the left-hand lanes.
BLAM!
Another shell hit where the cab had just been!
Where the scenic highway made a close approach to the cliffs above the river, there was a turn. The tank and limousine passed around it.
Heller straightened up the cab and proceeded. He recalled from the map that the parkway had more curves from that point on, closing with and drawing away from the cliffs.
He glanced to his left. The Hudson stretched out majestically. It was bordered for the next nine miles by sandstone precipices, vertical down to the water, from 540 to 200 feet in height where the river had slashed through the lower Catskill Mountains. Across the river, a mile away, lay Yonkers, and to the south, thirteen miles from here, glistened the skyscrapers of Manhattan. The air seemed clearer today: the absence of cars and chimney smoke-plus, perhaps, the spores of Ochokeechokee now drifting around Earth were making some small change in the polluted atmosphere already. It was, in fact, a beautiful clear day. It made Heller cross: Rockecenter was bound and determined to destroy such gains.
He was being alert now for some sign of Bang-Bang. He hoped his friend had gotten well ahead and wouldn't be spotted by that tank.
He went another five miles. The parkway slid inland from the high cliffs now and was bordered by tall, impressive trees.
Heller was afraid he'd lose them. He speeded up to eighty.
A turn was just ahead where the broad highway twisted once more east, back to the Hudson.
Heller took the turn.
Too late, he saw the tank only a quarter of a mile ahead!
They were only doing about forty!
Heller was closing a lot too fast!
BLAM!
As he saw the turret gun flash, he veered left.
The shell went by with a shriek.
A spray of machine gun bullets hit his windshield, pocks of sudden white in the bulletproof glass.
He veered to the right.
BLAM!
A shell screamed by on his left.
Suddenly he saw the motorcycle.
It was lying tipped on its side in the left lane!
Had Bang-Bang been caught up with?
Suddenly Heller understood what that motorcycle meant.
The limousine and tank were only a few hundred yards ahead. They were speeding around the turn where the parkway was directly above the Hudson three hundred feet straight down.
Heller stamped on his brakes and spun the cab.
It screeched in a full 360 degrees.
Heller had it in reverse.
He shot backwards.
BOOOOOOOOM!
Bright orange fire erupted from under the highway and bloomed hugely into the sky.
A hundred-yard strip of highway was going up into the air!
The tank was flung, as from a catapult, high out over the river!
As it hit the zenith of its flight, it suddenly exploded as a bomb of its own. Its ammunition and gasoline ripped it into a balloon of fire.
The concussion hit the cab and the tires screeched as it shot backwards.
Then Heller saw the limousine.
It was high in the air, turning over and over.
It spun slowly and plummeted down into the Hudson, hundreds of feet below.
The debris was pattering down, hitting the highway all around and the cab.
The column of smoke was puffing, like an expanding balloon, up into the summer sky.
Heller sped the cab forward, avoiding massive lumps of concrete. He came close to the edge of the enormous gash that had been gouged out of the cliffside.
He leaped out of the cab and raced to the edge of the precipice. Some pieces of debris were still striking the water.
The ocean tide apparently had been moving in, for the splashes were drifting a bit northward against the normal current of the river.
Heller was looking for any sign of the limousine three hundred feet below.
Footsteps came running behind him.
Bang-Bang Rimbombo. "I'm glad you saw the bike," he panted. "It was the only signal I could think of to tell you the road was mined ahead."
"Holy Heavens," said Heller. "I didn't tell you to blow the whole highway and cliff down! You were only supposed to blast down a barricade."
"Well, when I opened the satchel," said Bang-Bang, "those itty-bitty charges looked so small, I had misgivings. I really stuffed them in. I never saw such compact dynamite in all my years in demolition. Jesus, Jet, I'm sorry. I guess I overdid it!"
Heller didn't dare tell him he had been using Voltar explosives, a million times as powerful as Earth dynamite. He was looking anxiously for any sign of the limousine.
Suddenly, there it was!
It surfaced from the depths, upside-down, buoyed by the quantities of air trapped by its air-conditioning seals. It must have gone clear to the bottom and come back.
Bubbles were coming from it. It would sink again!
Jet was stripping off his clothes.
"No!" cried Bang-Bang. "You can't dive three hundred feet!"
Heller, down to his underpants, grabbed the satchel off Bang-Bang's shoulder. He snatched out a short jimmy with a wrist strap. He reached in again and grabbed a round cylinder. It was smooth and bright but it had a dial on one end. He gave the dial a twitch with his thumb.
"You're not seeing any of this," he yelled at Bang-Bang.
The limousine was again beginning to sink. Heller marked it from spots on shore.
Heller took a run and leaped off the top of the cliff. He went way out.
HE DIDN'T FALL!
Gaping, Bang-Bang saw him hanging by the cylinder in one hand. He did not know it was an antigravity coil and he couldn't register what he was looking at.
With the thumb of his other hand, Heller gave the dial another twist. He swooped down a hundred feet. He thumbed the coil again and, using his body as a plane, dived in the direction of the bubbles still coming up from the sinking limousine.
He hit the water. It was cold. Below the surface, he thumbed the coil to turn it off and then held it with his teeth.