"All right," Schofield said. "Hold it here."
Schofield wrapped the shoulder strap of his MP-5 around his neck and pulled the slide on his Desert Eagle automatic pistol, cocking it.
"All right, Mr. Renshaw. Hit the brakes."
Renshaw looked up at Schofield in surprise. "What?"
And then he realized what Schofield was doing.
"Oh, no. You can't be serious?"
"Just do it," Schofield said.
"All right...."
Renshaw shook his head, and then, after taking a deep breath, he jammed both of his feet down as hard as he could on the brake pedal of the hovercraft.
Schofield's hovercraft lost all of its forward momentum in an instant and the British hovercraft behind it slammed into it at full speed and the two hovercrafts collided nose-to-nose.
Renshaw braced himself for the impact, and when it came it jolted him back into his seat. When he looked up, however, he couldn't believe his eyes. He saw Schofield climbing out through the shattered forward windshield of their hovercraft and up onto its hood.
The two hovercrafts made for an incredible sight They were now joined at their noses, both traveling forward. The only thing was, one was pointed forward while the other was pointing backward.
In three fluid steps the small figure of Schofield danced across the forward hood of the leading orange hovercraft and leaped across onto the hood of the pursuing black hovercraft.
Schofield's feet pounded against the forward hood of the British hovercraft. Horizontal snow pelted against his back as he blasted away at the forward windshield of the British hovercraft with his MP-5. The windshield shattered and Schofield saw the driver go down in a fountain of blood.
But there were still two more men inside the cabin who any second now would be turning their guns on him.
Schofield ran forward and leaped onto the roof of the speeding hovercraft just as a volley of bullets shot out from inside the cabin.
He slid feet-first across the roof of the British hovercraft. The left-hand door of the hovercraft was still open, and Schofield rolled onto his stomach and reached over the edge of the roof with his MP-5 and jammed it in through the open side door. He pulled the trigger and fired blindly at his unseen enemy.
His MP-5 went dry, and Schofield listened and waited. If either of the two SAS commandos had survived his barrage of gunfire, then they would be up any second now.
No one came out of the hovercraft.
The deafening machine-gun fire from the tripod-mounted machine gun had ceased. The only sound that Schofield heard was the whistling of the wind as it sped past his ears.
Schofield swung himself down and in through the open side door of the British hovercraft.
None of the SAS commandos had survived his assault. The three men all lay on the floor of the cabin, covered in blood.
Schofield stepped over to the driver's chair.
"Mr. Renshaw, can you hear me?" he said.
Inside the orange French hovercraft, James Renshaw was gripping the steering yoke so hard his fingers were turning white. His hovercraft was still traveling backward at incredible speed.
"Yeah, I hear you," Renshaw said into his oversized helmet's microphone.
"You're gonna have to swing her around," Schofield's voice said. "I need you to help Rebound. He needs to offload some of his people so he can maintain a decent speed. I need you to take a couple of people off his hovercraft."
"I can't do that!" Renshaw said. "You do it."
"Mr. Renshaw..."
"All right. All right."
Schofield's voice said, "Now, do you want me to take you through it?"
"No," Renshaw said. "I can do this."
"Then do it. I gotta go," Schofield's voice said quickly.
And with that, Renshaw saw Schofield's newly acquired black British hovercraft peel off to the left and head toward Rebound's wounded hovercraft.
"All right," Renshaw said to himself as he gripped the steering yoke even more firmly in his hands. "I can do this. I saw him do it before; it can't be that hard. Slingshot...."
Renshaw slipped the hovercraft into neutral, and he felt the big vehicle lose a little bit of speed.
"OK," he said. "Here we go...."
He yanked his steering yoke hard to the right.
The hovercraft immediately spun laterally on its axis and Renshaw yelled, "Aaaahhhhh!!" as the whole vehicle snapped around in a sharp one-eighty and then all of a sudden it was facing forward again and he swung the steering yoke back in the other direction and suddenly the vehicle was steady again and?good God?traveling forward.
