Marcus “Mac” Cole loved the smell of burning diesel and cold grease.
It was the smell of forty years on city asphalt. It was the smell of late night routes when every sane taxpayer was asleep in bed.
Right now, forty tons of kinetic momentum sat under his boots.
Through his left vent window, the wind howled off the Marrow River. The salt spray mixed with frozen road mist, coating the steel casing of the bus in a thin glaze of white rime.
Fifty yards ahead, the twin headlights of Van N-1 and Van N-3 burned like angry red coals.
“They’re not braking, Mac!” Julian shouted from behind the driver’s cage. “They’re speeding up!”
“I see them, Chief,” Mac said.
His right hand squeezed the ridged black vinyl of the steering wheel. His left wrist, encased in the heavy chrome clamp of the Globe punch, hovered half an inch above the Bendix hand-valve.
