Eddie lowered himself. One soldier down, but where was the other?
A flash of movement in his peripheral vision – and he spun to see the answer in the form of a glinting blade. The second man had climbed over the missile to come along its other side behind him!
Nina finally found secure footing. Panting with exertion and fear, she saw that she was about a third of the way along from the missile’s foot. The microlight wing entangled on the clamp obstructed her way forward. A glance back. No sign of Eddie on the side of the last transporter, but nor was there any trace of the jeep following it.
She had no time to wonder what had happened to either. The second jeep was falling back towards her, the transporters moving over to let it by. A soldier in its rear raised his rifle—
Fearful adrenalin forced her into motion. She clambered back towards the missile’s tail, expecting shots to come at any moment. But none did. Of course: if the missiles were unfuelled, the Saudis wouldn’t pay hard currency for one with bullet holes in the side, and if they were fuelled, it might explode.
That would not protect her for long, though. The jeep matched speed with the transporter, the man in the back reaching up to pull her to her death—
Nina kicked at him, knocking him back. Angered, he tried again, but by now she had reached the TEL’s rear, passing the erector system’s fulcrum. Jutting out behind the missile was its launch stand, a hefty metal framework some eight feet deep that would lower to the ground as the rocket was raised vertically for firing. She climbed up on to it as the soldier made another lunge. He caught her ankle, but a swipe from her boot broke his grip and nearly did the same to his fingers. He let out a shrill cry and retreated.
She negotiated one of the stand’s feet to come around the transporter’s rear. The gaping bell of the rocket engine loomed menacingly behind the framework. Another soldier in the jeep stood to climb after her—
A bullet clanged off a beam inches from her head.
A private in the cab of the last transporter leaned further out of the passenger-side window. ‘I almost got her!’ he crowed, adjusting his rifle’s aim. ‘This time I’ll—’
Another shot came – but not from his gun. The driver, a lieutenant, had drawn his sidearm and fired across the broad cab. The bullet hit the soldier in the temple, the other side of his skull exploding outwards. He collapsed, his twitching corpse hanging limply out of the window. His gun rattled against the door on its shoulder strap.
The other members of the transporter’s crew reacted with shock. ‘You heard Colonel Kang!’ the young officer yelled at them. ‘If anything happens to the rockets, we’re all dead!’
‘Yes, sir!’ gulped a cowed soldier. ‘But . . . but what about the spy?’
The lieutenant looked ahead. The men in the jeep had ducked at the rifle shot, but were now raising their heads again. ‘They’ll catch her. We’ve got a spy of our own to—’
Something thumped on to the cab roof above them.
Eddie grabbed the soldier’s hand as the knife stabbed at him. The two men struggled, the Yorkshireman slowly forcing the blade upwards – then slamming the Korean’s wrist against the missile’s truncated nosecone. One hit, two, and the man cried out, losing his hold on the weapon. It landed near his feet. Eddie shifted position so he could kick it away, sure he could easily take down his opponent in a contest of raw strength.
The soldier also realised he was physically outmatched. In desperation, he used a large pump mounted on top of one of the vehicle’s enormous fuel tanks as a springboard to hurl himself at Eddie. The Englishman fell backwards on to the cab roof, the Korean landing on top of him.
Eddie punched him, but couldn’t deliver the blow with full force. The soldier responded with a screaming barrage of flailing fists. The Yorkshireman managed a partial roll to force the smaller man off him, then sent another punch at his face. This one hit home, the Korean shrieking as he lost a couple of front teeth. Eddie shoved him away—
The soldier reacted to something ahead, eyes popping wide. He grabbed a spotlight on the cab’s front edge. Eddie followed his gaze – and saw that the transporter was approaching a hairpin bend. Fast.
