Piranha by Clive Cussler Page B

the way to their hilltop objective.
    â€œYou see it?” Juan said into his headset.
    â€œUnless those trailers are filled with lead,” Franklin Lincoln replied from the driver’s seat, “I think they’re underestimating what a sixty-five-ton tank can do.”
    â€œWhy don’t you go ahead and show them?”
    â€œMy pleasure.”
    Linc gunned the Abrams up to its governed top speed of forty miles an hour. The tank bolted across the bridge, an implacable juggernaut charging toward what the Venezuelans must have thought were immovable objects.
    Juan knew how wrong they were.
    The Abrams plowed through the trucks like a linebacker tearing through a paper banner before a football game. Juan felt the tank barely slow as the empty trucks were pulverized, showering the nearby soldiers with metal shards.
    Juan turned to see the Humvees crawling through the wreckage to continue the chase as the tank made its way down the shoreline road. He checked the fuel level. They were getting dangerously close to empty, and they still had two miles to go. If they ran out of gas in the middle of the road, the Venezuelans would be able to call in bigger weapons and either wait them out or blow the tank up. They’d be as good as dead.
    Juan’s escape plan depended on having a few minutes outside the tank undisturbed. If they were surrounded by soldiers with rifles when they reached the top of the hill on the peninsula, they’d be shot as soon as they opened the hatches.
    That meant slowing down their pursuers, and the power lines strung along the edge of the roadway gave Juan an idea.
    â€œLinc, I think there’s going to be a blackout on this side of the harbor pretty soon.”
    Without hesitation, Linc answered, “Yes, those telephone poles look very unstable. They should be replaced. I’ll help them with the demolition.”
    Linc swerved off to the side of the road and aimed for the nearest thick wooden pole. The Abrams snapped it like a twig and it fell across the road, its power line sparking on the asphalt. The streetlights were immediately snuffed out, leaving only the illumination from the tank.
    The Abrams continued along the roadside until they’d knocked over half a dozen poles.
    â€œNice driving,” Juan said. “That should give us at least a few minutes’ breathing room while they try to get those Humvees around them.” With no parallel street and rocky terrain behind the houses lining the road on one side and water on the other, the soldiers would have no choice but to clear the obstacles before they could resume the pursuit.
    The rumble of the tank’s treads had brought out residents from their homes. The astonished onlookers made Juan feel like they were cruising down the street inside a parade float.
    When they got to the end of the road, Juan used his phone’s GPS to guide them up the bushy slope. The Abrams faltered briefly as its treads tore at the dirt for purchase and then climbed the hill, flattening shrubs and small trees along the way.
    In two minutes they had reached the apex of the hill, where in the daytime they would have had an expansive view of the Caribbean. The cloud cover obscured the full moon, making it impossible to see the archipelago of small islands three miles away that formed a natural breakwater protecting Puerto La Cruz and La Guanta from storms.
    But Juan could make out the lights on the stationary
Oregon
far below them, three hundred yards north of the rocky coastline. Max had put the ship exactly where Juan was expecting to see her.
    Juan popped open the hatch and climbed out of the tank, glad to get a breath of fresh air after being saturated with the stench of burned gunpowder. Linc cracked his hatch and pulled himself up. He stretched his beefy arms wide.
    â€œThat space was definitely not designed for someone like me,” he said.
    â€œIs anything designed for someone like you?” Juan said as he