Viper Nine

by Viper Nine (retail) (epub)

  Plus, there were no guarantees Kovac wouldn’t have a trick up his sleeve. Perhaps he’d planned for the very event of his capture. He’d planned for almost everything else.

  Wells felt his finger curling tighter around the trigger.

  Kovac grinned through bloodied teeth. ‘That’s it… do it.’

  * * *

  Was she far enough out? There was no way to know. Driver could only estimate in her head. Except her brain wasn’t playing ball. It sure wasn’t in the mood for crunching numbers.

  Staying awake and keeping her eye-level above the rim of the steering wheel were about the best she could hope for.

  As the truck barrelled across the plain, her sole focus was to aim at the horizon and hope there weren’t any villages on the other side of that heat haze.

  To keep herself awake and distract herself from the obvious, Driver wondered about the truck. Was it a technical fault or had Wells somehow got free and intervened? Could it have been the work of the others in Mexico and Hong Kong? Had Mo hacked into the system?

  Ridiculous as it was, it ate away at Driver that she’d die not knowing. Maybe that was the worst thing of all. She shook the sweat off her forehead like a dog shaking off the rain. It loosed the perspiration and sent droplets running off the end of her nose. She caught them with her tongue in an attempt to quench her unbearable thirst.

  Driver was tempted to glance again at the countdown clock. But when the end was nigh, she’d rather not know. And maybe she wouldn’t last that long. Her head started to nod, her vision blurring. It wasn’t the heat haze – the entire cabin of the truck turned to a malleable watercolour. The dashboard and wheel bled into one another and all feeling drained out of her body. Should she go with it? Let sleep take her before the bomb?

  No.

  Again Driver shook herself awake. Keep the truck going straight. Put as much distance between the blast and civilisation as she could. That was her one final mission. In those dying minutes, her whole reason for being.

  She straightened out the wheel of the truck and made sure the accelerator pedal was all the way to the floor.

  Yet her body betrayed her, lulled by the call of sleep. Driver’s head lolled to the left, eyelids dropping like stalled airplanes.

  But she caught herself as she fell, something catching her eye out of her side window.

  A dark shadow moved across the sand. It glided over every lump and bump of the desert floor and kept pace alongside the truck.

  Was it a mirage? Had Death come to collect her?

  If it was Death, then this Death came from the air.

  Chapter 52

  In the rear of the Huey, Pope clipped a cord to the safety harness around his waist.

  Lim glanced over her shoulder. He tugged on the line and gave her the thumbs up. As she brought the chopper in low, the Australian peered over the edge at the long white truck. It sped across the desert below, a tail of sand billowing and thinning a half-mile in its wake.

  Pope gripped the line, fixed inside the doorway at head height to a winch. He hopped out of the cabin and landed on the skid below.

  With Lim dropping the chopper to fly alongside the truck, Pope stepped off the skid and let out the line until he hung level with the cab door. He swung in the wind as Lim drifted right in the Huey. The swing took him as far as the driver-side door. He grabbed the large wing mirror and held himself steady, grit in his eyes and the wind lashing sand in his face.

  Pope blinked the crap out of his eyes and saw Driver inside, taped to the wheel, her chin to her chest. Was she even alive? He yanked at the door handle but found it locked. ‘Damn it,’ he muttered, drawing back an arm and driving an elbow through the window.

  Driver appeared to stir as he showered her in glass. Pope reached inside the door and pulled on the handle from the inside. The door unlocked and he forced it open against the onrushing headwind.

  Wedging the door wide open with a boot, he gave the American a gentle slap on the cheek. She stirred some more and mumbled. But didn’t seem all there. Clearly, the woman was running on fumes, the same as the chopper. So the Australian leaned into the cabin and took a look at the countdown clock.

  ‘How long have we got?’ Lim asked over her in-ear comms.

  ‘Less than we need,’ Pope replied.

  ‘Well get on with it then,’ Lim said.

  ‘What do you think I’m doing?’ Pope complained, pulling a knife from his belt. ‘Strewth.’

