‘Here.’ Paris tossed a couple of magazines after it.
‘Nina, load up,’ Eddie told his wife. ‘We’re gonna need it.’ She took the AK from him, slotting a mag into the receiver and tugging the charging handle to load the first round. ‘You’re getting pretty good at that.’
‘Not a skill I ever wanted on my résumé,’ she said unhappily.
Both boats swept out into the middle of the river. The Insekt Posse charged down the hill after them. ‘Take over from me, give me the rifle.’
She switched places, puzzled. ‘You know I don’t really worry about your driving, right?’
‘Good to know!’ He took careful aim, then sent several shots back at the remaining boats. Shattered wood and fibreglass spat up — and one of the craft blew apart, an oily fireball rising from the thunderous explosion. ‘Bollocks!’
‘Why? You hit one.’
‘I was hoping to blow up all of ’em so they couldn’t follow us!’
Another detonation — this of shearing rock — rang across the jungle. A house-sized chunk of the clifftop tumbled into the river. The trees at the promontory’s edge came with it, for the first time exposing the Palace Without Entrance to view from below. ‘Look!’ Nina cried. One of the towers crumbled, its ancient stones crashing through the roof. A second followed, demolishing most of the lead-lined ceiling… and the Mother of the Shamir’s furious roar grew even louder.
The boat rolled as the wave kicked up by the falling debris hit it side-on. Nina grabbed the gunwale for support, Eddie bracing himself as he turned the craft into the crest to keep it from being swamped. Fortune did the same, the speedboat’s prow leaping from the water before smacking back down. Rivero, still filming, yelped as he was pitched from his place.
Both vessels straightened out as the wave passed — but bigger ones would soon follow. Nina saw the entire promontory shudder as they rounded it, shedding loose rocks like a wet dog shaking itself off. At its base, the Insekt Posse’s boats raced out in pursuit.
Boulders cascaded down the cliff into the water. Eddie swung towards the far bank, gambling that the risk of hitting something in the shallows was less than that of being capsized by a rogue wave. Fortune did the same, cutting across Brice’s wake. The Yorkshireman glared after his countryman. There was not much difference in speed between the boats, but the MI6 man still had an advantage, and was edging away from his pursuers.
Gunshots from behind as the militia opened fire, bullets smacking into the water around them—
The rolling thunder reached a crescendo — and the promontory burst apart.
It was as if solid rock instantaneously turned to sand, the whole cliff — the whole escarpment — collapsing. What remained of the Palace Without Entrance vanished into the maelstrom, the surrounding jungle falling with it in a storm of shredded foliage. Zhakana was consumed too, the ancient ruins disintegrating before also being swallowed.
Countless kilotons of falling stone hit the water — and hurled up a huge wavefront, an enormous wall of white froth surging outwards at terrifying speed. Nina looked back, and wished she hadn’t. ‘Oh my God!’
Eddie glanced astern. The wave raced after them, bursting the opposite bank and sweeping away towering trees as if they were dry twigs. The last of the Insekt Posse’s boats was snatched up. The driver tried to turn to escape, but there was nowhere to go. The craft flipped over, its two occupants flung screaming into the seething waters.
The Englishman knew they would soon follow them — unless—
‘Fortune!’ he bellowed over the rising noise from behind. ‘Turn into it! Turn into it!’
He yanked at the tiller, bringing the boat around in a sharp turn to point back upriver. Some of the Insekt Posse saw his move and did the same. But others were panicking, trying to swing out of the wave’s path or simply outrun it—
They failed, their boats smashed by the furious flume.
The other craft met it head-on. One had not turned far enough and was bowled over, but three of the enemy speedboats managed to ride up the charging wall of water, tipping almost vertically before disappearing over its crest.
Eddie looked at Fortune — then both men shoved their outboards to full power and drove directly at the wave. Nina held on as hard as she could as the bow pitched upwards—
The hull jolted as it was pounded by debris. Spray soaked them, a broken log lancing past like a spear… then there was a sickening moment of freefall as they crested the tsunami.
The landing threw Eddie from his seat. He tumbled down the boat’s length—
Though half-blinded by spray, Nina saw her husband bowl past — and desperately grabbed his leather jacket. He thumped to a stop with his legs over the prow.
The boat spun around, smaller waves throwing it about like driftwood. Nina shook wet hair off her face and pulled Eddie back. ‘Thanks,’ he panted. ‘Where’s Fortune?’
She saw the second boat off to port. ‘They’re all okay — and crap, so are those guys,’ she added. The jungle around them had been swamped, the river itself littered with flotsam, but those Insekt Posse who had cleared the wave were still afloat.
Eddie scrambled to the stern. To his relief, the outboard was still running. He pulled the boat back downstream, Fortune following.
Nina looked back. The landscape had completely changed. The entire promontory was gone, swirling dust all that remained where high cliffs had stood. The plateau on which Zhakana had been hidden for three thousand years was now a shattered crater, only the chewed remnants of trees poking through the rubble. The entire City of the Damned had been swallowed by the earth.
Something else had been buried too. The Mother of the Shamir had fallen silent. The chasm had collapsed on top of it, hundreds of feet of debris blocking whatever caused the destructive effect far better than a few inches of lead. The power it represented, the temptation and the danger it posed, had now been removed — permanently.
The threat from the parent was over… but that of its child still remained. Brice had the Shamir — and the British agent had also brought his boat safely over the tidal wave. ‘There’s Brice!’ she said, pointing ahead.
Eddie powered after him. ‘His boat’s faster,’ he warned. ‘He’ll get away — unless—’
‘Unless what?’ asked Nina, sure she would not like the answer.
‘Unless we cut some corners.’ He altered course. The rushing wavefront had broken the banks on both sides of the river, flooding the swampy lands downstream. Brice was still following the waterway’s curves to stay clear of the trees — but Eddie was already angling to cut as closely as he could around the inside of the next bend.
‘I really don’t think that’s a good idea,’ she said, eyeing floating debris in their path.
‘You want him to get away with that thing?’
‘No, but I don’t want to crash either!’
The boat bounded over Brice’s wake, broken wood clattering against the prow. ‘I can try not to crash into anything big. That do you?’
‘Not really, no!’ she cried as they surged around the bend. One side of the hull scraped against what had been the riverbank, spraying up mud — then Nina saw vines hanging from a low branch rushing at her. ‘Aah! Duck!’
They both hurriedly dropped, the dangling creepers whipping at the top of Eddie’s head as they roared beneath. He glanced back, cringing. ‘See? Doddle.’