Renshaw was stunned. He jammed the hovercraft back into high gear.
"Holy shit," he said. "I did it! I did it!"
"Mr. Renshaw," Schofield's voice said in his ear. "I've seen kids on snowbikes do better slingshots than that. Now, if you don't mind, would you kindly shut up and get your ass over here. Rebound needs our help."
Schofield's hovercraft came alongside Rebound's.
Both hovercrafts looked like hell. Rebound's was pockmarked all over with bullet holes. Schofield's had no front windshield.
The three remaining British hovercrafts circled all around them, cut across in front of them, swung in behind them.
Schofield brought his hovercraft closer to Rebound's, so that his open left-side door was directly opposite Rebound's open right-side door.
Schofield yelled, "OK! Send two of your passengers over to me! Renshaw'll be over in a second! He can take two more!"
"Ten-four, Scarecrow," Rebound's voice replied.
Schofield hit the cruise control button on his dashboard and hurried back into the cabin of the hovercraft. He came to the open side door and looked across the gap between the two speeding hovercrafts. He saw Book standing in the doorway of the speeding white hovercraft, eight feet away. He had Kirsty with him.
"OK!" Schofield yelled into his helmet mike as Rebound brought his hovercraft closer. "Send her over!"
Book edged out onto the skirt of his hovercraft, gently bringing Kirsty with him. The little girl looked scared to death as she stepped out into the freezing, speeding wind.
Schofield ventured out onto his own skirt, his arms outstretched.
"Come on, honey!" he called. "You can do it!"
Kirsty tentatively stepped forward.
The ground raced by beneath them.
"Reach out! Reach out! And jump now!" Schofield yelled. "I'll catch you!"
Kirsty jumped.
A timid, little girl's jump.
Schofield lunged forward and clutched hold of her parka and pulled her inside the cabin of his speeding black hovercraft.
Once they were safely inside, he asked, "Are you OK?"
As Kirsty opened her mouth to answer him, the whole hovercraft was rocked by a ferocious impact. The two of them were both thrown against the frame of the open doorway. Kirsty screamed as she fell out through the door, but Schofield threw out his hand and snatched her gloved hand just in time.
They'd been rammed from the right. Schofield snapped round to see what had hit them.
Another British hovercraft.
Schofield pulled Kirsty back inside the cabin and braced himself for the next impact.
It never came.
Instead, the whole right-hand side of his hovercraft's cabin simply exploded inward.
Kirsty screamed and Schofield dived on top of her, shielding her from the flying debris. He tried to peer out through the smoke to see where the British hovercraft was, to see what its owners were doing.
But he couldn't see the hovercraft.
He just saw smoke and haze.
And then, after a moment, Schofield heard the thud of feet landing on the skirt of his hovercraft and he felt a knot tighten in his stomach as he saw two wraithlike figures emerge from the smoke and enter his cabin with their guns raised.
The two SAS commandos emerged from the smoky haze. Schofield was on the ground, covering Kirsty, totally expose
d.
"Scarecrow! Duck!" Book's voice shouted loudly in his ear.
Schofield ducked and immediately heard the sharp whoosh! whoosh! of two bullets flying low over his head and the first SAS man dropped like a stone?shot by Book, from the other hovercraft.
The second SAS commando was momentarily startled, and that was all Schofield needed. He sprang to his feet like a cat and tackled the SAS man and both men went flying against the dashboard of the hovercraft.
The ensuing hand-to-hand fight was all one-way traffic.
The SAS guy was all over Schofield. One hit to his injured throat and Schofield couldn't breathe, another to the rib cage and Schofield heard one of his ribs snap. He doubled over and the SAS man grabbed him by his collar and belt and hurled him out through the destroyed forward windscreen of the speeding hovercraft.
Schofield thudded against the forward hood of the hovercraft. His body ached; he couldn't breathe. He coughed up blood as he looked up?
?just in time to see the SAS commando reach for his holster and draw his service pistol.
