The Prisoner's Gold

20

Cobb stomped on the accelerator as McNutt climbed into the rear storage compartment of the SUV. He had plenty of weapons to choose from, but one in particular caught his eye.

‘Hurry up!’ Cobb shouted. ‘The chopper’s coming back around!’

‘Weave or something! I need a little time!’

Cobb jerked the wheel back and forth while McNutt flipped back over the seat and landed in a puddle of blood and guts that had pooled on the leather. The middle third of the vehicle looked like a slaughterhouse, and McNutt, coated from head to toe in Ali’s innards, looked like something that had crawled out of Hell and planned to attack Gotham City. He shoved the dead man aside to make room for the artillery he had just dragged from his arsenal.

Cobb swung the SUV wide, taking it completely off the asphalt and onto the hard-packed dirt shoulder to avoid yet another mountain of abandoned construction gravel left in the middle of the road. The conditions were taxing the Land Cruiser’s shocks, but Cobb was forced to increase his speed to outrun the helicopter.

A few seconds later the road cleared and Cobb yanked the wheel back to the right. The Land Cruiser bounced onto the asphalt just as a line of bullets tore into the dirt on the side of the road. Cobb checked his side-view mirror and caught a glimpse of the gray Mi-171E. It was charging after them close behind, trying to get the shooter the best angle of fire.

‘Hold on,’ Cobb yelled, dragging the wheel hard.

The SUV careened to the other side of the road as yet another stream of metallic death chewed into the blacktop where the vehicle had just been. The truck bounced across the hard, rocky soil, then off the shoulder completely and down a small embankment. The dead guide flew into the air like a prop from Weekend at Bernie’s, bouncing off the roof and landing face-first on McNutt’s lap.

‘What the fuck!’ McNutt screamed as he shoved the dead body again.

‘Sorry!’ Cobb yelled.

‘I wasn’t talking to you! I was talking to Ali! He keeps touching me!’

Cobb didn’t question it. He was too busy driving.

Once he regained his composure, McNutt kicked open his door — and then he kicked it again and again until the whole thing ripped off the hinges and went tumbling away. His renovation left a gaping hole in the right side of the Land Cruiser. ‘Gimme a little more warning before you do that again! I need to set this up!’

‘Who are you talking to now?’ Cobb asked.

‘You!’ McNutt shouted. ‘I’m talking to you!’

Cobb’s eyes darted to the rearview for a second, trying to figure out what McNutt was doing. He turned his attention back to the countryside just in time to avoid a large stretch of boulders in the terrain. ‘Right! Turning right!’

McNutt braced for the turn.

Unfortunately, Ali did not.

The leaking corpse attacked yet again, this time flopping its arm over McNutt’s shoulder as if the dead guide was trying to hug him from behind. Making matters worse, the centrifugal force of the sudden turn pushed liquid from the bullet holes in Ali’s chest. Blood and other bodily fluids squirted onto McNutt’s neck and ran down the back of his shirt.

‘Aaaaaagggghhhhhh!’ McNutt screamed.

‘What’s wrong? What happened?’

‘First he tried to blow me. Now he tried to bang me!’

Enraged and disgusted by the offense, McNutt turned around and punched the dead guide in his face to teach him a lesson. Instead, the force of the blow popped the corpse’s eyes wide open, startling McNutt so much that he actually believed Ali had come back to life. Worried for his own life and the survival of the human race, McNutt instinctively pushed the body out of the moving truck before the zombie transformation could take full effect.

Meanwhile, Cobb hit the edge of the road as fast as he dared. The Land Cruiser caught air for just a second before smashing down again onto the embankment. He straightened the vehicle and poured on the speed while he could. When Cobb hazarded a glance back, McNutt was finishing the installation of a swivel mount that clamped to the bottom of the doorframe and would hold his M60 machine gun in place when he fired. Otherwise, the recoil would be tough to control.

‘Nice!’ Cobb shouted.

McNutt connected the rifle to the mount and the ammunition belt he had placed on the floor of the SUV. Then he wrapped his finger around the trigger. ‘Ready when you are, chief!’

