Mother and Book II, on the other hand, had done as they'd been told and instead of fighting their assailants, had grabbed onto the nearest handholds, so that when the truck stopped, their attackers
had been thrown forward, smacking into the back of the driver and
passenger seats.
One was knocked unconscious by the fall.
The other was only bruised, and he rose—only to be headbutted viciously by Mother, a blow that put his lights out for good.
The damage done, Schofield reached over and closed the passenger door and hit the gas and soon they were speeding again.
There was less damage and mayhem in the other Driftrunners. They sped along behind the first truck once more—still with at least ten men on board.
But then the damage came.
In the form of Aloysius Knight.
When the impact had occurred, Knight had been in the process of climbing into the rear tray of the last Driftrunner, so it hadn't
really affected him.
Now that the Driftrunners were racing along again, however, he moved quickly through the last vehicle, dispatching the Skorpions in it with brutal—brutal—efficiency.
The Russians tried to resist, tried to raise their own weapons and
kill him first.
But Knight was like a killing machine.
Two Skorpions in the rear tray: he shot one in the head with his shotgun, while at the same time he shoved the other one's head above the roof of the driver's compartment . . . allowing it to be hit by a speeding overhead support beam, an impact that removed the
soldier's head from his body.
He came to the driver's compartment—levelled his short-barrelled Remington at the passenger and without so much as a blink, fired.
Boom.
The driver turned, surprised, just as Knight—ignoring him— blasted the windscreen out of its frame and climbed through it, leaping forward onto the tray of the third truck.
Zamanov was on this truck.
He dived for cover as Knight moved forward through the Driftrunner, blasting men left and right. Several of the Skorpions tried to return fire, but Knight was too fast, too fluid, too good. It was as if he anticipated their moves, even the order in which they would shoot.
On his way through the driver's cabin, Knight glimpsed Zamanov cowering under the dash, but he only saw him momentarily and since Knight's first priority was to get forward, back to Schofield, he didn't stop to kill the Russian. He was only killing anyone who was in his way.
He leapt over onto the second truck.
Up in the first Driftrunner, Schofield was now driving hard—with only friends not foes on his truck.
He could also now see a small white speck in the distance in front of him—the end of the tunnel.
Mother climbed into the passenger seat beside him. 'Scarecrow! Who the fuck are these people! And who is that dude in black?'
'I don't know!' Schofield yelled.
He looked in his rear-view mirror and saw Aloysius Knight step out onto the bonnet of the Driftrunner immediately behind his own.
'But he seems to be the only one around here who isn't trying to kill me.'
'He could be planning to kill you later,' Book II suggested from the rear tray. 'I say we ditch him.'
'I agree—' Mother began before cutting herself off.
They had reached the end of the tunnel.
Brilliant white light streamed in through a small square entryway.
It was about 200 metres away.
What had silenced her, however, was the enormous demonic object that had apparated in the air beyond the tunnel's exit.
A jet fighter.
A black Sukhoi S-37 fighter, hovering in the air just outside the tunnel.
Seen from head-on, with its sharply-pointed nose and down- 1 ward-swept wings dripping with missiles, the S-37 looked like a gigantic evil hawk, staring right at them.
There came a loud thump from behind Schofield as Knight landed in the tray of their Driftrunner and came up behind them. 'It's okay,' he said, nodding at the fighter, 'he's with us.' Knight pressed a button on his wrist guard, initiating a radio on it. 'Rufus, it's me! We're coming out and we're coming out hot, with three enemy vehicles on our tail. I need a Sidewinder. Just one. Aim low and to your right; arm at two hundred metres. Just like we did in Chile last year.'
'Copy that, Boss,' a deep voice said in Knight's earpiece. 'May I?' Knight nodded at Schofield's steering wheel. Schofield let him take it.
Knight immediately yanked the steering wheel hard over and drove the Driftrunner up against the left-hand wall of the tunnel.
The big four-wheel-drive rode up against the wall, grinding against it until . . . whump ... it jolted upwards, and suddenly was speeding along at a 45-degree angle, riding with two wheels on the ground and two on the wall itself.
'Okay, Rufus! Now!' Knight yelled into his wrist mike. Immediately, a horizontal finger of smoke shot out from the right wing of the hovering black fighter, and with a resounding phooni! a Sidewinder missile streaked into the tunnel system, rocketing at tremendous speed, hugging the ground.
From Schofield's point of view, the missile stayed close to the left-hand wall, zooming fast and low before— —shoooooooom!—
—it whizzed underneath his Driftrunner's 45-degree-tilted body and slammed into the truck immediately behind it.
The explosion ripped through the tunnel. The first Spetsnaz Driftrunner was blasted into a million pieces. With no way to avow it, the two mine trucks behind the first one smashed into the bacK of it, driving their noses into the wreck, slamming to a halt.
At the same time, Schofield's Driftrunner blasted out into glaring
daylight, shooting onto a wide flat turnaround area carved into the side of the mountain. Beyond the turnaround—directly underneath the hovering fighter jet—was a sheer thousand-foot drop.
Knight turned to Mother. 'You. How long till the bomb?'
Mother checked her watch. 'Thirty seconds.'
'That'll hurt Dmitri.' Knight then spoke into his wrist mike: 'Rufus. Meet us on the next turnaround down the mountainside.' He looked over at Schofield. 'I've got three passengers with me, including our man.'
'Any problems?'
Knight said, 'Nah, it was pretty light this time.'
Thirty seconds later, the sleek Sukhoi landed in a cloud of dust on another turnaround area further down the precarious cliff-side roadway. Flat and round, the turnaround looked like a natural landing platform jutting out from the cliff-face. Schofield's Driftrunner skidded to a halt beside it.
At that very same moment, guided by Gant's laser diode down in the mine, a 21,000-pound MOAB bomb was dropped out the back of a C-130 Hercules and angled in toward the mine's air vents.
The precision guidance system worked perfectly.
The bomb rushed toward the earth, hitting terminal velocity, its nns controlling its flight-path, before—whump—the giant weapon disappeared into the mine's now-open chimney.
One, one thousand . . .
Two, one thousand. . .
Three . . .
donation.
the entire mountain shuddered.
A volcanic boooom! echoed out from within the mine.
Standing next to the Sukhoi's two-man cockpit, pushing Mother up into it, Schofield had to grab onto its ladder just to keep his
balance.
He glanced up at the mountain peak above them—at the layer of
snow resting on top of it—and realised.
'Oh no,' he breathed. 'Avalanche . . .'
Then he snapped round to look back up the roadway, in time to see two bent-over figures stagger out of the mine tunnel on foot— a bare moment before a shocking blast of air came rocketing out of the tunnel, expelling the crumpled remains of the Skorpion Driftrunners that had been left in it.