Metal screamed and twisted and buckled and tore.
Sparks flew.
An engine the size of a semi-trailer screamed in protest.
The Liebherr stalled momentarily, then the full weight of a dump truck the size of a building caught up to the stalemate and tore straight through the side of the warehouse in an explosion of noise.
King’s heartbeat pounded in his ears as he ran, pushing himself as fast as his legs would allow. All around him, the warehouse uttered horrifying wails of protest as its structures failed. With an entire wall demolished by the impact, the supports had begun to fail.
King heard the roof groan far above his head, and he almost froze in shock.
‘Oh, fuck,’ he muttered, barely able to breathe due to the panic in his chest.
He ran with everything he had, letting go of the Kalashnikov in the terror and pumping his arms like pistons, letting the weapon dangle from his shoulder. At six-foot-three, with long limbs that lent him all kinds of conveniences in unarmed combat, his athleticism kicked in and he flew across the open space.
Just in time.
The warehouse came toppling down in a literal barrage of sound and fury, assaulting his senses all at once. He followed the haul truck out of the hole it had created in the wall, closing in on the rear of the vehicle. The roof groaned and dropped and crashed into the ground a second later, hitting him with a blast of air that hurled him forward, almost taking him off his feet.
Somehow, someway, he kept his balance.
Racing alongside the haul truck at a furious pace, he sensed himself gaining ground as the Liebherr reeled from its collision with the side of the warehouse. It had broken through, but the carnage had halted its momentum.
King didn’t stop.
He didn’t hesitate when gunfire ripped across the complex, bullets ricocheting off the side of the haul truck as stray workers unloaded at the fleeing vehicle.
He made it to the front of the Liebherr, fully aware that it would accelerate in seconds.
His legs fatiguing fast, he launched off the concrete and slammed into the bottom step, almost fainting from the stress. If he missed, he’d tumble into the wake of the charging vehicle and one of the tyres would turn his internal organs to mush with barely a shred of effort.
The screaming engine numbed his mind, its cylinders roaring through the grille only a few feet from his ears. He tuned the thunderous noise out and scrambled up the steps, taking them two at a time, fighting to stay balanced as the haul truck picked up speed again and the hot night air whipped against him.
He burst out onto a spacious landing a moment later, careening into full view of the driver’s cabin. He noticed all the tinted windows facing him and ducked instinctively, dropping out of the line of sight in case Reed had anticipated his arrival.
The man certainly had.
In fact, he’d capitalised on King’s weaknesses in expert fashion.
As King dropped low, he noticed a blur of movement out of the corner of his eye. He turned to meet the oncoming charge, but was helpless to prevent what came next. He noticed one of the doors connecting to the main cabin hanging open, swinging on its hinges. Then Reed crashed into him, bundling him up against the steel railing, raining down strikes with brutal accuracy.
King realised that the man must have exhausted all his ammunition in the quest to commandeer the haul truck, and now he was forced to rely on his bare hands.
Reed got the job done regardless.
A fist crashed into King’s stomach, doubling him over, then an elbow hit him so hard in the jaw he thought teeth would detach from their gums. He stumbled away, reeling, and Reed took the opportunity to smash an open palm into the bridge of King’s nose, turning his face numb and blurring his vision.
King fumbled desperately for the AK-47 hanging off his shoulder but Reed battered it away, slamming a front kick into King’s chest with enough force to send him crumbling into one of the rails.
Reed charged.
King saw the man coming and sliced out of the way at the last second, narrowly avoiding a clothesline that would have sent him tumbling over the railing to the ground thirty feet below. He lurched unsteadily across the landing, barely able to keep his legs underneath him. The Liebherr had begun to drift to the right with no-one behind the wheel. The haul truck barrelled down a vast aisle of the warehouse complex, with nothing to prevent its mad charge for freedom. But a few moments more of uncontrollable travel and they would find themselves buried in the side of a warehouse, surrounded by workers, outgunned and outnumbered.
King realised he would die if that occurred, but he didn’t care.
Reed would too.
That was all that mattered.
Reed sensed the urgency of the situation and surged forward, turning into a twisting side kick that slammed home in King’s mid-section. He had been on the back foot ever since the first blow had taken him by surprise. Combat worked like that — a single slip-up could spell absolute disaster, from which there was no recovery against a relentless assault.
He had made mistakes.
Reed had experience.
That was all it took.
Struggling to breathe, struggling to see, struggling to keep his balance, he lurched into range and Reed snatched him two-handed by the collar and hauled him over the railing.
King pitched head-first off the landing and fell twenty feet to the concrete below.
33
A straight fall would have killed him, pulverising internal organs and either stopping his heart on the spot or leaving him to the mercy of the armed workers in the complex.
He managed everything possible to minimise the impact of the fall, tucking his chin to his chest and rotating once in the air, so that he would roll along whatever surface he impacted. His vision had blurred with such ferocity that he had no idea what would come next. He closed his eyes, braced for the shock of a lifetime, and hoped for the best.
He hit something several feet above the concrete floor of the complex, bringing his momentum to a halt a half-second sooner and perhaps saving his life. It wasn’t steel or concrete he’d hit, or he would have broken a dozen bones at once and paralysed himself instantaneously. Instead a hollow thud sounded as he rolled along the chain of upper back muscles and splinters flew in every direction at once.
Wood.
He’d landed on one of the stacks of pallets. Out of control, he lost his grip on the Kalashnikov rifle as he snatched for a handhold and it tumbled away. Searing agony blasted him as every ounce of breath left his lungs, his internal organs rattled by the sudden halt. He twisted once and sprawled straight off the side of the tower, silently praying that there wouldn’t be too much of a second drop.
He wasn’t sure if his body would be able to handle it.
He hit another surface — this one concrete — much harder, battering him with the force of a thousand invisible fists dropping on him simultaneously. He gasped and rolled to a halt and spat blood onto the dusty ground between his hands.
He devolved into an uncontrollable burst of coughing.
He breathed deep, rolled over onto his back, and stared up at the night sky, in disbelief that he had survived.
Then again, it didn’t mean much.
He was hurt badly, bruised and battered by the two impacts — one after the other in relentless succession. Now that he had come to a stop, the pain started to set in, threatening to overwhelm him and drag him down into unconsciousness before he could take another breath. He turned his head to one side and stared at the fifteen-foot stack of wooden pallets that he’d fallen off. If it hadn’t been there, he would have plummeted straight to the concrete and almost certainly met his demise.