The river was wide now, and starting to get dangerous. This was a favorite location for tourists to go white-water rafting and Hawke was beginning to see why as he struggled to navigate the boat between piles of lethal hull-smashing rocks and the gunfire of Kruger and the rest of his hired thugs. Ekel Kvashnin was particularly enjoying firing on Lexi, but the violence of the boats racing over the wild river disrupted his otherwise lethal aim.
“Damn Kamchatka! He wants to kill me,” Lexi said as she ducked another shot.
“He wants to kill all of us,” Hawke said.
“No… it’s me he wants,” she replied coolly. “It’s the only way he can redeem himself in his own eyes after his failure to kill me in Berlin.”
The engine roared and water sprayed up over the sides as Hawke spun the wheel hard to the right to dodge more bullets but then hung a hard left to correct the course before hitting the southern bank of the river.
“I see your river boatin’ skills haven’t improved since the day we met,” Lea said.
“Shouldn’t you be doing something useful?” he said, throttling down for a sharp bend coming up fast.
Her response was drowned out by the sound of Lexi Zhang’s pistol as she fired off a series of rounds. Her aim was as true as ever and struck two of Kruger’s men who were standing beside Luk. One crashed forward into the river while the other collapsed onto the deck of the jet boat, frantically trying to stop his throat wound from bleeding. Luk settled matters by kicking him out the back of the boat where he landed with a bloody splash in the rushing torrent.
Hawke had no time to swerve and ploughed right over the top of the injured man. A nasty growling sound and a drop in revs for a few seconds indicated the blades at the back of their boat had not done the man any favours, but there was no time to consider it as up ahead both the fleeing boats were turning another bend in the river.
“Is it wrong that I’m totally loving this?” Reaper said, reloading his gun and standing close to Lexi as he took aim. He loosed some rounds, the crackling of the shots echoing off the rocky canyon rising up either side of the river.
“You missed,” Lexi said coolly.
“It’s your perfume,” the Frenchman said casually. “It put me off — what is it — Eau d’Assassin?”
“You know, you’re very pretty for a legionnaire.”
Reaper laughed. “Are you trying to put me off my game?”
“No, I just love tattoos,” she said, circling his grenade tattoo with her fingernail. “How are things with Monique these days?”
Hawke rolled his eyes. “Christ almighty — now, really?”
“He has a point,” Lea said. “And if neither o’ you gowls can get a decent shot off then let me get past and have a go.”
“Oh yeah,” Hawke said, ducking to dodge a bullet and powering up out of the next bend. “Because your aim is even more legendary than Atlantis.”
“Get stuffed, Josiah!”
She fired over the windshield, the ejector port spitting out the nine mil jackets into the water rushing past in a blur.
“You missed,” Hawke said.
“Not my fault,” Lea said, cursing. “Damned sights are totally bloody banjaxed.”
“I do wish you’d speak in English,” Lexi said.
“I was speaking in English, you silly cow!”
“Hey!”
“What the hell is that thing?” Lexi said, staring at a silver weapon in the hands of one of Korać’s goons. It shone wildly in the bright sun, its reflection blinding them for a moment.
“Oh shit,” Hawke said.
“What is it, Joe?” Lea said.
“I might be wrong, but I think it’s a Raytheon Pike.”
“A what now?”
“It’s a hand-held laser-guided missile launcher.”
“Sounds like trouble to me,” Lexi said.
“He’s right,” Reaper said, swiping his monocular away from his eye and sliding it back inside his shirt pocket. “It’s a Pike, all right. I read about it a few weeks ago, but I’m sure they’re still in the testing phase so how they got their sweaty little hands on it — I don’t know.”
“What’s it capable of?” Lexi said.
“It’s a laser-guided munition that flies through the air without leaving a smoke trail so it’s very hard to dodge after it’s fired,” Hawke said.
“But it’s going to be a hard job for that asshat to get a fix on us with his laser in the middle of a bloody river chase, right?” Lea said.
Hawke frowned. “Sadly no. He fires it in our vague direction and then he can take his time fixing the laser on us and the missile comes home to daddy, so to speak.”
“No need for further explanations,” Lexi said. “He just fired it.”
Hawke saw the tiny flash as Kamchatka launched the missile grenade and then aimed the laser on their jet boat.
“It’s going to be one of those days,” Hawke said.
“Where’s the damned thing gone?” Lea said, shielding her eyes as she strained to see the incoming missile.
“Holy crap!” Lexi said. “It’s right in front of us!”
Hawke saw it a second after Lexi — a small rocket-propelled grenade racing through the air to hit the laser beam Kamchatka was keeping firmly fixed on their boat. With half a second to spare Hawke spun the wheel to the right and the jet boat swerved violently to starboard.
Kamchatka raced to get the laser beam back on the jet boat’s bow, but it happened too fast and the grenade slammed into the surface of the river beside them. A massive explosion detonated in the water a second later and sent a fireball shooting up into the air.
Hawke and the others were close enough to feel the shockwave but that was the worst of it except a heavy shower of river water that was blasted over their boat by the explosion. The former SBS man turned for a second to see if their stern was damaged by the blast.
“Joe — look out!”
He spun around to see the correction he had made to evade Kamchatka’s Pike grenade had put them on course with the south side of the canyon — a flat wall of sandstone towering hundreds of feet above them.
“Oh, shit!”
He hurriedly spun the wheel back to port and the jet boat turned just in time to avoid a devastating impact. They heard a deep grinding sound as the starboard of the boat collided with the sandstone rock face but a small shower of sparks later they were pointing back to the middle of the river.
“It’s better if the driver looks where he’s going,” Lea said.
“I was totally in control,” he said, giving her a quick sideways glance to see if his outrageous lie had done the trick. The look on the former Irish Ranger’s face told him it hadn’t.
With the enemy slowing for another narrow bend, Hawke seized the moment to reduce the throttle and slow the boat for the narrow stretch ahead. He took the opportunity to check the mag in his weapon and slide a round into the chamber ready to take a shot.
He raised the gun to take a shot while steering the boat with his other hand when he saw the men in the boats ahead strapping strange circular cages to their backs.
“What the hell are they up to now?” Lea said.
Reaper shielded the sun from his eyes and absent-mindedly stroked his handlebar moustache “Exactement… what are they doing?”
“I know what they’re doing,” Lexi said.
“Me too,” added Hawke. “Just when I thought this day couldn’t get any more dangerous.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The former Commando and SBS man had seen many insane things in his life, but this was new even to him, and now he watched with an overwhelming sense of rage and frustration as a red and white canopy burst into view and blossomed into fully formed airwings above Kruger’s jet boat. “I don’t believe it.”