Cobb turned to find the chopper, which was now flying low on their right rear flank. He jerked the wheel to the right, cutting across the road on a nearly perpendicular path. The maneuver sent them bounding across the uneven soil, but it also gave McNutt and his weapon a direct line of sight.

The sniper zeroed in on his target and squeezed.

The M60 let loose with the distinctive chuff-chuff-chuff noise of the massive weapon’s 600-rounds-a-minute rate of fire. Both men watched as the pilot swung the helicopter upward into a vertical position, trying to avoid the onslaught. Never in his wildest dreams could he have expected such firepower from inside a vehicle, and now it was already too late. The fuel tank ruptured, showering a spray of glistening gas all over the road only moments before the tail smashed to the ground. The fuselage crumpled and then burst entirely, encasing the occupants in a grave of twisted metal and broken glass.

But it was the rotors that sealed their fate.

The blades striking asphalt kicked up sparks, quickly igniting the growing pool of aviation fuel. The flames started slowly, running around the crash like a corona until they completely surrounded the wreckage. As expected, there was no huge explosion — fuel tanks caught fire; they didn’t usually explode — and this one had lost most of its fuel to the ground before the flame had climbed. But the inferno quickly consumed those trapped inside.

Just to be sure, McNutt armed himself with an Uzi that he had pulled from the back of the vehicle as Cobb brought the truck to a stop. The Marine limped down the road toward the wreck, looking for survivors. Cobb followed closely behind with a rifle of his own.

The men reached the edge of the blaze just as the fire on the pavement was going out, but the interior of the chopper still burned. Smoke billowed out of the shattered windows, filling the air with the scent of charred flesh that was eerily similar to the tang of a good steak.

McNutt caught a whiff. ‘Smells like ribs.’

Cobb blocked the thought from his mind and focused on the remains instead. He could see that the helicopter wasn’t military, which meant that it was most likely more security guards from back in Loulan. Cobb didn’t know why their opponents from the mine had been so tenacious, but he was just glad the pursuit was over … for now.

He glanced across the rocky soil and the craggy hills of the distant landscape. They needed to get out of the country in a hurry, before reinforcements showed up. And hopefully before the Chinese Army caught their scent. The only thing they had going for them was the sheer remoteness of the region. If they got a move on, no one would be able to connect them with the mess here.

‘Let’s go.’

‘You know,’ McNutt mumbled, ‘we should probably—’

Before he could finish, he collapsed to the ground in a heap.

Cobb rushed to the man’s side. He quickly realized that the Marine had a bullet wound in his left thigh that was gushing thick arterial blood. He looked up and followed the trail of dark brown fluid smeared across the asphalt, winding its way back to the abused SUV. He hadn’t noticed the bleeding before, and McNutt hadn’t said a word. Given the rush of adrenaline that came with being attacked, he wondered if the soldier had even noticed.

Cobb tore off his shirt and stuffed it into the gaping wound. Then he ripped off the bloody shirt on McNutt’s torso and quickly wrapped it around the man’s leg, holding the makeshift bandage into place over the injury. After tending to the wound, Cobb set about dragging McNutt away from the smoke and fumes of the sizzling helicopter.

Cobb lifted him in a fireman’s carry, then turned toward the distant Land Cruiser. Three hundred yards away never looked so far.

He began to curse in his head.

Everything that could have gone wrong on this rekky had. Now he desperately needed medical attention for McNutt. After which he would have to get himself and his wounded companion out of the country — all without an interpreter and while evading any connection with the turmoil here and back at the mine. Cobb didn’t even know how to find the Marine escorts that would smuggle them back across the border.

After a moment of self-pity, he berated himself for drifting into negative thinking and refocused on the task at hand. Cobb felt sure he could find a small doctor’s office in Kashgar and get help. He just needed to stay calm and focused.

Then he saw the smoke billowing from the front of the SUV.

The Land Cruiser’s engine had been hit.

They weren’t driving anywhere, and McNutt was dying.