A yelled threat in Korean, then he started towards Nina. She hastily reversed direction, starting back towards the cab — only to see a second soldier climb out of it.
Trapped—
Eddie slammed up through the gears as he accelerated in pursuit of the second transporter. He had seen the soldier make the transfer from the jeep behind Nina, and as the road curved, he now saw another man coming at her from the cab. ‘Don’t you bastards ever give up?’ he growled.
The speedometer only went up to seventy kilometres per hour, which with the weight of the missile and its erector crane was highly optimistic, but the needle was still creeping towards the sixty mark. About thirty-five miles per hour, hardly a blistering pace under normal conditions. On this narrow, twisting, precarious route, though, it felt almost supersonic.
He closed on the jeep as it dropped back behind the TEL. The men aboard it had been so focused on Nina that they hadn’t realised the third transporter was under new ownership. They were about to find out, though…
The 4x4’s driver tipped his head up at the mirror as he registered the bright headlights coming up quickly from behind — then looked back in alarm when he saw just how quickly. The jeep swung across the road. Eddie spun the wheel to follow it—
The impact barely shook the massive sixteen-wheeled transporter, but the jeep was almost dragged under its sloping steel prow before the driver managed to veer clear down its left side. Eddie swung after the 4x4 as it braked hard. It clipped one of the truck’s rear wheels and was thrown against the embankment, spinning to an abrupt stop.
The Yorkshireman checked his mirror. Both occupants were still alive, and the jeep had only taken superficial damage, quickly reversing and starting after him again. But the second transporter was his most immediate concern: specifically, the two men clambering along its flanks…
He did a double-take as he realised the missile was no longer lying flat. The erector arms were lifting it from its bed, the rocket about fifteen degrees from horizontal and steadily rising. ‘What the bloody hell have you done?’ he asked as he glimpsed Nina scooting along the truck’s side. The higher the missile got, the more top-heavy and unstable the TEL would become.
The road widened slightly — just enough for the two transporters to fit side by side. If he overtook the other truck, he could force it to stop. But first he had to help Nina.
He swept the transporter back to the outside of the road, its right wheels dangerously close to the crumbling edge. Down a gear, and he accelerated again, the cab’s front corner barely missing the other truck’s protruding launch stand as he swept past. The soldier pursuing Nina turned his head in alarm—
There was a muffled bang as Eddie hit him, followed by considerably wetter thumps as the Korean was ground between the two TELs. Blood spouted up on to the side window. What was left of the dead man disappeared under the juggernaut’s wheels.
The soldier advancing from the front froze in horror at the carnage. Nina looked back, her concern changing to unexpected hope and delight as she saw her husband waving from inside the cab.
The missile had now risen high enough for a person to fit underneath it. ‘Get over!’ he shouted, gesturing. She rolled into the curving cradle beneath the huge cylinder.
Eddie accelerated at the second man, who snapped out of his fearful trance and darted on to the back of the truck. He was about to raise his gun when the driver of his own vehicle swerved sharply, trying to ram the chasing TEL off the road. The impact threw the soldier flat.
A second collision jolted both transporters. Eddie was about to shift his foot to the brake, then changed his mind and kept the accelerator down, making a turn of his own to sideswipe the other truck. His cab was just short of halfway along his target, knocking its rear end towards the embankment. The increasingly unsteady TEL lurched. The Korean driver hastily straightened out, deterred from any more attempts at vehicular combat.
Eddie kept up his speed, the two vehicles now side by side with the other ahead by a nose. He glanced back, seeing Nina beneath the missile — and the soldier recovering, snatching his pistol from its holster.
The Englishman ducked and groped for one of the dead men’s rifles, but before he could reach it, the side window cracked under bullet impacts. The glass was toughened to withstand a rocket launch — but wasn’t bulletproof, he discovered as more rounds shattered the pane beside him—
The gunfire stopped. Like most of the soldiers at the base, the Korean only had one magazine of ammunition. But it was not his only weapon. He scurried forward, shouting to his comrades in the cab, then snatched a hand grenade from his belt. Another man leaned out of the window in alarm, yelling for him to stop, but he had already pulled the pin.
He drew back his arm to lob the grenade through the broken window—
Eddie swung his transporter at its neighbour. The crash knocked the soldier on to his back, but he kept his grip on the explosive, the fuse not yet triggered. The other driver slowed, the Yorkshireman grinding past and slicing off both vehicles’ wing mirrors as he drew ahead.
The man in the cab raised his rifle and fired. Eddie dropped lower as bullets lanced over him. His windscreen burst apart.
Wind rushed in through the gaping hole. He squinted and saw the road curving away to the left, rounding a large bowl in the hillside. The lights of Kang’s SUV were visible in the distance on its far side, with nothing between them and Eddie’s transporter except empty space over the dark forests below.
The Korean driver made another aggressive move, pushing his vehicle against the side of the hijacked TEL and forcing it relentlessly towards the road’s edge. If Eddie didn’t brake, he would be forced into oblivion over the approaching curve — but slowing would bring him back into the soldier’s firing line—
A clunk of metal against metal behind him added a third, equally fatal outcome. The soldier had just thrown his grenade.
Nowhere to go — except out.
He flung open the driver’s door — and leapt on to the other transporter, catching the bull bars running across its flat front. The unstable TEL rolled like a ship on heavy seas as it entered the turn, the missile straining against its support arms.
The Englishman’s former ride continued onwards…
Over the edge of the road.
Engine roaring, the massive vehicle hurtled into the void. The grenade exploded, tearing off half the cab’s roof — then the missile was thrown free as the truck hit the steep slope, smashing into the trees.
It was indeed fully fuelled.
A monstrous explosion ripped through the woods, engulfing the hillside in flames. A blazing mushroom cloud rolled into the dark sky.
Eddie clung to the transporter’s nose, heart racing at his narrow escape — only to see astonished, then angry faces looking back at him through the windscreen.
Hunched in the cradle beneath the rising missile, Nina hadn’t seen the other transporter go over the cliff — but she certainly heard, and felt, its destruction. She raised her head as the deafening roar faded behind her.
The soldier had dropped flat to shield himself from his grenade detonation. Now he lifted his head and saw her. His gun was empty, but he still had a knife, which he drew as he rose and advanced.
The missile was now almost forty-five degrees from the horizontal. The microlight’s wing rattled and flapped, still caught on the clamp holding the rocket. No hiding places; Nina’s only escape route was to climb around the weapon itself. She ducked under the hydraulic arm and sidestepped back along the transporter’s flank.
The soldier followed, wielding the knife.