Silence.
Glass tinkled to the concrete.
Mason sat up slowly.
Tasted blood in his mouth. In his sinuses.
Blue lightning fizzled and flared from the control panel on the wall.
His vision throbbed in time with the pounding in his head. The glare from the headlights cast his shadow across the aisle in front of him as he struggled to his feet. Shards of broken glass sparkled, crunched underfoot.
Acrid smoke settled over the vehicle, filtered through the windows.
He wiped blood from his right eye with his forearm. Dabbed at the stinging laceration in his eyebrow.
The cages around him were empty.
No shadows. No movement.
No Kane.
He walked back into the car in a shooter’s stance, scrutinizing the aisle down the barrel of his Sigma.
There.
A faint reflection from the ceiling.
Mason stopped directly underneath it and looked up. Dark fluid. A high-velocity spatter.
He’d hit Kane when he fired up from the ground. High on his body, based on the trajectory of the spatter.
He looked down.
To his left. Nothing.
To his right. There.
Droplets on the floor. Leading through the open cage door and to a smear on the sill of the broken window.
Kane had climbed out into the tunnel.
He could be hiding in the darkness right now, his weapon aimed at the window, just waiting for a clear shot.
Mason went out the rear window instead. Crouched on the coupling.
Listened.
Craned his neck in an effort to see around the tram. No sign of his former partner. Peered around the opposite side.
Clear.
He stepped down carefully. Quietly. Followed his Sigma toward the front of the tram. Knelt at the very edge, where Kane wouldn’t be able to see him through the headlights.
A distant scuffing sound.
Mason darted through the headlights. Pressed his back to the cracked windshield. Took a quick peek around the corner, toward the broken side window through which Kane had exited. Broken glass on the ground. No sign of—
Wait.
He walked toward a patch of concrete free of glass. Glanced up to his left. He could see the smear of blood Kane had left behind when he climbed over the ledge. He would have landed right where Mason stood, scattering the shards when he rose from the ground. But which way had he gone?
No sound from either direction.
Kane was a professional. His survival instincts were honed to a razor’s edge. He’d managed to remain invisible for a whole year. He not only knew what he was doing, he’d been trained to anticipate what his pursuer would do. And he knew this tunnel. Either he’d taken up a defensible position or he was already in the process of enacting his exit strategy.
Mason couldn’t let that happen, or he’d never find his former partner again.
He stayed low, his side against the tram, and studied the shards on the ground. Another patch had been disturbed to the right of the first. Hardly at all. Another farther to the right. A pair of footprints.
The headlights stared blankly into the tunnel. The twin beams diffused into a pale amber glow.
He walked slowly in that direction, outside the direct light. Surely Kane hadn’t stuck around to kill him, or he’d likely be dead already. Maybe he was more badly injured than Mason originally thought. If he’d decided to make a break for it, however, he’d already opened up a huge lead and it was growing larger by the second.
Time was of the essence.
Mason glanced down. Another droplet of blood. A teardrop shape with the tail pointing back toward the tram. It had struck the ground with forward momentum. Kane had definitely gone in this direction.
Five more steps and another droplet glistened in the headlights.
He took off at a sprint. Ran as far as he could, as fast as he could. A hundred feet. Two hundred. Three. He stopped and knelt on the ground against the wall. Breathed through his mouth to minimize the noise.
Listened.
The tram was a single point of light behind him. Ahead lay only darkness. He heard an almost imperceptible clanging sound. Then another. Another.
Mason started running again. He knew that sound. Knew exactly what it meant.
A trace current of cool, fresh air on his face.
He was too late.
Mason pushed himself harder than he ever had before. Felt for the movement of air, which was already beginning to stagnate and fade. He ran with his shoulder against the wall so there was no possible way he could miss the ladder—
A sudden blow to his upper arm. Like someone had struck him with a lead pipe. A dead sensation in his hand, followed by the onslaught of pins and needles.
He shoved the Sigma down the front of his pants, grabbed a rung, and started climbing. Ten feet. Twenty. The walls constricted around him. Thirty feet. He was nearly to the top before his hand decided to make itself useful again. He spun the wheel of the hatch. Shoved it open. Ducked back down.
No bullets sang past his head or ricocheted from the mouth of the chute.
He went up fast. Turned in a full circle with his pistol raised. Hauled himself out into the small, dark chamber. There was a sliver of light around the seam of the tiny door. He felt the crisp air on his bare skin. Turned the knob. Just far enough to disengage the latch. Scooted back. Kicked open the door. Threw himself backward.
Again, no shots.
He shoved the door through the accumulation of snow. The frigid wind cut right through him. It whipped the snowflakes up from the ground and hurled them at him.
Footprints led away from him to the south. Toward a line of trees that vanished back into the storm the moment he saw them. The wind was already beginning to erase the tracks.
Mason charged through the knee-deep snow, kicking up clouds as he went. Searing pain in his side. The bullet must have more than grazed him. The base of his skull throbbed from the impact with the control panel.
He tried to triangulate his location by his surroundings. He was somewhere between the AgrAmerica complex and the northern edge of Greeley. If there were access hatches every two miles, he was probably right about the four-mile mark. The highway was somewhere to his left. An eternity of grasslands, ranches, and marshlands stretched off to his right.
Droplets of blood stood out from the snow like neon beacons. Every ten feet or so. A soft tissue injury. Probably his shoulder, and the bullet had likely just grazed him.
Mason slowed when he neared the trees. Stopped twenty-five feet away. At this range, he couldn’t possibly miss.
He watched the barren aspens and cottonwoods. Their naked branches glittered with ice, rattled on the breeze.
The tracks disappeared between two enormous cottonwood trunks, beyond which he could see only shadows and snow. Kane could be hiding behind either one of them, just waiting for his opportunity, or he could be heading in any number of directions toward a vehicle or cache of weapons he’d stashed for just this contingency.
Mason advanced slowly. Swept his sight line from left to right and back again. Tried to use the same footprints to maintain his balance.
The wind shifted directions with a scream and whipped his breath back over his left shoulder. Battered him with snowflakes. It was all he could do to keep his eyes open while he passed between the trunks.
No one lurking on either side.
Willow saplings and cattails formed a veritable maze leading through the snow. The majority had been flattened by the wind and buried under the accumulation, but sporadic sections still grew in chest-high clumps.
The tracks led straight through them, past them, and toward a smooth, uninterrupted sheet of white.
A dark shape materialized from the blowing snow at the very edge of sight. He barely caught a glimpse of the silhouette before the figure disappeared again.
Kane.