“The roof!” Zeke said. “Dude’s got a chopper on the way.”
Hawke unbuckled his belt and without a word to anyone he swung open his door and sprinted after them. Drawing his Glock, shoppers all around him screamed and scrambled for cover wherever they could find it. He ignored them, and hearing gunshots from upstairs, he pushed a man roughly out of the way and headed for the escalators.
Taking the steps two at a time he quickly made the top and scanned the upper level for any sign of Kashala and his men. Already on alert after hearing the gunfire, the people shopping up here now saw the gun in his hand and reacted fast, tripping over each other to reach the emergency exits before this lunatic could start picking them off one by one.
Except he was no lunatic and his targets were nowhere in sight. Where General Kashala and a unit of Congolese and Belgian mercs would go from here was obvious, and it had to involve an airlift retreat and that meant the roof. He desperately searched for a way to get behind the shopfronts that didn’t involve one of the fire exits. They would all lead to the ground and they were all packed with screaming tourists.
More gunfire, this time coming from below. He looked down over the mezzanine and realised he’d come up one level too many. Kashala wasn’t heading for the roof but the top level of the parking lot. He was leading the Blood Crew around a mocked-up display of a bedroom in the center of the second level.
Running along the upper level, Hawke vaulted over the glass wall running around the edge of the mezzanine and tumbled down the fifty feet to the ground. Hitting the tiled floor from this height would mean two smashed legs and six months of traction but he wasn’t aiming for the floor. Landing on the bed, he tucked into a parkour roll and bounced back into the air before touching down neatly beside the bedroom display.
Kashala could barely believe his eyes, and lifted his trusty bespoke HK USP into the air. Fitted with an elephant ivory handle, it was his signature weapon, the one he had boasted about personally killing over ten thousand men with. Now he aimed it at Hawke with a cool, hate-filled look in his eyes and squeezed off a dozen rounds on burst mode.
The bullets raked through the smoked glass dividers surrounding the coffee shop and blasted shards of razor-sharp splinters all over the Englishman’s head and shoulders. He kept on running and returned fire, sweeping his gun hand across his body and firing under his left arm before diving into the cover of another shop.
Kashala cursed when he missed the shot, turned and disappeared from sight into a service corridor between some of the other shops. Mukendi was screaming for the other mercs to pull back, waving a submachine gun haphazardly in the air to emphasize the command. Seeing the general had gone, they obeyed him and with a parting shot of wild, random submachine gun fire over anything in sight, they fled into the corridor.
Hawke gave chase until he reached the parking lot’s highest level. Dozens of cars sparkled in the sunshine and behind them at the far end of the lot, a black chopper came into land. The roar of the rotors battered Hawke’s ears as he charged forward, vaulting a low dividing wall and reaching the action only to find himself being used as target practice by Mukendi and some of the mercs.
They were forming a defensive semi-circle around the chopper to give Kashala time to get on board and their rounds were ripping and pinging all over the concrete around him. He heard some of his team calling out behind him but there was no time to wait. He had to get closer to the helicopter to get a clean shot at the pilot, but the only way with any cover was behind a row of cars parked up at the edge of the lot.
He got to his feet and sprinted along the wall at the edge of the parking lot, crazed, armed mercs and parked cars on one side and a two hundred foot drop on the other. He’d had better moments but it was his only play. Increasing speed until he was flat out and with bullets nipping at his heels puffing up little clouds of concrete dust, he looked ahead and realised he was running out of road. He’d hit the end of the car park.
“Into the chopper!” Mukendi called out.
The mercs obeyed, ceasing fire and climbing up into the massive NH90. The rotors gained more speed and the heavy transport helicopter’s tires lifted off the parking lot’s asphalt surface. Hawke knew what came next, and it wasn’t a goodbye kiss.
Reaching the end of the parking lot wall, he glanced over his shoulder and saw the chopper rise into the air, a black silhouette against a bright blue Hungarian sky and turn like a bird of prey until it was pointing right at him.
Here we go.
The chopper was rapidly over his head, its mighty Turbomeca powerplant roaring above him as Mukendi leaned out of the side door. Holding onto the inside of the chopper with one hand, his other recklessly gripped his submachine gun as he fired on him. Sweeping the gun back and forth, bullets chewed into the concrete all around Hawke as he took his life into his hand, climbing out over the edge of the roof and making his way down a cast-iron downpipe.
The chopper continued its relentless assault on him, firing on the wall as it spun around in a tight arc until he was back in its sights again. Bullets sprayed all over the wall and raced toward Hawke’s position like wildfire. With no choice but to let go, he tumbled through the air and crashed down into the roof of a passing truck.
Landing with a heavy thud, he scrambled to the edge of the truck. Above him, the chopper spun around and closed in as Mukendi unleashed another savage volley of fire. Hawke leaped off the roof of the truck, arms reaching out to grab the horizontal pole of a streetlamp. He had planned to swing on the pole and give himself some forward motion to execute a complex parkour move. Instead, he slipped and tumbled to the ground, crashing into a pile of garbage bags stacked up against the parking lot’s wall.
The chopper’s chin-mounted carbine opened fire and ripped a line of destruction into the top of the wall above his head. Just managing to hold onto consciousness, he opened his eyes in time to see a lethal shower of debris and dust raining down from the parking lot high above him.
He rolled away and missed the worst of it but a handful of fist-sized chunks of concrete pelted him on his back and legs. Pain stung him all over as he finally managed to roll clear and stagger to his feet. When he looked up at the chopper, he saw Mukendi laughing at him and taking aim once again with his submachine gun.
The chopper swerved even lower now, almost close enough for Hawke to reach out and grab the undercarriage, but instead he scanned the ground for his gun. Seeing it half-buried in a pile of dusty rubble from the carbine attack moments earlier, he snatched it off the ground and aimed it at Mukendi.
The two men fired simultaneously.
Hawke had gambled on the chopper’s movement making it much harder for the Congolese merc to get an accurate shot than he could on the ground and he was right. Mukendi’s rounds were wide of the mark, streaking inches away from Hawke’s body as the former SBS man gently squeezed the trigger.
Mukendi’s face fell into a grimace of fear and shock as the chopper began to spin wildly out of control and plummet to the ground. Hawke hadn’t aimed at him, but had saved his final few rounds for the two Belgian pilots in the cockpit.
Too low to cause any fatalities, the chopper crashed into the buildings above, clipping the side of the parking lot with its tail boom and then pivoting forward until it was pointing nose-down. As it screeched and scraped its way down into the alley, a coruscating shower of sparks and burning metal fell from the sky like comets. Hawke cradled his head in his arms and ducked down behind the garbage bags to protect himself, all the while desperately praying Lea and the others had survived the onslaught at the top of the parking lot. Up ahead, he saw Kashala lead his crew away from the smoking wreckage. Dazed and confused, they fired on a passing van and killed the driver. They dumped his body on the ground and skidded off in a squeal of tires and rubber smoke.