At the sight of the gun, suddenly Schofield's breath came back to him and everything became clear.
Speeding hovercraft.
Man, gun.
Certain death.
His body aching, Schofield rolled forward, toward the rounded bow of the hovercraft. The black rubber skirt dropped away in front of him. The ground rushed by beneath it at seventy miles an hour.
You are going to die....
Schofield found a handhold and quickly lowered his feet over the bow of the speeding hovercraft. His feet touched the speeding earth and skipped up off the surface.
The SAS man in the cabin seemed to be amused by what Schofield was doing, and he paused for a fraction of a second as he leveled his automatic pistol at Schofield's head.
Schofield?his face bruised, his teeth bloody, his body bent over the inflated skirt at the bow of the hovercraft? looked up at the SAS commando and smiled. He saw the SAS commando smile back at him: And then he saw him raise his gun a little higher.
At that moment, Schofield ducked his head beneath the skirt of the hovercraft. He heard the gun go off, heard the bullet ping off the top of the skirt.
Schofield was hanging off the bow of the speeding hovercraft now, pressing his body against the inflated rubber skirt. His feet were dragging on the ground as it rushed by beneath him at incredible speed.
Suddenly he heard a sound and he looked up and saw the SAS man standing above him, on the forward hood of the hovercraft, looking down at him, with his gun still in his hand.
And as the SAS commando raised his gun to fire, Shane Schofield knew there was only one thing he could do. He released his grip on the inflated rubber skirt and disappeared under the bow of the hovercraft.
The sound of the turbofans was absolutely ear-shattering.
Schofield's helmet slammed down against the ground, and Schofield slid on his back underneath the hovercraft.
The rush of air and the deafening roar of the four turbofans above him was like being in a wind tunnel. Schofield saw the inflated insides of the skirt, saw the rapidly rotating blades of the turbofans?
And then he shot out from underneath the speeding hovercraft, and the deafening roar of the turbofans was gone as he slid on his back across the flat, icy plain behind the hovercraft he had been standing on only moments before.
Schofield didn't waste any time.
He rolled onto his stomach as he aquaplaned across the ice, and in one swift movement he drew his Maghook from behind his back and looked up at the rear of the hovercraft as it sped away from him. He raised the Maghook and fired.
The bulbous magnetic head of the Maghook flew through the air, its tail of rope unspooling wildly behind it. The magnet thudded into the metal wall of the cabin just above the hovercraft's skirt and stuck, and Schofield was suddenly yanked forward behind the speeding hovercraft.
He was now being dragged across the ice plain behind the speeding hovercraft, like a nailing water-skier trying desperately to get back on his feet again.
And then abruptly the ground all around Schofield was raked with gunfire.
Schofield spun to look behind him.
A second British hovercraft was right behind him!
It was bearing down on him, as if it were about to trample him.
Schofield rolled onto his back?holding onto his Mag-hook's launcher with one hand?as he was dragged behind the first hovercraft. With his free hand, he drew his Desert Eagle and fired back at the pursuing hovercraft. The Desert Eagle boomed, ripped open several holes in the skirt of the speeding hovercraft.
But the hovercraft didn't slow down.
It was almost on him.
It only had to get over him and then slow down slightly, and then the hovercraft would lower itself and he would be chopped to shreds by the turbofans underneath it.
The turbofans underneath it....
Schofield desperately searched his brain for something, anything, anything that he could use to?
His helmet.
Still being dragged behind the first hovercraft, Schofield quickly holstered his gun and yanked off his helmet.
He would have to get this just right. It would have to be bouncing, bouncing high, so that it would get caught up in the fan blades of the pursuing hovercraft.
Schofield tossed his helmet behind him.
The helmet flew through the air?it seemed to float for an eternity?and then it bounced on its dome and the pursuing hovercraft roared over the top of it.
