The Emperor's Revenge

SEVEN

Hasim was shocked as Juan continued to run through what seemed like a hail of rounds that should have torn him to shreds. Instead, noise and empty ejected shell cases were the only product of his efforts. He screamed in disbelief when he realized the machine gun was loaded with blanks.

He released the trigger and reached for the assault rifle slung across his back. He brought it to bear, but not in time.

Juan had already covered the distance to the Scorpion. He grabbed one of the AK-47s and fired three shots into Hasim’s chest. The Egyptian fell back and slumped against the seat, blood streaming down his shirt.

Juan wheeled around, ready to take out the second soldier if needed, but he could see Linc hunched over the man, who was sprawled on the ground with the hilt of a combat knife jutting from his chest.

Eddie was right behind Juan and grabbed the two other AK-47s.

“It’s good Hasim didn’t use the grenade launcher. He might have taken your head off.”

Juan shrugged. “I would have come up with something. At least there are two more down. Now it’s three of them and three of us. The odds are even.”

“That’s a generous assessment,” Linc said as he approached them, wiping his knife on the headscarf he’d removed. He put it back in the scabbard and took the extra AK-47 from Eddie. “Are you forgetting that Nazari now has the only armed Scorpion?”

Juan had suspected some kind of double cross from the very beginning of the mission, which was why they’d loaded live ammo only into their Scorpion, the one marked discreetly with a “1.” Eddie had made sure to claim it first when they landed, intending to take Nazari and his men captive once they had the WMDs in hand, but his sudden departure had put a kink in that plan.

Juan checked his watch. Certainly Nazari had heard the shots. He might think that they’d been killed as ordered, but the distinctive sound of the AK-47 following the M2 could have given him doubts. Nazari would return as quickly as he could in the fully armed Scorpion.

Juan said, “We need to dig out those cases pronto.”

They counted off twenty-one paces from the nose of the plane according to Hodgin’s “Blue Suede Shoes” code. Putting their backs into it, they scoured a hole up to Juan’s waist in less than five minutes. If it had been dirt, they never would have reached the depth they needed to in time, but the fine sand was easy to toss aside.

Two minutes later, Linc’s shovel clanged on something hard. They attacked the ground and quickly unearthed two aluminum cases. The yellow and black radiation hazard symbol hadn’t lost any of its menace in sixty years of burial.

Linc and Juan each picked up a lead-lined case by its handle, while Eddie ran to get the Scorpion that didn’t have a dead body in it.

“It must have taken Hodgin forever to drag these out here with a torn-up leg.”

“You have to admire the guy,” Juan replied. “Dedicated to the end.”

Eddie skidded to a stop next to them in Scorpion 2 and pointed into the distance. “By the way Nazari’s Scorpion is tearing over those dunes, I’d say he figured out that we didn’t follow his command to dig or die.”

The desert patrol vehicle jumped over the crest of a dune, and Juan caught a glimpse of Nazari, yelling at his driver.

He and Linc bungeed the cases to the Scorpion’s frame and got in, Linc on the impotent machine gun and Juan in the passenger seat behind the grenade launcher. They donned their helmets as Eddie took off.

Moments later, the first grenades landed where they’d just been parked.

“Are they nuts?” Linc yelled over the comm system. “If they rip open one of those cases, we’re all toast!”

“Either they’re not thinking clearly or they don’t care,” Eddie offered.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea to stop and point out their poor judgment to them,” Juan said. He pulled his pant leg up, opened his combat prosthesis, and removed a tiny transmitter. He clicked the button and said, “Head for those cliffs.”

“You got it,” Eddie said, and steered toward a wall of rock five miles away.

Grenades rained down behind them, churning the sand into clouds of dust. Every time they were provided with a smoke screen of sand, Eddie veered to one side or the other to throw off any subsequent shots.

The zigzagging was slowing them down, while Nazari came at them on a direct path.

“Any ideas?” Eddie said.

Juan scanned the horizon for any obstacles to put between them. One feature stood out.

A dust trail rose from the surface, and it was approaching.

It had to be the Libyans. Nazari hadn’t been hightailing it back just because of the gunfire. He had seen the competing terrorists coming their way.

“We’ve got more company,” Juan said, and pointed at the plume of dust only a few miles to their right.

“Well, that’s just great,” Linc said.

“It is. Eddie, bring us in closer to them.”

Eddie turned to look at Juan, confusion in his eyes turning to understanding. “You want to start a fight?”

