by Andy Lucas
He had no hope of shooting it out with so many armed guards and figured that his only hope was to try and hotwire one of the jeeps, then make a mad dash for the outside. As it happened, the next jeep that he drew near had the keys hanging tantalisingly in the ignition. After all, who would steal one from inside a secure facility in the middle of nowhere?
Jumping in, he turned the key and smiled grimly to himself as the powerful engine roared into life. Within a split-second of the engine coming to life, he was smashing his foot down hard on the accelerator and screeching out of the parking lot in an acrid cloud of burning, smoking rubber.
The underground car park was not secured at its exit point either and Pace was lucky enough to find that his jeep had been parked nearly opposite the gentle slope that led up, and out into the heat of a scorching desert day.
As he roared up the ramp, a couple of shots clipped the back bumper but the expected torrent failed to materialise. He did not know why they weren’t trying to blast him to pieces but he guessed, with a sinking feeling, that it meant he would soon be running into trouble outside.
He was dead right.
Pace skidded the jeep around a bend, temporarily putting the corner of a building between himself and his pursuers. Since bursting out into the sunshine, a second before, at least three more jeeps had flown out of the underground car park and were now doggedly on his tail. The only bonus was that nobody was shooting at him yet.
The compound was spread out over wide area of concrete, with several smaller buildings dotted around the huge, main building. Pace had only one thought, and he knew he was making it up as he went along. If he could get through the gate and take the dusty track down to the dock, he might be able to grab a boat and head out to sea.
Somewhere, not too far over the blue horizon, a British warship remained guarding the salvage vessel that McEntire had leased to bring up the gold stored in the flooded innards of the K-19. He had flown a helicopter across the water and knew it was not too far, perhaps twenty miles or so. He was sure any boat would have a radio. He could send a distress signal and get the warship to steam towards him.
It wasn’t ideal but he was all alone, with a security force of at least one hundred and fifty men ranged against him. His only chance was to escape from the compound. Once beyond the high wire fence, even if the boat option failed, the jeep had a full tank of gas and it was rugged enough for him to try and flee into the desert. Anything was better than waiting to be shot.
The security teams, gunning their jeeps for all they were worth just to keep their quarry in sight, had the benefit of radios and a wealth of combined experience. The main gate had already been alerted and the ten-foot high, metal-framed, wire gates were now tightly closed, and locked. A dozen guards had hurried to reinforce the couple who normally manned it, usually hidden away in the air-conditioned comfort of a small sentry hut that sat just inside the gates.
As Pace tore into the open and floored the accelerator, he spotted the gates up ahead. He also spotted a cluster of uniforms, setting up in front of the closed portal, levelling multiple weapons in his direction. Travelling at nearly seventy miles an hour, Pace’s stolen jeep closed the distance in the blink of any eye and he was rewarded with a scattering of bullets, kicking up gouges in the concrete a few feet ahead of him. Warning shots.
A grim decision needed to be made. If he carried on, he would reach the gate in a few seconds but drive directly into a hail of bullets. His speed might carry him through the knot of guards and even retain enough momentum to smash through the gate locks but it was likely that he would be dead behind the wheel. At best, if any bullets found their way into the engine block, the engine would seize and the jeep would simply roll to a halt a few hundred metres beyond the gate.
Spotting an option, Pace stomped on the accelerator as hard as he could, to squeeze every last drop of power from the motor, veering off to the side and drove into a very narrow gap behind the sentry hut.
The space between the hut and a smaller, brick generator cupboard, was barely wide enough for the jeep to navigate, stripping the wing mirrors off noisily as the air-conditioning units; mounted on the hut’s back wall, were smashed off by the charging bonnet. One of them skittered across it and shattered the windscreen but then the jeep was through and hammering towards the perimeter fence.
What Pace had spotted, fortunately, was another join in the high perimeter fence. Comprised of long panels, each about twenty metres long, just behind the hut sat one of the joins, where two panels met and were bolted together. He knew it would be a harder collision to sheer off the heavy steel bolts pinning the two panels together but the jeep was a heavy vehicle and he was now tipping the dial at eighty miles an hour.
His mind also hoped that the hut would shield him from any bullets but he did not have time to rationalise his actions any further because he had already reached the fence. Aiming directly at the point where the two frames connected, Pace ducked down and prayed.
With a tremendous crash, the jeep hit the fence and the two panels burst apart as if they’d been held together with string, flying open as the car bounced through, tore up a slight sandy incline and then skidded back down on to the dirt road.
Bleeding from a nasty gash to his forehead caused by the entire windscreen frame being torn away by the force of the impact, Pace sat up. Delighted that he was still alive, he instantly struggled to breathe at such a high speed, without any protection now from the wind that pressed him back hard against his seat.
The jeep was in good shape and the guards had been so sure they had him that only a few recovered quickly enough to send a few bullets winging after him, all of which flew wide and high.
Pace flew on, heading for the small dock, very aware that another reception party would be awaiting his arrival. His heart pounded but he could not suppress a huge, maniacal grin. Once again, his fortunes had reversed and he now had a glimmer of hope that escape beckoned. For now, the vials were forgotten.
