He didn’t meet her eye. “If I don’t distract them, you’ll never get clear.”
“We stay together,” she snapped.
“On the midship ramp!” Foch pointed with his rifle to where two men ran at them. He was about to fire but Mercer reached behind him and pushed off his aim.
“Get going, the car’s blocking their view.” Behind the idling Bentley was a door to the stairwell. “Keep sharp but it should be clear. I think the gunship’ll be gone by now.”
“What about you?” Lauren’s eyes had dilated.
Fear or concern, Mercer mused. “I have no intention of sacrificing myself. Just be ready to pick me up.”
“How are you getting off?”
Mercer pointed to the upright loading door in the distance. “I’m going to fly.”
“Are you out of your—”
He cut her off with a shove when Foch and Bruneseau reached the staircase door with Carlson. Reluctantly she joined them and Mercer took off with a squeal of rubber.
The big Bentley was just a few inches narrower than the alley left between ranks of Mercedeses and he misjudged the gap, clipping the front of one SUV only to careen into the rear of another opposite it. Both side mirrors were sheared off by the brutal hits. Four more times he pinballed back and forth before centering the Continental. Idly, he estimated each hit would cost about ten grand to repair. The soldiers coming down the ramp saw him approach, held their fire until they were ensured hits, then opened up. The body of the Bentley absorbed the light rounds like armor and Mercer barreled at them without check. Only when they saw that fracturing the windshield and blowing out the four headlamps weren’t going to slow the relentless charge did they think about their own safety.
Like hunters facing a rampaging elephant, the two Chinese turned and started back up the ramp. Mercer was thirty feet behind and closing fast. One soldier managed to leap out of the way at the last second; the other was clipped in his hip and hit an unforgiving steel bulkhead fully eight feet above the deck. He was alive but his pelvis was shattered.
Mercer spun in a tight one-eighty and drove down the ramp again, racing across the deck for the loading door. He misjudged his skid and the car’s fender crumpled against a buttress. The contact hadn’t done any more than ruin more of the Bentley’s coachwork but a series of airbags exploded around him. Although the bags deflated almost immediately, the damage was done.
He cursed his stupidity.
The only thing making his plan to jump the car from the hold into the canal even remotely possible was the protection afforded by the multiple airbags. Without them the impact would be like hitting a concrete wall at forty miles per hour. He wouldn’t trust his life on the Bentley’s seat belt alone. The deploying of the bags meant he was stuck on the ship.
With an angry jerk he jammed the transmission into reverse and backed toward the stern ramp. Even as his own predicament became critical, he still had to think about the others. If he didn’t keep the Chinese occupied, they’d never get clear. He powered up the ramp, leaning on the horn to draw the attention of any of the roving soldiers.
Once he thought he saw one of the Chinese troops, but it turned out to be a member of the ship’s crew. He tried to shout to him to find cover but the Japanese crewman didn’t look like he understood. Mercer flashed his FAMAS and the man scampered away like a startled deer.
He was on level five when he came across a group of Chinese near the amidships ramps. There were four of them, perhaps all that remained on board, clustered around a Mercedes SUV like the one that had broken the fall of their dead comrade. Seeing one of them open the driver’s door, Mercer recalled this deck had been empty when they’d passed through a few minutes earlier.
The other soldiers scrambled into the SUV and suddenly the truck was in motion. The ML-320 accelerated with the suppleness that Mercedes is famous for and halved the distance before Mercer could react. He punched the gas and shot up another of the stern ramps, feeling the Bentley come airborne at the crest before smashing down on its suspension. In the rearview mirror he saw the SUV giving chase and he smiled grimly. He was getting what he wanted. The others would get away. But at what price?
Hitting forty miles an hour again, he raced for the midship ramp. He ignored the distraction of the pursuing Mercedes and motored up one more deck before turning back to the stern, launching the luxury car across the hold like a javelin. This time he didn’t care that his approach to the downward ramp was off and the car slid into a bulkhead, crumpling more metal.
For five minutes he taunted the Chinese as they raced through the ship, keeping them close enough to maintain the chase but staying far enough ahead that they couldn’t get an accurate shot. He knew that he’d never get enough of an advantage to reach the top deck. Not that the open deck would afford him any help. Because of the ship’s towering height, a leap over the side would be fatal. The most he could hope for was to buy Lauren time. He figured it would take her and the others ten minutes to launch the lifeboat and get clear of the auto carrier—maybe fifteen in total to reach Gamboa.
Mercer could have kept this up long enough except Sergeant Huai, driving the Mercedes, had other plans. When they sped down to the deck where the other SUVs were parked, he ordered two of his men to take vehicles and try to corner the Bentley by blocking off both sets of ramps several levels up. He lost only a few seconds in his pursuit and quickly reacquired the luxury sedan without its driver becoming aware that the noose was tightening.
Several more Japanese crewmen and a few officers in white uniforms had appeared in the holds, unsure about what they were seeing but feeling some compulsion to keep witness to the wanton destruction of so much of their cargo. When they reached Tokyo, they would have to explain to a great many people why dozens of cars had been totaled. Even they had a hard time believing a car chase had erupted within the confines of their ship between terrorists who’d arrived on helicopters. One officer even videotaped the battered Bentley being pursued by the ML-320 with hopes of assuaging irate car owners. And perhaps selling the tape to a television show.
Tempted to throw a jaunty wave to the cameraman, Mercer instead showed his weapon in hopes the crewmen would take cover. Yet they remained rooted like slack-jawed statues. He checked his watch, noted it was barely eleven o’clock in the morning. He also saw he’d given Lauren her fifteen minutes. If he hoped to survive the chase, it was time to end it now and surrender, hoping that the Chinese would rather interrogate a live prisoner than dump overboard the body of a dead one.
He was amazed, after what he’d been through since last night, that he had lasted as long as he had. Driving an unfamiliar car through the steel confines of a cargo ship required a level of concentration that he was rapidly losing. Now that he was ready to give up, it seemed his body had anticipated it and was beginning to shut down. His eyes burned from fumes and exhaustion, and he felt as deflated as the airbags draped across his lap.
He planned to park the shot-up Bentley in the middle of one of the open levels and wait next to it with his hands raised. Just in case the Chinese weren’t accepting captives, he wanted to get clear of the Japanese sailors and steered toward the midship ramp. He was doing twenty miles per hour when he reached the gently sloping ramp, and for a split second his concentration wavered, focusing again on the sailors as they watched him drive away.
Refocusing on the ramp, he saw the black snout of a second Mercedes SUV barreling toward him. Mercer didn’t have time to even take his foot off the gas. Panicked, he cranked the steering wheel without looking where he was headed. The Bentley’s left wheels dropped off the ramp with a crash as the other two maintained traction for a second longer and the heavy car began to roll onto its side. There was enough speed for the car to drag across the deck in a painful rending of metal before it flipped onto its roof and halfway to its wheels again. It settled back onto its roof and lay with its wheels turning desultorily in the air.