Instead he straightened out — aiming directly at them.
The leading merc’s gun blazed—
Eddie hunched down as bullets whipped past. Most went wide, but one hit the raised engine cover with a crack of fibreglass, and another punched through the icerunner’s nosecone, searing between his legs to clang against the aluminium frame beneath his seat.
He flinched, then recovered, aimed…
The Wildey boomed like a cannon.
Firing one-handed from a moving vehicle on a rough surface, he didn’t hit the mercenary — but still scored an impact on his ride. The Magnum round shattered the snowmobile’s headlight and flicked broken shards up into the rider’s face. The man jerked in shock, instinctively pulling back from the debris, and swerving into the icerunner’s path.
Collision course—
Eddie yanked hard on the steering wheel in a desperate attempt to avert a crash. One of the outriggers came fully off the surface, the icerunner teetering on just two skids as it slithered across the frozen river. He gripped the wheel and raised himself higher, leaning over the cockpit’s side to act as a counterweight.
The mercenary panicked and yanked at his handlebars. The snowmobile slewed around, caught in an uncontrollable skid—
He opened his mouth to scream — but the sound never emerged, as the sharply pointed runner on the raised outrigger punched straight through his chest, snatching him backwards off the snowmobile. The extra weight brought the icerunner crashing back down. The body ground over the rough ice like an anchor, hurling the vehicle into a spin.
The world around Eddie became a blur of white snow and dark trees — and a shape racing right at him, the second snowmobile—
He fired on pure instinct, the Wildey kicking again in his hand. There was a Doppler-shifted rasp as the vehicle flashed past him — then a crunch of impact, followed a fraction of a second later by an explosion.
The dead mercenary was wrenched loose from the runner. Eddie released the throttle pedal and held on to the wheel as the tail end shimmied violently, still leaning out of the cockpit to balance the whirling icerunner. The outrigger skipped over the ice, kicking back into the air once, twice… then finally landing and staying down. Now pointing backwards, the vehicle ground to a stop.
Dizzied, Eddie slumped back into the seat. The impaled mercenary was crumpled on the ice about fifty metres away, corkscrewing tracks marking the icerunner’s path. Father away was a mangled heap of burning wreckage. The two snowmobiles had collided and blown up. The second rider had been thrown clear — but not to safety. He too was on fire, smoke billowing from his motionless body.
Eddie waited for the spinning sensation to subside, then looked downriver. The convoy was retreating into the distance.
Taking Nina with it.
Jaw set in determination, he put his foot back on the throttle and brought the icerunner around in pursuit.
29
Nina looked through the Volvo’s rear window. Even with three armed and hostile men holding her prisoner, she couldn’t help but crow as the icerunner swung back on course after them, leaving the pillar of black smoke from the smashed snowmobiles in its wake. ‘Ooh, that looked painful. Do you guys get medical? Is there some sort of Blue Cross scheme for goons? I always wanted to know.’
‘Shut the fuck up!’ Treynor snarled. ‘He’s catching up! Can’t this thing go any faster?’
‘Not unless you want to risk shedding a track,’ Wake shot back. The icerunner was quickly gaining on the 4x4; swapping wheels for tracks had traded speed for off-road ability.
‘God damn it!’ The mercenary thought for a moment, then shoved his handgun into a pocket. ‘Watch her,’ he told Tarnowski, reaching into the back of the cabin to collect a P90. He released the safety, then lowered his window. A freezing wind rushed in.
‘What’re you gonna do?’ Wake asked.
‘What do you think? Take that motherfucker out! Head over to the right so I can get a clean shot.’ Treynor turned around awkwardly in the tight confines, kneeling on the seat to lean out of the open window. ‘Don’t even fucking think of trying anything,’ he warned Nina. ‘You try to nudge me when I shoot, you’ll get the next bullet.’
‘I don’t think your bosses would like that,’ she replied.
Tarnowski sneered. ‘I honestly don’t think they give a fuck. We got other ways to get your blonde friend to do as she’s told besides threatening to shoot you. Just stay still, now.’ He gripped her bound wrists for emphasis.
Nina glared at him, then looked away. The icerunner was rapidly closing. Eddie had outfought the two men on the snowmobiles, but the 4x4 was a much more stable firing platform, and Treynor was using both hands to aim…
Her heart jumped as she saw that the mercenary had another weapon. There was a knife in a sheath on his belt — and by turning around, he had put it almost within her reach.
But as long as Tarnowski was holding her wrists, there was no way she could take it.
She looked back at the icerunner. It was now close enough for her to make out the figure in its cockpit. Treynor had seen him too. ‘Come to papa,’ said the mercenary, taking aim.
Eddie readied the Wildey again. Even had he not kept count of his shots, he would have been able to tell by the slight shift in its weight and balance that it was no longer fully loaded. Five bullets left, that was all.
And he wasn’t even sure if he dared use them on the rapidly approaching 4x4. The Wildey’s rounds were powerful enough not just to penetrate the sheet steel bodywork of a car, but to punch all the way through to the other side. If he landed a shot on the SUV, the bullet might also hit Nina.
The man leaning out of the rear window had no such concerns. He fired a three-round burst. They fell short, kicking up little fountains of ice ahead of the icerunner. It was beyond the P90’s effective range.
But it would not be for long.
Eddie moved closer to the right-hand bank, trying to slot in behind the 4x4 so the gunman would lose line of sight, but the Volvo’s driver did the same. The ice became rougher as he neared the shore, vibrations through the runners hammering at the base of his spine. No option but to move back towards the centre — if he hit a protruding rock, it could rip off a skid.
A burst of bullets tore past. The mercenary was refining his aim as his target drew nearer. If the Englishman didn’t do something, he would be a sitting duck.
Eddie caught sight of the figures inside the vehicle once more. One was noticeably smaller than the others: Nina — and he realised she was looking at him. He brought up his gun hand, but rather than shoot, he gestured with the Wildey, pointing it downwards…
Tarnowski turned to watch the approaching icerunner, though he still kept his hold on Nina’s arm. ‘Ha!’ he said as he saw their pursuer wave his hand. ‘He daren’t shoot at us — not while we’ve got his woman.’
Nina knew what Eddie was telling her to do, though. ‘Not while she’s got her head up, you mean.’
‘What?’ As Tarnowski glanced at her, she dropped as low as she could in the seat, hunching her chin down against her chest. ‘Hey, wait a—’
The rear window exploded into fragments.
Eddie saw Nina’s shadow slip out of sight, and immediately snapped up his gun and fired twice. One of the bullets went high, the other shattering the tailgate window. But he knew in the tiny fraction of a second when the point of impact was visible before the glass disintegrated that he hadn’t hit anyone within, the round landing off to one side.