The Last Bazaar

CHAPTER THIRTY NINE

Drake evaluated the scene as the jungle shuddered.

Black choppers with bristling rocket pods hovered to left and right, ascending slowly, their engines roaring. Men hung out of the open doors, searching it seemed for any target to take a pot shot. One whirling bird let loose a missile which streaked among the trees and exploded, sending gouts of flame toward the wavering canopy. Drake saw the pavilions falling; shards and larger beams of timber erupting and tumbling in every direction.

The river’s surface was utter chaos — every predator known to man battling to take a bite out of the other. Caimans lined the far banks and floated dangerously just above the water. One dragged out a man as Drake watched, its jaws clamped around his midriff, his pin-wheeling arms punching the ground in agony. Skiffs and barges, speedboats and dinghies raced every which way, many colliding, most hampering the getaways. Ramses’ own speedboat started to nudge around to find an angle.

Drake and Dahl met each other’s eyes.

“Is it time?”

Drake grinned and set off fast, the Swede struggling to catch him. Alicia gave chase too, her muttered comment only just reaching their ears.

“Oh shit, what now?”

The pair pounded down the length of the dock, timbers bouncing and fire at their backs, terrorists with automatic weapons all around them. Drake fired his Glock again and again, dropping guards where they stood and making a beeline for the end of the dock.

Mai loped along with them. “No boat for us out there,” she said. “Just gators.”

“They’re not gators,” Dahl observed as he ate up the ground. “They’re caimans.”

“Oh, excuse me. So why are we running straight at them?”

Dahl shrugged. “Drake made me do it. Geronimo, motherfucker!”

Both men hit the end of the dock and then jumped, sailing out at full stretch over the churning waters. Alicia and Mai, also running at full tilt, could hardly pull up and followed.

Drake came down hard on the foredeck of a drifting speedboat, scrabbling for a handhold. Dahl landed inside the craft, the white leather seat cushioning his fall. Within a second he was reaching over the windshield for the Yorkshireman.

“Need a hand?”

Then Alicia arrived, knocking him aside, and Mai hit the back end. Drake slithered and slipped across the polished prow, finding a grip for his fingers inside an ornamental venting. An enormous barge spun them around as it bashed their front end, its guards staring across the waters and not even seeing them below deck line. Alicia found herself in the driver’s seat and rammed the vessel into gear. A jerky instant take-off sent Drake skidding up the prow to within Dahl’s reach. He clambered into the boat and then they were threading through heavy traffic.

Alicia guided the craft in pursuit of Ramses, piloting them between barges and skiffs lined by desperate men. Bullets whizzed between them and wreckage burned on the river. Bodies and boats floated alongside, flames licked at their hull as they parted blazing debris. Alicia opened the throttle again, lifting the prow and churning water at their backs. An avenue opened ahead. The Englishwoman spun the wheel, aiming the speedboat left and right. An overturned dinghy blocked her way.

“There.” Mai pointed at another gap.

Alicia steered the speedboat through. Ahead, Ramses’ men were similarly impeded. The enormous figure stood facing the front, not even deigning to take a look back at his burning epitaph. Akatash watched Drake.

As they powered down the river, Dahl and Drake took up rifles and loosed some major firepower into the escaping barges. Large caliber rounds blasted through windows, portholes, door and bows. Guards fell sprawling to their deaths. Drake ducked as a volley was returned.

“What the hell?” Alicia cried out. “You’re attracting their attention.”

But Mai knew what they were doing. “This is about what’s right. We do this for free, any day of the week. A dead terrorist can’t plot a bombing now, can he?”

Alicia slowed the craft as it passed a larger barge. “Good point. Give ’em a hundred or so slugs for lunch, boys.”

Drake and Dahl peppered the boat with lead, then threw grenades through the holes. Huge explosions erupted behind them and detonated over the width of the river, reverberating back and forth and causing the trees to shake. Caimans slid into the water and other river creatures gathered to feast as the barges began to sink. Cheers went up from surrounding boats a moment before Drake and Dahl turned their weapons on them.

Two RPGs streaked by overhead, exploding out of sight. A whirling chopper screamed away, banking sharply and rising toward the gap in the canopy that snaked above the river. Another dogged their movements as if trying to get a bead on them. A third set down hard on the far bank, disgorging men who appeared to have been ordered to obliterate a particular barge. Alicia cursed them for their greed and viciousness and then turned her attention back to Ramses’ escape and rapidly began to close the gap.

Drake saw a figure amid the tumult, a running black streak on the opposite bank and knew that Beauregard ran with them. The Frenchman approached the recently set-down chopper, a slice of darkness sent out of the forest to grab a little retribution. As they approached Ramses’ craft Akatash shouted orders and then simply wrenched an RPG from the hands of a legionnaire, aimed it at their speedboat and fired all in the blink of an eye.

The rocket flew unerringly, straight at them!