Empire of Gold

23


Nina and Suarez stopped at the door to the pool. The TV at the poolside showed a view from a building’s upper floor of soldiers warily facing off against a crowd of civilians. ‘Which way?’ Nina asked.

Eddie took the lead. ‘Over that wall,’ he said, pointing the way as he ran outside – to find three soldiers pounding towards him, less than fifteen feet away.

The Venezuelans were surprised by his sudden appearance. He swept round the AK to cut them down—

The gun fired only once. A soldier tumbled into the pool, trailing blood, but the other two brought up their own Kalashnikovs when they realised his had jammed. The magazine had been jarred loose when he hit Baine, only the already chambered round firing.

Beside him, Nina saw the gunmen – and kicked the catering trolley. Plates flew as it skittered across the poolside and hit the nearer of the soldiers. The impact knocked him back against his partner. Both men toppled into the pool, arms flailing almost comedically.

Eddie wasn’t laughing, though. They still had their guns, and a Kalashnikov could fire even after being submerged. He yanked his own rifle’s charging handle. A round was wedged in the receiver, refusing to come loose. ‘Kit!’ he shouted, but Suarez had frozen in the doorway, blocking the Interpol agent inside.

The men surfaced, spluttering angrily. One shook the water from his AK, swinging it towards the group—

Eddie booted the television into the pool.

There was a bang and a sizzling crackle. The soldiers writhed and spasmed as power surged through their bodies with heart-stopping force. After a moment they fell still, bobbing in the electric-blue water.

‘Don’t say it,’ Nina warned Eddie.

‘What, shoc—’

‘I said don’t.’

‘You’re no fun.’ He finally managed to eject the stuck round, the next slotting into the chamber with a reassuring clack.

Kit shoved past Suarez. ‘Eddie, look out!’ More soldiers were running from the helipad, alerted by the gunshot.

There was no way they could reach and climb the wall before being shot. ‘Come on, round the front!’ Eddie shouted, pushing the President in the right direction. ‘Nina, give me that grenade!’

Stikes and Callas rushed into the Clubhouse’s entrance hall, finding several soldiers milling in confusion – and Maximov, barging them aside as he ran to his employer. ‘Boss, boss!’ he called over the noise of the alarm. ‘The cells – it was Eddie Chase!’

‘What?’ Stikes couldn’t conceal his shock. Chase was a resilient little bastard, but the idea that he could not only have survived a plane crash, but then found his way to Caracas and penetrated Callas’s headquarters, was almost too much to accept. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes, yes! I know him – he said he knew you!’

‘What about Suarez?’ Callas demanded.

‘He let him go!’ Callas’s eyes widened in dismay. ‘And the others too. He tricked me!’

‘Not exactly the hardest thing he’s done recently,’ Stikes growled. The big Russian was a recent recruit to 3S – and, it seemed, the company could have found better. ‘How long ago?’

‘Just a minute or two. And boss, they said they had to find some . . . some disc, I don’t know what.’

If Callas’s eyes had been wide before, they were now practically bugging from their sockets. ‘De Quesada’s DVD – it’s still upstairs! If they get it to a TV station . . .’

Rojas ran in through the front door, shouting urgently in Spanish. ‘Shots from the side of the house,’ the general reported to Stikes. He started to issue orders—

A piercing bang came from outside, followed by screams.

‘Get in!’ Eddie yelled, pointing at the armoured car in front of the house. A soldier had been leaning through its open rear hatch, asking others nearby what was happening – until the stun grenade tossed into the middle of the group blasted their senses into oblivion.

Eddie ran for the V-100, unleashing a burst of fire at the guards near the gate to force them into cover behind the parked Tiunas, then blew away a soldier running through the mansion’s front door. He hurdled the man who had fallen from the hatch and took up a defensive position as Nina, Suarez and finally Kit piled into the vehicle.

‘There’s a guy in here!’ Nina shouted. The V-100’s driver was still in his seat, hands clamped to his ears in agony.

