farther down the stream in a burst of earth and loose pebbles, swaying
wildly as Akkers fought the bucking wheel. He got it under control
again, jammed his foot down on the accelerator and went roaring on down
the river bed, leaving Conrad lying in the soft sand below the bank.
As the truck hit him, Conrad felt the bone in his hip shatter like
glass, and the breath driven from his lungs by the heavy blow of metal
against his rib cage.
He lay in the sand on his side and felt the blood well slowly into his
mouth. It had a bitter salt taste, and he knew that one of the broken
ribs had pierced his lung like a lance and that the blood sprang from
deep within his body.
He turned his head and saw the radio set lying ten paces away across the
river bed. He began to drag himself towards it and his shattered leg
slithered after him, twisted at a grotesque angle.
David, he whispered into the microphone. I couldn't stop him. He got
away, and he spat a mouthful of blood into the white sand.
David picked the truck up as it came charging up the river bank below
the concrete bridge of the Luzane, bounced and bumped over the drainage
ditch and swung on to the road. It gathered speed swiftly and raced
westwards towards Bandolier Hill and the highway. Dust boiled out from
behind the green chassis, marking its position clearly for David as he
turned two miles ahead of it.
After crossing the Luzane the road turned sharply to avoid a rocky
outcrop, and then ran arrow-straight for two miles, hedged in with thick
timber and undulating like a switchback, striking across the water shed
and the grain of the land.
As David completed his turn he lowered his landing gear, and throttled
back. The Navajo sank down, lined up on the dusty road as though it was
a landing-strip.
Directly ahead was the dust column of the speeding truck. They were on
a head-on course, but David concentrated coldly on bringing the Navajo
down into the narrow lane between the high walls of timber. He was
speaking quietly to Debra, reassuring her and explaining what he was
going to attempt.
He touched down lightly on the narrow road, letting her float in easily,
and when she was down he opened the throttles again, taking her along
the centre of the road under power but holding her down. He had speed
enough to lift the Navajo off, if Akkers chose a collision rather than
surrender.
Ahead of them was another hump in the road, and as they rolled swiftly
towards it the green truck suddenly burst over the crest, not more than
a hundred yards ahead: Both vehicles were moving fast, coming together
at a combined speed of almost two hundred miles an hour, and the shock
of it was too much for Johan Akkers.
The appearance of the aircraft dead in the centre of the road, bearing
down on him with the terrible spinning discs of the propellers was too
much for nerves already run raw and ragged.
He wrenched the wheel hard over, and the truck went into a broadside dry
skid. It missed the port wing-tip of the Navajo as it went rocketing
off the narrow road. The front wheels caught the drainage ditch and the
truck went over, cartwheeling twice in vicious slamming revolutions that
smashed the glass from her windows and burst the doors open. The truck
ended on its side against one of the trees.
David shut the throttles and thrust his feet hard down on the wheel
brakes, bringing the Navajo up short. .
Wait here, he shouted at Debra, and jumped down into the road. His face
was a frozen mask of scar tissue, but His eyes were ablaze as he
sprinted back along the road towards the wreckage of the green truck.
Akkers saw him coming, and he dragged himself shakily to his feet. He
had been thrown clear and now he staggered to the truck. He could see
his rifle lying in the cab, and he tried to scramble up on to the body
to reach down through the open door. Blood from a deep scratch in his
forehead was running into his eyes blinding him, he wiped it away with
the back of his hand and glanced around.
David was close, hurdling the irrigation ditch and running towards him.
Akkers scrambled down from the battered green body, and groped for the
hunting knife on his belt. It was eight inches of Sheffield steel with
a bone handle, and it had been honed to a razor edge.
He hefted it under-handed, in the classical grip of the knife-fighter
and wiped the blood from his face with the palm of his free hand.
He was crouching slightly, facing David, and the haft of the knife was
completely covered by the huge bony fist.
David stopped short of him, his eyes fastened on the knife, and Akkers
began to laugh again. It was a cracked falsetto giggle, the hysterical
laughter of a man driven to the very frontiers of sanity.
The point of the knife weaved in the slow mesmeric movement of an erect
cobra, and it caught the sunlight in bright points of light. David
watched it, circling and crouching, steeling himself, summoning all the
training of paratrooper school, screwing up his nerve to go in against
the naked steel.
Akkers feinted swiftly, leaping in, and when David broke away, he let
out a fresh burst of high laughter.
Ago in they circled, Akkers mouthing his teeth loosely, sucking at them,
gigglin& watching with those muddy green eyes from their deep, close-set
sockets.
David moved back slowly ahead of him, and Akkers drove him back against
the body of the truck, cornering him there.
He came then, flashing like the charge of a wounded leopard. His speed
and strength were shockin& and the knife hissed upwards for David's
belly.
David caught the knife hand at the wrist, blocking the thrust and
trapping the knife low down. They were chest to chest now, face to
face, like lovers, and Akkersbreath stank of unwashed teeth.
They strained silently, shifting like dancers to balance each other's
heaves and thrusts.
David felt the knife hand twisting in his grip. The man had hands and
arms like steel, he could not hold him much longer. In seconds it would
be free, and the steel would be probing into his belly.
David braced his legs and twisted sideways. The move caught Akkers
off-balance and he could not resist it.
David was able to get his other hand on to the knife arm, but even with
both hands he was hard put to hold on.
They swayed and shuffled together, panting, grunting, straining, until
they fell, still locked together, against the bonnet of the truck. The
metal was hot and smelled of oil.
David was concentrating all his strength on the knife, but he felt
Akkers free hand groping for his throat. He ducked his head down on his
shoulders, pressing his chin against his chest but the fingers were
steel hard and powerful as machinery. They probed mercilessly into his
flesh, forcing his chin up, and settling on his throat, beginning to
squeeze the life out of him.
Desperately David hauled at the knife arm, and found it more manageable
now that Akkers was concentrating his strength on strangling him.
The open windscreen of the truck was beside David's shoulder, the glass
had been smashed out of it, but jagged shards of it still stood in the
metal rim, forming a crude but ferocious line of saw-teeth.
David felt the fingers digging deep into his throat, crushing the
gristle of his larynx and blocking off the arteries that fed his brain.