"All right," said Rusch. "All right." He took a step away from Theo and—

Kablam!

The report echoing in the tunnel.

Theo's heart stopping—

— but only for a second.

Rusch's mouth had gone wide in horror, in terror, in fear—

— at the realization of what he'd done—

— as Moot Drescher staggered backward, tumbled and fell, landing on his back, dropping his gun, a growing pool of blood spreading across his shoulder.

"Oh my God!" shouted Jake, "Oh my God!" He surged forward, scrambling for Drescher's weapon.

Rusch looked absolutely dazed. Theo grabbed him from behind, putting his neck in a choke hold, and bringing his knee up into the small of Rusch's back. With his other hand, he tried to wrest the hot, smoking gun from Rusch.

Jake now had Drescher's gun. He tried to aim it at the combined form of Theo and Rusch, but his hands were shaking violently. Theo wrenched Rusch's arm and he dropped his gun. Theo dived out of the way, and Jake squeezed off a shot. But in his inexperienced, trembling hands, the bullet went wild, smashing into a fluorescent lighting tube overhead, which exploded in a shower of sparks and glass. Rusch was scrambling for his dropped gun, too. Neither he nor Theo seemed to be able to get a grip on it, and finally Theo kicked it from Rusch's grabbing hand. It skittered a dozen meters counterclockwise down the tunnel.

Theo had no weapon, and neither now did Rusch. Drescher was surrounded by a lake of blood, but seemed to be still alive; his chest was heaving. Jake tried another shot but it again missed its mark.

Rusch was only halfway to his feet before he started running after the Glock. Theo, realizing he'd never overtake him, decided to go the other way. "He's got a bomb," he shouted as he passed Jake. "Help Moot!"

Jake nodded. Rusch had now recovered his own gun, and had turned around and was running, weapon held in front of him, toward Jake, Moot, and the retreating Theo.

Theo was running for all he was worth, footfalls echoing loudly in the tunnel. Up ahead was the aluminum suitcase containing the bomb. He stole a glance over his shoulder. Jake, still holding Moot's gun, had gone to his knees next to the cop. Rusch passed them, keeping his own gun trained on Jake, preventing him from squeezing off another shot. Rusch turned around, running backward, keeping his weapon on Jake until he was out of Jake's shaky range. He then turned again and continued pursuing Theo.

Theo reached the bomb, scooping it up with one hand, and then—

He got onto Rusch's hovercart, and slammed his foot against the activator pedal. Theo looked back as the cart started to speed away clockwise.

Rusch doubled back. Jake, apparently assuming Rusch had gone, had set down Moot's gun and was pulling his own shirt off over his head, some buttons, still done up — clearly, he wanted to use it as a pressure bandage to stanch the flow of blood out of Moot's body. Rusch had no trouble getting into the hovercart that had brought Jake and Moot to the scene, and he took off after Theo.

Theo had a good lead as he careened along the tunnel. But it was hardly straight-line flying — not only did the curve of the tunnel have to be negotiated, but so did all the giant pieces of equipment that jutted out willy-nilly along its length.

Theo glanced at the bomb's display: 41 minutes, 18 seconds. He hoped Rusch had been telling the truth when he said the explosives weren't fragile. There were a series of unlabeled buttons attached to the display — no way to tell which ones might reset the timer to a higher value, and which ones might cause the bomb to explode immediately. But if he could make it to the access station and get up to the surface, there would be plenty of time to abandon the bomb in the middle of one of the farmers' fields.

Theo's cart had a decided wobble — he was doubtless pushing it faster than its gyros could really deal with. He glanced behind himself again. At first, he began to breathe a sigh of relief — Rusch was nowhere to be seen — but after a second the pursuing cart appeared around the curving wall of the tunnel.

Darkness up ahead; Theo had only activated the roof lighting for a tiny arc of the tunnel's circumference. He hoped Jake had managed to stabilize Moot. Damn — he probably shouldn't have taken the hovercart; surely the need to get Moot to the surface was more important than protecting the equipment in the tunnel. He hoped Jake would realize that the monorail must be nearby.

Shit! Theo's cart touched the outer wall of the tunnel and started spinning around, its headlight beams cutting swaths through the darkness. He fought with the joystick that controlled the cart, trying to get it to keep from crashing into anything else. He got it going back in the right direction, but now Rusch's cart was about halfway down the visible part of the tunnel, instead of at its far end.

The hovercart wasn't going fast enough to make a real breeze, but it nonetheless felt like breakneck speed. Rusch still had the Glock, of course — but a hovercart wasn't like a car; you couldn't shoot out the tires in hopes of bringing it to a halt. The only sure way to stop such a vehicle was to shoot the driver; Theo had to keep pressure on the accelerator pedal for it to continue to move.

Theo kept rocking his cart left and right and raising and lowering it as much as he could in the cramped tunnel; if Rusch was trying to get a bead on him from the rear, he wanted to make himself a difficult target.

He checked the markers on the gently curving wall; the tunnel was divided into eight octants of about three and a half kilometers each, and each octant was subdivided into thirty-odd sections of a hundred meters apiece. According to the signage, he was in octant three, section twenty-two. The access station was at octant four, section thirty-three. He might just make it—

An impact!

A shower of sparks.

The sounds of metal ripping.

Dammit, he wasn't paying enough attention; the hovercart had banged against one of the cryogenics units. It had almost flipped over, which would have dropped Theo and the bomb down onto the floor. Theo fought again with the controls, desperately trying to stabilize the cart. A furtive glance back confirmed his fears: the collision had slowed him down enough that Rusch was now only about fifty meters back. He'd have to be a hell of a good shot to take Theo out at this distance in the dark, but if he got much closer…

The tunnel was constricted up ahead by more equipment; Theo had to drop the cart to only a few centimeters off the floor, but his control of the vehicle at its current speed was poor — the cart skittered across the flooring like a stone being skipped across a lake.

Another glance at the bomb's timing mechanism, the digits glowing bright blue in the dim light. Thirty-seven minutes.

Blam!

The bullet zipped past Theo; he instinctively ducked. It hit some metal fittings up ahead, illuminating the tunnel with sparks.

Theo hoped Jake and Moot had come down the elevator at the access station. If the car was up at the top, there was no way Theo could wait for it, and he'd have to try to make it up the numerous stairs before Rusch could get a bead on him.

Theo swerved again, this time to avoid a bracket supporting the beam pipe. He glanced back. Damn, but Rusch's cart must have had a fuller charge to its batteries; he was now quite close.

The curving tunnel wall continued to pass by, and — yes, by God, there it was! The access station staging area. But—

But Rusch was too close now — much too close. If Theo stopped his cart here, Rusch would blow him away. Dammit, dammit, dammit.

Theo felt his heart sink as he passed the access station. He turned around in his chair and watched it receding from view. Rusch, evidently deciding that he didn't want to chase Theo all the way around the tunnel, took another shot. This one did hit the hovercart, its metal body vibrating in response.