“We can still do it!” Hawke said.
They ploughed on through the sea, armed with the handful of weapons they had grabbed in the cave. Then Hawke saw movement on the stern of the motor yacht.
“They’re firing the mortar!”
He watched calmly as Mukendi lobbed a mine inside the RPG launcher and fired it out into the bay.
“Number one,” he said quietly. “But he’s way off course.”
An eerie silence followed as they watched the shiny silver mine flying through the air in between the motor yacht and their JetSkis. It crashed down into the sea a few hundred yards ahead of them and the explosion ripped hundreds of tons of water into the air in a vast plume.
Then they saw the mini tsunami racing toward them.
“Brace!”
Still in the lead, the wave was on course to smash into the starboard side of Camacho’s speedboat and would have capsized them had he not steered into it. The bow cut into the crest of the wave instead and they crashed down into the trough behind it.
“That was too close for me!” Jazmin said.
Hawke saw the near miss, speeded up and steered closer to them, riding the waves from the explosion. “Is everyone all right?”
A dazed Camacho gave a wave. “We’re fine.”
“We need to get that cannister!” Hawke called out. “Everyone keep on this!”
“They’re firing again!”
The next rocket ripped over their heads and exploded in the side of the cliff in a devastating shower of rock and sand and gravel. The cloud blew out of the cliff-face into the air above the bay like an expensive Hollywood CGI. Beneath it, a large section at the top of the cliff started to slide down into the sea. Below, the last few stragglers on the beach now screamed and ran for their lives as the thousand-ton deadly cargo tumbled and rolled toward them in a cloud of dust and smoke.
“Run!” Lea yelled, but she knew they couldn’t hear her.
The lethal landslide crashed over the beach and into the sea, causing another smaller tsunami, but at least no innocent people had died on the beach today.
“Bastards!” Ryan said.
“They were trying to divert our attention,” Hawke said. “Make us break off the chase and go over there to the beach to save those people.”
Seeing no one was harmed, Camacho steered the boat back around to port, increased speed to the main engines and resumed the pursuit of Kashala and his mercs.
Hawke revved his JetSki and accelerated. “We lost some time, but I think we can still make it.”
As he raced toward Kashala’s boat, he realized the plane he had seen earlier on the horizon had now banked to its portside and was flying toward the island.
Toward them.
And it had descended from its altitude of around ten thousand feet and was leveling out, closer now to two thousand.
“Unusual,” he muttered. “Look out for the aircraft,” he called out. “At our ten o’clock.”
Lea saw it next, and then the others.
“Looks military!” Reaper called out.
Hawke was momentarily caught out. “Holy shit!” he said at last. “It’s a US Navy Osprey! Everyone take evasive action and remember, there’s no forward-firing rockets or guns on it.”
The Osprey raced toward them through the hot sky. Hawke was right about there being no chin turret or forward-firing rockets on the V-22, but it still had teeth, and enough of them to chew ECHO into pieces. Now, as it flashed over the top of them the crew unleashed a depth charge dead ahead of them.
“Look out!” Lea yelled.
Then the underwater bomb crashed into the sea and detonated. The explosion was heavy and hard. A deep bass thud came from beneath the waves and then the shock wave blasted thousands of tons of water into the air directly above them.
“Evasive action!” Hawke yelled.
They broke up and raced in every direction to avoid the fallout.
“That was too close!” Ryan yelled. “I can’t even joke about it.”
“They’re firing on Kashala now!”
“And he’s firing back with the mortar and the RPG!”
Lea pointed into the sky and they all watched in horror as Kashala launched an RPG from the stern of the boat. The Congolese general looked on calmly as it ripped through the sky toward the Osprey.
The US Navy pilot took evasive action, banking hard to starboard, but Kashala had been too close and the RPG made contact with the tiltrotor aircraft less than three seconds after launch. Punching a hole in its belly directly behind the landing gear, the explosion was savage, blasting a bus-sized hole in the aircraft’s smooth metal underside and blowing its guts all over the sky above them.
Wires, ailerons, wheels, struts.
Crew.
The force of the explosion tore chunks of metal out from the main airframe and blasted them through the wings, ripping the control surfaces to shreds.
The pilot fought with the controls, but it was over. The Osprey pitched down in a grotesque, stomach-turning angle and roared toward the sea’s surface, the crippled engines howling like wounded animals.
It hit the sea with savage intensity and almost disintegrated on impact. Thousands of pieces of metal and plastic flew into the air in a giant explosion of fuel and fire and dead bodies and sea spray.
When the devastation had calmed down, Hawke pulled up well away from the burning oil and threw the engine into neutral. As the JetSki came to a halt just before the debris field, the others pulled up beside him.
Camacho finished checking the wreckage and steered the speedboat back over to his friends. “They’re all dead.”
Beside him, Jazmin looked like she was in severe shock.
Hawke said nothing, but nodded.
“And Kashala’s long gone,” the CIA man added. “He’s already more than halfway to Anáfi by now.”
Hawke looked out to sea and the vague outline of the island of Anáfi. Its rocky coast and mountainous interior loomed in the Mediterranean haze. He turned back to the burning wreckage. “I don’t think President Faulkner is going to be too happy when he hears about that.”
Lea gave a grim laugh. “I don’t think even a fly would want to be on that wall.”
Hawke revved the JetSki. “Start praying Eden or Sooke or someone can tell us where they’re going, or somewhere there’s a city that’s just had its last sunrise.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Alex Reeve had suffered much punishment in her life, but this was taking her to the limits of her endurance. Locked in a cell with no clue where she was, and not even any idea whether her father and Brandon were still alive. No news, no internet, no phone. Total isolation. What was Faulkner doing from his nest of corrupt power back in Washington DC?
And yet, she hadn’t given up hope. She knew what her father would say, and she stuck by it like glue. After all, he had been a prisoner of war in his youth and he knew what he was talking about. She understood the importance of keeping her mind together and not letting the bastards break her down.
But it was so hard to hold things together in a place like this.
Faulkner was evil; there was no doubt in her mind about that. He had worked hand in glove with the Oracle and his cult to unseat her democratically elected father and seize control of the White House. He was a malicious, treacherous conniving son of a bitch and if she ever got her hands on him, she’d…
Take it easy, Alex.
She breathed out slowly and calmed down.
Hang on tight or fall down hard.
In control of her emotions now, she felt her heart slow down. Another panic attack averted, but then the sound of footsteps outside her cell. Men talking in low, deep undertones. The jingle-jangle of keys and then the unmistakable noise of the lock turning.