“The train!” Lexi yelled.
“It’s going too fast!” Devlin said.
Reaper shook his head. “That thing goes over four hundred Ks per hour!”
The train derailed and crashed down off the bridge and plowed down into the burning void created by the missile. For a few seconds the thick black smoke obscured it. When the wind cleared the smoke, they saw the train was wedged nose-first in the gap and the carriages behind it were buckling up on their couplings. Alarms blared and people screamed as Hawke spun the Maxus across two lanes and ripped under the one remaining clear section of the bridge.
The chopper saw it too late.
The pilot tried to pull up but they were going too fast. By the time the smoke cleared they were almost on top of the bridge. They struggled to pull up in time but in their zeal to destroy the fugitives they were going too fast.
When the Z-19 collided with the wrecked bridge it exploded like a grenade. Burning jets of kerosene sprayed out like a fireworks display as the crumpled airframe crashed into the asphalt just a few meters from the smashed train.
“What the fuck just happened?” Scarlet said.
Reaper shrugged. “Hawke’s at the wheel, so nothing unusual.”
“Zhou and Pig just got roasted,” Lexi said.
Devlin shook his head, his heart pounding in his chest. “Holy Mary Mother of Christ, that was nuts!”
Lexi closed her eyes. “Innocent people will have died on that train.”
“We didn’t do that,” Hawke said flatly. “And where the hell’s the MengShi gone?”
“You can’t see it anymore?” Scarlet asked.
Devlin turned in his seat and scoured the street behind for any sign of their pursuers. “It’s not behind us anymore!”
“Look out!” Reaper yelled.
The MengShi had peeled off and taken another route to get ahead of them and now it was pulling out of a side street.
Hawke stamped on the brakes but it was too late. The front of the Maxus smashed into the rear of the MengShi and spun it around one-eighty. Clipping the other vehicle sent them into a spin and by the time Hawke brought it under control he saw some police up ahead had thrown a stinger across the road to bring the fun to an end. As they plowed past the crumpled MengShi, their front tires ripped open on the stinger and instantly deflated.
He struggled with the wheel to keep the vehicle level but their speed was too great. The Maxus swerved violently to the left, smashed through a barrier and piled down an embankment at the side of the highway.
In the space of just a few seconds they tipped over and rolled down the rest of the slope at speed. The roof crumpled down and the airbags fired off. Reaper cradled his head in his arms while Scarlet tried to tuck her head down between her legs. Lexi screamed and covered her face and everyone held on for their lives until they came to a smoking, steaming stop, upside down at the bottom of the highway embankment.
Hawke managed to unbuckle his belt as Reaper kicked out the shattered windshield with his riot boots. Twisting in the battered, twisted SUV, he saw Scarlet struggling to unbuckle Lexi’s belt. The Chinese assassin was out cold, just like Devlin.
“It’s jammed!” Scarlet now frantically tried her door. “And the bloody petrol tank’s on fire, Joe!”
And then it exploded and lit the night with white-hot flames.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Unlike in the movies, the explosion did not instantly destroy the entire vehicle, but was instead limited to the tank and now flames spilled out of it and covered the rear of the Maxus.
Hawke quickly scanned the interior of the car to check his team. Reaper was good to go. He was still struggling with his belt as he finished smashing the shattered windshield out. Devlin was still out like a light and Scarlet was woozy and continuing her struggle with the door. Lexi was unconscious and bleeding from the mouth and nose. Her window had cracked with the force of the roll down the slope and exploded in her face. She was lucky to be alive.
Reaper immediately produced a combat knife and slashed his belt in two. He crawled out through the windshield and ran around to the back. He opened Devlin’s door, crawled inside and slashed open his belt before dragging the Irishman out behind him, away from the smoke and flames.
Smoke filled the interior of the Maxus as Scarlet crawled out through Reaper’s open window and joined him as he tried to resuscitate the former Ranger.
Hawke was next out, crawling out through the shattered windshield and working hard to clear his lungs of the toxic smoke. He got to his feet and turned in the night to see Lexi still trapped in the back seat, strapped in by her belt and hanging upside down in the burning vehicle.
With cold sweat running down the back of his neck and over his back, Hawke didn’t hesitate to run into the fire. The sight of Lexi inside a burning car slowly filling with noxious smoke shocked him but his training banished all emotion as he worked out the best way to get her out.
The door was jammed. The gas vapor burned like a storm from hell. He shielded his face from the intense heat of the fire as he lifted his boot and smashed the remaining glass in the rear window. He kicked it three more times until it broke out of the frame completely and then he was able to lean in and hack Lexi’s belt in two with his knife.
The flames roared in the night, engulfing the entire rear section of the car now, burning the seats and carpet and roofing felt. Black smoke poured from the interior of the destroyed Maxus as Hawke dragged Lexi from the back and hoisted her into a fireman’s lift.
Pounding away from the vehicle, he just reached the safety of the concrete traffic barrier when Tiger swerved the Kawasaki to a halt at the top of the embankment. Monkey jumped off and slid the bolt on his gun with a howl of insane laughter. Tiger killed the engine and pulled his own weapon.
Devlin regained consciousness and got to his feet. “What the hell?”
“You got knocked out,” Reaper said.
“You never said a word the entire time,” said Scarlet. “I preferred you that way.”
Behind them, the highway flashed with the blue lights of countless emergency vehicles. A PLA jeep skidded up behind the Zodiac’s motorbike and a dozen soldiers leaped out the back and started running down the embankment.
Over Hawke’s shoulder, Lexi started to come to, coughing and moaning incoherently. “Where am I?”
“What sort of food do you get in Chinese gulags, Lex?” he asked.
“What the fuck?”
“Humor me.”
“Pork broth, without the pork,” she said woozily. “Why?”
“No reason, just hang on tight!”
They started sprinting away from the devastation of the crash site with the soldiers at their heels. Tiger and Monkey stayed higher up the embankment and fired off a few pot shots. Their rounds pinged off the hot asphalt around Hawke’s boots as he ran with Lexi over his shoulders.
Scarlet and Devlin pounded the pavement beside him while Reaper spun around and let off a few rounds from his gun. Tiger and Monkey ducked down behind the traffic barrier at the top of the embankment and the soldiers scattered and sought cover wherever they could find it before returning fire.
The rounds from the more powerful rifles chewed into the concrete and snaked their way closer to the ECHO team. “Over there!” Hawke yelled.
They jogged down a second shallower embankment and found themselves back in civilization. Neon signs hung from shabby buildings and steam poured from vents in the sides of restaurants.
They burst through the door of the closest building. A small room with yellow-painted walls and a number of greasy tables around the outside. A man with a meat cleaver looked up with confused eyes from his work of parting a chicken. He lifted the heavy blade over his head and started shouting in Mandarin.