Schofield guessed that the helmet must have bounced up into the forward fan of the hovercraft, because in that moment, in that sudden, shocking instant, the whole hovercraft just snapped over on itself and did a complete seventy-mile-an-hour cartwheel?it just flipped over on itself and came slamming down hard on its own cabin. The battered hovercraft slid across the flat icy ground?on its roof, right behind Schofield?for about fifty yards before it ground to a halt and shrank into the distance behind him.
Schofield rolled back over onto his stomach. His body bounced roughly on the hard, icy ground as it was dragged along behind the first hovercraft at phenomenal speed. Tiny flecks of kicked-up ice assaulted his silver antiflash glasses.
Then he hit the black button on his Maghook?the button that reeled in the hook without demagnetizing it?and the Maghook began to reel itself in, drawing Schofield forward, toward the rear of the speeding hovercraft, until at last he reached the black rubber skirt. The wind from the hovercraft's rear turbofan blasted his face, but Schofield didn't care. He grabbed hold of a tie-down stud on top of the skirt and hauled himself up onto the hovercraft.
Five seconds later, he was standing in the open left-hand side doorway of the hovercraft. He got there just in time to see the SAS commando slap Kirsty hard across the face and send her crashing to the floor.
"Hey!" Schofield called.
The SAS man turned and saw him, and a sneer formed around his mouth.
"Kirsty," Schofield said, never once taking his eyes off the British commando. "Cover your eyes, honey."
Kirsty covered her eyes.
The SAS commando stared at Schofield for a long moment. They just stood there, in the cabin of the speeding hovercraft, like two gunfighters facing off against each other on a deserted western street
And then in a sudden blur of movement the SAS man went for his gun.
Schofield went for his.
Both guns came up fast, but only one went off.
"You can open your eyes now," Schofield said as he stepped forward?over the body of the dead SAS commando?and bent down beside Kirsty.
Slowly, Kirsty opened her eyes.
Schofield saw the bruise forming around her left cheekbone. "Are you all right?" he said kindly.
"No," she said, tears welling in her eyes. She pulled her asthma puffer out from her pocket and took two deep, sobbing puffs on it.
"Me neither," Schofield said, taking the asthma puffer from her and gulping down a
couple of puffs himself before putting the puffer in his pocket.
Then he stood up and grabbed the steering vane of the British hovercraft. As he drove, he popped the clip of his Desert Eagle and jammed in a fresh magazine.
Kirsty stepped up alongside him. "When you ... when you went under the hovercraft," she said, "I thought... I thought you were dead."
Schofield jammed his pistol back into its holster and looked down at Kirsty. He saw the tears in her eyes.
As he looked down at her, Schofield realized that he was still wearing his silver antiflash glasses. He took the silver glasses off and crouched down in front of Kirsty.
"Hey," he said. "It's OK. It's all right. I'm not going to die on you.I am not going to die on you." Schofield smiled. "I mean, hey, I can't die. I'm the hero of this story."
Despite herself, Kirsty smiled. Schofield smiled, too.
And then, to his surprise, Kirsty stepped forward and hugged him. Schofield returned her hug.
As he held her, though, he heard a strange noise. A noise that he had not heard before.
It was a loud, rhythmic, crashing noise.
Boom.
Boom.
Boom.
It sounded to Schofield like?
Like waves crashing on a beach.
With a sickening rush, Schofield realized where they were. They were near the cliffs. Their evasive maneuvers during the hovercraft chase had taken them out near the sheer three-hundred-foot cliffs that towered over the bay. The loud, booming noise that he was hearing was the sound of the mountainous waves of the ocean smashing against the ice cliffs.
He was still holding Kirsty in his arms. As he held her, though, something behind her caught his eye.
Attached to the side of the British hovercraft's dashboard was a small compartment, mounted on the wall. Its door hung ajar. Inside the compartment, Schofield could see two silver canisters. They were each about a foot long, and cylindrical in shape. Each silver canister had a wide green band painted across its midsection. Schofield saw some lettering stencilled onto the side of one of the silver canisters: TRITONAL 80/20.
Tritonal 80/20? he thought. Why on earth would the British bring that to Wilkes?
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