Empire of Gold_A Novel

by Andy McDermott

  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 armored 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 onto 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 tires!” 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 armor 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 onto the step. “I’ll see what—Eddie, look out!”

  Eddie whipped back around—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 rivaling 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 armored 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 armored 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 windshield, 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 armored car plowed through the obstacle, then tipped sharply downward. 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 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 fuck 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. 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 onto the fairway in pursuit.

  “What about the armor?” 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 shock waves through the armor 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 armor.

  “Mac!” Eddie yelled. “Get on that fifty and take out those fucking 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 armored 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. Farther 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 around 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 weapo
n, 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 windshield, 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 cart-wheeling down to the next tee.

  “That’ll affect his handicap!” Mac cried, hauling the gun toward his other target.

  Rojas fired first. Mac ducked, a bullet singeing his gray hair. More rounds struck the armor, 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 onto 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 180-degree firing arc. He couldn’t bring it to bear.

  The Tiuna made a shrieking hand-brake 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 armored car’s slit-like windshield. More rounds thunked off the forward armor—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 while 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 realized 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.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Eddie stomped on the brake.

  The V-100 screeched to a stop, tossing its occupants forward—and sending the mangled Tiuna sliding off its roof.

  Rojas had just enough time to scream before the 4×4 dragged him away with it, breaking his back against the parapet—and slicing off his outstretched arm. The vehicle crashed down in front of the APC, the severed limb landing with a thump before Suarez. The president hesitated, then plucked the gun from its dead fingers.

  “Okay, he’s disarmed,” said Eddie, restarting the Commando and flattening what remained of the Tiuna and its passengers. “Nina, where’s that tank?”

  She searched for the V-300. “Behind us!” The six-wheeled armored car was thundering up the street in pursuit.

  Eddie threw the APC into a turn onto another road as the V-300 fired, the shell shrieking past and blasting a crater out of the tarmac. Suarez spoke urgently, Macy translating for Eddie. “He says to take the next left—we’ve got to cross a bridge.”

  Eddie swung the V-100 left at the next junction, the V-300 briefly coming back into view. “He’s still following,” Nina warned.

  “Ask him which way once we’re over this bridge,” said Eddie, getting directions in return. “Okay, we—bollocks!” The bridge ahead was blocked, troops manning barriers across it. A small crowd faced them, but the soldiers’ weapons deterred them from advancing.

  Mac looked into the parapet. “We’ve lost the fifty.”

  “Just have to go straight through, then.” He examined the controls. “Does this thing have a horn?”

  “I think they know we’re coming,” said Mac. The crowd hurriedly parted as the V-100 charged at them. Bottles and bricks thudded off its armored hide. “Hrmm. Seems we’re not popular.”

  “This ought to change their minds.” Eddie aimed the APC directly at the barricade. The soldiers fled as the hulking machine demolished it and swept across the bridge. Cheers rose in its wake.

  Suarez spoke, drawing Macy into a brief argument. “He wants to put his head out the top so everyone can see him,” she complained.

  “Might be useful at the right time,” said Mac. “Not just yet, though.”

  Nina looked back. The crowd was running for the bridge, only to scatter before the oncoming V-300. “It’s still coming!”

  Eddie turned again to keep out of the larger armored vehicle’s line of fire. But they were still a couple of miles from the TV station—and would almost certainly encounter better-defended roadblocks along the way.

  At the Clubhouse, Callas banged an angry fist on a table at another radio report. “They have crossed the river! This is insane! Why can’t we stop them?”

  “How far are they from this TV station?” Stikes demanded.

  “Less than three kilometers—and we still do not have control of it. The crowd protecting it keeps growing.”

  “Then tell your men to fire into the crowd.”

  The general’s expression went from rage to hesitancy. “If I don’t have popular support, I will not be able to hold on to power—the army is not strong enough to control the entire country by force.” He pointed at a television showing a live broadcast from the government-controlled station—the standoff between civilians and military outside it. “That is going out across the country—across the world. If my troops are seen slaughtering unarmed civilians, I will lose.”

  “So make sure they’re not seen doing it,” said Stikes with growing impatience. “Destroy the transmitter.”

  “It’s on the roof,” Callas snapped back. “And before you suggest using tanks to destroy it from the ground, they can’t get line of sight on it! There are too many other buildings nearby.”

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p; “Then destroy it from the air …,” Stikes began, before trailing off.

  Callas saw his calculating look. “What is it?”

  “A way to kill two birds with one stone.” He turned to Baine, who had a savage bruise across his jaw and cheek. “Tell Gurov and Krikorian to get the Hind ready for takeoff!”

  Despite Eddie’s best efforts, he couldn’t shake off the V-300. The heavily armed vehicle was slowly but relentlessly gaining, its more experienced driver extracting every morsel of speed from his vehicle as he chased the smaller APC through Caracas. And the chaos in the city was not helping; Eddie had been forced to slow or swerve several times to avoid fleeing civilians, while the other vehicle charged on without a care for collateral damage.

  Suarez’s directions, relayed through Macy, brought them on to an overpass bridging a wider avenue below. Traffic on the lower road was at a standstill, open doors where drivers had abandoned their vehicles showing that the situation was far worse than Caracas’s usual gridlock.

  A roadblock ahead. The soldiers had been warned about the stolen APC and were readying weapons …

  More vehicles emerged from behind buildings.

  Very large vehicles.

  “Buggeration and fuckery!” Eddie gasped as a pair of T-72 tanks clattered to a stop at the roadblock, chunks of torn asphalt spitting up from their tracks. The Russian behemoths were dated compared with modern Western armor, but there was a reason they had been in continuous production for four decades: They were still tough and deadly. Their turrets rotated, bringing their 125mm main guns to bear on the approaching V-100.

  And there was no way to retreat. The V-300 reached the overpass, its own gun swinging toward its target.

  A glimpse of red and white on the road below, a familiar logo on the side of a stationary truck …

  Eddie swerved the V-100 toward the overpass’s low wall. “You’re probably getting sick of me saying this, but really, really hang on!”

  He aimed for the trailer, bracing himself.

  The V-100 smashed through the wall and plunged toward the road below.