Operation Terror | Page 7

at all.
He jammed down the accelerator of the car and headed for Boulder
Lake.
CHAPTER 2
The car was ordinary enough; it was one of those scaled-down vehicles
which burn less fuel and offer less comfort than the so-called standard
models. For fuel economy too, its speed had been lowered. But Lockley
sent it up the brand-new highway as fast as it would go.
Now the highway followed a broad valley with a meadow-like floor.
Now it seemed to pick its way between cliffs, and on occasion it ran
over a concrete bridge spanning some swiftly flowing stream. At least
once it went through a cut which might as well have been a tunnel, and
the crackling noise of its motor echoed back from stony walls on either
side.

He did not see another vehicle for a long way. Deer, he saw twice. Over
and over again coveys of small birds rocketed up from beside the road
and dived to cover after he had passed. Once he saw movement out of
the corner of his eye and looked automatically to see what it was, but
saw nothing. Which meant that it was probably a mountain lion,
blending perfectly with its background as it watched the car. At the end
of five miles he saw a motor truck, empty, trundling away from
Boulder Lake and the construction camp toward the outer world.
The two vehicles passed, combining to make a momentary roaring
noise at their nearest. The truck was not in a hurry. It simply lumbered
along with loose objects in its cargo space rattling and bumping loudly.
Its driver and his helper plainly knew nothing of untoward events
behind them. They'd probably stopped somewhere to have a leisurely
morning snack, with the truck waiting for them at the roadside.
Lockley went on ten miles more. He begrudged the distances added by
curves in the road. He tended to fume when his underpowered car
noticeably slowed up on grades, and especially the long ones. He saw a
bear halfway up a hillside pause in its exploitation of a berry patch to
watch the car go by below it. He saw more deer. Once a smaller animal,
probably a coyote, dived into a patch of brushwood and stayed hidden
as long as the car remained in sight.
More miles of empty highway. And then a long, straight stretch of road,
and he suddenly saw vehicles coming around the curve at the end of it.
They were not in line, singlelane, as traffic usually is on a curve. Both
lanes were filled. The road was blocked by motor-driven traffic heading
away from the lake, and not at a steady pace, but in headlong flight.
It roared on toward Lockley. Big trucks and little ones; passenger cars
in between them; a few motorcyclists catching up from the rear by
riding on the road's shoulders. They were closely packed, as if by some
freak the lead had been taken by great trucks incapable of the road
speed of those behind them, yet with the frantic rearmost cars unable to
pass. There was a humming and roaring of motors that filled the air.
They plunged toward Lockley's miniature roadster. Truck horns blared.

Lockley got off the highway and onto the right-hand shoulder. He
stopped. The crowded mass of rushing vehicles roared up to him and
went past. They were more remarkable than he'd believed. There were
dirt mover trucks. There were truck-and-trailer combinations. There
were sedans and dump trucks and even a convertible or two, and then
more trucks--even tank trucks--and more sedans and half-tonners--a
complete and motley collection of every kind of gasoline-driven
vehicle that could be driven on a highway and used on a construction
project.
And every one was crowded with men. Trailer-trucks had their body
doors open, and they were packed with the workmen of the
construction camp near Boulder Lake. The sedans were jammed with
passengers. Dirt mover trucks had men holding fast to handholds, and
there were men in the backs of the dump trucks. The racing traffic
filled the highway from edge to edge. It rushed past, giving off a
deafening roar and clouds of gasoline fumes.
They were gone, the solid mass of them at any rate. But now there
came older cars, no less crowded, and then more spacious cars, not
crowded so much and less frantically pushing at those ahead. But even
these cars passed each other recklessly. There seemed to be an almost
hysterical fear of being last.
One car swung off to its left. There were five men in it. It braked and
stopped on the shoulder close to Lockley's car. The driver shouted
above the din of passing motors, "You don't want to go up there.
Everybody's ordered out. Everybody get away from Boulder