The TEL lurched as the driver threw it into the corner. Six of its eight axles were steerable, giving it a much tighter turning circle than a conventional articulated truck, but the tyres still tore into the broken road as the mammoth vehicle started to skid. The soldier clung more tightly to his handhold, but Eddie had nothing to grip. He slithered across the roof, his head jarring against the cab’s rear edge as he dropped back on to the deck behind it. Coloured stars flared before his eyes.
They cleared just in time to reveal a steep drop looming below—
He threw out his arms, one hand catching the fuel pump as he went over the edge.
The remaining jeep had been forced to brake hard as the second transporter went through the hairpin, dropping behind it to avoid being barged off the road. The soldier in the rear looked back at the third TEL, reacting in shock at the sight of two men on its roof: a soldier of the People’s Army and a bald foreigner in a leather jacket. ‘Look, behind us!’ The other passenger turned, equally startled by the sight. ‘We’ve got to help him!’
‘What about the woman?’ protested the driver. The redhead was climbing around to the truck’s right-hand side.
‘He’s already killed one of our men!’ The soldier pointed at the body hanging out of the third transporter’s window. ‘He must have taken out the other jeep too – he’s more dangerous! If he sabotages the missile . . .’
He didn’t need to say more: Kang’s threat had been explicit. The driver braked again, preparing to draw alongside the last transporter as it came out of the turn.
Nina hauled herself around the launch stand and sidestepped along it to reach the fulcrum – realising too late that with the truck having turned almost one hundred and eighty degrees around the hairpin, she was once again on the outside of the road with the steeply sloping valley dropping perilously away below her. ‘God damn it!’
She was about to go back when she saw something different about this side of the vehicle. Partway down the transporter’s otherwise featureless flank was a recess, inside which lights were glowing. A control panel?
There were hefty hydraulic jacks at the TEL’s rear corners, which she guessed stabilised it while the missile was raised for launch. If she could extend them, the metal feet would act as anchors, dragging the transporter to a halt. That would also force the one behind to stop, as there was not enough room for the hulking vehicles to pass one another.
Gripping the rungs, she climbed along the transporter’s side. The valley spread out before her, the SUV and the truck now a long way ahead. The first TEL had also extended its lead over its two siblings.
She quickly reached the recess. It did indeed house a control panel, several red bulbs giving her enough illumination to make out a rank of switches, some gauges and two large twist-grip levers. She hesitated, then started flicking the switches. A motor whined loudly, some of the lights turning green. ‘Okay, whatever I’m doing, it’s something . . .’
The last bulb changed colour, a hissing thrum joining the sound of the motor – but the powering up of what she assumed were the hydraulic systems had drawn attention. A surprised shout reached her over the noise. She looked forward to see a man glaring out of the cab window at her. He withdrew . . . then the door opened and he climbed out.
Fingers straining, Eddie clung to the fuel pump as the TEL came around the hairpin. Dirt and stones spat up at his legs. The front wheel was directly below him, the long overhanging cab stretching out ahead with a corpse slumped from the window. The skidding vehicle finally straightened out, swinging him back against its side with a bang. He found purchase on the edge of the deck, dragging himself higher.
The soldier was already back on his feet.
Eddie jerked his hand clear as the man’s boot stamped down. Another strike caught his thumb as he dodged again. He tried to find a new handhold, but the Korean had seen a fresh target: the dangling man’s other hand, gripping the fuel pump. He drew back his leg to strike . . .
Something caught the moonlight. The knife. It too had skittered across the roof, wedging against a filler cap.
Eddie lunged for it. The soldier saw him move, twisting to kick the weapon away—
The Yorkshireman reached it first.
He drove the blade into the soldier’s Achilles tendon. The Korean screamed, staggering as his leg buckled. Eddie yanked out the knife and rammed it up into his calf muscle, then pulled him forward. The man toppled over the side with a wail that ended suddenly as he hit the road face-first, breaking his neck.
Breathless, Eddie clamped his free hand around the filler cap, then dragged himself back aboard. He didn’t know how many men were still in the cab, but the knife had gone with the soldier, leaving him unarmed again . . .
