The moment the Apache fired, Eddie pulled himself on to the clifftop. If his plan had worked, Jared, acting as his decoy to draw the aircrew’s attention, would have already retreated beyond the chain gun’s line of fire, forcing the gunner to switch to rockets — and requiring the helicopter to come lower to line up its fixed weapons. That would put him out of sight for the precious seconds he needed.
If the plan hadn’t worked, his friend would already be dead.
The firing stopped. The gunship hung in the air… then descended.
Eddie ran for the cliff’s edge. The Apache came back into sight. It was about a hundred metres away, but drawing closer, still gradually losing height.
He could see the weak spot — the top window of the upper canopy, right in front of the main rotor head. But to his dismay he realised he didn’t have a clear shot. The gunship was now too low, the spinning rotor in the way. A bullet might pass cleanly through and hit its target… or strike a carbon-fibre blade and be deflected away.
No matter what, he had to take the shot before the gunship fired its rockets. He lined up the Desert Eagle’s sights — and pulled the trigger.
Sparks and paint flakes spat from behind the cockpit. His aim wasn’t at fault; as he’d feared, the bullet had glanced off the rotor and been thrown off target. Now he only had three bullets left.
And the Apache’s crew knew he was there.
Colonel Brik hadn’t heard the gunshot, the Apache’s roar and the insulation of his helmet blotting out most external sounds, but he couldn’t miss the sharp clank of a large-calibre bullet impact less than a metre behind his head. He swore, looking up to see a figure on the cliff. ‘Hostile, above! Take him out!’
The gunner searched for the new threat. The chain gun, slaved to his head movements, followed his gaze — only to clunk to a stop with a warning buzz as it reached the limits of its travel. ‘Can’t traverse!’
Brik was already increasing power. The Apache rose towards its prey.
Eddie took aim again as the gunship climbed. The chain gun was at maximum elevation; it would be able to target him in moments—
He fired. The second shot did no better than the first, the bullet twanging off the rotors. So did the third. Only one round left. The cockpit’s upper canopy came into clear view beneath the whirling blades, but he was out of time.
The cannon strained against its restraints, then finally found its target—
The Englishman unleashed his last shot.
It struck home, punching through the acrylic window into the cockpit to hit Brik in the head.
His composite flight helmet was built to resist normal small-arms fire, but the Desert Eagle’s half-inch-wide bullet was considerably more powerful. It shattered as it tore through the protective layers, but the individual fragments still carried enough momentum to rip into the top of the Israeli’s skull. Bone splintered, hot metal churning through brain matter like mixer blades.
The gunner fired the chain gun — as Brik’s spasming limbs sent the Apache lurching violently sideways. Eddie dived backwards as the first few shells hit the cliff, but the rest of the shots went wide.
The helicopter spun towards the ground. The gunner screamed, hauling frantically at his duplicate flight controls, but Brik still had a death grip on his own sticks—
The main rotor smashed against the sheer cliff below the cleft. The blades disintegrated, and the airframe plunged as gravity eagerly reclaimed its hold. The Apache hit the ground hard, the stumps of the rotors digging into the earth and flipping it over before fuel and munitions ignited, blasting the tumbling wreck into a billion blazing fragments.
The rumble of the explosion faded. Eddie shook off grit and crawled to the edge. The gunship’s burning remains were strewn below — along with those of the Land Rover, which had been parked beneath the passage. ‘Bollocks,’ he said as he recovered his breath. ‘Looks like we’re in for a long walk.’
He stood and went to the top of the ravine, looking into it with trepidation as he searched for Jared — only for his heart to freeze in fear. There was a figure lying unmoving below, but it wasn’t the Israeli.
It was his wife.
31
Eddie ran back to the chasm’s narrowest point and made a rapid descent. He dropped the last ten feet and shoved past Dalton, ignoring the politician’s questions as he ran down the passage. The limping Jared was ahead; he quickly caught up. ‘What the fuck have you done?’ he roared at the younger man.
‘I tried to stop her!’ Jared protested.
‘Not fucking hard enough!’
‘She got past me and ran off! I tried to catch up, but…’ He regarded his wounded leg. More blood had soaked the bandage. ‘Then the chopper started shooting.’
Eddie held in another curse and ran on, rounding a corner to see broken rocks strewn over the floor — and a dust-covered figure lying amongst them. He hurried to her. ‘Nina! Nina, are you okay? Can you hear me?’
No movement for agonising seconds as he checked for a pulse… then she painfully turned her head, squinting up at him. ‘Did you get it?’
‘Yeah, I got it.’
‘Hooray for us…’ She tried to sit up, but cried out as she moved her leg. ‘Oh! Damn, that hurts!’
He saw blood on her thigh and examined the injury. ‘Looks like shrapnel. Jared!’ he said as the Israeli hobbled into view. ‘The first aid kit’s in the bag — get that useless shithead Dalton to bring it.’
‘Is she okay?’ Jared asked, worried.
‘No,’ he snarled, ‘’cause you let her do your job! Go!’
‘Don’t be angry at him,’ Nina told her husband as the shamefaced young man turned away. ‘He wanted to do it, but I stopped him.’ She gestured towards the entrance, the passage now pockmarked with ragged holes. ‘And I’m glad I did, because if I hadn’t, he would have been killed.’
‘You’re glad you got a piece of shrap in your leg?’
‘Okay, maybe not glad exactly…’ She shifted position as carefully as she could to look down at her stomach. ‘God, I hope she’s all right.’
‘Me too. I’ll get that bit of metal out, then check if she’s okay.’
‘How? I don’t think we brought an ultrasound scanner.’
The corners of his mouth creased upwards, just a little. ‘Getting sarky? You can’t be that badly hurt, then.’
‘Yeah, you just keep telling me that and maybe I’ll start to believe it.’ Nina too managed a small, pained smile.
Jared soon returned, Dalton following with the backpack. Eddie took out the first-aid kit and cleaned Nina’s wound, then used tweezers to grip the protruding end of the metal shard. ‘Okay, this’ll hurt,’ he warned.
Her sarcasm was now more overt. ‘Yeah, I’m so glad you told me that in advance.’
‘Well, I could’ve just yanked it out without warning while I was in the middle of talking to keep you distracted, but—’ He yanked it out without warning.
She shrieked. ‘Aah! Son of a — Bastard—Shit!’
Dalton winced at the spurt of blood, but still found the time to be patronising. ‘The world’s most famous archaeologist, eloquent and classy as always.’
‘Shut the fuck up,’ the couple told him in unison. Dalton huffed.
While Eddie dressed the wound, Jared limped to the end of the passage and peered at the wreckage below. ‘They took out the truck!’ he said as he returned.
Dalton went in alarm to see for himself. ‘We’re stranded?’
‘Someone’ll be along soon,’ Eddie replied, unworried.