The Fusion Cage (Warner & Lopez Book 2)

by Dean Crawford

  Ethan climbed down from the saddle and guided his horse out of sight of the sky above and towards the water pales. The animal drank gratefully as he turned to see Stanley Meyer stagger across to his daughter and embrace her, Amber throwing her arms around her father’s neck. To Ethan she looked far more attractive as she smiled broadly, compared to the sullen expression that she normally wore.

  He turned and pulled from his satchel the satellite phone that Jarvis had given him, and within moments he was dialling.

  ‘Jarvis?’

  ‘We need an out,’ Ethan replied hurriedly, not wanting to remain on the line for any longer than was absolutely necessary. ‘We’re near Riyadh, hostiles in pursuit, and need to leave the country fast.’

  There was a moment’s silence on the line before Jarvis replied.

  ‘Damman, and Al Qatif seaport. We have people there, they’ll make contact. Your recognition call sign is Vanquish. Memorize this number and call it when you reach the city.’

  Jarvis recited a phone number and then the line went dead, and Ethan slipped the phone back into his bag as he heard one of the militants talking to Stanley Meyer.

  ‘We must hurry. The Saudi military are not fools and they will soon guess where we have gone.’

  Stanley released Amber and nodded as his daughter looked up at him.

  ‘Why did you come here?’ Amber asked.

  ‘I was about to ask you the same question,’ Stanley said in reply. ‘There is much that I need to tell you.’

  ‘I already know about the device, the fusion cage,’ Amber said. ‘We all do. But there is much that you need to know also.’

  ‘We can share stories later,’ Ethan said as he strode up to them. ‘Right now, we need to get away from here.’

  ‘No, we don’t,’ Amber insisted. ‘We’ve got it all wrong. Huck Seavers wants in on this.’

  ‘I’ll bet he does,’ Stanley uttered in disgust. ‘Seavers would kill us all sooner than see the fusion cage come to light.’

  ‘No,’ Amber said desperately. ‘He wants in. He’s not the one behind this, his hands are tied. He said there’s somebody else behind it, kept going on about some kind of shadow government.’

  ‘I don’t care what he said,’ Stanley insisted. ‘The man paid millions to have everybody go silent and abandon what I’d achieved. Clearwater sold out, Amber, the whole town. They didn’t give a damn about what I’d done as soon as Seavers waved a few million bucks in their faces. He stole the device from me, Amber.’

  ‘He says he doesn’t have it,’ Amber replied. ‘He’s just the company through which those people were paid off, but most of the money came from elsewhere. If we can prove that, then we can show that Seavers is not behind this and that somebody else is paying people off to remain silent.’

  ‘Seavers is a liar,’ Stanley almost shouted. ‘He would say anything in order to turn you to his side. I will never sell–out to somebody like him.’

  ‘Seavers might be lying about his motivation,’ Ethan said, ‘but this stuff about the shadow government? Did he ever mention something called Majestic Twelve?’

  Amber shook her head. ‘He never mentioned names of any kind, and he said he didn’t know any of the members of the shadow government he insists is behind all of this. He said they could crush him like a worm if he didn’t do as they said.’

  ‘It’s too late now,’ Lopez pointed out. ‘We just abducted you from that convoy, and these trigger–happy goons probably killed a few of Seavers’ guards. That’s murder in any country, and Sharia Law’s not going to look favourably upon us. We need to leave before we find ourselves rotting in a Saudi jail for the next five hundred years.’

  Ethan was about to reply when he heard a faint humming sound that drifted down the wadi from somewhere above them. He froze in motion and raised a hand to forestall any more conversation as he focused all of his senses on the sound, closed his eyes and tried to identify from where it was coming. The militants around him beat him to it.

  ‘Predator drone, probably within a mile of us,’ one of them identified the noise. ‘It must have taken off from Damman and hasn’t had time to get to enough height to be inaudible to us.’

  Ethan opened his eyes and pointed at Stanley.

  ‘We need to split up,’ he said. ‘The only way we can ensure the maximum number of us escape is to provide too many targets for them to follow once.’

