Blowout by Byron L. Dorgan

and climbed aboard, but the key was gone, and when he realized it he jumped off and pulled a pistol out from a pocket in his coveralls.
    â€œDo you want to spend the rest of your life in jail, you stupid bastard?” Egan shouted. He pointed back toward the rise. “Moose is dead, you saw his body. And no one inside the power plant will survive.”
    â€œYou shot Ada.”
    â€œThe bitch would have died trying to find her friend. They were dykes. What does your religion say about that?”
    Kemal shook his head in despair. “They were ready to convert. I gave them a Quran.”
    â€œGo back and get them, if that’s what you want,” Eagan said, and he tossed the key over. “But you’ll die trying, and we won’t wait for you.”
    â€œGive me ten minutes,” Kemal said, and pocketing his pistol he turned to get back aboard the ATV.
    Egan unslung his carbine and fired a short burst, catching Kemal low in the back, knocking him forward, the second and third shots taking the back of his skull off.
    â€œIt’s a tough old world,” Egan mumbled.
    Gordy came back to the door, his eyes wide. “Holy shit, you wasted the doc.”
    â€œHe was getting stupid on me.”
    The two of them carried Kemal’s body into the motor home and dumped it on the floor in the rear compartment. Egan went back outside and disconnected the ATV trailer from the hitch, undid the chains, and let the tongue drop to the ground.
    He checked his wristwatch and looked up toward the crest of the rise. The next explosion, this one just behind the wellhead would occur within the next five minutes, and as much as he wanted to wait around to hear it, he wanted to be well away before the cavalry arrived—which would happen at some point this evening.
    If the final phase of the operation went as he’d planned it, he would be drinking a cold beer he’d left in the mini-fridge in his room at the Radisson in Rapid City sometime before midnight. Tomorrow morning he would fly to Chicago aboard United 6190 at six o’clock. Just another businessman trading in coal futures. Which he thought was actually a good joke.
    From Chicago he would lay low in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula until the dust settled and he found out about his payment from Kast.
    Gordy was behind the wheel when Egan climbed back aboard. “South,” he said. “Twelve miles to White Butte where we’ll ditch the rig and pick up our Chevy. Remember the way?”
    â€œJust the two of us now,” Gordy said nervously.
    Egan grinned. “Yup, it’s a tough old world out there, son, but look on the bright side. Now we just have to split the money two ways, not six.”
    Gordy suddenly grabbed for something inside his white coveralls, but before he could turn in his seat, a pistol in his hand, Egan flipped his PDW off his shoulder and pulled off one shot at point-blank range to the side of the kid’s head, slamming his body against the side window.
    It took a couple of minutes to manhandle the kid out of the driver’s seat and clean up the blood splatter before Egan got behind the wheel and headed south on the dirt road, twenty minutes or more before any communications to or from the Initiative would be possible.
    And in the following confusion it might take an hour or more before the Air Force Rapid Reponse team made it up from Ellsworth in Rapid City.

 
    15
    ASHLEY FELT NO pain in her right hip, which she didn’t think was right. Jim Cameron was lying half on and half off her and Dr. Lipton, the woman who wasn’t supposed to be here, was sprawled on her side under some piping, their faces inches apart.
    â€œI think we need to get out of here before the place comes down around our heads,” she said, but she was whispering and Whitney shook her head.
    Cameron rolled away, his pistol in hand and he fired off two shots toward a section of the upper part of the furnace that was