"Give me some clothes, then. No, don't leave. The ones you have on."
The farmer slipped out of his clothes silently, and Krenner dropped the
prison grays in the corner.
"You'll keep your mouths shut about this," he stated flatly.
"Oh, yes, you can count on us," exclaimed the woman, eyeing the gun
fearfully. "We won't tell a soul."
"I'll say you won't," said Krenner, his fingers tightening on the gun.
The shots were muted and flat in the stillness of the kitchen.
An hour later Krenner broke through the underbrush, crossed a rutted
road, and pushed on over the ridge. His cruel face was dripping with
perspiration. "It should be the last ridge," he thought. "I've gone a
good, three miles--" The morning sun was bright, filtering down through
the trees, making beautiful wet patterns on the damp ground. The morning
heat was just beginning, but the food and medications had made progress
easy. He pulled himself up onto a rock ledge, over to the edge, and felt
his heart stop cold as he peered down into the valley below.
A dark blue police 'copter nestled on the valley floor next to the sleek
gray one. It must have just arrived, for the dark uniforms of the police
were swarming around the gray machine He saw the pink face and the
sporty clothes of the occupant as he came down the ladder, his hands in
the air.
Too late! They'd caught Sherman!
He lay back shaking.
Impossible! He _had_ to have Sherman. They couldn't possibly have known,
unless somehow they had foreseen, or heard--. His mind seethed with
helpless rage. Without Sherman he was stuck. No way to reach Markson, no
way to settle that score--unless possibly--.
The Roads.
He'd heard about them. Way back in 1967 when he'd gone up, the roads
were underway. A whole system of Rolling Roads was proposed then, and
the first had already been built, between Pittsburgh and the Lakes. A
crude affair, a conveyor belt system, running at a steady seventy-five
miles per hour, carrying only ore and freight.
But in the passing years reports had filtered through the prison walls.
New men, coming "up for a visit" had brought tales, gross exaggerations,
of the Rolling Roads grown huge, a tremendous system building itself
up, crossing hills and valleys in unbroken lines, closed in from weather
and hijackers, fast and smooth and endless. Criss-crossing the nation,
they had said, in never-slowing belts of passengers and freight
livestock. The Great Triangle had been first, from Chicago to St. Louis
to Old New York, and back to Chicago. Now every town, every village had
its small branch, its entrance to the Rolling Roads, and once a man got
on the Roads, they had said, he was safe until he tried to get off.
Clearly the memory of the reports filtered through Krenner's mind. The
great Central Roads run from Old New York to Chicago, through New
Washington and Pittsburgh--