  ‘Agreed,’ the lead militant said. ‘But we can also fight back.’

  Without prompting, two of the women guarding the water reached beneath their burqas and produced a pair of rocket–propelled grenade launchers, the long barrelled weapons easily concealed beneath their flowing robes.

  The militants took the weapons and began jogging away down the wadi in an attempt to gain a visual on the circling drone before it climbed out of sight.

  ‘What about us?’ Stanley asked.

  ‘We have further transport for you,’ the militant leader said as he beckoned for them to follow him down the wadi.

  Ethan followed them at a jog as they made their way through the winding confines of the canyon, the heat rising and the air scented with the musk of ancient desert sand. They reached a tight curve in the wadi, and there parked beneath the soaring cliffs were several motorbikes and two non–descript looking vehicles, sedans with peeling paint and ancient, almost flat tires devoid of grip.

  ‘There will be more traffic on the roads by now,’ the militant said. ‘The police will set up roadblocks into and out of the city. My men and I will ride further out into the desert and meet you on the outskirts of Damman, where we will once again change vehicles in order to help conceal you as you enter the city. Make sure you leave the road before you reach the city, we will be waiting for you at An Nandah.’

  The militant slid a grenade launcher from his shoulder and pressed it into Ethan’s hands.

  ‘May Allah walk with you. Inshallah.’

  Ethan walked quickly across to the motorbikes, all three of which were fairly powerful and designed for off–road use. They were older machines, but fully functional and kept clean and likely well–maintained. He climbed aboard one, switched on the fuel valve and then brought his boot down on the kick starter. The engine roared into life immediately and he nodded with satisfaction as he looked at Amber.

  ‘Time to leave. Get on.’

  As if on cue, Ethan heard a clatter of gunfire and a sudden thumping sound that reverberated down the wadi as a helicopter thundered overhead.

  ‘Saudi Arabia has arrived!’ the militant yelled.

  ‘Let’s get out of here!’ Stanley shouted as he looked at the lead militant. ‘You have the plans now! Can you build it?’

  ‘We can try,’ the militant replied. ‘Now go, all of you! Get to Damman as fast as you can!’

  ***

  XX

  Ethan twisted the motorbike’s throttle and it swung around on the dusty floor of the wadi and accelerated downhill toward where once, long ago, a river had flowed out of the canyon onto a fertile flood plain. He saw Lopez following him with Stanley Meyer on her pillion seat as Amber yelled at Ethan above the wind, her arms wrapped around his waist.

  ‘We’re running the wrong way! Huck Seavers wants to help!’

  ‘He can’t be trusted!’ Ethan shouted back. ‘Hang on!’

  They were gathering speed and the breeze was a welcome relief from the overwhelming heat. The deep wadi wound left and right ahead of them, but now the lofty walls of the chasm were coming down and he could see the wadi exit ahead, a brilliant flare of sunlight searing the horizon and blazing into his eyes.

  Then, above the crunching of their tires on the dusty track, Ethan heard a new sound growing in intensity, and quickly he was able to distinguish the rhythmic thump–thump–thump of rotor blades beating the air as the helicopter returned.

  He saw at the end of the wadi the two militants who had rushed away earlier, both armed with rocket–propelled grenade launchers. Before them, sweeping across the gl
owing sky, was the formidable shape of an AH–64 Apache gunship.

  ‘Damn,’ he uttered.

  The Apache was a lethal weapons platform, the most feared of all attack helicopter gunships and sold to the Saudis by America. Ethan glanced over his shoulder and saw Lopez following close behind, and behind her the militants on horseback, galloping in pursuit and leaving swirling clouds of glowing dust in their wake.

  Ethan twisted the throttle wide open and the little motorbike surged toward the wadi exit as the two gunmen took aim at the circling Apache. Even before they could open fire, the attack helicopter surged upward and sideways into the air, its rotors kicking up billowing clouds of desert sand as a series of brilliantly burning orbs sprayed in a fearsome pyrotechnic light show to fall toward the desert.

  ‘Decoy flares!’ Ethan yelled. ‘They’ve seen the grenade launchers!’

