Apocalypse

42

Ethan hit the ground and rolled into a dense thicket of reeds as a lethal hail of automatic fire blasted the edge of the forest. He saw Lopez hurl herself down behind a tree trunk, covering her face as chips of bark showered down across the foliage around her.

The shooting stopped, the Everglades silent in the heat again as leaves and bark chips dislodged by bullets drifted down around Ethan. He squinted through the reeds and saw Purcell lying on the sand, the side of his chest a bloody mess, and he felt a crushing melancholy for the man’s tragic sacrifice. Then he saw the camera pinned beneath the scientist’s body.

‘We’ve got to get that camera!’ Ethan whispered to Lopez.

‘Where the hell’s Bryson?’ she asked in reply.

Ethan aimed his rifle through the reeds, searching for muzzle flash or signs of movement. He was expecting another broadside of gunfire, not the pair of grenades that thumped down onto the sand barely ten feet from where he lay.

‘Grenades!’

Ethan leapt to his feet with Lopez and they both sprinted away from the spit of land as another hail of automatic fire swept the forest around them. Ethan hurled himself down into the bushes alongside Lopez and threw one arm over his head and the other over her as he waited for the grenades to explode.

Two feeble pops crackled on the hot air around them, and Ethan turned to see thick clouds of smoke billowing out through the dense undergrowth, as bullets whipped through the forest around them.

‘They’re coming ashore!’ Lopez shouted.

Ethan cursed as he heard the sound of another airboat engine somewhere in front of them beyond the billowing wall of smoke. He could see no more than Lopez, and their attacker was so close that he could not shoot for fear of hitting the precious camera. More bullets flew past, mostly above their heads, and he realized that whoever had come ashore was firing only to keep their heads down.

‘Damn it, we need to cut them off. Where the hell is Bryson?’

The choking smoke curled around them, stinging Ethan’s eyes as he tried to see through the gloom. Another rattling volley of gunfire zipped and popped through the branches above their heads, and then Ethan heard the sound of the airboat’s engine roar and glimpsed through the trees to his right the craft thunder past, the tall man with blond hair at the wheel.

Ethan leapt to his feet. ‘Let’s move!’

Lopez followed him at a run as they leapt fallen trees and pools of stagnant water until they burst out of the forest to see the airboat accelerating away. Ethan dropped down onto one knee and raised the M-16, selected single-shot and using the telescopic sight to aim not for the helmsman but for the much larger target of the engine. Ethan squeezed the trigger and the rifle jolted into his shoulder. Five shots cracked out as he fired one after the other and was rewarded with a puff of white smoke that spiraled from somewhere within the engine block.

A second airboat soared into view, swerving around the corner of the island and racing toward them. Ethan could see Bryson at the wheel as he guided the airboat in alongside the shore.

‘The hell happened to you?’ Lopez shouted at him.

Bryson’s face was flushed with a mixture of anger and embarrassment as he looked at her.

‘He snuck up on me, God knows how.’

Ethan scowled at Bryson. ‘I thought you were a professional!’

‘And I thought you told me Purcell was alone,’ Bryson shot back.

Ethan cursed and looked over his shoulder at the spit of land where Charles Purcell had died. The camera had vanished.

‘We can still get the bullet Purcell mentioned,’ Lopez suggested.

Ethan leapt off the shore and onto the airboat as he looked back at her.

‘We can come back for them!’ He turned to Bryson and pointed down the river. ‘Drive, damn it!’

Bryson gunned the engine as Lopez jumped aboard and the airboat span on the spot before accelerating out into open water in pursuit of the camera. As the deck heaved, Ethan saw a broken bottle of Jack Daniels rolling about near the stern. Lopez spotted the bottle and glared up at Bryson.

‘You were supposed to be covering our backs!’

‘I was. He got lucky.’

‘What, lucky that you were drunk?’ Ethan challenged. ‘How the hell did you ever get into the SEALs?’

Bryson glared at Ethan but said nothing.

‘He’s out of sight,’ Lopez complained. ‘We won’t catch him now.’

Ethan scanned the broad horizon of reed beds and water ahead. He raised his hands and used his fingers to make a box shape, focusing on one small area at a time just as he had in Miami. A few moments later he spotted a fine haze of translucent blue smoke hanging on the listless air a hundred yards ahead, the trail weaving between towering walls of reeds and sawgrass islands.

‘There!’ he shouted, pointing between the islands. ‘He went through there.’

Bryson guided the airboat into a steep turn, white water spraying in glistening clouds from beneath the hull as they plunged into the narrow corridor. The smell of burning oil tainted the air, a tantalizing hint that Ethan’s shot had fatally damaged the airboat’s engine. The dense reed banks flashed past on either side of the airboat as it raced between them toward a gap that opened out onto a broader flood plain ahead.

Ethan pulled the M-16 into his shoulder and crouched down on one knee at the bow as he scanned the narrow horizon ahead for any sign of the other airboat. Lopez moved alongside him, her own rifle at the ready as the opening ahead loomed up on them.

They burst out onto the open water and Ethan looked left and right. A flash of gray metal caught his eye to his right, and he shouted a warning to Bryson as he saw the other airboat launch toward them from where it had been waiting in ambush. Bryson span the wheel and the airboat’s hull shuddered as it turned hard, but he wasn’t quick enough to prevent the bow of the second boat ramming into their stern.

Ethan was hurled sideways under the impact and tumbled across the deck as the airboat beside them accelerated away, trailing a thin plume of white smoke. A clatter of machine-gun fire rattled off the decks, showering Ethan in sparks as he ducked his head down low.

To his right, Lopez rolled alongside him and let her rifle fall onto his back, using his body as a rest. Ethan remained still as she took aim and opened fire on the fleeing airboat. Four rounds cracked out, and Ethan saw at least two of them send sparks flying from the airboat’s propeller.

Bryson shoved the throttles fully forward and they surged in pursuit.

‘He’s lighter than us,’ Lopez guessed. ‘Only one man aboard! We can’t pass him.’

Ethan was about to reply when the big blond man looked over his shoulder and tossed something up in the air. The small black object span as it climbed and then arced down toward their airboat.

‘Grenade!’

Bryson yelled the warning as he swerved the airboat aside. The craft heaved and bounced across the wake of their quarry as the grenade hit the water nearby and exploded in a towering column of white water that splashed across the deck. Ethan and Lopez ducked as a hail of supersonic shrapnel sliced through the air around them, pinging off the hull and the propeller cage in a deafening metallic ricochet.

‘Just get us as close to him as you can!’ Ethan yelled at Bryson.

Bryson wrenched the airboat back under control and turned back toward their quarry as Ethan shouted at Lopez.

‘Covering fire! Keep that bastard’s head down!’ Lopez responded instantly and took up a prone position on her belly in the bow of the airboat. She took aim and fired three rounds in quick succession, the wind whipping the sound of the shots away. Through the spray Ethan saw the big blond man flinch and duck his head down.

Ethan crept forward onto the port bow, staying clear of Lopez’s rifle as he prepared to make the jump.

‘You can’t take him on your own!’ Lopez shouted. ‘We already tried that. Just let me take out the engine!’

‘No!’ Ethan shouted as a plan formed in his mind. ‘I’ve had an idea!’

Lopez looked up at him from behind the scope of her rifle but Ethan didn’t elaborate. His idea wasn’t without risk, and this wasn’t the time for debate. The big blond man had realized that they were almost alongside him, and in an act of desperation he did the last thing that Ethan had expected him to.

He yanked the airboat across their path, the hull banking steeply in front of them until they could see deep inside as they rushed toward it on a collision course.