“I dropped my phone in there…”
Scarlet stared at him. “You what?”
Ryan let the awkward silence stretch another couple of seconds before grinning and producing his phone from his pocket. “Just kidding. Ha!”
“I’ll stick that phone up your fu…”
“Easy, babe,” Camacho said, and took Scarlet by the shoulders to kiss her.
“If you put it like that,” she said. “I’ll let it go.”
“So what now?” Reaper asked Ryan.
“Now we work out how these symbols convert into coordinates and then we sail to Atlantis.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
At the top of the load chain now and a thousand feet above the mountain, Hawke’s presence was noted and one of the side doors opened to reveal a grinning Willem Van Zyl. He tried to kick the former Commando but Hawke was ready for him and grabbed his shirt, pulling him from the chopper. The two men fell back away from the helicopter and landed with a heavy smack on the flatbed of the swaying Silverado. Van Zyl landed on top of the Englishman and wasted no time in pulling his arm back and aiming a solid punch right in the center of Hawke’s face.
The movement of the shoulder muscles through the South Africans torn shirt had telegraphed the punch half a second in advance and Hawke took evasive action, flicking his head hard to the right to dodge the strike. It worked, and Van Zyl screamed in agony as he ploughed his own fist into the corrugated stainless steel base of the flatbed.
Distracted by the pain for a heartbeat, Hawke was able to raise his arm and grab the side of his opponent’s face, pushing his thumb deep into Van Zyl’s left eye socket. The South African howled like a baby and the instinct to save his sight made him leap off the Englishman and take a step back.
He collided with the side of the pickup and nearly toppled over the side, but the Silverado now swung like a five ton pendulum in the other direction and made him fall forward again.
Hawke was getting dizzy but knew he had to stay focussed. If Van Zyl got a serious strike in then he was flying over the side and the only thing down there was a thousand foot drop to the bottom of the ravine.
Van Zyl approached, pulling a hunting knife from his belt and flipped it over in his hands before slashing the blade in the air. Hawke heard someone screaming and glanced up to see Luk peering out of the chopper. He roared with laughter and then went back inside the cabin. A moment later the Kaman began to swerve violently to the left and right, and the motion was soon transferred down the load chain to the Silverado which responded by swinging more and more dangerously back and forth beneath the speeding chopper.
Hawke tumbled backwards and grabbed the side of the truck to stop himself going over and falling to his death. At the end point of the arc now, the truck was now almost on its side and both men fell off the truck, holding on to the side now while their bodies dangled over the edge. The hunting knife went bye-bye over the edge and tumbled out of sight in the rocky valley far below them.
Above their heads the chopper’s powerful engine roared in pain as it struggled to keep level while holding the swaying truck on its carousel. Inside the cab Hawke saw the terrified faces of Lea and Khatibi as they were thrown about all over the place.
Van Zyl edged away from him and began to pull himself back in but Hawke knew the best play was to wait for the truck to swing the other way. When it did, he used gravity to help himself get back inside the flatbed, and then the fighting got real.
Van Zyl took a swipe at Hawke but he dodged it and fired another back, striking him on the jaw and sending him flying back onto the cab’s rear window. Hawke saw Lea was holding something out the cab window. It looked like a tire iron, and he wanted it badly but the truck was now starting its swing toward the other end of the arc and Van Zyl was padding back over for a second round.
Swipe. Punch, crack and stagger back. Hawke felt the pain as Van Zyl’s ring-encrusted knuckles ripped into his jaw, but at least the South African hadn’t noticed the tire iron. Hawke flicked out his right boot and tripped the man over. His flight was aided and abetted by the sick-making swing of the truck now approaching the end point of its arc once again. With the Silverado now almost on its other side, Hawke clawed and strained his way forward to the cab while Van Zyl struggled to hang on to the tailgate.
He grabbed the tire iron. Its chunky weight felt good in his hands, and now the truck was approaching the base of the arc again and they were flat for another few seconds. He had no time to waste.
He raised the iron to a fighting position and gripped it tightly as he swung it hard and fast at the South African’s arm. He felt the smash and crack as the arm broke clean in the center of the radius bone. Van Zyl reacted predictably, reaching for the wounded arm and grunting in agony. Expecting the reaction, Hawke’s next move was baked into the first one and now he brought the tire iron up once again from the other side and smashed it into Van Zyl’s jaw, knocking him clean off his feet and tumbling out the back of the Silverado.
He flipped over and over on his way down to the bottom of the ravine, but moved out of Hawke’s sight when the truck began its next swing. The Englishman knew he had only one play — he had to get into the cab of the Kaman and end this before they decided to release the truck. He only had to look at Lea’s terrified face to know there was no alternative.
He climbed up the load chain once again, his hands slipping on the grease as he went, desperately trying to cling on as the chain swung back and forth. He heard Luk’s roar of laughter once again and presumed he thought he was dead. Good. The element of surprise was his only ally in a situation like this, and he couldn’t let these men get away.
At the top of the chain now, he had to let go with one hand so he could grab hold of the Kaman’s starboard skid. It was a risky move even without the violent pendulum effect, but he had no choice. The rushing wind whipped his hair as he grabbed hold of it and then brought his other hand up to solidify his grasp on the chopper. His legs hung out below him, bashed about in the downdraft but at least they were away from the swinging pendulum effect. Looking below he now saw the true terror the Silverado had been put through as it swung back and forth beneath the chopper.
He pulled himself up on the skid but Luk leaned out and caught him in the act.
“I don’t think so, Mr Hawke,” he said.
Hawke wondered what new hell was winging its way toward him but found out soon enough when the certified nutcase from Hong Kong swung his legs out and, grasping hold of his seatbelt, began smashing his boots down on his fingers.
The pain was agonizing and keeping hold of the skid was all but impossible as his instinct drove him to let go of it. He swung back and down, now holding on with only one hand. Knowing what was coming next he swung his hand back up in preparation for when Luk smashed his other hand and just managed to switch grips before falling from the skid.
Luk frowned but had an answer in the bank. Gripping hold of the belt for his life, his old enemy from Kowloon brought both boots up at the same time and smashed them own on both of Hawke’s hands, and this time he had no chance but to let go. He fell away from the chopper but the truck wasn’t there — it was at the endpoint of its arc and all Hawke saw beneath him was the same rocky ravine that had claimed Van Zyl’s life. The chopper had moved over higher ground now and the drop was down to less than one hundred feet but he still didn’t fancy his chances.
He reached out and grabbed the load chain, now at forty-five degrees as it began to pull the beleaguered Silverado and its desperate passengers back into yet another violent, wild swing the other way. Hawke pulled himself along the chain and waited until the truck was beneath him before jumping back down onto the flatbed.