  Ethan craned his neck back as the Apache swung out of sight over the wadi, and then plunged back into view behind them.

  ‘Hang on!’ Ethan yelled as he twisted the bike’s throttle wide open.

  Ethan looked back again and saw the helicopter sweeping in, a black silhouette against the brilliant sky, and then suddenly something let out a cloud of smoke and screeched down toward the floor of the wadi.

  ‘Incoming!’

  Ethan hunched his shoulders and squinted as the motorbike shot from out of the wadi’s confines and into the open desert as a Hellfire missile slammed into the wadi’s depths and exploded with a deafening blast. The shockwave thumped into Amber’s back and she slammed into Ethan as he fought to keep the bike upright, clouds of flame and debris blasting by them.

  A wash of heat enveloped Ethan and he looked over his shoulder to see the wadi enveloped in an expanding fireball and a veil of thick black smoke. Lopez’s motorcycle hung on grimly behind him, and he could see horses galloping out of the maelstrom and splitting up into different directions, the bodies of several militants and their mounts strewn across the desert.

  ‘They’re not taking any prisoners!’ Amber yelled. ‘We should have stayed with Huck Seavers!’

  ‘Seavers probably called the Saudis in!’ Ethan snapped back. ‘Forget about him!’

  Ethan’s shirt was drenched with sweat, his hair and eyes thick with windblown sand, the motorcycle slipping and sliding as Ethan sought out the line of least resistance toward the main road.

  A deafening crackle burst the air around Ethan as the Apache opened fire with its cannons on the fleeing horses and vehicles, a loud buzzing sound as the cannons whirled and bullets ripped across the dunes. He saw one animal go down in a tangle of limbs as one of the militants fired an RPG up at the helicopter. Ethan saw the grenade miss but burst into flame just alongside the Apache, the pilot yanking the craft clear of the lethal blast as he turned back toward the militants still concealed within the wadi’s mouth.

  ‘This is our chance to get clear!’ he shouted to Lopez.

  Ethan swerved toward the open desert, Amber hanging on grimly behind him as they fled. The motorbike weaved on the dunes and Ethan closed the throttle to give the bike a chance to steady itself as he looked ahead and saw a line of low hills. He yelled over his shoulder to Lopez.

  ‘Head for those hills and stay sharp!’

  Ethan looked over his shoulder toward the wadi rapidly receding behind them. The Apache was firing its cannons into the wadi’s depths, while Ethan could see the last of the horses galloping out into the wastes in all directions, mere specks now trailing plumes of golden sand into the morning air.

  He turned back to the controls, and then saw a plume of sand billowing up from the far side of a dune directly ahead of them. He felt his blood run cold in his veins as from behind the dune a second Apache rose up, its cockpit glass glinting in the sunlight searing the horizon behind it and its fearsome weapons array pointing directly at Ethan and Lopez’s motorbikes.

  ‘Enemy front!’

  Ethan hauled the motorbike to one side as he changed direction, Lopez peeling away to his right just as the Apache’s guns opened fire with a whirring crescendo like screaming demons as a hail of bullets churned the dunes around them. Ethan plunged over the crest of a dune and down into a valley of sand on the far side, out of sight of the Apache’s crew.

  ‘We can’t get away from them!’ Amber yelled. ‘The bikes aren’t fast enough!’

  Ethan concentrated on guiding the bike down the gulley between the dunes, trying to head as much as possible toward the metalled road in order to give them a decent chance at putting some distance between themselves and the Apaches.

  He heard the thumping of the gunship’s blades nearby and then the whining sound of the cannons firing once more, and he knew that Lopez had come under attack. Fear for her coursed like ice lightning through his body as the motorbike crested a low dune and then descended down alongside the road once more.

  Ethan squeezed the brakes and the motorbike shuddered to a halt on the sand as he turned to look over his shoulder.

  ‘Can you ride?’

  ‘Sure, but why … ?’

  ‘Take the bike,’ Ethan said as he leaped out of the saddle and grabbed the grenade launcher from his shoulder. ‘When I’m in position, ride, and let them see you.’

