The man in black strode past a Russian trooper, and suddenly the trooper whipped his gun up.
Muzzle flash. Gunfire.
The trooper was riddled with bullets, nailed.
The roving robot machine-gun whizzed back to pin its laser sights on the other Spetsnaz troops.
Unperturbed, the man in black stopped before Schofield and the Spetsnaz major.
'Captain Schofield, I presume?' he said as he lifted Schofield to his feet. 'The Scarecrow.'
'That's right. . .' Schofield said guardedly.
The man in black smiled. 'Knight. Aloysius Knight. Bounty hunter. I see you've met the Skorpions. You'll have to excuse Major Zamanov. He has this really bad habit of cutting off people's heads as soon as he meets them. I saw the laser signal from the air—when is the bomb due?'
Schofield glanced at Mother.
'Four minutes, thirty seconds,' she said, eyeing her watch.
'If you take his head, Knight,' the Russian major hissed, 'we will hunt you down to the ends of the earth, and we will kill you.'
'Dmitri,' the man named Knight said, 'you couldn't do that if you tried.'
'I could kill you right now.'
'But then you'd die, too,' Knight said, nodding at the blue dot on Major Dmitri Zamanov's chest.
'It would be worth it,' Zamanov spat.
'I'm sorry, Dmitri,' Knight laughed. 'You're a good soldier, and let's be honest, a fucking psychotic asshole. But I know you too well. You don't want to die. Death scares the shit out of you. Me, on the other hand . . . well, I couldn't give a fuck about dying.'
Zamanov froze.
This Knight character, Schofield saw, had called Zamanov's bluff.
'Come on, Captain,' Knight said, handing Schofield his MP-7 from the ground. 'Grab your boys and girls and follow me.'
With that, Knight led Schofield and the other Marines through the ranks of Spetsnaz troops without another shot being fired.
'Who are you?' Schofield asked as they walked.
'Never mind,' Knight said. 'The only thing you need to know right now, Captain, is that you have a guardian angel. Someone who doesn't want to see you killed.'
They reached the eastern end of the Al-Qaeda barricade, a short distance from the tunnel in the corner of the cavern.
Knight yanked open the door to a wide-bodied Driftrunner truck that formed the end section of the Al-Qaeda barricade.
'Get in,' he said.
Schofield and the others climbed inside—under the baleful glares of the Skorpions.
Aloysius Knight jumped into the front seat of the Driftrunner, keyed the ignition.
'Now,' he turned to Schofield, 'are you ready to run? Because as soon as we leave the cover of my remote guns, those cocksuckers are gonna be really pissed.'
'I'm ready.'
'Good.'
Then Knight gunned the accelerator and the Driftrunner shot off the mark, disappearing into the small tunnel in the corner of the cavern.
No sooner was it out of sight than the 20-odd members of Zamanov's Spetsnaz team were moving, jumping into other Driftrunners, three men even leaping into Schofield's abandoned Light Strike Vehicle.
Their engines roared and the chase began.
Headlights in darkness.
Bouncing, jouncing, carving sabre-like beams through the dust-filled air.
The Black Knight's Driftrunner roared down the narrow tunnel. The Driftrunner was about the size of a Humvee and essentially just an oversized pick-up truck, with a long rear tray and a partially-enclosed driver's compartment. There was, however, no dividing wall or window between the driver's compartment and the rear personnel tray: one could traverse between the two simply by climbing over the seats.
The tunnel around it was almost perfectly square, with sheer granite walls and a flat hardstone ceiling held up by wooden support beams. It was also practically dead straight, stretching away into darkness like an arrow.
And it was tightly—tightly—fitted around the Driftrunner. There were only about 12 inches to spare on either side of the speeding truck. Above the vehicle's roof the gap was about four feet. The Skorpions were close behind them.
The three Russian commandos who had commandeered Schofield's LSV were now speeding along the tunnel right behind the Driftrunner—the smaller, more nimble little vehicle catching up to it easily. The driver drove hard while his partners fired at the Driftrunner with their VZ-61 machine pistols.
Bathed in the glare of the LSV's bouncing headlights, Mother and Book and Pokey and Freddy returned fire.
Behind the speeding LSV came three other Driftrunners, packed with the other seventeen members of Zamanov's rogue Spetsnaz unit.
A mini-convoy, racing at dangerously high speed through the I tight stone passageway.
'Mother! Time!' Schofield yelled from the passenger seat of the I front-running truck.
'Three minutes!'
'How long is this tunnel?' he asked Knight.
'About four miles.'
'This is going to be close.'
Book and Mother and Pokey and Freddy's guns blazed, firing at I the speeding LSV behind their truck. They alternated their fire, so I that while two of them fired, the other two were reloading.
Following this pattern, Mother and Book ducked to reload; Pokey and Freddy took their places—and were hit by a shocking Iwave of gunfire. Freddy's face disappeared, transformed to pulp. Pokey was hit in the throat and he fell, teeth clenched. Book II dived forward to stop him falling off the back of the truck, caught him—
—but that was all the Skorpions needed.
Still reloading, Mother spun to see what was happening. She turned in time to see the two passengers from the LSV leaping off the front of the Light Strike Vehicle ///; onto the rear tray of the Driftrunner!
Book had his hands full with Pokey.
The two Skorpions landed on their feet, brought their guns up to kill Book and Pokey.
Lacking a loaded gun, Mother just hurled herself into them, crash-
Pckling them both, and the three of them fell to the floor of the tray, e walls of the tunnel rushing past them in a blur of rocky grey.
Benight and Schofield saw it all. Schofield got up to help.
'Here!' Knight yelled, tossing him one of his silver Remingtons. While you're back there, nail that car!' Schofield dived back into the open rear tray of the Driftrunner. He saw Mother on the floor, fighting—saw Book II lifting Pokey
back up into the tray—saw the LSV whipping along the tunnel behind them, its headlights illuminating the confined space.
He raised the silver Remington and, two-handed, fired it at the
LSV.
The recoil from the shotgun was enormous.
The effect was even bigger. Whatever shells this Knight guy used, they packed one hell of a punch.
The LSV was literally blasted off its wheels.
Hit by the shotgun shell, it was lifted clear into the air and tumbled sideways. Such was its velocity in the close confines of the stone tunnel, the speeding Light Strike Vehicle flipped and rolled and tumbled, banging off the walls and the ceiling before it came to a skidding halt on its crumpled roof.
Miraculously, its driver was still alive.
Not for long.
A split-second after it had stopped, the LSV was ripped apart from behind, blasted into a million pieces as the first Skorpion Driftrunner exploded right through it, followed by the second Spetsnaz truck, then the third.
Within seconds, the Skorpion Driftrunners were travelling right behind Schofield's truck, headlights ablaze, rushing forward in the
dusty tunnel.
The first Russian truck sped up, banged its bullbar against the rear bumper of Schofield's Driftrunner.
Both vehicles rocked with the impact.
Then the Skorpions kicked out the windscreen of the first Russian Driftrunner and clambered out onto its bonnet and before Schofield could do anything about it, in the confined space of the dark tunnel, three of them leapt over into the rear tray of his Driftrunner.