  It seemed like the best bet was to free Driver’s torso first, keeping the wheel straight and the pedal to the metal as long as possible. Yet as he began to cut, he felt a sharp tug on his harness.

  Before Pope could react, the line yanked him backwards out of the cab.

  The Australian swung out of control. ‘What the bloody hell are you doing up there?’

  ‘Crosswinds,’ Lim replied in a strained voice, as if fighting for control.

  Pope spun on the end of the wire as Lim corrected and brought the helicopter back in towards the truck. He prepared to grab hold of the door to the truck. Yet he was coming in too fast and too far back.

  With no time to brace, he slammed into the trailer with a bone-crunching thud. ‘Jeez, you trying to bloody kill me?’ he groaned, pain shooting through his right shoulder.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry, I don’t fly one of these every day,’ Lim replied.

  ‘Just try and hold her steady ’til I’ve got her,’ Pope continued, as he pulled himself along the trailer.

  Returning to Driver’s side, he reached around the back of her seat and carved through the thick binding of tape holding her in place. The knife sliced through the tape, snapping the final layer and freeing her midriff from the seat.

  Pope pulled the tape free from her front and tossed it out of the door. Yet as he moved to cut the binding on her wrists, she blacked out totally, her feet slipping off the accelerator and onto the brake.

  The truck slowed fast. The winch line sucked him back out of the cab only this time he hung onto the doorframe. Yet the line went tight, far too strong. No time for Lim to adjust. He’d be torn in two.

  So he unclipped the line from his harness and let the line swing free. With only a one-handed grip on the driver’s door, Pope fought to hang on, kicking feet mere inches from the ground.

  The door swung as the truck veered left. But Driver stirred again and corrected the steering. She stepped back on the accelerator as Pope got a grip on her seat and a foot on the kick plate.

  He noticed the central strut with the self-drive mechanism in place. There was a touchscreen with a GPS map. He reached in and tapped it to activate – a small green box opening up.

  Cancel Journey? Too bloody right.

  Pope tapped on the screen. He toggled through to a menu and an option to reactivate self-drive. It auto-detected speed and direction, offering him a cruise mode.

  Pope engaged the cruise function and set the speed to a steady sixty. He bent over low and cut the tape binding Driver’s ankles. Next, the matter of her wrists. He carved like a madman, an eye on the countdown clock. Only minutes to spare. ‘Hold on to your arsehole,’ Pope said, as Driver came back around. ‘We’ll have you out of here in a jiffy.’

  As the last of the tape snapped free, Pope tore Driver’s sticky palms off the rim of the wheel. As intended, the pain shook Driver back to full consciousness.

  ‘G’day,’ Pope said. ‘What’s say we get out of here?’

  Driver nodded.

  ‘You okay to walk?’

  ‘Well I’m not staying here,’ she replied, shifting up in her seat.

  As Pope stepped back out onto the door frame, he helped the American out of her seat. ‘Now don’t take this as a come-on,’ he said, boosting her up onto the roof by her rear. ‘Up you go.’

  With Driver on the roof of the cab, Pope followed close behind. He helped her onto the trailer, Lim hovering up and off to the left.

  The Australian waved her down and crouched low with Driver. The Chinese
agent brought the Huey in close, flying sideways with the right-hand skid only a foot from touching down on the trailer.

  It was some flying, but with was no time to stand and admire it, Pope helped Driver into the back of the chopper. He stepped onto the skid and grabbed hold of the door handle.

  ‘Go, go, go!’ he yelled, pulling himself into the cabin.

  Lim lifted off and banked away to the left before straightening out and giving it the full beans. Pope found Driver seated on the hard metal floor of the helicopter. She was barely conscious, but he found a half-drunk bottle of water left behind on a seat. He unscrewed the top and fed her small sips to combat the obvious dehydration.

  Leaving her to rest, Pope returned to the cockpit and slipped on his headset.

  ‘How long was left?’ Lim asked.

  ‘Just keep flying,’ he replied, adrenalin making it impossible to think, let alone get a sense of time.

  So in spite of the fuel gauge dipping deep in the red, Lim kept the hammer down, flying low to the desert floor.

