Primal Threat - Earl Emerson [106]
“We stay here,” said Muldaur. “The others will be right behind them.”
“No way,” said Giancarlo. “Listen. There’s nobody else there.”
“They might be lagging a minute or two behind just to fool us.”
“I don’t think so,” Zak said. “And the ones who just went past, once they get around that corner and head up the mountain on that narrow road, there’s no turnaround. They’ll have to go all the way to the top. This is our chance to double back.”
Muldaur looked around the group. “Okay. Let’s go.”
They were taking a gamble, because it was a long, flat road alongside the lake, maybe three-quarters of a mile back to the three-way intersection. They might run into one of the other trucks head-on. Or the Ford might turn around before the road started up and catch them from behind. Either way, it was dicey. They began to push their bikes back out onto the road.
What they hadn’t counted on was the better view afforded Fred as he stood in the back of the truck, now eight or ten stories higher and almost directly above them on the slope.
When he saw the others looking up, Zak followed their eyes and spotted Fred sighting down his rifle at them. As they scrambled onto their bikes and sprinted along the road, the first bullet thunked into the hard-packed road between Zak and Giancarlo. The second slug whizzed past Zak’s head. Zak was in the lead, standing on his pedals in a full-out sprint, the hardest and fastest he’d ridden all weekend, maybe all summer. He thought this must be the same feeling a deer had as it sprinted for its life with a hunter on its heels.
Astonishingly, when he looked down through his legs at his rear wheel, he saw somebody else’s front wheel only inches behind. Good. He wouldn’t have to slow down to let somebody latch on. The idea was for each of them to draft, for them to work together as a single unit. Four riders trading turns at the front was faster and far more efficient than one cyclist riding alone. Another bullet splatted into the dust in front of him.
Without uttering a word, Stephens came around and, instead of passing in a smooth motion that would allow Zak to slip in behind, powered away. Fifty yards behind them Muldaur was pacing Giancarlo. Zak and Stephens should have been working together, but instead Stephens had used him as a launching pad, and now continued to accelerate away. It was the type of move one used against an opponent, not a teammate.
Zak jumped hard on the pedals and sprinted harder. Then harder still. He could feel the smoky air burning his lungs, his legs aching. The whole thing pissed him off, the shooting, the fact that they were running like mice in front of a cat, and most of all the fact that Stephens was trying to ditch him. He’d been giving Stephens a free ride all day.
He saw Stephens glance back at him and then speed up again as if purposely trying to make it difficult for Zak. Clearly Stephens had been feigning weakness for the past six hours so he could take advantage of them when it came to the crunch. After almost a minute of hard pedaling, Zak got close enough that he was able to avail himself of some of the draft behind Stephens. Even ten feet behind another rider made it easier. When he was eight feet back, he felt an appreciable advantage, and because of that respite was then able to close to within eighteen inches.
The sound of Zak’s bike hitting a pothole must have alerted Stephens to his presence, because he pulled over, signaling with his hand that he wanted Zak to take a turn at the front. Zak was so angry that instead of pulling ahead at a measured pace, he stood up and sprinted again, putting every ounce of effort into it. It was a mean thing to do and he could feel his heart about to implode, but he was pissed. He powered for fifteen seconds, breathing deeply