Kit shoved the case containing the statues and DVD under a narrow metal bench. ‘I’ll get him.’ He and Suarez dragged the driver from his seat, then bundled him past Nina and threw him out of the back.

Eddie shot another soldier lurking in the doorway, then hopped into the V-100 and hauled the heavy hatch shut. ‘I’ll drive,’ he said, making his way to the front. He couldn’t help noticing that the armoured car had an extremely vulnerable spot; part of its roof was completely open so that a gunner could stand on a step to operate the machine gun. A grenade tossed into the parapet would kill them all.

He would have to make sure nobody got close enough to throw one. ‘Hold tight!’ he warned as he dropped into the driver’s seat. He had driven similar armoured vehicles in the past; the controls would be heavy, but once it got moving it would be almost impossible for anyone – or anything – to stop it.

The engine was already running. He put it into gear and stepped on the gas.

The Commando’s acceleration wouldn’t break any records, the vehicle weighing over nine tons. Eddie swung it towards the gate, peering through the narrow slot of toughened glass that acted as a windscreen. The men ahead had regrouped, taking up positions behind the Tiunas.

Rifles ready. Flames blossomed ahead as they opened fire.

Nina shrieked and ducked as bullets clanged off the V-100’s sloping front and ricocheted into the night. More impacts struck the APC’s rear as soldiers poured out of the mansion and joined the attack. The noise was like being trapped in a steel drum during a hailstorm.

Despite this, Eddie almost laughed. ‘Takes more than an AK to get through this much armour.’

Kit looked through one of the small rear windows as the V-100 picked up speed. ‘I think they have something more!’

Stikes’s mercenaries emerged from the Clubhouse, pushing the soldiers aside. Their M4s were, if anything, less powerful than the Venezuelans’ AK-103s – but the M203 grenade launchers beneath their barrels were another matter entirely.

Eddie couldn’t see what was happening to the rear, the V-100 lacking mirrors, but from Kit’s alarm he could make an educated guess. Foot pressed hard on the accelerator, he spun the wheel back and forth. More shots grazed the APC’s flanks as it swung from side to side. The armour might be able to withstand a grenade impact, the hull angled to deflect incoming fire away - but he was more worried about the wheels. They could still run on the reinforced tyres even if they were punctured by bullets, but a grenade explosion would destroy them.

Kit dropped flat. ‘Incoming!’

Eddie hunched down, Nina and Suarez shielding their heads as an M203 round hit the back of the armoured car – and spun away to explode on the lawn. The hull had done its job.

But they might not get lucky a second time. Eddie yanked the wheel hard over, the Tiunas looming—

Another grenade hit, this time solidly. The explosion rocked the vehicle, shockwaves through the metal causing scabs of paint to spit across the cabin like razor-sharp splinters. Kit cried out as one sliced the back of his head, another catching Suarez’s hand. The V-100 rang like a gong.

But it was now too close to the soldiers ahead for the mercenaries to risk firing any more grenades. Eddie raised his head as more bullets banged off the forward armour – then the firing ceased as the Venezuelans realised he wasn’t stopping and bolted. ‘Hang on!’

The APC was barely doing thirty miles an hour, but with nine tons of weight behind it even the bulky Tiuna might as well have been a matchbox. The V-100’s prow bowled the Jeep on to its roof before the armoured vehicle crushed it beneath its huge wheels. The Commando’s occupants were thrown about the cabin, Eddie clinging to the steering wheel.

The gate was right ahead—

If the Tiuna had been a matchbox, the gate was made from toothpicks, bursting apart as the V-100 ploughed through it. Eddie brought the vehicle into a hard turn.

Lights flashed in a driveway, and Mac’s rented Fiat came into view. Eddie braked to meet it. ‘Open the side hatch, quick! It’s Mac and Macy – let ’em in!’ He hopped from the seat as Nina and Kit levered the hatch open. ‘Get in here!’

‘No, you get in here!’ Mac yelled back at him.

