Ted Bell - Spy

“I don’t think I see any bridge!” Caparina cried. The chasm was looming and she looked like she might jump off. “Do we stay on, Harry?”

It was clearly poop or get off the pot time, Harry saw. The ravine was wide and deep. Hundreds of yards across. Mist was rising out of it so there was probably a river at the bottom. Yeah, he could hear it thundering down there. Rapids.

“Bridge directly ahead!” Saladin shouted. “I’m not sure it will take our weight!”

Harry could see it now. There was a suspension bridge stretching across the chasm. The bridge reached five hundred yards across the ravine and was ten feet wide. A metal grating ran right up the middle of the thing. On the far side, a sheer cliff descended a thousand feet to the river. The bridge angled slightly upward. There was some kind of structure over there on the opposite cliff, barely visible at the edge of the forest. For a second, Harry dared to hope that they had discovered an entry point into Top’s military compound.

“Harry? Jump, or not? Make the call!”

Tough call to make. The cabled bridge looked wide enough to accommodate their stubby vehicle, but could it hold the weight of the one-ton “Troll” plus three pasajeros? That was the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question, and they were rapidly coming up on a drop-dead decision. Think, Harry.

Whoever was driving this thing obviously knew where he was going. If he was taking the bridge route home now, he’d clearly done it before. It had to hold.

Harry said, “We’ve got a better chance on this damn thing than we do on foot. We stay on.”

Both of them looked at him for a second and then turned their attention back to the looming bridge. They were twenty yards away. Harry used the moment to ready his weapon, as did Saladin and Caparina. You could feel the nervous tension aboard. Good nervous, the kind that gave you an edge.

They rolled into a narrow clearing. Clouds of mist were rising from the river gorge, and Harry watched a flock of snowy egrets slowly winging their way across the chasm. A forest of stunted trees grew from the cliff face. The trees were so smothered with the white birds, they gave the appearance of heavy snowfall. His eye picked up movement on the far side. When he looked again, he saw nothing over there but the squat cliff-top structure he’d seen a minute earlier.

“See that building over there?” Saladin asked.

“Yeah. Doesn’t look good,” Harry warned, keeping his voice low for some strange reason. “Everybody be ready.”

“Think we’re expected?” Saladin asked.

“Doesn’t matter,” Harry said. “All we can do is ride the tiger.”

“I’m not liking this,” Caparina said, when they were but a few yards from the bridge. Harry wished like hell she was on the back and he was up front with Saladin, but it was too late to manage anything like that now.

“It’s adventure,” Harry said to her. “Think how dull life would be without it.”

“Yeah,” she said, unconvinced.

They rolled onto the bridge.

It swayed and sagged perceptibly under the weight of the one-ton tank. Harry racked the slide on his PP-19 Bizon, chambering a round. The gun felt good in his hands, and he was certainly glad of it now. So far, the bridge seemed to be holding their weight, no problem. They were already a couple of hundred yards across, nearing the center of the damn thing. The point of no return.

There was some kind of low white building at the far end of the bridge. But no visible human activity so far.

That was the last happy thought Harry had on the bridge.

“Shit, another Troll,” Hassan said.

Caparina said, “What the hell do we do now, Harry?”

Harry looked at the tank coming fast from the other bank. It was a good question. He turned the options over rapidly. The oncoming tank could be on routine patrol. No. That wouldn’t make sense because this new one was sending back a live feed of them right now. Surely the operator on the other side had seen them? If they jumped and retreated, they’d just have to take their chances on foot later.

“Sit tight,” Harry said. Better to stay aboard and try to take out the oncoming enemy vehicle. It was the only prayer they had of ever getting across. Harry needed to find out what was on the other side.

“Go for the camera,” Harry said. “Blind it. Give it another twenty seconds to get in range and open up.”

“What if it shoots first?” Caparina said, reasonably enough.

“We shoot back.”

When the opposing tank was one hundred yards away, the twin barrels of its forward machine guns opened fire.

“Here we go!” Caparina said, loosing a long burst at the tank.

Saladin braced himself and started returning fire. He loosed a long sustained burst and saw rounds ricochet off the Troll. None of this fire seemed to have any effect on the armored tank. Caparina kept firing. She stayed low behind the steel mud-guard which afforded her a little protection. Harry was having a hard time getting a line of sight with Saladin directly in front of him. Then Hassan fell back. He was hit. He’d let go of the grab rail. A leg wound was spraying blood into Harry’s face.

“Grab the rail!” Harry shouted.

Too late, Harry tried scrambled forward to grab the man. But the tank lurched and Saladin pitched sideways, sliding from the tank. Caparina screamed. Her ex would have fallen into the chasm, too, but he caught the suspension cable and hung on somehow, his feet dangling in air. How long could he hold on like that?

Riding the tank up front was now clearly suicide. “Jump!” Harry yelled at Caparina. “Jump, damn it!” But she didn’t. She stayed with it, riding the damn Troll, leveling ferocious fire at the oncoming tank.

“Last chance!” Harry cried, squeezing his Bizon’s trigger and trying desperately to blind the damn robot.

“Only chance!” she shouted back. “I’m going to knock out that camera!”

“Suit yourself, I’m going back to get Saladin!” Harry screamed at her just before he leapt off the tank. What were you going to do with a girl like that?

He landed hard on the metal grating and scrambled to his feet, bringing his gun up as he whirled around. The tank carrying Caparina now seemed to be accelerating toward the oncoming Troll. It was as if the controllers of both vehicles had finally wised up and wanted to bring this firefight to a speedy conclusion.

Harry raced toward Saladin, saw his white-knuckled grip on the bridge cable. A thousand feet below his dangling feet, the thunderous river waited.

“Saladin! Hold on! I’m coming,” Harry said, looking back once more at the girl. Shit. She was still aboard the tank.

Harry shouted, “Are you crazy? Get the hell off that thing!”

She turned briefly and shouted something to him but her voice was lost in the loud crack of gunfire. He ran for Saladin.

At that moment, an explosion rocked the bridge. Caparina’s fuel tank had blown. Had she jumped? Christ. He’d been concentrating on Saladin and hadn’t seen her. Was she blown off the bridge by the explosion? He couldn’t see anything, just a fiery wreck dangling half off the bridge with black smoke billowing up. He stared into the smoke with disbelieving eyes, the intense heat burning his cheeks. No scent of roast pig in his nostrils, no visible trace of a girl’s charred corpse.

He waded into the black clouds determined to find her or what was left of her. He saw winking muzzles and heard rounds whistle overhead. The second Troll, blinded by smoke, had ridden right up and over the flaming wreck and was bearing down on him.

Harry had no choice in this matter. He turned around and started running back for Hassan. He ran like a madman, which he probably was, dodging this way and that on the swinging bridge; and he kept waiting for the stitch of rounds across his back.