“Dimitrov’s making a break for it!” Lea said.
“Yeah,” said Ryan. “But I’m more worried about what that crazy dude is going to pull out of the back of the truck.”
Scarlet wiped the dust from her eyes. “Joe’s on him — look!”
Lea looked into the sky and saw Hawke turning in a tight arc and heading straight for Mukendi. Standing legs apart and raising an automatic rifle into the air, the Belgian fired at him with zero fear. Up at the gully, Lea watched Hawke take evasive action but then Mukendi broke off the attack, turning instead on them.
Rounds snaked up the slope, spitting a line of gravel chips and dry sandstone dust up into the air as they raced toward their position.
“Take cover!” Lea yelled.
Reaper rolled into the cover of a boulder and wiped the dust from his eyes. Reloading his weapon, he shielded his eyes and watched Hawke turning the Skyrunner in the air for another run at Demotte, who was still trying to get airborne. Bearing down on him, he fired his Heckler and Koch submachine gun at the Congolese soldier and sent him scurrying away from the last Skyrunner. Emerging from a cloud of dust, he dived over the tailgate and disappeared inside one of the trucks.
Reaper didn’t like the prospect of what was about to come back out again, and his fears were confirmed when Mukendi and Demotte emerged from the truck. Demotte was holding some rocket grenades and Mukendi stood with a hefty Russian RPG over his shoulder. Standing beside the truck’s tailgate, he never flinched as he took aim at Hawke and fired the weapon.
The rocket spiralled through the air, flashing in the moonlight as it ripped a trail towards the Englishman’s Skyrunner.
“Oh God!” Lea cried out. “It’s going to hit him!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
“And he’s not going to like that,” Ryan said.
Scarlet stared at him. “No kidding, Sherlock?”
“He’s in trouble, guys!” Lea said, her voice tight with fear.
Hawke pulled hard on the steering mechanism and twisted the canopy hard to the right as he struggled to evade the incoming rocket grenade. One direct hit and he would be dead before he hit the ground, but from a height of over a thousand feet that would be a mercy.
Turning to the right and gaining some altitude, he made it just in time. Reaper and the others breathed a sigh of relief as the grenade screeched past the Skyrunner and disappeared into the night at the head of a bubbling smoke trail.
“Close,” Reaper muttered.
Scarlet elbowed him in the ribs. “And Mukendi fancies another go — check it out.”
He looked over to the old Ural truck where Demotte was reloading another rocket grenade into the launcher. Mukendi hoisted it up over his broad shoulder and took aim, ready for a second shot.
“Not this time,” Ryan said. He lifted his pistol into the aim and fired on them. The rounds punched a line of holes in the canvas side of the transport truck and made the Congolese soldier swing around to find the source of the gunfire. Slowly a shit-eating grin appeared on his face as he aimed the RPG directly at them instead.
“I have a bad idea about this, mes amis.”
“Funny that,” Scarlet said. “Because that’s just what I was thinking.”
A white flash as the launcher fired the grenade and then a puff of smoke. Mukendi threw the weapon to the ground, pulled a pistol from his holster and made his own bid for the last Skyrunner.
Reaper, Scarlet and Ryan had other problems. The RPG thundered through the hot afternoon air directly on their position. Mukendi had been half a kilometer away, and that meant they had around a second and a half to react if they wanted to save their lives.
All three of them dived out of the crag and hit the dirt just as the grenade ploughed into the jumble of rocks and exploded. Rolling down the slope as fast as they could, each of them was pelted in a hot, sharp shower of rock splinters and gravel dust.
“Fuck it inside out!” Scarlet yelled as she tumbled down the slope, darting her arms and legs out to try and slow herself.
Reaper twisted around and slammed his hands down on the ground. Using them as brakes, he slowed himself in good time, but shredded his palms. As he came to a stop in the dusty dirt, he looked down at his ripped, bleeding skin and gave a Gallic shrug.
Ryan came tumbling to a stop a hundred yards below, and the Frenchman sprinted over to him. “Where’s Cairo?”
“I don’t know,” he muttered. “Unless there’s a bar around here, then I do know.”
Reaper desperately scanned the slope for any sign of her. “No bars, mon ami… and looks like the King is on Hawke’s tail.”
“I’m here,” Scarlet called out, clambering back to her feet and dusting herself off. “That was close.”
“I’ll say.” Ryan rubbed the dust out of his bloodshot eyes and watched the final Skyrunner flying up in a wide arc and approaching his old friend’s six o’clock. The rest of the team gathered around him and looked into the sky with fear in their hearts. “He’s heading directly for Joe!”
Another shrug. “That’s Kashala’s funeral.”
“At least we have the codex,” Lexi said.
“The codex!” Ryan called out, desperately patting down his pockets. “I lost the codex in the explosion!”
Lea scanned the ground where they had been attacked by Mukendi. “I don’t see it.”
“There!” Reaper called out. “It’s blowing down the side of the mountain.”
They watched in horror and disbelief as Mukendi diverted from the Skyrunner and ran forward to the codex. Covered by Crombez, he snatched it up out of the dirt and retreated back to the trucks.
“We’re out of ammo and they’re getting away!” Lea turned in a circle and grasped her head with her hands. “Damn it!”
“Just relax,” Scarlet said. “We still have my pictures. The real problem is that now they have the same information we do.”
Above their heads, Hawke was firing on Dimitrov’s fleeing truck when he heard the whine of the other Skyrunner Rotax engine at his six o’clock. Twisting in the seat, he saw Kashala closing in on him. He couldn’t be sure, but it looked like he was trying to steer the parawing while holding a Kalashnikov in one of his hands.
“This guy just doesn’t get the message.”
Kashala fired on him. The rounds missed Hawke’s head by inches, but punched a neat line of holes in the side of the engine’s fuel line. As the precious liquid sprayed out into the air, Hawke knew the fight was over. Rapidly losing altitude, he steered the parawing to port and brought the Skyrunner back down to earth with a hefty smack.
The engine cut out completely seconds later and ramming the engine into neutral, he steered the vehicle down the slope toward his friends. As he pulled up beside them, they all watched the enemy a few miles away to the west. Mukendi had pulled the truck up at the side of the road and Kashala was landing the Skyrunner in the scrub beside it. Reunited, they took off in the same direction as Dimitrov, the codex safely in their possession.
Scarlet broke the silence with the flick of her lighter. “Well, that went well,” she said.
“We need to get after them,” Zeke said.
Lea shook her head. “No, they’re miles away and can still outgun us.”
“Like Cairo says, we still have the photos,” Ryan said. “It’s not as good as having the original in case there was some hidden information below the text that I didn’t notice, but it’s better than nothing.”
“He’s right,” Lea said. “We need to get back to town, get Kolya’s wound treated and regroup in a hotel. Ryan and Jazmin can study the pictures overnight before getting the first flight out of here.”