The turn slammed the stowaway against the icerunner’s fuselage. Eddie clawed for grip, but the sleek bodywork had no handholds. He slithered backwards towards the screaming propeller—
An air intake gaped like a dumbfounded mouth from the humped engine compartment behind the cockpit. His hand clamped around its edge.
The propeller’s suction tore at Eddie’s face, trying to drag him into its blades. He flailed his free arm, for a heart-stopping moment finding nothing but air, before catching the outrigger’s trailing edge. He pulled himself away from one danger…
To find himself looking straight at another.
Both the icerunner’s occupants had recovered from their shock at receiving an unexpected passenger. The driver straightened out, bringing the vehicle back in line with the rest of the convoy, while his companion in the back seat retrieved his P90 and unfastened his seat belt, rising and twisting to bring the gun to bear on the intruder—
Eddie lashed out with one leg, kicking the gun upwards as it fired. A three-round burst seared uselessly into the sky. The mercenary jerked back, then shifted position to take another shot — only for the Yorkshireman to use his grip on the intake to lunge forward over the lip of the cockpit. Before the startled merc could respond, he punched him hard in the face, then grabbed his gun hand.
The two men struggled for possession of the weapon. Eddie, on top of the scrimmage, made full use of his advantage. He forced the gunman’s arm outwards and slammed an elbow into his opponent’s face. The merc’s grip on the P90 weakened as he spat blood. Eddie tried to wrench it from him, but was unable to get a solid hold. The gun slipped from both their hands, bouncing off the starboard outrigger. The racing icerunner’s slipstream whipped it away to fall to the frozen surface below, left behind in a moment.
‘Cocksucker!’ snarled the mercenary. He grappled with Eddie, trying to pitch him overboard after the gun. The Englishman’s legs were still outside the cramped cockpit; he stamped down hard on the outrigger to brace himself, then straightened and dragged the other man up from his seat. The merc threw a punch, but didn’t have enough leverage to do more than jar his adversary.
Eddie’s response had far more force behind it. He delivered a savage headbutt, crushing the other man’s nose, then hauled him bodily from the cockpit and threw him over the icerunner’s side.
There was a brief scream as the merc hit the ice — which was immediately cut off as the outrigger’s heavy runner sliced over his neck like a guillotine blade. The man’s body tumbled to a stop on the frozen river, his severed head bowling onwards for some considerable distance.
Eddie had no time to come up with an appropriately tasteless one-liner. The driver had drawn a pistol and was bringing it around to shoot over his shoulder. The Englishman yelped and dropped into the newly vacated seat as the other man fired. The bullet tore through his coat just above his right shoulder, shredding the material and scorching his skin.
The driver turned his head to see if he had hit his target, but his view was obscured by his raised hood. He tugged it down with his free hand, then looked again—
His new passenger was no longer sitting in the rear seat, but standing in it.
Eddie kicked the mercenary in the head, slamming him face first against the steering wheel, then grabbed the dazed man’s gun hand and forced it back around to push the muzzle against its owner’s temple. Before the unfortunate merc realised what was happening, the Englishman had squeezed his own finger around the trigger. A gruesome red and grey spray showered the clean white ice.
The dead man convulsed, right foot jerking on the throttle pedal. The icerunner lurched. Eddie had to drop back into his seat to save himself from being pitched out of the cockpit — and in doing so was forced to let go of the mercenary’s gun. It followed the P90 over the side. ‘Bollocks!’ he snarled. He still had his Wildey, but the sheer size of its Magnum rounds meant it could only fit seven bullets in the magazine.
And there were more than seven people trying to stop him from rescuing Nina and Tova.
Still cursing, he tugged at the driver’s corpse. Its foot came off the pedal. The icerunner’s engine slowed, the shrieking rasp of the propeller falling to a mere snarl as the vehicle lost speed. Eddie stood again, releasing the clasp of the dead man’s seat belt and looking ahead as he strained to throw the body out of the cockpit. The other vehicles in the convoy were pulling away — then the rearmost of the three SUVs weaved sharply, silhouettes inside looking back up the river at him.
They knew he was there.
Nina realised something unexpected had happened behind her when the narrow-eyed, bearded mercenary Wake, driving the SUV, did a double-take after glancing in the rear-view mirror — and his sudden swerve to get a better look confirmed it. ‘The fuck are you doing?’ demanded Treynor.
‘Wilson just fell out of the fucking icerunner!’ Wake replied, staring through the side window. Both guards and their prisoner followed his gaze.
Even at a distance, Nina instantly recognised the man clambering into the icerunner’s front seat. ‘Oh, I hope you guys made wills,’ she said, heart leaping in elation. Eddie was alive!
‘It’s that Limey!’ said Tarnowski. ‘How the fuck did he get out of there?’
Treynor fumbled a walkie-talkie from a coat pocket. ‘Hoyt, come in! Boss!’
A pause, then: ‘What is it?’ came Hoyt’s distorted voice.
‘We’ve got a problem! That British guy — he’s alive, he just killed Wilson and took his buggy!’
There was a brief silence, then Lock spoke. ‘Everyone listen. I don’t care what it takes, but I want that bastard dead!’
It didn’t take Eddie long to figure out the basics of controlling the icerunner. A pedal controlled the pusher propeller’s throttle, and the steering wheel turned the single runner at the vehicle’s nose.
Actually driving it was considerably harder. There were no brakes; the only apparent way to slow down was to lift his foot completely off the pedal to drop the engine to idle, and hope the icerunner glided to a standstill before it hit anything. Steering was also tricky — even with the outriggers providing extra stability, it still felt as if he were balancing on a knife edge. Anything more than a gentle turn made the vehicle threaten to tip over. ‘Great, I’m driving a fucking Reliant Robin,’ he muttered as he gingerly increased power.
He looked ahead. What would Hoyt’s men do now they knew he was on their tail?
The answer immediately became clear. The last Volvo had returned to its original course, following its companions — but the pair of snowmobiles flanking the SUVs broke away, kicking up sparkling rooster tails of ice as they made tight, skidding turns to come around at him. Their riders readied their P90s as they accelerated.
It was a joust — with automatic weapons instead of lances.
Eddie drew the Wildey, all too aware that he had just seven bullets against a hundred. His only advantage, however slight, was that he could hold the oversized pistol in his right hand while driving, while the riders would have to switch their guns to their off-hands in order to control the throttles on their handlebars.
He increased speed and took aim at the lead snowmobile. They were closing fast — the window to take an accurate shot would be brief. The mercenaries would set their weapons to full auto so they could spray-and-pray, relying on sheer firepower to hit their target. But with only limited ammo, he would have to be accurate.
The snowmobiles rushed towards him. Both riders had indeed switched their guns to their left hands, angling so they could shoot at him from that side. Eddie altered course — and felt the runner on the inside of his turn briefly rise off the ice. If he cut across the mercenaries’ paths hard enough to force them to pass on the other side, making their shots harder, he risked losing control, or even flipping the icerunner over entirely.