The little road skirted the beach and he saw the dock approaching at exactly the same moment that bullets started to fly his way again, this time from guards at the dock. At such a distance still, they were off target but as he drew closer he knew they would find their range.
The drive had been so sudden, and his planning so immediate, that he needed time to think. He needed to find an approach that would allow him to get close enough to steal a boat without getting his head blown off in the process. The road was the quickest way to the dock, and had served him well, but he needed to get off it now.
Throwing the wheel hard over to his right, the jeep powered into the soft sand at the edge of the road as he gunned it down a gentle rise, the knobbly tyres soon finding a good grip on the flat sand of the beach within moments. Not slowing, he continued his headlong dash towards the dock, knowing that the guards would have to spend a few moments relocating in order to fire at him as he drove up the flat beach.
From beach level, the concrete pilings that supported the dock were clearly visible, solid and grey. The water looked gorgeous, shimmering and sparkling in calm majesty, and he oddly found himself finding some solace in the fact that it was actually a nice place to die.
‘What I need now is a smokescreen,’ Pace wished, still with a grin on his lips. ‘But water will do just as well,’ he decided.
Driving down to the water’s edge, he braced his arms for the strain that he knew was about to come and forced himself to ease off the accelerator slightly as he turned the steering, carefully edging the right side of the jeep into the water for about a foot, allowing the two tyres on that side to throw up huge fountains of water that sprayed up and over the jeep, shrouding it within its own waterfall.
Keeping control was a nightmare at such a high velocity and he was forced to reduce speed even further but his portable shield worked brilliantly, even if it drenched him in icy cool seawater and made it virtually impossible to see where he was going. By hunkering down low, and keeping his eyes level wi
th the dashboard, he found a narrow gap in the shower that allowed him to keep the jeep half in and half out of the water.
Having a shield was great but it was not bullet proof and he soon felt the telltale rattle as bullets began to smack into the metal body of the jeep. He was sure that many more missed but it only took one to end his big escape plan.
As the seconds stretched towards a minute, the dock drew very close but the bullet strikes were more frequent, instinctively making him flinch whenever one hit too close to him. Now it was time to get out, he decided. On the floor of the passenger well was a construction hard hat, used for visitors. Snatching it up, he managed to jam it against the accelerator, underneath the dashboard. It was a good fit but not perfect. The pedal had to come up a bit to press the hat in place, which meant that the speed died away even more.
Travelling at about thirty miles an hour, still sporting an impressive curtain of spray, he tied off the steering wheel with a hi-visibility jacket, also found on the floor, sucked in a deep breath, slipped his guns into external pockets in his survival suit and dived out into the water.
Hitting the cold water, going under, and slamming painfully into the compact sand barely a foot beneath, Pace struck out for deeper water, kicking down hard to stay beneath the surface. The survival suit was already virtually deflated, after he’d used up most of the air supply on the flight, so he was able to get down fairly easily. Opening his eyes, he swam out further, as the empty jeep continued its valiant charge towards the dock, hammered with an increasingly vicious hail of lead.
Oblivious, Pace had a sudden thought, just as he was feeling the burning sensation of his lungs needing air. He was about to surface when he wondered if the suit had any air left in it at all. It was worth a try, he thought, quickly locating the inflation tube that he had altered, sucking. Air filled his lungs so he stayed deep and carried on swimming.
A few moments later, after the jeep had careened beneath the dock and smashed itself to smithereens against one of the inner pilings, he stopped swimming out and turned parallel to the shore, approaching the dock steadily and already several metres beyond the end of the pier.
Keeping five feet below the surface, sucking on his rapidly dwindling remnants of suit air, Pace found himself swimming over the dancing tendrils of a kelp forest, about twenty metres out from the shore. His vision was fairly burry without the benefit of a diver’s face mask and the dark shadows darting in and around the green fronds sent a shiver up and down his spine, despite the survival suit. Looking down, all the time powering towards the end of the pier with his arms, he hoped they were small enough to be seals. The last time he’d swum in this water, he had nearly been included in the food chain by some hungry sharks.
Back under the dock, ARC guards were swarming all around the hulk of the jeep, which had caught alight immediately after the crash and now smoked dangerously, popping and spitting a warning for the men to stay well back. They knew the petrol tank would be full so they kept their distance, expecting the explosion that inevitably came. With all the smoke keeping them at bay, they had not yet discovered that Pace was not burning along with the vehicle. This was giving him some extra time, although he was unaware of it.
Finally, just as he sucked out the last lungful of air from his tube, the dark shadow of the wooden launch came in sight, a few metres to his left, where it was moored up to the end of the pier. The fast cruiser that had whisked Pace and his companions from the Sea Otter, on their visit to the facility a few weeks before was nowhere in sight.
Reaching it and gratefully rubbing his gloves against the barnacle-encrusted hull, Pace cautiously surfaced, keeping his movements to a minimum and allowing his natural buoyancy to carry him to the surface, where his head broke into the warm sunshine with barely a ripple.
