The Running Man - Stephen King [84]
Richards quickly discovered that the map with the towns and cities and roads was the political map. Pressing one finger down from Derry to the Canada-Vermont border in a western-reaching straightedge, he located their approximate position.
“Captain Holloway?”
“Yes.”
“Turn left.”
“Huh?” Holloway sounded frankly startled.
“South, I mean. Due south. And remember—”
“I’m remembering,” Holloway said. “Don’t worry.”
The plane banked. McCone sat hunched in the seat he had fallen into, staring at Richards with hungry, wanting eyes.
…Minus 021 and COUNTING…
Richards found himself drifting in and out of a daze, and it frightened him. The steady drone of the engines were insidious, hypnotic. McCone was aware of what was happening, and his leaning posture became more and more vulpine. Amelia was also aware. She cringed miserably in a forward seat near the galley, watching them both.
Richards drank two more cups of coffee. Not much help. It was becoming increasingly difficult to concentrate on the coordination of his map and Holloway’s toneless commentary on their outlaw flight.
Finally he drove his fist into his side where the bullet had taken him. The pain was immediate and intense, like a dash of cold water in the face. A whistling half-whispered screech issued from either side of his clenched mouth, like stereo. Fresh blood wet his shirt and sieved through onto his hand.
Amelia moaned.
“We’ll be passing over Albany in about six minutes,” Holloway said. “If you look out, you’ll see it coming up on your left.”
“Relax,” Richards said to no one, to himself. “Relax. Just relax.”
God, will it be over soon? Yes. Quite soon.
It was quarter to eight.
…Minus 020 and COUNTING…
It could have been a bad dream, a nightmare that had crawled out of the dark and into the unhealthy limelight of his half-awake mind—more properly a vision or a hallucination. His brain was working and concentrating on one level, dealing with the problem of navigation and the constant danger of McCone. On another, something black was taking place. Things were moving in the dark.
Track on. Positive.
Huge, whining servomechanisms turning in the dark, in the night. Infrared eyes glowing in unknown spectrums. Pale green foxfire of dials and swinging radar scopes.
Lock. We have a lock.
Trucks rumbling along back-country roads, and on triangulated flatbeds two hundred miles apart, microwave dishes swing at the night sky. Endless streams of electrons fly out on invisible batwings. Bounce, echo. The strong blip and the fading afterimage lingering until the returning swing of light illuminates it in a slightly more southerly position.
Solid?
Yeah. Two hundred miles south of Newark. It could be Newark.
Newark’s on Red, also southern New York.
Executive Hold still in effect?
That’s right.
We had him dead-bang over Albany.
Be cool, pal.
Trucks thundering through closed towns where people look out of cardboard-patched windows with terrified, hating eyes. Roaring like prehistoric beasts in the night.
Open the holes.
Huge, grinding motors slide huge concrete duncecaps aside, shunting them down gleaming steel tracks. Circular silos like the entrances to the underworld of the Morlocks. Gasps of liquid hydrogen escaping into the air.
Tracking. We are tracking, Newark.
Roger, Springfield. Keep us in.
Drunks sleeping in alleys wake foggily to the thunder of the passing trucks and stare mutely at the slices of sky between close-leaning buildings. Their eyes are faded and yellow, their mouths are dripping lines. Hands pull with senile reflex for newsies to protect against the autumn cold, but the newsies are no longer there, the Free-Vee has killed the last of them. Free-Vee is king of the world. Hallelujah. Rich folks smoke Dokes. The yellow eyes catch an unknown glimpse of high, blinking lights in the sky. Flash, flash. Red and green, red and green. The thunder of the trucks has faded, ramming back and forth in the stone canyons like the fists of vandals. The drunks sleep again. Bitchin’.
We got him west of Springfield.