Eddie looked at Berkeley, who was in a corner, pale and sickened. ‘Having second thoughts, are you?’ he said coldly. ‘Not such a laugh when it’s someone you know who’s getting shot at. Still, hey, least you’re getting paid!’
‘Keep your mouth shut,’ said Diamondback, shoving him against a console.
On the screen, the Land Rover drove up a dune, the LSV closing with the gunner taking careful aim . . .
Nina climbed into the back of the Land Rover, taking one of the grenades with her. ‘Go straight!’ she ordered Macy as she scrambled to the rear door. ‘Tell me just before we reach the top.’
‘What are you doing?’ Macy demanded, looking back - and seeing the buggy quickly gaining as the Defender slowed on the incline. She planted both feet on the accelerator.
‘Just tell me!’ Nina peered through the broken rear window. The first LSV was still roaring along in their tracks, less than three hundred feet behind, two fifty . . .
She gripped the door handle for support, her other thumb through the ring attached to the grenade’s pin. ‘Come on, come on,’ she said, watching the dune buggy close the gap. It was near enough for her to make out the driver’s and gunner’s faces, leering expectantly as they prepared for the kill. ‘Come on—’
‘We’re at the top!’ Macy cried.
Nina jerked her thumb, pulling out the pin - and the spring-loaded spoon popped off the grenade, arming its fuse.
She hoped it was the five-second type . . .
The Land Rover lurched, reaching the top of the dune and ploughing through its ridge. The LSV dropped out of sight behind the crest.
Nina reached through the broken window - and dropped the grenade into the Land Rover’s tracks.
She rolled down the cargo bed to hit the seat backs as the 4×4 slithered downhill, picking up speed. She didn’t know if the rear door would protect her, but it was all she had . . .
The LSV burst over the crest of the dune, engine howling - and landed right on top of the grenade as it exploded.
The buggy was launched back into the air, flipping end over end amid an eruption of grit and razor-sharp shrapnel. It hit the ground upside-down, driving the gun turret and its lacerated occupant into the sand like a tent peg.
Nina uncovered her ears and looked back. The LSV was a burning wreck - but the second buggy was still very much in the game, vaulting over the top of the dune.
And her trick wouldn’t work twice.
27
Shaban stared at the pillar of smoke rising on the monitor. ‘What happened? What was that?’
‘That,’ said Eddie, grinning, ‘was my wife.’
The Egyptian’s face tightened, and he punched Eddie in the stomach. ‘Go after them!’ he yelled to the pilots in the bridge, before turning back to the weapons officer. ‘Tell them to aim only at the driver. If they destroy the jar, I’ll kill them myself!’ The officer, glad that he worked for Khaleel and not Shaban, relayed the instructions.
Everyone lurched as the hovercraft turned to follow the Land Rover. ‘Full speed!’ Shaban bellowed. ‘Catch them!’
Climbing back into the front seats, Nina saw the LSV rapidly gaining, following a parallel course. The buggy had a clear shot - but something was staying the gunner’s finger. ‘They’re not shooting.’
‘You make that sound like a bad thing,’ Macy complained.
‘It will be in a minute,’ she realised. ‘They’re trying to get closer - so they won’t just be shooting at the truck, they’ll be shooting at us!’
‘Oh, great! I love the personal touch!’
Nina spotted the hovercraft powering after them, but ignored it. There was a much closer threat. The LSV drew level, machine gun at the ready as it angled towards them, narrowing the gap—
The Land Rover and the LSV were side by side on the targeting monitor. The weapons operator nudged a joystick. The cursor over Nina and Macy’s vehicle turned red, the radar automatically tracking the 4×4.
Eddie forced himself to look away, at the room’s other occupants. Shaban’s eyes were fixed on the monitor with eager anticipation, while Diamondback’s expression suggested that he was watching a game of American football, waiting for his team’s quarterback to break through the lines and score a touchdown. Hamdi appeared pensive, and Berkeley’s head was turned, as if he were unwilling to observe the results of his choice of sides. Khaleel and the weapons officer both watched with professional detachment.
Which meant . . . nobody was watching him.
With his hands secured behind his back, the others didn’t consider him a threat - and the weapons room’s cramped confines had forced Diamondback to lower his gun as everyone crowded round the monitors.
He glanced sidelong once more at Diamondback before making his move—
No matter what Macy did, the Land Rover wasn’t quick or agile enough to escape the Light Strike Vehicle. The buggy was less than a hundred feet away, still closing, the gunner lining up the M-60 machine gun on the driver . . .
The LSV’s gunner was a silhouette against the desert on the screen. He took aim, body language shifting as he prepared to fire—
Eddie clenched his hands together - and shoved himself backwards against Diamondback, slamming his fists into the American’s groin.
Before anyone else could react, he smashed a knee into the side of the weapon’s officer’s head, bowling him from his chair. He whipped round and pushed the joystick with his bound hands - then spun back and banged his forehead down on one set of buttons.
The firing controls for the Zubr’s AK-630 Gatling guns.
He had switched the targeting cursor from the Land Rover to the LSV when he hit the joystick - and now both the Dalek-like turrets on the broad main deck obediently locked on to their new prey.
And fired.
Even inside the windowless weapons room the noise of the guns was almost painful, an earsplitting chainsaw rasp as both six-barrelled weapons spat out over eighty 30mm explosive shells every second. The storm of metal didn’t merely wreck the LSV - it obliterated it, the buggy and its occupants shredded as the AK-630s kept blasting, waiting for human confirmation that their target had been destroyed.
It took several seconds to arrive as Eddie kicked and struggled, trying to keep the room in chaos for as long as possible. Diamondback finally flung him against a console, cracking his head on the metal. The guns’ piercing buzz stopped as the dazed weapons officer slapped a hand on the controls.
Diamondback pulled Eddie upright, shoving his revolver under his chin - only to jerk it away as Shaban smashed several punches into the defenceless Englishman’s face, shrieking with frustrated fury. He delivered a final blow to Eddie’s stomach, then threw him through the doorway to collapse on the bridge’s deck.
The Egyptian stormed after him, kicking him in the chest before jabbing a hand at the windows. ‘Follow them!’
Macy gawped at the blazing wreckage of the LSV. ‘What the hell was that?’
‘Eddie!’ Nina looked back at the hovercraft with a surge of new hope. He was still alive!
That the Zubr’s guns hadn’t simply been turned on the Land Rover proved that Shaban was determined not to damage the canopic jar. Which gave her a chance to rescue her husband.
A small chance - but she had to take it.
‘Turn us around,’ she said. Macy looked at her uncomprehendingly. ‘Turn round, go for the hovercraft!’
‘Are you nuts?’ Macy gasped. ‘Didn’t you see what just happened to that buggy? I’ve got thongs that are bigger than what’s left of it!’