The hull rose at least six feet out of the water and it look disproportionately huge from his position in the water. With all eyes on the burning wreck under the dock’s beach pilings, no frowning faces or gun barrels looked down into his face. All he could see was an empty sky and a curving expanse of polished wooden hull.
Swimming slowly around to the back, where a small ladder descended to the port side of the inboard outlets, Pace gripped the bottom rung and carefully eased himself out of the sea, peering quickly over the lip of the hull and feeling his spirits soar again as he was greeted by the sight of a completely empty boat. A few minutes earlier, he would have seen half a dozen guards, but they had all been ordered to take portable fire extinguishers down to douse the jeep fire.
Pace could hardly believe his luck and actually began to allow himself to think that his plan might even work. Wasting no more time, he slipped up and over the side, allowing himself to fall to the bottom of the boat, out of sight from any prying eyes on the dock, or anyone who may have been left behind on the pier. Crawling forward on his hands and knees, he reached the cockpit area and was rewarded by the sight of keys still sitting snugly in the ignition barrel. Did nobody worry about thieves in this place?
Now, common sense had to battle with his instincts. The security teams were on full alert and, very soon, they would discover that he was not in the jeep. If he could get the boat started, he had a chance to get away but they would be on him quickly; they were already riled up and furious. The other boat was not in the dock at the moment but it had to be around somewhere. Likely as not, the minute he headed out to sea, it would be on course to intercept him and that would be that.
His best chance, he knew, was to hide out and wait for everything to die down. If he could survive, undiscovered, overnight then an early morning dash for freedom would have much more chance of succeeding. His only hope was to reach the British warship that he knew was out there somewhere but it might take an hour or more to get to the wreck site of the K-19 in the little launch. He would need as much of a head start as possible.
Decision made, but not liking it, Pace spotted a storage cupboard at the rear of the launch. It looked quite large and a quick inspection revealed enough room for him to squeeze inside, between coils of rope, tarpaulins and bottles of assorted marine applications. Crushing himself to the back, and covering himself heavily with tarpaulin, he pulled the door closed and found himself locked in darkness once again.
‘What is your fascination with locking yourself in cupboards?’ he asked himself softly. ‘It’s getting ridiculous.’
Outside, the lack of a corpse had been spotted and a full search of the surrounding desert and beach was underway. Tucked up in the oppressive heat of the cupboard, Pace hoped he had made the right decision and waited, ticking off the hours on the luminous dial of his dive watch. Eventually, overcome by fatigue, he dozed off.
He awoke, with a start, unsure about what had roused him because there was no sound from outside. Checking his watch, he was amazed to see that it was six a.m. The days of constant stress and exhaustion had caught up with him and he had slept away the entire night.
Cramp shot through him as stiff muscles cried out to move. Pace was just about to lean towards the door latch when the engines of the launch thundered into life, thumping violently below his hiding place and threatening to shake the teeth from his head. Then they were moving.
The two guards at the controls were not happy at being given such a pointless job. Take the launch and run it up and down the coast a couple of miles, looking for signs of the man who had escaped. They knew he was either dead, or long gone by now, but they were not in a position to argue. Not if they wanted to collect their pay at the end of the month.
So they followed orders, running lanes all morning before coming back to the dock to refuel and heading out again for a similar set of monotonous sweeps. They found nothing and were finally radioed to return to the dock at a little after three o’clock in the afternoon.
Desperate to get off the launch and grab a cold beer, they shot off to make their report, leaving the boat empty, still with a half tank of fuel and a pair of warmed up engines just begging to be restarted.
It was hardly the early morning dash that he’d planned but Pace knew he had to go now. After allowing his eyes to grow accustomed to the fierce sunlight, shielding them with his hands as he slid out from under the pile of junk, he was forced to lie flat and stretch out. His muscles would not do as they were told, despite his dire predicament. It took the best part of two minutes before feeling returned to numb fingers and he was able to crab forward to the open cockpit.
Taking a chance, he leaned up and stole a brief look around. Two things struck him immediately. The first was good, in that the pier was deserted. The second was not good. Now moored on the other side of the pier, the ARC cruiser towered overhead like a predator preparing to strike.
Over fifty feet in length, with tinted Perspex windows and a gleaming, rakish, white-painted fibreglass hull, her two inboard engines could power her along comfortably at thirty-five knots, if needed. He did not see any visible crew but they would obviously be aboard, ready to cast off in pursuit as soon as they realised what was happening.
The only difference was that his engines were warm and he knew what he was planning. He still did not fancy his chances very much, in broad daylight now, but he had no option.
Slipping out of the launch, he quickly threw off the two mooring lines before darting back onboard and grabbing the wheel. Hoping that the mechanics were as fastidious with the marine maintenance as they were with the jeeps, he pressed the starter button and the warm diesels roared dutifully back to life.
As shouts of surprise sounded from halfway down the pier, he jammed the throttles to their stops and the old boat shot away from the end of the pier like an express train on a mission.
Throwing up great spumes of foam behind it, the twin engines that had been lovingly reconditioned by a chief engineer who preferred the classic vessel to the modern cruiser, performed brilliantly. Consequently, the little motor launch roared out to sea at twenty-five knots, with Pace reaching for the radio mike at the same time.