  Amber blanched. ‘They’ll open fire!’

  ‘I’ll hit them first,’ Ethan promised. ‘If they’re not taken down, get off the road again and get into the dunes, okay? Keep running, no matter what!’

  Ethan didn’t give Amber the chance to argue and instead dashed out across the main road to the far side, then began running hard to the east. He could hear the Apache nearby, the occasional burr of its machine guns as it tried to kill Lopez and Stanley. Ethan had no choice but to draw the Apache out. He kept running until he was a hundred yards further up the road, and then he hurled himself down beside the sandy edge of the road, driving himself down into the sand like a snake trying to bury itself, hurling handfuls of it over his back to conceal himself. Then, satisfied that he would remain out of sight until it was too late, he signalled to Amber to start riding.

  Amber burst out onto the road into plain view of the Apache, which was circling back for another pass at wherever Lopez was pinned down. She rode the bike out into the centre of the road and gunned the throttle wide open, the bike accelerating wildly toward Ethan as Amber ducked down over the fuel tank, her black hair flying in the wind.

  The Apache swung around almost immediately as its crew spotted the fleeing motorcycle, and as Ethan had hoped the pilot instinctively used the road itself to line up on the target, the helicopter moving directly overhead the road and descending as it tilted forward. Ethan pulled the RPG launcher into his shoulder, activated the sights and settled them on the gunship as it surged forward, the blades hammering the desert air as it rocketed in pursuit of Amber.

  Ethan saw the two pilots in their tandem seating cockpit, and in the intense moment he saw the gunship’s seeker assembly beneath the nose following the movements of the pilot’s head as he sought to aim at Amber’s motorcycle, saw the gunship’s wicked cannons being brought to bear as the pilot gently pulled the nose up, tracking the centre line of the road. Ethan knew that the pilot would squeeze the trigger just before his gun sights tracked onto Amber’s position, sweeping the road with high velocity, armour piercing shells that would shred the asphalt and anything else that got in their way.

  Ethan kept his aim steady, the Apache bearing down upon him almost head–on and presenting a perfect target with minimal lateral motion and its swirling rotors and gearbox assembly in full view.

  Ethan squeezed the trigger and the launcher shuddered amid a cloud of acrid gray smoke that stung his eyes as the projectile screeched like a banshee out of the barrel and rocketed toward the Apache.

  The gunship pilot saw the launch the moment Ethan squeezed the trigger and Ethan saw the gunship pull up and to the left, but at such close range there was no time for even the finest pilot to avoid the weapon.

  The grenade impacted
the gunship just starboard of the rotor assembly with a brilliant explosion that Ethan glimpsed just before he ducked down to avoid the shrapnel blast that he was counting on to do most of the damage as it smashed into the helicopter’s spinning rotors and they flew apart in a lethal cloud of blades and debris.

  Ethan covered his head with his hands and pulled his legs up protectively as shrapnel hammered the asphalt road and the helicopter’s engines shrieked with an ear piercing whine as the Apache banked away out of control and spun a complete revolution. Ethan squinted up through a cloud of billowing sand as the Apache’s engines and rotors tore themselves apart in a frenzy of rending metal. The gunship plunged down into the desert with a crash amid a plume of sand and the engines split open and ignited their fuel.

  The Apache exploded in a brilliant fireball that blossomed like a second sunrise against the desert before it was swallowed by black smoke and flames. Ethan dragged himself to his feet and back up onto the road as Lopez’s motorcycle burst into view with Stanley clinging to her for dear life as they rode up to Ethan’s side.

  ‘We need to get the hell out of here before the other gunship comes back,’ Lopez informed him breathlessly as she skidded to a halt.

  ‘You’re welcome,’ Ethan replied as Amber rode up alongside him.

  ‘Is this, like, normal for you two?!’ Amber almost shouted in horror, appalled by the destruction around them.

  ‘It is for herhim,’ Ethan and Lopez replied in unison.

  Ethan heard the sound of the other Apache helicopter further out over the desert, almost certainly trying to hunt down the fleeing horsemen.