Holding his bleeding hand, Suarez looked through the rear window – and saw the second Tiuna peel out of the ruined gate. ‘Vienen!’

‘Shit!’ Nina yelped, glimpsing the approaching 4×4. ‘If that means “they’re coming”, then yeah, they’re coming!’

‘Get f*cking in here, now!’ Eddie roared, before jumping back into his seat.

By now, both the Fiat’s occupants had seen the Tiuna and hurriedly evacuated their vehicle, racing for the open hatch. ‘No need to be rude, Eddie,’ Mac chided as he pushed Macy inside, then clambered up behind her.

Eddie set off as Kit shut the hatch. ‘Sorry, but we’re in kind of a rush! Grab on to something—’

A storm of bullets struck hammer-blows against the armoured car’s rear, harder and louder than before. The rear window crazed into a spiderweb with a frightening crack.

Nina risked a look through the damaged glass. Rojas was standing in the Tiuna’s top hatch, blasting away with a pintle-mounted machine gun. The spray of gunfire hit the Fiat, blowing out its windows and puckering the bodywork with holes, and then the ruptured fuel tank caught fire and exploded, flipping the flaming car on to its side.

Mac looked in chagrin through a porthole. ‘There goes my damage deposit.’

‘That Hertz,’ said Eddie.

More rounds hit the V-100 – lower down. ‘He’s shooting at the tyres!’ Kit warned.

A machine gun had a much greater chance of chewing up the reinforced rubber. ‘Mac!’ Eddie called, looking over his shoulder. ‘There’s a fifty-cal up there – get on it.’

Mac peered up through the hole. The parapet was essentially a box of armour plate eighteen inches high around its top. ‘It’s a little exposed.’

‘We’ll be more exposed if he knocks out a wheel and chucks in a grenade!’

Mac grimaced and grabbed a handrail to lift himself on to the step. ‘I’ll see what— Eddie, look out!’

Eddie whipped back round – to see the V-300 that had left the Clubhouse earlier blocking the road ahead. Its turret turned to track the APC with its main gun.

Nowhere to go, high walls hemming them in on both sides . . .

He spun the wheel regardless – and drove the V-100 through a wall.

The impact was far more punishing than the collisions with the Tiuna or the gate. Only Mac’s grip on the handrail prevented him from being flung against a bulkhead. Behind him, Macy screamed as she was thrown to the floor, Suarez landing on top of her. Smashed brickwork bounced off the APC’s prow, fragments clattering into the cabin through the open roof.

The dust cleared, revealing another well-kept lawn around a mansion rivalling the Clubhouse in extravagance. Beyond it, the hillside dropped away to the golf course. ‘Mac, are they still following?’

Mac looked cautiously over the parapet. ‘That Jeep’s coming through the hole in the wall after us.’

‘What about the armoured car?’

A crash from outside gave him the answer. ‘It made its own hole,’ Mac reported – then, with considerably more urgency: ‘Gun tracking!’

Another pull on the wheel, Eddie turning the V-100 to present the smallest possible target—

A loud boom from behind, something searing past just inches from the Commando’s side – and an explosion blew a hole in the mansion’s front wall as the 90mm shell detonated. Eddie swore. His vehicle could withstand bullets, but a direct hit from a gun that size would blow it to pieces.

Beside the house was a garage, room for at least four cars inside. ‘Hang on!’ he shouted. ‘Ramming speed!’

Everyone scrambled for handholds as the armoured car thundered at the garage—

The metal door folded like cardboard as the V-100 hit it. Eddie caught the briefest glimpse of a bright yellow Ferrari California before the crumpled door rode up over the windscreen, the jolt of a collision telling him that the sports car had been batted aside like a toy. Another, harder impact – then they burst back out into the open, more pieces of brick and wood raining down through the roof.

Eddie swerved, trying to shake off the metal blocking his view. ‘Mac, I can’t see! What’s in front of us?’

Mac pulled himself up to look over the parapet, then hurriedly dropped down again. ‘Wall!’