  Yet as they raced to get clear, Pope noticed the little shepherd boy and his goat. The kid was walking deeper into the blast zone.

  Pope looked across at Lim. She seemed to notice the boy too.

  Chapter 53

  There was no gradual awakening. Driver jumped awake as if a bomb had gone off inside her. Her head banging and cheeks burning hot. But wide awake and on red alert.

  The churn of the helicopter rotors drilled into her skull. But it was another loud noise that had brought her back to life. It was right in her ear. A high-pitched bleat.

  As she sat up, a goat appeared in her face. A what? She must have been hallucinating. But no, there was a four-legged animal in the rear of the helicopter, tugging at her vest with its teeth. She slapped its long, bearded white face away, a little boy sitting on the seat across from her with beaming grin, loving the thrill of a helicopter ride.

  Driver looked towards the cockpit, where Pope rode alongside Lim.

  She pushed up and looked around her. ‘Did we make it?’ she asked, as if they could hear her above the rotors.

  The answer came from the far distance. A white-hot flash. A thunderous boom unlike anything she’d heard in battle.

  Seconds later, an invisible wave of energy hit the Huey like a moving wall. The Huey shunted hard to the left, the fuselage rattling as if every rivet would spit loose. Warning alarms sounded. The instrument panel lit up and the helicopter spun clockwise like a waltzer.

  Driver felt the G-forces pinning her to the floor, Lim fought for control as a giant sandstorm swallowed them up.

  Visibility reduced to near zero, the goat scrabbling threatening to pull the boy over the side.

  Driver forced herself up and launched forward. She grabbed the leash on the goat and dove on top of the young boy. Pinning him flat to the seats, he screamed and cried.

  As Lim lost the battle and the Huey fell sideways to the ground, Driver lied and told him it would be all right.

  * * *

  Wells held the gun on Kovac. The Serb baited him again to do it with his dark eyes, one of them swelling purple above the socket.

  A flash on the horizon drew his attention. Wells shielded a hand over his eyes until the light had faded, revealing a giant, pluming mushroom cloud. An unearthly boom followed, with the rush of wind and sand.

  Wells and Rios guarded their faces against the stinging grains as Kovac and Jana hunkered low against the canopy of the truck.

  The tail-end of the nuclear blast dropped as soon as it had arrived, the mushroom cloud growing in height and radius.

  ‘Whoops,’ Kovac said, savouring the moment.

  Wells felt hollow inside. The warhead had exploded in the desert. But that wouldn’t bring back Driver. He lifted the pistol again and pointed it square at Kovac. ‘You want to know the difference between you and me?’

  ‘Oh yeah? What’s that?’ Kovac asked, spitting out a mouthful of sand.

  Wells paused before releasing the trigger, the burning desire to kill receding with a simple realisation.

  Wells lowered the weapon. ‘Your hate is your hate. I don’t want it.’

  He looked across at Rios. She stared at the grey cloud rising high into the blue. ‘Pope and Lim… You think they made it?’

  Wells doubted it. And he wasn’t about to lie.

  ‘So what do we do now?’ Rios asked.

  The truth was, Wells hadn’t thought that far. Maybe they could walk back to the highway and try flagging someone down. Was anyone going to stop for a bloodied man or woman with a gun? Besides which, there was the matter of Kovac and Jana. Who would stay behind with them?

  As he thought over their next move, the wind picked up again. Wells thought he heard something. He shared a glance with Rios, before suddenly… The belly of a Huey blasted low over the upturned truck and over their heads. It swung around to its left and flew back their way.

  The Huey landed side-on behind them with Lim at the controls.

  Driver and Pope hopped down from the back. Wells could have sunk to his knees in tears. Instead he turned to a disbelieving Kovac. ‘Whoops!’ he yelled in the Serbian’s face.

  * * *

  Driver strode from the chopper as if the previous few hours hadn’t happened. Cheating death had that effect on a woman. And the sight of Kovac on the seat of his ass made everything taste that bit sweeter.

  But this was no time for a celebration, much as the smile on Wells face suggested otherwise.

  The mission wasn’t to survive. It was stop Kovac, permanently. Which meant it wasn’t over.

