Who had Tandon been shooting at? She looked across at the neighbouring tier, seeing nobody - then a familiar head cautiously peered out from an archway. Joy and relief filled her. ‘Eddie!’
He waved at her, then ran along the tier to leap over the gap on to the stairway. ‘Ay up, love!’
She kissed him. ‘Oh, God! I thought you might be dead!’
‘It’ll take more than this bunch of tossers. And Shankarpa and his boys helped. What about Kit?’
‘He’s okay - he’s inside. But we need to get him out of there - the place is filling with smoke.’
‘Yeah, I can see that.’ A dark cloud was billowing out from the top of the doorway. ‘Okay, let’s get him, then—’
A rising noise made them both turn. The gunship was approaching. As they watched, the M249 was drawn inside - to be replaced by another weapon.
An RPG-7 rocket launcher.
Aboard the Dhruv, the winch operator pulled Tandon into the cabin. Zec followed, rapidly releasing the harness and slamming the hatch. ‘Wilde and Chase are still alive,’ he reported.
‘Not for long,’ Vanita snarled. ‘Gunship! Destroy the Vault! Kill them, now!’
Kit limped out of the Vault - only to be scooped up by Eddie and Nina as they ran back inside. ‘What’s happening?’
‘Nothing good, as bloody usual!’ Eddie told him. ‘Nina, give me the gun.’ He took the MP5K as they deposited Kit behind the shelter of one of the great stone doors. The MD 500 had turned to face them, the gunner leaning out to aim the tubular Russian weapon along the aircraft’s length; the backblast from the rocket would be devastating inside the cockpit.
Eddie fired first, aiming high to compensate for his gun’s lack of range. The bullets arced down to strike the approaching chopper’s canopy. It cracked, some of the shots piercing the Plexiglas, but they didn’t have enough power behind them to cause any major damage.
The same wasn’t true of the RPG-7. Smoke burst from the launcher, the dark dot of the rocket racing at the ledge—
Eddie dived back behind the door as it exploded, stone shards slashing past him. The gunship had veered just as the rocket fired, the pilot startled by the bullet hits, and the warhead struck short of the Vault’s entrance.
But it still caused plenty of damage. With a thunderous crack, the stub of the stairway toppled into the abyss, a swathe of the ledge following it.
Eddie looked outside. ‘Buggeration and fuckery!’
‘My favourite words,’ groaned Nina, joining him. ‘What - oh . . .’
It was as if a giant had taken a great bite out of the ledge. A section covering more than half its width was gone, the remains of the stairway now in fragments far below.
And with the stairs gone, there was no way to reach the tiers on the valley walls. The gap was now well over thirty feet: impossible to jump even for the greatest Olympian.
The helicopter withdrew, the gunner pulling the rocket launcher back inside to reload it. Eddie checked his gun. Only three rounds left. He would need a great deal of luck to hit anybody aboard the MD 500 - and with the pilot now knowing he was armed, the next rocket would be fired from a safer distance. The RPG-7 had a range of over half a kilometre. ‘You didn’t find any other way out, did you?’
Nina shook her head unhappily. ‘What if we found some ropes and climbed down?’
‘It’ll take too long. We need a faster way . . .’ He tailed off.
‘Oh, no,’ she said firmly as she saw his gaze fall upon the vimana at the top of the ramp. ‘No way. We are not flying out of here on a goddamn ancient glider!’
‘We know it works,’ said Eddie, lifting Kit and hustling him towards the ramp. ‘That Atlantean bloke of yours said it got those priests back down the mountain.’
‘That was eleven thousand years ago!’ she protested.
‘Well, maybe this one’s not that old.’
‘It’s old enough! And you don’t know how to fly it.’
‘I’ve flown a glider,’ Eddie insisted as he started up the ramp. ‘Well, that one time. Kit, you’ll have to hop to it, literally.’
‘Just so you know, I am agreeing with Nina,’ said Kit, wincing with each step. ‘I don’t think this thing is safe.’
‘Nor’s being hit by a fucking RPG!’
‘Bad idea,’ Nina muttered as she hurried up the other side of the ramp. ‘Very, very bad idea.’
‘You were impressed by it before,’ said Eddie, reaching the vimana. He half helped, half pushed the unconvinced Indian on to the slatted platform under the wing, then examined the rocket.
‘As an archaeological find, it’s world-shaking. As a plane, it’s more likely to be bone-breaking!’
‘Those other machines still worked - maybe they built this to last as well. Give me those matches, then get aboard.’ He tweaked the end of the fuse as Nina produced the matches. ‘Okay, light the blue touchpaper and . . . hang on tight, I suppose.’
Nina lay down beside Kit. Leather straps hung from the wing’s wooden spars; she guessed they were meant to hold the passengers in place, but there wasn’t time to tie them - all she could do was wrap two round her wrists and grip them as tightly as she could, wedging her feet against the framework. The ramp dropped away before her, the ski-jump at its end seeming laughably inadequate to get them airborne. ‘Oh, crap, what are we doing . . .’
Eddie struck the match and touched it to the fuse. It flared with a hiss, spitting sparks. ‘Houston, we are go for launch!’ he cried, scrambling between Nina and Kit and yanking the cords to pull out the chocks from the vimana’s runners.
With a grating screech of corroded metal on stone, the glider lurched a few inches down the ramp - then stopped.
‘Okay, that didn’t work like I hoped,’ said Eddie, grimacing. He grabbed what he hoped were the control rods, looking back to see the fizzing fuse almost fully burned away. ‘Shake us loose before it fires!’
They jerked at the frame. The runners squealed, shifting slightly. ‘Harder, harder!’ said Nina. ‘This is one time I really don’t want to be stuck on the runway!’
One final combined push—
The rocket fired - just as the glider jolted free.
The flecks of corrosion spitting from the metal were replaced by a shower of sparks as the flying machine screeched down the ramp. Before they knew it, they were at the bottom, G-force pressing them down against the slats as the glider hurtled up the ski-jump . . .
And took off.
All three passengers screamed as the vimana cleared the doors, the broken edge of the ledge rushing past beneath them. The screams got louder as something else shot below - another RPG round. It hit the ramp and exploded in a shower of shattered stone. One side of the structure collapsed, crushing several of the parked gliders.
Their own glider was of more concern, however. The rocket was pushing it forward, but it was no longer gaining height - it had reached the top of its parabolic trajectory and was arcing inexorably downwards. The wooden wings creaked frighteningly. Eddie pushed the controls forward, hoping the vimana would respond like a hang-glider and level out, but it only steepened their descent.
Nina glimpsed Shankarpa and the other surviving guardians watching in wonder as they flashed past - then they disappeared from sight as the glider dropped below the uppermost tiers. ‘Up would be good. Up, up, up!’
‘I’m bloody trying!’ Eddie shouted. If pushing forward made them go down, maybe pulling back would do the opposite . . .
He hauled at the wooden levers. More alarming creaks came from the wings, the fabric rippling and flapping. But it seemed to be working - the vimana’s nose began to tip upwards—