‘Shiiit!’ They were at the edge of the hill above the golf course. Eddie stamped on the brake—

Too late. Another eruption of shattered bricks as the armoured car ploughed through the obstacle, then tipped sharply downwards. The door blocking his view fell away, bushes and trees rushing at him in the V-100’s headlights. He yelled, pumping the brake and swinging the heavy vehicle between the trunks.

The Commando crashed back on to level ground in a shower of torn turf. They were on a long fairway, city lights visible in the distance beyond the green. ‘Macy!’ Eddie shouted. ‘Ask el Prez where to go! We’ve got a DVD that can f*ck Callas up – where’s the best place to take it?’

Macy shook brick dust from her hair, then pulled herself out from under the Venezuelan president and spoke to him in Spanish. ‘He says we should take it to the state TV building,’ she told Eddie. ‘It’s in the same part of town as our hotel.’

‘I remember it,’ said Eddie. ‘What’s the quickest way?’

Another rapid discussion in Spanish. ‘He says to go north until we get off the golf course and he’ll direct us from there.’

The great dark mass of a mountain north of the city was an unmissable landmark. Eddie accelerated along the fairway, swerving to avoid a bunker.

‘Eddie, they’re coming down the hill!’ Nina shouted.

Mac hopped back up into the parapet. ‘Two Jeeps!’ The Tiuna that had departed earlier had caught up with Rojas’s vehicle, both 4×4s slithering on to the fairway in pursuit.

‘What about the armour?’ Eddie demanded.

‘Still at the top of the hill – shit! Incoming!’ He dropped back into the cabin, bracing himself as Eddie swerved.

The V-300’s 90mm gun roared again.

Even though it only scored a glancing impact, the shell still delivered a punishing blow. The V-100 lurched violently, the force of the explosion almost smashing the suspension – had it been an unyielding road beneath the wheels rather than soft earth, it would have been crippled.

It still took damage, though. The hull buckled, rear windows shattering and the aft hatch bursting open, and shockwaves through the armour causing more than mere paint chips to spall away.

Coin-sized shards of shrapnel clanged through the cabin, one stabbing metal splinters into Nina’s shoulder as it shattered against the cabin wall, another punching a hole through the shin of Mac’s prosthetic leg.

A third hit Suarez.

The President screamed as the chunk of metal ripped a bloody inch-wide gash from his left forearm. Macy shrieked. ‘Keep hold of it!’ Nina ordered over her own pain. ‘Stop it from bleeding.’ With deep reluctance, Macy gripped the wound, blood oozing around her fingers.

Eddie regained control, looking back to check on the condition of his passengers – and his vehicle. A glance told him that everyone was still alive, but of more immediate concern was the rear hatch. It had opened about a foot before the deformation of the hull jammed it; more than enough for their pursuers to spray bullets into the cabin if they found the right firing angle.

Which they were trying to do. Rojas’s machine gun chattered again, rounds clonking off the armour.

‘Mac!’ Eddie yelled. ‘Get on that fifty and take out those f*cking Jeeps!’

‘You know, my retirement’s been more dangerous than my career thanks to you!’ the Scot snapped as he climbed into the parapet once more. The .50-cal was mounted on a semicircular track running around one side of the opening; he pulled back a spring-loaded pin to free it, then slid it to the rear of the armoured pulpit. A round spanged off the protective plating; Mac ducked, but it was just a stray, Rojas concentrating his fire on the vulnerable hatch.

He looked over the top. The Tiunas were practically side by side, gaining fast. Further back, he saw the V-300’s lights as it rolled down the slope.

Rojas released another burst, and Mac saw a man in the top hatch of the second 4×4 about to join in the attack. Both Tiunas were angling across the fairway, trying to shoot through the open door—

Mac swung the machine gun round and opened fire.

The flash and recoil from the thudding .50-cal made it almost impossible for him to aim accurately, but with this amount of firepower even a single hit would be horribly destructive – and he scored several as he hosed the Tiunas with thumb-sized bullets. Rojas had seen him aim the weapon, and yelled for his driver to brake and duck behind the other vehicle, which took the onslaught’s full force.

