They left the aircraft and began searching for Saqqal’s plane on the aprons provided for private aircraft. They walked up and down on the hot asphalt searching for the aircraft when suddenly they found them. Rajavi and Corzo were loading the gold into an SUV while Saqqal, Kruger and Jawad were talking to an airport official. Kruger handed the young man a large envelope which Hawke presumed was a bribe.
A man in a dark suit approached the ECHO team and introduced himself as Sergeant Carvalho of the Military Police of Rio de Janeiro. He was a solid man with a chunky handshake and dark, honest eyes.
“We’re watching them just as we were instructed,” Carvalho said with a subtle nod across the tarmac at the SUV.
It was then that Kruger saw them, and they scattered. Kruger and Corzo dived into the SUV and skidded off the apron while Saqqal, Jawad and Rajavi piled into a catering truck and made off in the opposite direction.
“Wait — Saqqal’s making a break for it!”
“Eh?”
“He’s not going with Kruger to the boat — he’s got another plan!”
“Great,” Scarlet said. “The sodding BOPE team are down at the docks.”
“Fine,” Hawke said. “You get down there and stop Kruger leaving the country with the treasure. Lea and I will take Saqqal down. There’s only three of them.”
Reaper, Lexi, Scarlet and Ryan followed Carvalho to his car.
“And what about us now?” Lea said. “Saqqal’s getting away and we haven’t even got a flaming car!”
A pushback tug trundled past them on its way to a 737 landing on the nearest runway.
“By Strength and Guile, Donovan… and we mean it!”
Hawke ran alongside the tug, pulled the man out and revved the engine. He had no idea how fast these things went but he was about to find out. He floored the throttle as he weaved the tug in and out of a baggage train, and soon discovered the answer to his question — twenty-five miles per hour.
From the noise the engine was making it already sounded like it was pretty unhappy at the treatment he was giving it, so he frantically searched the airfield for an alternative as he pursued Saqqal. Ahead, his prayers were answered by three bright red fire trucks in front of the airport fire station, and he raced the pushback tractor as fast as it would go across the grass, wildly cutting over a runway just as a Boeing 747 was about to land, forcing it to go around. He guessed he wasn’t too popular either on board the aircraft or in the Air Traffic Control tower but there was no time worry about it. He could live with being deported from Brazil if it meant stopping whatever lunacy Ziad Saqqal had in store.
He pulled the pushback tug up to one of the fire trucks and climbed inside. The keys were in the ignition, saving him the effort and time of hotwiring it, and seconds later he and Lea were skidding off the apron in pursuit of the catering truck which was almost at the exit to the airport.
Hawke swung the truck around to the right and noticed in his mirror that the truck’s boom-ladder was loose and now swinging wildly from left to right as he swerved in his pursuit of the Syrians. Clearly the training that the firemen were doing back at the station hadn’t finished yet, and he was just going to have to live with it.
“He’s almost out of the airport!” Lea said.
“I’m going as fast as I can!” said Hawke.
“Why don’t you put the siren and lights on?” she asked as she loaded her gun. “That makes it go faster.”
“Of course it doesn’t bloody well make it go…” he looked at her and saw the look she was giving him. “Ah, right.”
“You’re such a dope, Joe Hawke.”
She leaned out of the window of the cab and fired a couple of shots at the catering truck, but they missed. They were too far away for any meaningful shot with a handgun, but at least she gave it a shot, he thought. He spun the wheel hard to the left and slammed his boot down on the throttle, sending the truck skidding hard in a sharp arc and the boom flying off to their right.
“What the hell are you doing, ya eejit?”
He pointed over to the other side of the airfield. “They’re going over there. We can cut them off.”
“Sure we can, except for the fact there’s a bloody great razorwire fence all the way around the sodding airfield.”
“Oh yeah — I didn’t see that,” he said giving her a sideways glance and rolling his eyes. “However will we get through a chain-link fence with nothing but a ten ton fire truck at our disposal?”
“Smartarse, that’s what ya are. A right little smartarse… but with nice eyes.”
The offending fence was now coming up fast as the truck raced toward the airport’s perimeter. “Cover your eyes!” he yelled.
Lea looked away and Hawke lowered his head as the fire truck smashed through the fence at speed, snagging a panel of it in the front bumper and dragging it along behind them as they launched off the kerb and slammed down on the road running around the airfield.
“Christ almighty that was idiotic!” she said. “But also kinda fun.”
“I’m glad you approve.”
When he had stabilized the truck, he powered it forward once again, keeping a close eye on the catering truck as it tried to outrun them on the ring road. He felt a heavy clunking sound and checked his mirror to see the boom-ladder had become partially unfixed to the top of the truck and was now hanging limply behind them, scraping along the asphalt in a shower of orange sparks.
“You’re never driving my car, I can tell ya that.”
“They let you drive?”
He stamped on the brakes and the heavy truck juddered violently as he brought the speed down low enough to take the corner, but they were making progress. Up ahead the old catering truck had run into the heavier traffic of the Sâo Cristóvâo district and Saqqal was having to work harder to make his escape, but Hawke still had no idea where that was. He would have thought they wanted to get on a plane as fast as possible, but they were driving away from the airport instead. He guessed they had access to a private airfield but he was damned sure they weren’t going to get there.
They chased the catering truck south through the suburb of Rio Comprido before Saqqal took a sharp right at Cosme Velho and raced into the mountains to the north of Copacabana. Now they were racing along a boulevard lined with jacaranda trees and expensive sedans.
“Not a private airfield then…” Hawke said.
Lea watched suburbia fly past them. “Where the hell is he going?”
Then Hawke pointed to a large mass of land rising up ahead of them to the southeast. “My best guess is he’s going to have a chat with God.”
She looked at him, confused “Eh?”
“Up there,” he said, and pointed to the sky. “See what I mean?”
She stared up at the twilight where a grove of sparkling stars studded the sky like diamonds and her eyes widened with amazement. “Oh… wow!”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Vincent Reno and the others followed Carvalho through a utility corridor until they reached a door which opened out to a small car park. Carvalho blipped the locks on a Chevy Blazer and seconds later they were skidding out of the airport and driving down to the docks.
“My men are already in place,” the Brazilian said. “There is no way for the South Africans to leave the city with the stolen treasure.”
Scarlet leaned over into the front. “Is the air conditioning on, or what?”
“Broken,” Carvalho said with regret. “Only the heater works.”
“Oh, that’s okay then,” the Englishwoman said. “It’s only thirty-nine degrees with ninety percent humidity today — why not turn the heater on instead?”
Carvalho smiled and offered a polite laugh, but made no reply. He used his knowledge of the city to weave the Blazer neatly in and out of the Rio traffic, passing south through the districts of Maré and Caju before turning east at São Cristóvão and heading into Centro.