Raine knew what he had to do. He looked at O’Rourke. “You with me?”
There was a flash of something in the big black man’s eyes. Pain. Hurt. Regret. Raine couldn’t blame him. His former commanding officer, a man who had betrayed him, was now asking for his trust once more.
Whatever passed through O’Rourke’s head, however, did so with lightning speed. He nodded. “I’m with you.”
The bike reached the breaking point of its spin, gravel and sand blasting out from beneath its tyres as its rider gunned the engines and shot off the mark.
Without any further communication, Raine and O’Rourke took a run up and dived off of the roof of the building, arms stretched out before them. For a second they looked like Superman wannabes flying through the air but, just as the bike’s tyres bit into the earth and it shot forward, they collided with it.
It hurt like hell, the impact jarring through Raine’s body but it was softened slightly by the body of the man beneath him. A sickening crack signalled the breaking of the passenger’s neck. He hadn’t even seen his flying death approach.
O’Rourke’s enormous form crushed down on top of the driver. The force of the impact slammed his head against the handlebars, punching his nose up into his brain, killing him gruesomely.
In a tangle of limps, the bike went down and Raine and O’Rourke rolled out of the fiercest brunt of the collision. In seconds, however, Raine was on his feet, ignoring the pain stabbing through his body. He limped to the bike and hauled it upright, straddling it. O’Rourke vaulted on behind him as he twisted the throttle and shot off in pursuit.
The four black motorbikes raced across the Palisadoes, bounding over the rough dirt track which linked the Hand of Freedom museum to the historic town.
Tied to the back of the two leading bikes were Benjamin King and Alysya Siddiqa, leaning, unconscious against the backs of their drivers.
Not far behind them was the Team Leader, the Kernewek Diary nestled safely in a waterproof breast pouch in his combat webbing.
Bringing up the rear were Raine and O’Rourke, riding hard over the rough ground, leaning forward and trying to coax every last ounce of speed from their shared bike.
The coastal scenery rushed by to their right, the calm waters of the Caribbean lapping against the Jamaican shore.
“They’re heading for the coastline,” O’Rourke shouted above the howling wind caused by their speed.
Indeed, ahead, Raine could see all three bikes veering right, coming off the track to bounce off-road over the green scrubland. He twisted the handlebars, the bike’s tyres gripping the soft dirt and charged after his prey.
“Whoa!” O’Rourke exclaimed. Raine looked up from his off-road path. “Would you look at that?!”
As they had seen before, seemingly out of nowhere, as if emerging from an invisibility field, the black plane swept down from the clouds above their heads, the backwash of its propellers pummelling them on their bike. Raine swerved and almost lost control. He kicked out his right leg and pushed the bike up steady again, regained control of the handlebars, twisted the throttle and continued after the descending black plane.
In a plume of white water, the plane touched down in the sea one hundred meters off the coast and the pilot instantly brought the big vehicle around, heading diagonally towards the shore.
The three fleeing bikes hit the beach, heading north as the plane, the Catalina Flying Boat, bounded through the gentle swell, matching the bikes trajectory, coming in closer to the beach.
“They’re gonna pick the bikes up,” O’Rourke realised.
Raine hit the beach, the studded, all-terrain tyres churning into the grey sand and spraying up a ferocious shower of it in their wake. They hurried forward, trying to close the distance, even as the Black Cat came alongside the shore, still heading north. Its rear loading ramp began to lower and the three bikes swerved into the shallow surf, the water immediately slowing them, giving Raine a chance to close the distance.
But it wasn’t enough. They weren’t going to get there before—
An eruption of lights splayed through the night air as Eagle Eye One thundered overhead, its rotors churning up a sandstorm, a stream of bullets blasting out of a shoulder-window mounted machine gun.
The Flying Boat was peppered with bullets, forcing its pilot to swerve out to sea. Its sudden alteration caused a large wave to splash against the three bikes. They all went down as the Catalina powered up, its loading ramp closing as it picked up speed and pulled up, water gushing back out from inside its hold. A rear mounted machine gun fired at the Super Stallion as the plane took to the sky and came about.
Raine skidded to a halt, spraying up sand as he twisted the bike around but the Team Leader was fast. He ripped a handgun from its holster and fired at Raine. Raine dropped the bike, O’Rourke clutching him, and slid horizontally across the beach and into the surf.
“You,” the Team Leader shouted to one of his men as he lifted up the bike which King was attached to. He stirred, groggy, uncomprehending.
The soldier understood the Team Leader’s order. Handing the bike to him, he opened fire with his automatic assault rifle. The bullets hammered into Raine and O’Rourke’s bike which offered only limited shielding to the two men. Meanwhile, the Team Leader straddled the bike with King and twisted the throttle.
“Night Hawk,” he called through his radio to the Catalina Flying Boat. “Extraction Point B.” Then he shot off the mark, the second bike right behind him.
Trapped beneath the bike in the warm water, Raine and O’Rourke covered their heads as the third soldier’s bullets pounded it, spitting up sparks which bit at their flesh.
Raine pulled out his M1911 handgun and fired blindly over the hulk of the shattered bike but the soldier’s rampage did not lessen.
The bike’s gas tank was hit.
Fuel started leaking out onto the sand.
Sparks spat.
Still Raine and O’Rourke were pinned down by the weapons fire. If they stayed there, Raine knew, the fuel tank could explode any second. Yet if they scrambled away from it they would be mowed down by machine gun fire just as quickly.
Then the soldier’s weapon clicked to empty.
“Go!” Raine yelled.
Together, Raine and O’Rourke pushed out from beneath the bike as the soldier reloaded, brought up his rifle and—
O’Rourke fired his rifle-mounted grenade launcher at their abandoned bike. It blew apart in a tremendous explosion which punched through the air, flattening Raine and O’Rourke across the sand. Standing too close to it, the soldier was struck by the flames and then watched, wide eyed, as a spinning piece of shrapnel lodged itself in his throat.
Raine was on his feet only seconds later, running around the burning hulk of the bike to the Team Leader’s own discarded vehicle. He ignored the soldier gurgling his last breath on the sand as he scanned the beach. Other than the tyre tracks, there was no sign of the remaining two bikes.
“We’ve lost them,” he cursed as O’Rourke ran to him, already talking into his throat mike.
“Eagle Eye One,” he called. “Do you have visual on the target?”
Raine straddled the bike, the engine roared as O’Rourke bounded on, and he headed off in the direction of the tyre tracks.
“Affirmative,” Kristina Lake replied from the cockpit of Eagle Eye One. “We have both bikes on infrared. Heading west, off road, into town. Bringing up G.P.S. and satellite image overlay. I’ll direct you through.”