“Exactly.”

Over the next dune, Eddie yanked the wheel to the right, heading directly for the Libyans.

“You’re going to have to time this just right,” Juan said.

“I’m all about trajectories and timing.”

“If there’s going to be a math quiz on this,” Linc said, “count me out.”

Nazari and his men continued to pound away with machine gun and grenade fire. A few shots splashed them with sand, but, so far, they’d been lucky.

Over the next crest, Juan could see ten pickup trucks on huge tires. Men in the back of each were carrying assault rifles and RPGs. Two of them had mounted machine guns like the ones on the Scorpions.

“How are the odds looking now?” Linc said with a rueful chuckle.

“I’ll bet on Eddie’s driving any day,” Juan said.

“Good,” Eddie said. “Because you need to hang on.”

Just before he got to the top of the next dune, Eddie wrenched the wheel around ninety degrees. Juan brought the grenade launcher to bear on Nazari’s Scorpion as it came over the dune behind them.

Juan pulled the trigger on the launcher, sending a stream of inert grenades flying. Since he’d anticipated where the Scorpion would appear, several of the grenades hit the driver, knocking him back in his seat. He slumped down, and the dune buggy nearly tipped over before Nazari could grab the wheel and right it.

Eddie accelerated away as Nazari shoved the unconscious driver out of the vehicle and took his place.

Juan waved to him, goading Nazari to follow. This distracted him from the impending danger. Nazari gave chase as his machine gunner sprayed bullets.

“Anybody hit?” Juan asked.

“Not me,” Eddie replied.

“I’m fine,” Linc said, “but our ride isn’t. They plugged the fuel tank.”

Eddie glanced down at the gauge. “We’re losing gas fast.”

Juan looked at the looming cliffs ahead. “How long?”

“It’s going to be close.”

Juan swiveled in his seat. Nazari was so intent on closing the distance that he didn’t notice one of the pickups come over the dune right next to him. His machine gunner turned the weapon on the new enemy, slicing the truck apart with the .50 caliber rounds at point-blank range. The driver turned too quickly on the slope and the truck rolled, sending the surviving men tumbling.

The rest of the Libyan assault force hurtled over the dune. Nazari had to make a choice to flee or face his enemy. Seeing that he had little chance of escaping, he flashed one last sneer at Juan and chose to turn and fight.

Juan watched as Nazari leaped into the seat with the grenade launcher. He put up a good battle, blowing away three more of the pickups in rapid succession. But the numbers weren’t in his favor.

The pickups had him surrounded. One of the four RPGs shot toward the Scorpion and made contact. Nazari disappeared in a massive explosion as the grenades detonated.

“Scratch a whole bunch more terrorists,” Linc said.

“That still leaves six truckfuls of them,” Eddie said.

Juan turned back to the front. “And they’re not waiting around to see who they killed. All of them are headed our way.”

The cliffs rising before them went on for miles in either direction. Even if they had gas, they’d be hemmed in by the natural barrier.

To punctuate the problem, an RPG blew up about a quarter mile behind them.

“If they’re trying to convince us to slow down,” Linc said, “it’s having the opposite effect.”

A roar slowly grew louder and overcame the engine noise of the Scorpion. It was approaching fast from the rear. Juan turned his head to see the IL-76 coming in low over the pursuing Libyans.

“Tiny got my message,” Juan said.

Tiny had been circling out of visual range as a backup in case Juan called him in an emergency. A radio transmitter had been secreted in Scorpion 1, which Nazari had commandeered. But Juan never put all his eggs in one basket and had a microtransmitter inserted into his combat leg prosthesis. It was so small that the only information it could transmit was their location. When Juan activated it, Tiny understood his services were needed and homed in on them.

As the cargo jet overflew them, one of the Libyans took a potshot with his RPG. The rocket tore through the sky, and only Tiny’s quick reflexes prevented it from hitting one of the engines. He rolled right and the unguided rocket sailed past within a few feet of the wing.

“You think he got that message?” Eddie asked.

“I hope so,” Juan said.

The jet made a wide turn and then flew in a straight line perpendicular to their path about a mile ahead, far out of range of the RPGs. The rear cargo ramp lowered. When the IL-76 got to a point almost dead ahead, a pallet slid out the back. The chute opened immediately, and the object floated to the ground in front of them.

“That man can fly!” Linc yelled, and waved at the departing plane. Without a landing strip, there wasn’t anything more Tiny could do besides radio their position back to the Oregon.

