When the Red Wing paused at the gate to let Fawwaz climb in the back, they saw what had gotten him so excited. A trio of jet-black limousines rocketed up the mountain road, already a third of the way up.
Hasan said, "They're not mine."
"They're Hodler's," Carter said. "Let's get out of here!"
Fawwaz did not object to sitting in the back in such close proximity to Sultana, but he was taken aback by the stream of profanity launched his way by toothless Faranyah, abusing him for accidentally poking her with the butt stock of his automatic rifle.
Hasan tripped a catch under the dashboard, accessing a hidden compartment stocked with weapons and ammo.
"That's some option," Carter quipped as he selected a Swedish Carl Gustav M-45 submachine gun, slapping in its advanced rhomboidal thirty-six-round clip. There were plenty of spare clips on hand, too, as well as grenades and a sawed-off Remington shotgun.
The three black limos were more than halfway up the mountain when the Red Wing dropped down the road on the other side, descending the steep southern face.
Hasan handled the car like a pro on that wild roller-coaster ride, switchbacking through a series of hair-raising hairpin curves.
Carter looked back. Sultana sat bolt upright, eyes wide. Faranyah covered her eyes with her hands and moaned. Fawwaz grinned hugely. He was having a great time.
The last curve played out, dropping through foothills to reach a straightaway shooting across the plains.
A true motoring fanatic, Hasan shouted, "Now I'll show you what this car can really do, Nick!"
The press of acceleration pushed Carter deep into his seat as the Red Wing opened up, building ahead. The horizon leaped forward, while the pursuers receded in the distance.
At that moment, the sun came up. Its angry red orb beamed long ruby rays across the desert landscape, touching it with fire. Jagged rock pinnacles and spires threw elongated shadows across the flatland.
Way, way back, the trio of pursuit cars crawled like three black bugs over the ribboned road.
Hasan laughed. "They'll never catch us now! We'll be at the post in ten minutes!"
Unease nagged Carter. "Didn't you say they were sending out some units?"
"Why, yes. We should have met them by now. I don't see them, do you? I'd better call again."
Activating his hand-held microphone, Hasan tried and failed to raise the outpost. Finally he made contact. Brief contact.
The post's radio operator was frantic. "We are under attack by a large force of heavily armed guerrillas! Repeat, we are under attack! We cannot hold them off much longer! Turn back, Prince Hasan. Repeat, turn back!"
And that was that. Following that message, the outpost ceased transmission, no longer responding to Hasan's urgent radio calls.
"Reguiba's on the move," Carter said.
"We'll have to turn east at the next junction and pick up the coastal highway! But there's no need for alarm." Hasan chuckled. "Nothing on the road can catch us!"
Nothing on the road.
The crossroads was empty of ambushers and everything else but highways and earth. The Red Wing slowed to 70 mph to take the left turn, its free-floating suspension showing no symptoms of stress. Safely set on the eastward course to the coast, the car once again increased speed.
Trouble arose out of the north, manifesting itself at first as a pinwheeling glare in the sky.
Nearness resolved the pinwheel into the rotors of a helicopter sweeping toward them on a swift, sure trajectory bound to intercept them in a matter of minutes.
Its shadow zoomed across the plains, overtaking the Red Wing. "Not one of ours," Prince Hasan said unhappily.
The copter was a lightweight, four-passenger job whose white fuselage was trimmed with green stripes. Not a military model, for which Carter was profoundly grateful, the chopper was a type favored by geologists making aerial surveys and the like. It had no heavy-caliber machine guns, and that was a break. But it did have gunners firing automatic rifles out of the ports and gaping side hatchway, slung back so the shooters could hang halfway out of it for a better firing position.
Air drag vacuum shook the Red Wing as the chopper overflew it. Its landing skids missed the car's roof by little more than six feet.
Executing a sweeping turn, the chopper came in for another pass. The whoop-whoop of the whirlybird was counterpointed by stuttering automatic rifle fire.
The Red Wing caught the tail end of a burst, shuddering under the jackhammer pounding. Sultana screamed as the rear window exploded, cascading safety glass into the interior. She and Faranyah were huddled as low as they could get. Holes were punched in the trunk. Had the gas tank been hit, it would have been all over right there and then, but luckily none of the slugs tagged it.
Prince Hasan did some evasive driving, randomly cutting from lane to lane, slowing down and speeding up to throw off the gunners' aim.
Carter squirmed his upper body out the window. The airstream tore at him, seeking to rip the M-45 from his hands. He sat on top of the door, legs hooked tightly to keep him from toppling out.
Fawwaz joined the party, sticking the snout of his rifle out the window, pointing the barrel up.
The chopper overflew the road, coming in behind them. Carter's thighs already ached from the strain of wedging him in the window square, but he needed both hands for accurate shooting — as accurate as a submachine gun gets, anyway.
Twin spokes of fire converged on the rear of the car.
Hasan's evasive tactics threw off Carter's aim, but the Killmaster could hardly expect him to stop dodging. He could only wait for his chance, and when it came, he opened up with the M-45, squeezing off short sharp bursts. He targeted not the copter, but the gunners hanging out of its side.
He got one. The shooter dropped his weapon and fell forward, saving himself by holding on to the landing skid.
Temporary save. He couldn't hold on for more than a few seconds. His buddy was reaching for him, trying to haul him back inside, when the wounded man lost his grip and fell off the copter.
He bounced across an eighth of a mile of landscape before his tattered corpse rolled to a halt.
The relief that kill bought for the Red Wing was short-lived. The copter faced them, zooming low over the road, coming in for what looked like a collision course.
The dogfight turned into a game of chicken. Losing a man must have unnerved the other gunner, none of whose shots came close on this pass.
Carter's bullets ripped the copter's underside. He poured it on, going for the aircraft's gas tank. Landing skids came so close that he had to duck his head to keep it from being taken off. Fawwaz poured it on too.
The copter's roar was interrupted by irregular coughing.
The enemy wasn't so eager to rush in for another go now. They were in trouble. Tendrils of smoke wisped out of the copter assembly, thickening by the second into fat black snakes coiling around the craft.
Where there's smoke, there's fire. Once the burning began, it rapidly went out of control.
There was a whoomp, a crumping sound, then the first explosion — a small one. Pale yellow flame wreathed the machine's dragonfly body. The engine yammered, the copter yawed, pitched, shuddered.
The gunner tried to save himself by jumping. Had he been made of rubber, he might have survived the fall. As it was…
The copter blew up, going nova, making the brutal desert sun pale by comparison. A mass of seething incandescence with a black helicopter silhouette at its heart.
The flying funeral pyre didn't stay airborne for very long. Leaning sideways, it plowed into the ground, producing a still more spectacular explosion.
End of copter.
Carter climbed back into his seat, his nerves starting what would be a long, long process of untensing.