Andy McDermott - The Midas Legacy

Fingers straining, Eddie clung to the fuel pump as the TEL came around the hairpin. Dirt and stones spat up at his legs. The front wheel was directly below him, the long overhanging cab stretching out ahead with a corpse slumped from the window. The skidding vehicle finally straightened out, swinging him back against its side with a bang. He found purchase on the edge of the deck, dragging himself higher.

The soldier was already back on his feet.

Eddie jerked his hand clear as the man’s boot stamped down. Another strike caught his thumb as he dodged again. He tried to find a new handhold, but the Korean had seen a fresh target: the dangling man’s other hand, gripping the fuel pump. He drew back his leg to strike…

Something caught the moonlight. The knife. It too had skittered across the roof, wedging against a filler cap.

Eddie lunged for it. The soldier saw him move, twisting to kick the weapon away—

The Yorkshireman reached it first.

He drove the blade into the soldier’s Achilles tendon. The Korean screamed, staggering as his leg buckled. Eddie yanked out the knife and rammed it up into his calf muscle, then pulled him forward. The man toppled over the side with a wail that ended suddenly as he hit the road face-first, breaking his neck.

Breathless, Eddie clamped his free hand around the filler cap, then dragged himself back aboard. He didn’t know how many men were still in the cab, but the knife had gone with the soldier, leaving him unarmed again…

A metallic clatter reminded him that there was another weapon to hand. The dead soldier was still hanging from the cab window, his Type 58 rifle dangling on its strap.

Eddie swung down on to the door’s step. One of the soldiers inside saw him and shouted a warning—

It did no good.

The Englishman grabbed the rifle and pointed it through the window, shooting the nearest man. The gun was set to single-shot, but he simply kept pulling the trigger with almost mechanical timing as he swung it towards each new target. The North Koreans screamed and thrashed in their death throes, blood spattering the windscreen.

The driver collapsed over the steering wheel. The transporter slowed as his foot came off the accelerator, but drifted towards the edge of the road — and the steep drop beyond. Eddie hurriedly threw open the door and scrambled inside, stepping over the bodies sprawled across the wide cabin.

White-painted stones flicked through the headlight beams, the huge truck jolting as the front wheel hit the roadside markers—

He shoved the steering wheel to the left. The TEL veered away from the edge. ‘Christ! Too close,’ he muttered.

The driver was not wearing a seat belt. Eddie opened the door and pushed the dead man out before taking his place. The second transporter was pulling away, the jeep having fallen back behind it. Its headlights gave him a glimpse of Nina on the other TEL’s right-hand side — and a soldier making his way down the vehicle towards her.

Jaw set in determination, he declutched and dropped to a lower gear before revving the engine and re-engaging. The truck lurched forward, picking up speed as he raced to aid his wife.

The soldier climbed along the side of the transporter towards Nina, murderous intent clear on his face as he swung around the hydraulic clamp. She hurriedly started back towards the missile’s tail, but not before turning the two levers on the control panel. Forcing the truck to stop by lowering the jacks would at least cause enough confusion to give her some slim chance of escape…

Confusion struck her as her handholds started to move.

The controls weren’t for the jacks, she realised with shock. They were for the missile’s erector system — which was now rising from its bed!

Mighty hydraulic rams whined, pushing the arms supporting the rocket upwards and lifting the great weapon out of its cradle. ‘Oh crap !’ she gasped.

She looked around at a shrill scream. The soldier’s expression was now one of terror: one arm was trapped in the mechanism, dragging him off the footplate as it rose. He squirmed and kicked, trying to free himself, but then a gush of red flowed down the ram’s smooth steel. His agonised shrieks became animalistic as his arm was sheared off with a snap of bone. He fell, thudding off the TEL’s side and cartwheeling into the black valley below.

Nina cringed, then looked back as the lights of the pursuing jeep grew brighter. The vehicle was catching up again. One of the soldiers shouted into a walkie-talkie; a moment later the transporter drifted towards the inside of the road, making room for the 4x4 to draw alongside. A man in the jeep’s rear reached out to pull himself on to the TEL.

A yelled threat in Korean, then he started towards Nina. She hastily reversed direction, starting back towards the cab — only to see a second soldier climb out of it.

Trapped—

Eddie slammed up through the gears as he accelerated in pursuit of the second transporter. He had seen the soldier make the transfer from the jeep behind Nina, and as the road curved, he now saw another man coming at her from the cab. ‘Don’t you bastards ever give up?’ he growled.

The speedometer only went up to seventy kilometres per hour, which with the weight of the missile and its erector crane was highly optimistic, but the needle was still creeping towards the sixty mark. About thirty-five miles per hour, hardly a blistering pace under normal conditions. On this narrow, twisting, precarious route, though, it felt almost supersonic.

He closed on the jeep as it dropped back behind the TEL. The men aboard it had been so focused on Nina that they hadn’t realised the third transporter was under new ownership. They were about to find out, though…

The 4x4’s driver tipped his head up at the mirror as he registered the bright headlights coming up quickly from behind — then looked back in alarm when he saw just how quickly. The jeep swung across the road. Eddie spun the wheel to follow it—

The impact barely shook the massive sixteen-wheeled transporter, but the jeep was almost dragged under its sloping steel prow before the driver managed to veer clear down its left side. Eddie swung after the 4x4 as it braked hard. It clipped one of the truck’s rear wheels and was thrown against the embankment, spinning to an abrupt stop.

The Yorkshireman checked his mirror. Both occupants were still alive, and the jeep had only taken superficial damage, quickly reversing and starting after him again. But the second transporter was his most immediate concern: specifically, the two men clambering along its flanks…

He did a double-take as he realised the missile was no longer lying flat. The erector arms were lifting it from its bed, the rocket about fifteen degrees from horizontal and steadily rising. ‘What the bloody hell have you done?’ he asked as he glimpsed Nina scooting along the truck’s side. The higher the missile got, the more top-heavy and unstable the TEL would become.

The road widened slightly — just enough for the two transporters to fit side by side. If he overtook the other truck, he could force it to stop. But first he had to help Nina.

He swept the transporter back to the outside of the road, its right wheels dangerously close to the crumbling edge. Down a gear, and he accelerated again, the cab’s front corner barely missing the other truck’s protruding launch stand as he swept past. The soldier pursuing Nina turned his head in alarm—

There was a muffled bang as Eddie hit him, followed by considerably wetter thumps as the Korean was ground between the two TELs. Blood spouted up on to the side window. What was left of the dead man disappeared under the juggernaut’s wheels.