“Get down!” Decker yelled.
Riley lifted the Remington and returned fire. The rushing rapids softened the sound of the shotgun blasts as they echoed off the canyon walls either side of their boat, but they were moving too fast and his shots missed the target.
Kaleka corrected his aim and now his bullets struck the bow and ripped along the portside gunwale. Diana screamed and buried her head in her hands and Charlie loosed a string of curses.
Decker was trying to steer the boat and keep his head below the firing line at the same time, and then Riley suddenly stopped firing and swore loudly.
“What’s the problem?” Decker said, keeping his eyes fixed on the river.
“Jammed!” Riley un-jammed the gun and returned fire. Empty shells flashed in the sunlight as the ejector port spat them out over the side of the RIB. A few seconds later he swore once again, this time even louder. “Damn thing’s not extracting properly!” Riley said
“What?” Selena said.
“Ejector’s jammed. Give me a second.”
Riley dropped to the floor of the boat while Charlie and Johar covered him with their pistols. He removed the barrel lug and took the barrel off the stock. Then he removed the bolt and the extractor and cradled it in his hands while he pulled a Swiss Army Knife from his back pocket.
“How long, Riley?” Charlie said. “I can’t keep these guys busy with a pistol for long.”
“Not long.”
“Thank God,” Johar said.
He pushed down on the extractor depressor plunger with the screwdriver in his pocket knife and pushed the extractor spring back until the lug came up under it. He took out the extractor and wiped the packing grease from it and gave it a quick polish.
“That’s the bolt sorted,” he said.
“Hurry up, Riley!”
His hands worked fast.
“You’ve done this before,” Diana said.
“Looks like a second he got cheap,” he said, shooting Decker a quick glance. “But yeah.”
“That was money well saved,” Charlie said. “We nearly got killed!”
Riley spun around and raised the shotgun, firing a second later. The round struck the side of the second chopper and shattered the cockpit window. “Need to polish the chamber when we get back too,” he said casually.
The pilot in Madan’s back-up chopper struggled to see through the shattered glass which gave Riley another chance. He seized it with both hands, firing round after round in rapid succession at the blinded helicopter hovering above them.
Striking the side of the chopper, the pilot spun around in an evasive manoeuvre but in his panic he hit the side of the canyon with the tail boom. The tail rotor scrapped into the rock and jammed up and then the whole bird spun wildly out of control and fell sharply out of the sky. It piled into the side of the river at the bottom of the canyon in a crumpled heap of twisted metal and bent rotor blades.
Decker screeched past the wreckage a second later, still swerving and dodging the fire raining down from Kaleka’s submachine gun up in Madan’s lead chopper. They passed the crippled helicopter on the river bank and saw the men inside desperately clambering their way out. A heartbeat later the helicopter exploded in a fierce fireball. Some of the crew were still trapped inside and they heard their screams receding into the rushing noise of the rapids as they continued on their way down the river.
Ahead of them, Madan increased speed and swerved violently to the left to miss an outcrop jutting over the edge of the canyon. They watched as he narrowly missed the obstacle and Kaleka leaned out once more with his freshly reloaded weapon.
“Rocks!” Selena yelled.
Decker looked from the chopper above his head down to the river and saw a pile of jagged, razor-sharp rocks protruding from the center of the river. He spun the wheel over to the right and the boat turned fast, almost tipping them out into the fast-moving water. “Thanks for the advanced warning!”
“I did my best, Mr Decker,” Selena called back. “I’m a museum curator not a ship’s lookout.”
As she spoke, they all heard a low, grinding noise coming from the bottom of the RIB and then a long, thin crack appeared on the starboard side of the boat. “Thanks,” the American drawled. “I think you just made your point.”
Charlie dived down to get a closer look at the crack. “It’s not great news but it’s not big enough to sink us… for a while.”
Carried fast down the river by the speeding white water, they watched helplessly as Kaleka emptied his magazine at their wounded boat and drilled the side of the hull full of holes. Then Madan spun the chopper around and flew up out of the canyon, vanishing over the edge and leaving nothing behind except the gently fading echo of the rotors as it reverberated off the rock walls beneath.
Their boat was sinking fast, so they swam ashore, soaked to the skin and all their weapons and ammo dripping with river water. Like so many drowned rats, they crawled up onto the gravelly riverbank and heaved the air back into their lungs.
“That’s just bloody fantastic!” Selena managed to say in between gasps.
“You’re telling me,” Riley said. “Bastard’s got clean away with the magic nuke potion and us silly buggers are literally up the creek without a paddle!”
“It’s only an hour to the Avalon,” Decker said, tipping water out of his hat and sighing. “If we get our asses in gear we still have a shot.”
“You think we can catch him?” Diana said.
“I think we can get to the authorities in time to tell them about his plans, sure.”
Charlie was first to his feet. “That’s presuming his men don’t find the Avalon and blow her to matchwood.”
“Yes,” Decker said sullenly. “Presuming my plane isn’t about to get turned into matchwood.”
33
When Selena awoke the Avalon had left the Himalayas far behind to the north and was starting to descend over the riverine lakes and timber factories of Kanchrapara just north of Kolkata. She knew they had been lucky — they all did. When they had finally got back to Yadong the aircraft was exactly where Decker had moored it, and with the exception of a few locals taking pictures of it, it had gone untouched. They were all relieved but the former US Marine had almost kissed it when he saw it was in one piece… Men, she thought.
She also thought about Shambhala. Finding such a place was a dream come true, and she could hardly wait to return there and establish a serious dig. She hoped the Chinese authorities would allow her museum the permission to do so, and she was certain Atticus could swing it, but none of this would happen if they didn’t stop Madan.
Outside the Avalon, the powerful Hooghly River shone brightly in the Bengali sun and made her turn her eyes away and her attention returned to the cabin. She yawned and looked at her watch. She had been asleep for less than hour, but it was good to catch up. Since she and Riley were attacked in Hong Kong her life had been turned into a relentless and desperate hunt and she was ready for some peace and quiet.
She had been sleeping on one of the beds in the rear of the vintage aircraft. An identical bed ran along the portside opposite her and Riley Carr was also asleep on it. He had one of Decker’s old baseball caps over his face to shield his eyes from the daylight.
Arjun Johar was sitting closer to the cockpit and talking in urgent Hindi to someone on his telephone. Selena heard the words Rakesh Madan several times and didn’t need three guesses to know what he was talking about.
Charlie and Diana had found a table under piles of crates in the center of the plane and were now sitting opposite one another. She was staring intently as he explained all about the glim dropper — a notorious old con he had updated to work in the modern world when he worked as a grifter in Germany.