Part 3 (2/2)
They looked like something out of a Mad Max movie.
They were modified Longline ”Light Strike Vehicles,” or LSVs-ultralight twoseater dune buggies with chunky allterrain tires, hightolerance wishbone suspension, and sleek bodies made only of roll bars and struts.
Jack and Alby were in the first car Zoe and Lily in the second.
”Sky Monster!” Jack called into the radiomike wrapped around his throat. ”We're cut off from you! We're going to have to meet you at the highway! We'll take the east drive and the river crossing.”
”Copy that,”Sky Monster's voice replied.”The highway it is.”
”Jack,”Zoe's voice came in.”Who are these people, and how the h.e.l.l did they find us?”
”I don't know,” Jack said. ”I don't know. But Wizard knew they were coming. He sent us a warning-”
Just then, a storm of bullets chewed a line across the dirt road in front of Jack's car. Jack yanked his steering wheel hard over, blasted through the dust cloud.
The shots had come from a big allterrain vehicle thundering in from the desert plain to the north.
It was a distinctive sixwheeled vehicle, a WZ551 armored personnel carrier built by the Chinese North Industries Corporation for the PLA. Featuring heavy armor and a French made Dragar turret on its top, it had a boxshaped body and a flat prowlike nose that sloped backward underneath it. The Dragar turret boasted a brutish 25mm cannon and a 7.62mm coaxial machine gun.
It was the first of many APCs coming from the north. Jack counted seven...nine...eleven vehicles behind it, plus even more smaller ones, jeeps and trucks, all overflowing with armed troops.
It was the same from the south: men and vehicles had touched down there, discarded their chutes, and were now coming north toward the east drive.
An armada of vehicles coming right at them, from both the north and the south.
Zoe's voice:”Jack! Those APCs look Chinese!”
”I know!”
He keyed his radio scanner, picked up the broadcast frequency for theTalisman Sabre exercises. A voice was shouting:”Red Force Three! Come in! You are way off course for this drop! What the h.e.l.l are you guys doing!”
Clever, West thought. His attackers had made this look like an exercise drop gone wrong.
He evaluated his options.
The east drive led to the Fitzroy River, a northsouthrunning river that was currently full, it being the wet season. A single bridge spanned it. Beyond that river was an old highway which-at one straight section-doubled as West's own private runway.
If his cars could make it across the river before the inrus.h.i.+ng forces cut them off, they could make it to the highway, where they'd rendezvous with Sky Monster.
But a quick glance at the twin columns coming at him from the north and the south revealed a simple mathematical truth: it was going to be close.
West's LSV roared down the dusty east drive.
In the pa.s.senger seat, Alby gripped the roll bar, his eyes wide with terror.
West glanced over at the little boy.
”Bet you never experienced anything likethis at another kid's house over the summer!”
”Nope!” Alby shouted over the whipping wind.
”You a Boy Scout, Alby?”
”Yes!”
”And what's the Boy Scout motto?”
”Be prepared!”
”Absolutely! Now, young man, you're gonna find out why you're not allowed to play on the cattle crossings or the bridge.”
The two LSVs whipped down the dusty road-with their twin hordes of pursuers closing in from either side, converging on them in a Vshaped formation. Giant clouds of dirt rose behind the two incoming forces.
”Zoe! Swing in front!” West called.
Zoe obeyed, pulled her car in front of West's, just as the two cars zoomed over a cattle grid.
As his LSV shot over the grille, however, West swung left, plowing right into a low signpost that read CATTLE CROSSING.
The post-unknown to the casual observer-was equipped with a trip wire that snapped as the LSV shot over it, triggering a concealed mechanism that launched a hundred six p.r.o.nged nails onto the roadway behind the fleeing car.
Alby turned, saw the starshaped nails bounce down onto the road, fanning out all across it, just as the first pursuing jeep-the men on it firing hard-drove right into the field of nails.
Blasting puncture noises ripped the air as all four of the jeep's tires blew and the vehicle skidded and then flipped, spraying men in every direction.
A second jeep suffered a similar fate, but the rest skirted the nail field, bouncing around the suspect section of road.
Alby watched them crash, before turning to face West, who shouted over the wind, ”Be prepared!”
Alby then swung back to see the trailing APCs, slower than the jeeps, reach the nails- with their runflat tires they just thundered right over them, impervious to damage.
Chasing. Pursuing. Hunting.
As she drove, Zoe continued to monitor the airwaves with her car's radio scanner. A moment after the two jeeps crashed, it picked up voices speaking in Mandarin over a secure military frequency.
”Jack!” she called into her own mike. ”I got the bad guys on UHF 610.15!”
In his car, Jack switched to that channel and heard the voices of his enemy speaking Mandarin: ”Heading east in two cars-”
”Ground Force Seven is in pursuit-”
”Ground Force Six is going for the bridge-”
”Command. This is Ground Force Two. We're right on their tail. Please repeat capture instructions-”
A new voice came on the line, a calmer one, one possessing clear authority.
<script>