Not that it would make a difference. Further help would arrive far too late.

Eddie aimed for the pallet, its chute ruffling in the breeze like a flag that beckoned them to a safe haven.

A hundred yards from the pallet, the Scorpion’s engine sputtered.

“Told you it would be close,” Eddie said.

The engine finally died fifty yards from their destination. They all jumped out and sliced through the cargo bungees with knives to free the cases holding the nuclear weapon cores. As before, Eddie ran ahead to unpack their gear while Juan and Linc lugged the heavy containers.

The growl of the pickups grew ominously close, but Juan didn’t dare take a second to look. The cliffs towered over them, and Juan was concentrating on calculating how much distance they’d need.

By now, Eddie had the cover off the pallet, exposing another dune buggy. But this one was different from the Scorpions.

It had a large, four-bladed propeller on the back, like one found on an Everglades airboat. The vehicle was based on a French design called the Pegasus. Max Hanley, the Corporation’s chief engineer, had enlarged it to carry three people instead of two, saving weight by building the frame out of carbon fiber tubing. He dubbed it the Daedalus after the mythical father of Icarus.

They heaved the cases in the storage area and got in. This time, Juan took the driver’s seat.

“I don’t think there’s enough room between here and the cliff,” Eddie said.

“I agree,” Juan said, and gunned the engine. He raced forward, turning the vehicle toward the Libyans.

As he accelerated, Linc and Eddie fired at the approaching convoy, hoping to slow them at least a little.

Juan spun the Daedalus in a U-turn and floored it. When it hit sixty miles an hour, he flipped the safety switch on the dashboard and punched the red button underneath.

A parasail was released from the rear of the Daedalus and unfurled behind them. It caught air and began to rise. When it was nearly overhead, Juan felt the vehicle’s wheels leave the ground, and they were airborne.

The Daedalus rose briskly. Three RPGs detonated on the cliffs as they flew past, the operators unwisely aiming at the small dune buggy instead of the enormous blue parasail above them. Juan glanced up and saw a few rifle rounds perforate the sail, but it didn’t rip, and there was no effect on its performance.

Juan was more concerned with getting over the looming cliffs. He pulled back on the steering column without stalling the craft. It didn’t exactly have the agility of a hummingbird. The Daedalus could fly about as well as a seaplane could swim.

Circling around for another pass would bring them in range of the RPGs again, but if they slammed into the cliff face at the vehicle’s top speed of seventy miles per hour, this would be a very short trip.

“Chairman…” Eddie said, the worry in his voice obvious.

The rocks were at eye level. Eddie was right to be worried. The lead cases weighed them down more than they’d expected. They weren’t going to make it.

Juan pulled back even farther, risking the stall. The Daedalus nosed up and the wheels cleared the cliff with no more than a foot to spare.

He eased the wheel forward and the tires kissed the ground momentarily as the Daedalus stalled and then took to the air again as the parasail refilled.

The Libyans disappeared from view.

“I think I’ll leave the flying to Tiny next time,” Juan said with a sigh of relief.

“Would it sound bad if I agreed with you, Chairman?” Linc asked.

“I second that,” Eddie said. He activated the onboard radio.

“You out there, Tiny?” Juan said.

“Loud and clear, Chairman,” he replied. “Glad to see you sailed over the cliffs. Looked like a close one. Everyone all right?”

“No injuries, thanks to you. Your aim was impeccable.”

“I nearly didn’t make it out myself.”

“We saw that. We’re on our way to a town called El Menia. We’ll land there and gas up. We should be back to the Oregon late this evening. Have Max let the Algerian Army know that they’ve got some Libyan intruders at the coordinates where you made the last drop.”

“Did you make any recoveries?”

“We found the packages we were looking for. Tell Max that Langston Overholt should get ready to make a deposit to Credit Condamine with a lot of fluffy zeroes.”

“There may be a problem with that,” Tiny said, all humor gone from his voice.

“Why?”

“Because Credit Condamine was robbed today during the Monaco Grand Prix. Max said it’s a big mess.”

The Corporation held its assets in several banks around the world, but Credit Condamine was one of its biggest deposits, mainly because of Monaco’s status as a tax haven.

Eddie and Linc knew just as well as Juan did what the implications were.

“You’re kidding,” Linc said.

Eddie looked at Juan with a raised eyebrow. “This doesn’t sound good.”

Juan shook his head in disgust. “How much did they get?”

“All of it,” Tiny said. “All our money in that account is gone.”