  As she and Pope met up with Wells and, an unusually bright, Rios, she stood over the Serb and stared him in the eye.

  ‘I suppose this is where you tell me I’ll be going to prison for a long, long time,’ Kovac said with a sneer and a snarl.

  ‘No,’ Driver said, snatching the pistol from Wells’ hand.

  She took aim and fired a single shot.

  Kovac’s head snapped back as he took one between the eyes. At point-blank range it painted his brains over the canopy of the truck.

  Driver slapped the gun in the hand of a stunned Wells.

  ‘What was that?’ he asked.

  Wasn’t he aware of what would happen? Kovac would spend a decade in and out of the courts on appeal. And that’s if the scumbag didn’t already have a plan for escape.

  ‘It was necessary,’ she replied without a trace of regret. ‘As are we.’

  ‘And what about computer chick?’ Pope asked, pointing out Jana, hopping on one working leg towards the highway.

  ‘Someone else can pick her up,’ Driver said, waving the team on. ‘I need a drink.’

  ‘Sounds good to me,’ Pope replied. ‘I could murder a cold one.’

  ‘She’s talking about hydrating,’ Wells said.

  ‘Yeah, me too,’ Pope shrugged. ‘Hydrating with a couple of lagers.’

  Returning to the chopper, Rios dug a fist in the Australian on the arm. ‘Thought you were a dead man.’

  ‘Had you worried, did I?’ Pope yelled over the rotors. ‘Your eyes look red. You been crying?’

  ‘Tears of joy,’ Rios said. ‘I celebrated too soon.’

  As Driver climbed into the rear of the chopper, Wells sat across from her beside the boy and his goat. He looked at the bleating animal, and then at Driver.

  ‘Don’t ask,’ she replied with a shake of the head as Lim piloted the Huey off the ground.

  Positioned by the open doorway of the cabin, Driver peered down at Kovac’s body.

  Sure, what they did might not have been moral, legal or easily digestible. But compared to people like Kovac and the hate, fear and chaos they spread, Wildcard was a drop in an ocean of darkness.

  The truth was, diseased minds like Kovac were the root of the world’s evils. And they had to be killed at source.

  Someone had to pull the trigger. It may as well be her.

  Chapter 54

  The Russian milit
ary helicopter flew bruised and battered. Its gun-metal fuselage sandblasted a shade lighter and punctured with shrapnel holes. Now it was out of fuel too.

  A warning light flashed and a buzzing alarm sounded as the engines cut in and out, seconds from stalling.

  Lim stayed low in case of an emergency landing, skimming a whisper of sand off a bank of dunes.

  Driver felt sure the Chinese agent would have to glide the Huey in to a controlled crash. Yet, to everyone’s relief, the compound appeared in the near distance.

  It was a hive of activity. Special forces soldiers prowled the perimeter, while others secured the base.

  Lim brought the Huey in with the fumes running on fumes. She picked a quiet spot to land on the edge of the compound, with the rotors dead and slowing towards a stop.

  The Huey flopped down with a heavy thud, Driver lurching forward in her seat.

  Within seconds, they were surrounded by Russian troops, a pilot pointing and yelling at the cockpit.

  ‘Please tell me they loaned you the helicopter,’ Wells said.

  ‘Don’t look at me,’ Pope replied, hooking a thumb in Lim’s direction. ‘She’s the one who—’

  Smacking Pope on the arm, Lim removed her headset. ‘I might have forgotten to ask.’

  ‘Oh great,’ Driver groaned.

  The Chinese agent raised an eyebrow. ‘You’d rather we left you in the truck?’

  Driver raised her hands in surrender. ‘I guess I forgot to say thanks, huh?’

  ‘So,’ Pope said, climbing into the rear of the chopper. ‘What’s the tucker like in Russian prisons?’

  ‘Depends, do you like cabbage?’ Driver asked, hopping down from the helicopter.

  ‘Has my arse blowing a gale,’ Pope said, lifting the boy and his goat down to the ground.

  ‘Then we’re definitely not sharing a cell,’ Wells replied, as the rest of the team gathered in front of the Huey.