Johnny and Blaine continued through the lobby. They made no effort to disguise themselves, staying wary as they moved.
“You think we finished any upstairs, Indian?”
“Doubtful, Blainey — and several would have started down the stairs as soon as our plunge down the elevator shaft became known.”
On the street fronting the building’s entrance in Oyster Park, police and fire and rescue officials continued to arrive in droves. The first team was already moving through the lobby en route to the floors that had set off the alarm. They moved quickly, but were not panicked. The safety of the building did not seem at stake, plus the sensor board was still reading problems only in those select areas.
“The Wakinyan will fire indiscriminately into the crowd once they have spotted us,” Johnny said when they stepped outside. “Innocent lives mean nothing to them.” Just then McCracken spotted two ladder and engine trucks that had pulled into a fire lane directly against the curb. “And since we have to make sure they see us…You’ll know the disciples when you see them, right, Indian?”
“I’ll know them when I feel them, Blainey.”
“Once they reach the lobby, I mean.”
Wareagle nodded.
Blaine gestured toward the nearer of the two trucks. “I assume you can drive one of those things?…”
Johnny smiled.
“They’ve reached the lobby, Blainey,” Wareagle told him less than thirty seconds later as they lingered on the other side of the nearer truck.
“Then we’d better let them know we’re here.”
The truck’s powerful engine was humming. Only a few of the arriving firemen were anywhere near it. One was sitting behind the wheel, but before he knew what was happening, Johnny had tossed him out. McCracken started to work the control panel on the near side. He pulled a pair of levers labeled DECK GUN and TANK TO PUMP and then located the red throttle control and drew it out as well. At the same time, Johnny, who was now in the cab, switched the truck’s engine to power the five-hundred-gallon main pump.
“Ready, Indian?” Blaine asked as he climbed on the truck.
Wareagle flashed him the thumbs-up sign, and McCracken positioned himself behind the deck gun. He adjusted the nozzle for a narrow stream, then rotated the control wheel for the angle he wanted. At first McCracken couldn’t distinguish the disciples moving among the crowd; then he noticed a number of figures that seemed to cause the throng to buckle as they surged forward. Blaine spun one last knob, and the water exploded from the deck gun in a narrow stream that was directed toward the crowd. The people who were trying to leave the building from the lobby entrance were shoved harshly backward. Those already outside were blistered by the powerful jets and thrust in all directions.
McCracken first made sure the deck gun was aimed straight for the main entrance, then he retraced his steps from it to the control panel. “Get ready, Indian!” he shouted into the cab on his way.
At the panel, he shoved the throttle inward. Instantly the deck gun’s flow slowed to a trickle and then stopped altogether.
“Go!” Blaine screamed, and Johnny shoved the engine into drive without disengaging the power takeoff. The gears screeched in protest, but the truck lurched away from the curb.
McCracken was working his way through the cab’s rear window; over the jump seat, when the truck bashed into a pair of police cars that had been parked in their path. Several police officers had their guns out, but none fired, frozen in what must have been a moment of total confusion.
Wareagle crashed through three more parked squad cars and a rescue wagon as he picked up speed down the street, where a path was clearing for him right down the middle. Wareagle kept the ear-wrenching siren going and used the loud horn regularly to continue clearing the street ahead. The top speed of the fire truck wasn’t much over fifty, which meant they’d have to rely almost purely on the head start for escape.
“The police, Blainey,” Johnny said, looking in the rearview mirror as they continued down Thimble Shoals.
“Yeah,” McCracken said, starting to ease himself back over the jump seat.
He gazed over the truck bed in search of a plan, then one made itself available in the form of a hose — over a thousand feet long — that was twisted into neat layers before him. He crawled over it to the back of the truck, grabbed its end, which featured a heavily weighted coupling made to be fitted into fire hydrants, and dropped it out of the truck. The hose began to unravel instantly, flying from the truck bed like spilled milk. It hit the street wildly, an uncoiling snake snapping for a victim. Cars swerved to avoid the hose, or lost control when they climbed over it, catching the pursuing police cars in the snarl.
Once again McCracken joined Wareagle in the cab, almost banging his head on the air tank bolted to the seat between them.
“A brief stretch on Route 17, then we pick up 64, Indian. Straight ride from there.” Johnny checked the large sideview mirror. “Nothing, Blainey.”
“They’ll be coming, Indian. They’ll be coming.”
“Where are the vans?” Abraham had screamed as soon as he and the others were at last able to make their way through the lobby — just in time to see the fire engine screech away.
He had joined the other disciples, some of them drenched far more than he, on the curb, where they were all gathering now. Everything was so chaotic no one noticed them or, a few minutes later, the dark vans that screeched around the corner and pulled into the spot vacated by McCracken’s stolen truck several minutes before. Abraham and the eleven other disciples piled into the vans, taking off in the same direction as McCracken and the Indian.
The men the disciples had been before Omicron would have felt at least some apprehension over the sudden turn of events in the building. But the members of the legion felt something akin to excitement. There seemed little doubt that McCracken and the Indian could match their skills and abilities. Everything else up until now had been too easy. McCracken and the Indian made for a challenge. They looked forward to the final confrontation that was now coming, their only fear being that their foes would escape before it could happen.
Then, as the vans weaved through the clutter of cars bottle-necked by the freed water hose, which was now being cleared from the street, Abraham gazed up and saw signs for Route 17 and Route 64 dead ahead. “That’s the way they went,” he said, and the two vans headed that way.
“I’ve got them, Blainey,” Wareagle reported, spotting them in the sideview mirror.
They had been traveling on Route 64 West for eight minutes now.
McCracken leaned his head out the window to see for himself. “How fast are we going?”
“Fifty.”
“Not fast enough.”
Johnny kept the siren going and leaned on the horn to clear a path for them down the freeway, but the vans were simply able to go faster than the fire engine.
“Guess we’d better slow them up a little, Indian,” Blaine said, and once again he was slithering his way through the cab window.
The truck bed was almost empty now, the water hose having taken up an enormous amount of room, and Blaine’s eyes almost immediately locked on a half-dozen white plastic drums.
“Foam,” he said to himself, with a smile.
Well, not foam so much as a heavy, thick white ooze used in fighting oil and gas fires. Very, very slippery. In other words, perfect…