Rounds smashed through the engine block, meaning the Tiuna’s pursuit was already over, but another bullet punching through the windscreen, the driver’s chest, his seat, the leg of the standing soldier, his seat and the fuel tank hammered the fact home in no uncertain manner. The 4×4 slewed off course, then plunged nose first into a bunker and exploded, sending blazing wreckage cartwheeling down to the next tee.

‘That’ll affect his handicap!’ Mac cried, hauling the gun towards his other target.

Rojas fired first. Mac ducked, a bullet singeing his grey hair. More rounds struck the armour, knocking dents into it with piercing clangs. The Scot fired blindly, but this time without success – and if he raised his head to find Rojas, he would get it blown off.

‘Slight problem,’ he told Eddie as he bent back down into the cabin.

‘Only one?’ Nina hooted.

‘Nope, more than that.’ Eddie saw the green coming up fast. Beyond the circle of perfectly manicured turf were trees – then buildings. ‘We’re out of course!’

The V-100 sliced across the green, bounding over the rougher ground beyond as it ripped up bushes. More shots hammered against the rear hatch. A wooden fence disintegrated into splinters, and the APC was in a garden behind a house. There was a driveway down one side of the building; Eddie swerved for it, barging a Mercedes aside before bringing the APC squealing on to a residential street.

Kit looked back at the sound of another collision. The Tiuna shoved past the crumpled Mercedes and skidded after them.

Quickly gaining. On a paved road, it could reach its top speed, which was considerably higher than that of the vehicle it was chasing. Rojas aimed his gun at the damaged hatch. ‘Eddie, he’s right on us,’ the Indian warned.

No way to outrun or evade. Instead, Eddie braked hard. The V-100 screeched to a standstill. The Tiuna’s driver was forced to swerve past it.

Eddie saw the vehicle overtake, Rojas clinging to the machine gun to avoid being thrown off. ‘Mac, now! Get him!’

Mac tried to slide the .50-cal back to its original position, and found that the pin locking the gun in place had stuck. He turned the weapon on its mount, but it only had a hundred and eighty degree firing arc. He couldn’t bring it to bear.

The Tiuna made a shrieking handbrake turn to point back at the stationary V-100. Rojas righted himself and opened fire once more.

Mac hurriedly retreated into the cabin. ‘I can’t bring it round, it’s jammed!’

‘Eddie, that tank’s back!’ Nina gasped. The V-300 crashed out of a driveway, scattering shrubs and garbage cans.

Eddie made a split-second decision and shoved the V-100 back into gear, putting his foot to the floor. Rojas aimed at the armoured car’s slit-like windscreen. More rounds thunked off the forward armour – and the toughened glass began to craze.

The crazing became cracks, cracks spreading and widening—

Eddie ducked as the pane blew apart, glass chunks slashing at his face. Everyone dropped as low as they could as the gunfire continued.

It suddenly wavered, the stream of bullets sweeping across the V-100’s front—

The Tiuna’s driver had remembered what had happened to its sister vehicle at the Clubhouse when confronted by a charging Commando and set off again, jolting Rojas. Eddie popped his head up. The 4×4 was coming at him, trying to swing past on one side.

He turned hard—

The two vehicles hit head on at a closing speed of over sixty miles an hour. The Tiuna took the brunt of the collision, the vastly heavier V-100 flipping it up over its wedge-shaped prow to smash down, inverted, on the still moving APC’s roof. The .50-cal was crushed, its severed ammo belt whipping down into the cabin like a brass snake.

Something else had come through the hole. Rojas. He hung upside down from the wrecked Tiuna’s top hatch, by some fluke having landed squarely on top of the open parapet. Dazed, he tried to wriggle free – then his eyes snapped into shocked focus as he realised he was looking directly at Suarez.

The wounded President stared back at him. For a moment everyone in the cabin was frozen . . .

Then Rojas yanked his pistol from its holster and pointed it at Suarez’s head.