Adam Baker - Juggernaut

The guy had fired seven shots. The Glock held fifteen rounds. Plenty left in the clip.

He crept further forward. He wanted to dispatch Huang with a quick, clean headshot.

Flicker of movement in the periphery of his vision. Lucy and Voss at the temple entrance. They stood in silhouette. He couldn’t see their faces, but he could tell by their posture they were looking right at him.

Fleeting plan: maybe he could bluff it out. Tell them: ‘ Huang went crazy. He started shooting. Must have been delirious. I had to finish him off. ’

He was lit by the cabin lights of the chopper. They could see the pistol in his hand: smoke curling from the thick suppressor. An assassin’s weapon.

Radio crackle. Huang shouting into the throat-mike of his TASC headset.

‘ It was Gaunt. Fucking double-cross. ’

Gaunt fired at the silhouettes. Thud of suppressed gunshots. Smack of bullets hitting stone.

He snatched his backpack from the pilot cabin and ran.

He heard the crack of rifle-fire. Heavy shotgun roar. Flagstones and masonry erupted around him. Rock dust and stone chips. Double-nought buckshot and cupronickel penetrator rounds shattered brickwork.

He heard Lucy shouting to Voss:

‘Don’t hit the choppers.’

A bullet grazed Gaunt’s ear. The shrill shriek of a high-velocity round streaking past his head. Burst eardrum. A shockwave like a hand slap. Reek of sulphur and cordite. He fell. He staggered to his feet and kept running. He swayed. He stumbled. Balance shot to hell.

He ran into darkness. He scrambled over titanic blocks of stone. Each boot-scuff betrayed his position and brought down a fresh volley from Lucy and Voss as they fired blind into shadow

He crossed a cloistered forecourt and threw himself behind a broken archway. He was sweating. His hands and face steamed in the cold night air.

Pop. Hiss. An illumination round streaked skyward and burned brilliant white as it drifted to earth. The rubble around him lit with shifting, sliding shadows.

He looked back towards the distant choppers. Lucy heading his way, pointing, shouting.

He shouldered his backpack and ran as bullets smacked into the wrecked cloister buildings. Whip and whine of incoming rounds. A bullet plucked at the sleeve of his leather jacket.

He sprinted down sand-choked colonnades and across courtyards, slowing to a walk as the sky-flare sputtered out leaving him in deep shadow, lost in primal ruins.

Raphael got to his feet. He staggered. He swayed. He turned to face Huang. He fumbled at his drop holster and drew his pistol.

Face-off. Huang and Raphael, pistols raised, each trying to focus.

Huang was pale and sweating. His lips were blue.

Blood trickled down Raphael’s face. He wiped his eyes. He spat.

Huang pulled the trigger. Click. Jammed. He threw the pistol. It bounced off Raphael’s shoulder.

Raphael struggled to aim his automatic. He tried to squeeze the trigger. The pistol slid through bloody fingers like wet soap and fell in the dirt alongside his rifle.

Raphael staggered to the chopper and fell against the fuselage. He slid along riveted aluminium to the pilot cabin and hauled himself inside. He flicked toggle switches. He wiped blood from his eyes. A gentle whine built to a scream as the rotor began to spin up.

Lucy and Voss stood among the citadel ruins. They surveyed a vista of moonlit rubble. Cloisters and courtyards. Jagged pillars. Half-fallen archways.

Amanda’s voice over the radio:

‘ What the hell is going on? ’

‘We’ve got problems. I need you to guard the truck, all right? Look out for Jabril.’

‘ Okay. ’

‘If Gaunt comes calling, shoot him in the fucking face.’

‘ Ten four. ’

Lucy turned to Voss.

‘He won’t go far,’ said Lucy. ‘We’ve got the gold. We’ve got the choppers. He’s got no food or water. There’s nowhere for him to run.’

‘He’s still armed. The little shit will pick us off if he gets the chance.’

‘Let’s get back to the temple. We can send Mandy out here with the nightscope. Should even the odds. Put her up one of the guard towers. One man among all this stone. He’ll stand out like neon.’

‘Tell her to knee-cap the fuck. Shoot him in the gut, or something. I want him to suffer.’

They heard the escalating whine of Talon preparing for dust-off.

‘Damn. Raphael.’

‘Motherfucker.’

They sprinted back towards the main courtyard.

Lucy ran towards the chopper. She was dazzled by light, blasted by a squalling dust storm. She glimpsed Raphael through cockpit glass. She waved her arms. She made cut-throat, shut-off gestures. She shouted to be heard over rising engine noise.

Escalating RPMs. Shredded netting wound round the rotor mast.

‘Kill the fucking engine. You’re losing the rotor.’

Raphael glimpsed Lucy. She was caught in the nose-light glare, battling to stay upright in typhoon wind. She was shouting. He couldn’t hear words.

He pulled back the collective. He fumbled pitch control. The chopper rose and hovered.

He clawed blood from his eyes. The helicopter drifted backward as he tried to clear his vision. The tail rotor threatened to slice into the side of Bad Moon like the blade of a table saw.

Huang rolled out of the cargo compartment. He tumbled from the doorway and hooked a skid with his arm. He hung, legs swinging, then dropped onto flagstones.

The gearbox beneath the snarled rotor mast began to vent smoke. Alarms. Transmission pressure. BIM warning. Loss of hydraulic power.

Raphael blinked and shook his head. He tried to see straight. He tried to focus. He nudged the cyclic control with his knee and the chopper lurched forward, gathering speed.

Lucy threw herself to the ground. She covered her head. Dazzling light and cyclone wind as the Huey skimmed overhead. Rotor-wash tugged her clothes.

Chopper skids raked the flagstones, jetting sparks. Raphael cleared his vision, just as the helicopter slammed into the stump of a massive granite column.

Metal shriek. Explosion of glass. The chopper’s nose crumpled, crushing Raphael’s legs.

The Huey rolled on its side. The rotor blades sparked on flagstones then fragmented, strafing the compound with jagged shrapnel. The engine screamed high-revs then died. The broken knuckle of the rotor mast slowed to a stop.

Lucy could hear the glug of spilled liquid. Voss shone his flashlight. Fuel and hydraulic fluid washed across the paving slabs. Pungent stink of diesel.

The transmission assembly began to smoke and spark.

‘Fuck. We could lose both choppers.’

Lucy searched through gear discarded from the Hueys. Bench seats and life preservers. She threw debris aside. She snatched up an extinguisher and ran back to Talon . She pulled the pin and directed a jet of foam into the main rotor housing.

She tossed the spent extinguisher.

Huang sat on flagstones. He looked down at his vest. A fine splatter of blood, bone chips and tufts of hair.

‘Christ.’

Voss gave him a do-rag. He clumsily wiped Toon’s blood from his arms and face.

A boot protruded from beneath a bundle of tarpaulin. Lucy hauled canvas from the body. Her torch lit Toon’s pulped head. A glistening mess.

‘Poor bastard,’ said Voss. ‘Cover him up. I can’t look at him.’

She lay Toon’s sweat towel over his shattered face. A dark stain spread across the fabric as blood soaked into the towel.

‘We take him back,’ said Lucy.

‘Might be tricky,’ said Voss. He gestured to Bad Moon .

Lucy shone her flashlight over the second Huey. A chunk of rotor had speared the windshield and shattered the centre console. Flight controls reduced to a mess of wire and circuit boards.