Drake reached his friends. Mai and Alicia, and now Dahl, fired around him, felling prisoners with leg and body shots so that they tripped up the men following behind. Some hurdled their fallen comrades, brandishing an assortment of weapons from plastic trays to improvised shanks; others swung knotted bed sheets full of rocks.
“Go!” Drake shouted.
“Nice to see you too!” Alicia shouted back, carefully squeezing shots off as the mob closed in. Drake ran through them, letting them cover his back, out into the exercise yard. A crazy scene met his eyes.
A military chopper had landed in the yard, amidst prison vehicles and storage sheds. The rotors were still spinning, as was the barrel of the nose cannon, having fired a burst at the prison’s main entrance where most of the guards were situated. The fence was down, a clear escape route showed right to the helicopters door. But the guards in their towers and their wired-off perches still took pot shots.
Drake whirled. “You guys bring me a gun?”
Dahl skidded to a halt beside him. “This is a quick extraction. We have no intentions of inducing a shoot out!”
“You’re taking the piss.” Drake pointed at the guard towers. “They’re all yours, Dahl.”
He ran hard, staying low, heaving Yorgi firmly behind him. At first, bullets peppered the dirt around his feet, but, after a few well-placed shots from Dahl, the volleys soon stopped. Drake exited the fenced area. Both Mai and Alicia backed out of the ragged hole. Alicia threw a small device back into the prison and shouted, “Run!”
Drake put his head down. An explosion sounded behind him, and, when he slipped a glance that way, he saw a cloud of fire stretching up and billowing out, Mai, Dahl and Alicia framed by the flames, sprinting hard, guns still firmly at their shoulders and searching for targets, faces set as grim and hard as he’d ever seen.
The chopper came up quick. Hayden and Kinimaka stared down at him. Gunshots peppered the windshield and bounced off. Drake saw Hayden finessing the cyclic stick as he clambered aboard.
Yorgi made a wet sound as he plumped down on to the seat beside him.
The chopper lifted off, barely giving the other three enough time to jump aboard. Dahl was the last, making an athletic leap to grab hold of one of the skids, then crouching and leaping again in an instant, gun swinging, like a world-class free runner.
Drake stared. “Nice.”
“New hobby.”
“I meant the rescue.”
“Oh, well, you’re welcome. Couldn’t leave you out here on your own to be horribly tortured.”
“Dahl,” Alicia said, “hasn’t stop pacing up and down since we got here. I think he loves you, Drakey.”
“Bog off.”
Dahl reddened.
“And thanks to you too, Alicia.” Drake let himself relax for just a moment as the chopper continued to rise.
“You know, they just had to say words like guns and explosions to get me here.”
Drake turned to Mai. “Hey—”
Just then Hayden screamed, “Oh no, dammit! They’ve got a fu—”
A massive explosion shook the chopper as the rocket propelled grenade struck the chopper’s undercarriage. The helicopter immediately spun out of control.
Kinimaka shouted out what was already clear, “Hold on! We’re going down!”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Drake grabbed hold of a restraint strap with his left hand, and pushed Yorgi firmly back into his seat with the other. He saw Hayden fighting the collective, Kinimaka leaning across to help by adding his own strength, as the sky flicked around and around like a crazy kaleidoscope.
“Ow!” Drake smashed his head against the bulkhead. Aware that the ground was rushing up, he held on even tighter and yelled, “Where’s the spare guns, for fuck’s sake!”
The chopper slammed down hard, the sickening crunch of its buckling skids giving them a millisecond to prepare before the belly of the machine struck concrete. The impact sent Alicia tumbling, smashing her head against a seat back. Mai and Dahl held on, but crashed into each other. Drake protected Yorgi with a grip like a band of steel.
As the chopper came to rest, Hayden immediately unbuckled and climbed out of her seat. “Hurry!” Both she and Kinimaka took up weapons and opened the cockpit doors, quickly establishing positions as guards came running forward.
Alicia groaned as blood seeped from her scalp down her forehead. Drake crouched beside her. “Can you focus? Can I borrow your gun?”
“Piss off!”
Dahl threw open the side door, reaching into a lockbox as he did so. “Spare weapons and mags in there, Drake. Help yourself. You might want to arm your new friend, too.”
The Swede jumped down, followed by Mai. Drake delved into the lockbox. Alicia jumped out the other side, backing up Hayden. Guards ran at them from the entrance of the prison building, using the cover provided by several sheds and vehicles along the way. Prisoners had crossed over the breach in the wall by now and were again massing for a charge.
“We don’t have much time!” Hayden yelled. “Anyone got a plan?”
Dahl shouted above the din. “This way!”
Drake picked an M4 assault rifle, slightly out of date perhaps, but a great weapon, and handed Yorgi a SIG Pro semi-automatic pistol. “Make sure it’s loaded and grab some spare ammo.” Drake readied himself at the door, prepping the M4.
“Ready?”
Yorgi nodded.
Drake jumped, landing a foot behind Dahl. Bullets fizzed all around the stranded chopper, even skimming off the concrete and the tiny spaces underneath the machine. Yorgi landed awkwardly and Drake steadied the man before he tripped headlong. Mai sent sporadic bursts at the walls over the prisoner’s heads, shattering the concrete and showering them with hard shards. Dahl made sure they all saw where he was pointing.
“There.”
He took off, staying low. Drake quickly searched the inmate crowd for signs of Zanko or Razin, but saw nothing. He waited as Mai slipped past him and he saw Hayden, Kinimaka and Alicia running their way. He turned and followed the mad Swede, making a bee-line for a big, green Ukrainian built KrAZ truck. The behemoth was a six wheeler, with an open back partly covered with a tarpaulin that strapped into hooks situated all along the truck’s high, steel sides.
Perfect for deflecting bullets.
Dahl clambered up into the high cab, whooping with delight when he found that the truck was already idling. Drake reasoned that his team’s helicopter arrival had interrupted some kind of delivery and the driver was long gone.
The team climbed aboard, two in the cab and the rest in the truck bed, sitting with their backs against the solid sides. Dahl pumped the accelerator and shifted gears, wincing as the mechanism made a deep, angry grinding sound.
Alicia sat beside him. “It ain’t your wife, Dahl. You can’t smooch the damn thing into submission. Give it some fuckin’ wellie.”
Dahl rammed the gear lever home and stepped on the pedals. The truck roared and lurched forward. Diesel smoke belched from the exhausts. Bullets pinged and bounced off the sides as the guards rounded the stranded chopper. Dahl trod on the accelerator and turned the wheel, aiming for the prison gates.
He slammed the back panel. “Gatehouse!”
A trio of guards already stood outside, aiming their weapons as the truck roared toward them. Mai and Drake stood up in the back and let loose on full auto. Two of the guards twisted and fell, the third ran like a spooked rabbit. When the truck slowed, Drake jumped to the ground and ran, using the enormous wheels as shelter, before smashing his way into the gatehouse where he searched a wall-mounted, gray console. The commands were written in Russian, but there were only two significant buttons. One red, the other green.