A metallic clatter reminded him that there was another weapon to hand. The dead soldier was still hanging from the cab window, his Type 58 rifle dangling on its strap.
Eddie swung down on to the door’s step. One of the soldiers inside saw him and shouted a warning—
It did no good.
The Englishman grabbed the rifle and pointed it through the window, shooting the nearest man. The gun was set to single-shot, but he simply kept pulling the trigger with almost mechanical timing as he swung it towards each new target. The North Koreans screamed and thrashed in their death throes, blood spattering the windscreen.
The driver collapsed over the steering wheel. The transporter slowed as his foot came off the accelerator, but drifted towards the edge of the road – and the steep drop beyond. Eddie hurriedly threw open the door and scrambled inside, stepping over the bodies sprawled across the wide cabin.
White-painted stones flicked through the headlight beams, the huge truck jolting as the front wheel hit the roadside markers—
He shoved the steering wheel to the left. The TEL veered away from the edge. ‘Christ! Too close,’ he muttered.
The driver was not wearing a seat belt. Eddie opened the door and pushed the dead man out before taking his place. The second transporter was pulling away, the jeep having fallen back behind it. Its headlights gave him a glimpse of Nina on the other TEL’s right-hand side – and a soldier making his way down the vehicle towards her.
Jaw set in determination, he declutched and dropped to a lower gear before revving the engine and re-engaging. The truck lurched forward, picking up speed as he raced to aid his wife.
44
The soldier climbed along the side of the transporter towards Nina, murderous intent clear on his face as he swung around the hydraulic clamp. She hurriedly started back towards the missile’s tail, but not before turning the two levers on the control panel. Forcing the truck to stop by lowering the jacks would at least cause enough confusion to give her some slim chance of escape . . .
Confusion struck her as her handholds started to move.
The controls weren’t for the jacks, she realised with shock. They were for the missile’s erector system – which was now rising from its bed!
Mighty hydraulic rams whined, pushing the arms supporting the rocket upwards and lifting the great weapon out of its cradle. ‘Oh crap!’ she gasped.
She looked around at a shrill scream. The soldier’s expression was now one of terror: one arm was trapped in the mechanism, dragging him off the footplate as it rose. He squirmed and kicked, trying to free himself, but then a gush of red flowed down the ram’s smooth steel. His agonised shrieks became animalistic as his arm was sheared off with a snap of bone. He fell, thudding off the TEL’s side and cartwheeling into the black valley below.
Nina cringed, then looked back as the lights of the pursuing jeep grew brighter. The vehicle was catching up again. One of the soldiers shouted into a walkie-talkie; a moment later the transporter drifted towards the inside of the road, making room for the 4x4 to draw alongside. A man in the jeep’s rear reached out to pull himself on to the TEL.
A yelled threat in Korean, then he started towards Nina. She hastily reversed direction, starting back towards the cab – only to see a second soldier climb out of it.
Trapped—
Eddie slammed up through the gears as he accelerated in pursuit of the second transporter. He had seen the soldier make the transfer from the jeep behind Nina, and as the road curved, he now saw another man coming at her from the cab. ‘Don’t you bastards ever give up?’ he growled.
The speedometer only went up to seventy kilometres per hour, which with the weight of the missile and its erector crane was highly optimistic, but the needle was still creeping towards the sixty mark. About thirty-five miles per hour, hardly a blistering pace under normal conditions. On this narrow, twisting, precarious route, though, it felt almost supersonic.
He closed on the jeep as it dropped back behind the TEL. The men aboard it had been so focused on Nina that they hadn’t realised the third transporter was under new ownership. They were about to find out, though . . .
The 4x4’s driver tipped his head up at the mirror as he registered the bright headlights coming up quickly from behind – then looked back in alarm when he saw just how quickly. The jeep swung across the road. Eddie spun the wheel to follow it—
The impact barely shook the massive sixteen-wheeled transporter, but the jeep was almost dragged under its sloping steel prow before the driver managed to veer clear down its left side. Eddie swung after the 4x4 as it braked hard. It clipped one of the truck’s rear wheels and was thrown against the embankment, spinning to an abrupt stop.
The Yorkshireman checked his mirror. Both occupants were still alive, and the jeep had only taken superficial damage, quickly reversing and starting after him again. But the second transporter was his most immediate concern: specifically, the two men clambering along its flanks . . .
He did a double-take as he realised the missile was no longer lying flat. The erector arms were lifting it from its bed, the rocket about fifteen degrees from horizontal and steadily rising. ‘What the bloody hell have you done?’ he asked as he glimpsed Nina scooting along the truck’s side. The higher the missile got, the more top-heavy and unstable the TEL would become.
The road widened slightly – just enough for the two transporters to fit side by side. If he overtook the other truck, he could force it to stop. But first he had to help Nina.
He swept the transporter back to the outside of the road, its right wheels dangerously close to the crumbling edge. Down a gear, and he accelerated again, the cab’s front corner barely missing the other truck’s protruding launch stand as he swept past. The soldier pursuing Nina turned his head in alarm—
There was a muffled bang as Eddie hit him, followed by considerably wetter thumps as the Korean was ground between the two TELs. Blood spouted up on to the side window. What was left of the dead man disappeared under the juggernaut’s wheels.
The soldier advancing from the front froze in horror at the carnage. Nina looked back, her concern changing to unexpected hope and delight as she saw her husband waving from inside the cab.
The missile had now risen high enough for a person to fit underneath it. ‘Get over!’ he shouted, gesturing. She rolled into the curving cradle beneath the huge cylinder.
Eddie accelerated at the second man, who snapped out of his fearful trance and darted on to the back of the truck. He was about to raise his gun when the driver of his own vehicle swerved sharply, trying to ram the chasing TEL off the road. The impact threw the soldier flat.
A second collision jolted both transporters. Eddie was about to shift his foot to the brake, then changed his mind and kept the accelerator down, making a turn of his own to sideswipe the other tr
uck. His cab was just short of halfway along his target, knocking its rear end towards the embankment. The increasingly unsteady TEL lurched. The Korean driver hastily straightened out, deterred from any more attempts at vehicular combat.
Eddie kept up his speed, the two vehicles now side by side with the other ahead by a nose. He glanced back, seeing Nina beneath the missile – and the soldier recovering, snatching his pistol from its holster.
The Englishman ducked and groped for one of the dead men’s rifles, but before he could reach it, the side window cracked under bullet impacts. The glass was toughened to withstand a rocket launch – but wasn’t bulletproof, he discovered as more rounds shattered the pane beside him—
The gunfire stopped. Like most of the soldiers at the base, the Korean only had one magazine of ammunition. But it was not his only weapon. He scurried forward, shouting to his comrades in the cab, then snatched a hand grenade from his belt. Another man leaned out of the window in alarm, yelling for him to stop, but he had already pulled the pin.
He drew back his arm to lob the grenade through the broken window—
Eddie swung his transporter at its neighbour. The crash knocked the soldier on to his back, but he kept his grip on the explosive, the fuse not yet triggered. The other driver slowed, the Yorkshireman grinding past and slicing off both vehicles’ wing mirrors as he drew ahead.
The man in the cab raised his rifle and fired. Eddie dropped lower as bullets lanced over him. His windscreen burst apart.
Wind rushed in through the gaping hole. He squinted and saw the road curving away to the left, rounding a large bowl in the hillside. The lights of Kang’s SUV were visible in the distance on its far side, with nothing between them and Eddie’s transporter except empty space over the dark forests below.
The Korean driver made another aggressive move, pushing his vehicle against the side of the hijacked TEL and forcing it relentlessly towards the road’s edge. If Eddie didn’t brake, he would be forced into oblivion over the approaching curve – but slowing would bring him back into the soldier’s firing line—