The Spear of Atlantis (Wilde/Chase 14)

by Andy McDermott

  Eddie heard a new noise above the crashes and thumps of the Toyota’s overworked suspension. ‘Chopper’s coming in!’ He glimpsed the Apache’s angular dragonfly silhouette between the moving mirrors, feeling a rush of fear. If he could see it, it could shoot them.

  But the chain gun remained silent. Instead, the gunship drew closer, its rotor downwash kicking up a whirlwind of sand. Dust blew in through the smashed windows. ‘What’s it doing?’ said Nina, coughing.

  ‘Marking us,’ her husband reported, ‘so Alula can zap us!’

  ‘Why would she do that?’ asked Lobato. ‘It would be much easier for the helicopter to shoot us.’

  ‘Never underestimate the human element,’ said Nina. ‘She’s pissed at us and wants to kill us personally!’

  Eddie saw another line of pylons some way ahead. He tracked them back to their source: one of the power storage units. ‘Gideon, you said the system shut down to protect the batteries, right?’

  ‘Yes,’ Lobato replied.

  ‘So how long would it shut down for if the batteries got fucked up?’

  ‘Until the batteries were . . . un-fucked up.’ The obscenity sounded almost comically strange in his precise, accented voice, but nobody had time to laugh.

  ‘Nina—’ Eddie began.

  ‘Already on it,’ she replied. ‘Hold on!’ She made a hard turn to angle downhill towards the storage block.

  The Apache followed, dropping lower. The beam sliced across the desert bowl after them. Nina weaved between the masts towards the power unit. What looked from a distance like a single white building was now revealed as a cluster of closely packed modules, fat skeins of cables connecting them. They would reach it in seconds.

  But the ravenous beam was right behind them, the scorching heat rising again.

  ‘Nina!’ warned Eddie.

  ‘I’m doing it!’ she said, pushing the accelerator all the way down.

  ‘I mean it!’

  ‘I’m doing it!’ The wheel kicked in her hands as the SUV pounded over the rough ground; at this speed, she was more guiding than controlling it. There was a gap between the banks of modules, access for maintenance vehicles. She forced the car towards it—

  The air around them glowed, the cabin temperature rocketing.

  Heliostats exploded, metal flashing white-hot. The Toyota’s rear paintwork burst into flames even before the blinding beam reached it, the remaining windows cracking. Eddie dropped over the Emir to shield him, but he knew it was too late—

  The blinding light faded.

  Nina braked hard, skidding the SUV into the concrete channel between the white blocks. ‘We’re in!’ she gasped. They were shielded from the beam, and another safety shutdown had already triggered as the battery banks overheated, locking the mirrors in place. Safe!

  Or not. ‘No, no, get out!’ cried Lobato, looking in alarm at the nearest module. Smoke belched from its ventilation louvres.

  ‘What’s happening?’ Eddie demanded.

  ‘They are lithium-ion batteries,’ the billionaire replied as Nina hurriedly set off again. ‘Just like laptop batteries, but hundreds of times larger. If they get too hot, they explode!’

  ‘Great move bringing ’em to the fucking desert, then!’ shouted Eddie.

  The Land Cruiser’s rear end was still on fire, trailing smoke and flame as it surged through the storage unit, but bigger blazes were sweeping through the modules. A sizzling hiss rose over the clamour of the hovering helicopter: a battery bank igniting under the pitiless beam—

  It blew apart. Its neighbours following suit in a catastrophic chain reaction.

  Alula’s triumph at the sight of the distant SUV wreathed in flame vanished as the vehicle disappeared behind a white building – and then the controls cut out again. ‘What’s wrong?’ she barked.

  ‘The beam set fire to one of the battery units!’ said the technician. ‘The whole system has shut down!’

  A new warning flashed on the screen, and unlike its predecessor, this one did not disappear. The princess pounded her fists on the console in frustration. ‘Hashim!’ she snapped. ‘Order the gunship to kill them!’

  Al-Asim raised his walkie-talkie, but an explosion caught their attention. ‘We may not need to,’ he said.

  ‘Oh shit!’ Nina cried as another detonation shook the storage unit. A large piece of electrical equipment blocked what she had hoped was the route out of the battery block, forcing her to slow and make a sharp turn. Sizzling meteorites rained around the SUV, burning lumps of lithium from the ruptured batteries. ‘The whole thing’s gonna go up!’

  There was a junction box in her path, but there was nowhere else to go. She floored the accelerator. The flaming Toyota lunged forward. ‘Brace!’ she shouted.

  The big 4x4 smashed into the obstruction and ripped it out of the ground, one corner of the hood crumpling upwards. Eddie kept hold of the Emir, for the first time hearing a response from the wounded man as he gasped in pain. ‘I’ve got you!’ the Yorkshireman told him. ‘It’s going to be okay—’

  A sizzling hiss from behind – and several modules blew apart as one. Debris showered the fleeing vehicle as it vaulted off the storage unit’s concrete base.

  Nina and Lobato both screamed – then their cries were cut off by the airbags firing as the SUV slammed down, the front suspension collapsing.

  They couldn’t stop, though. More battery blocks were exploding behind them. Nina kept the power on, the still-functioning rear wheels forcing the mangled vehicle through the sand—

  A heliostat tower loomed ahead.

  She turned the wheel. Nothing happened. The steering column had snapped. ‘Hang on!’ she cried as she braked. The burning Toyota ground to a standstill just a few feet short of the mast.

  Eddie released the belt holding the Emir and opened the rear door. ‘Out, out!’ he shouted, hauling the semi-conscious man with him. ‘This thing’ll blow up any second!’

  Nina needed no urging. She ran past the heliostat, looking for the gunship. The Apache had moved well clear after the first explosion, only now starting to circle back towards them. ‘Gideon, get out of sight!’ she yelled to the white-clad man as he staggered from the burning SUV. ‘Eddie, come on!’

  Eddie had no time for medical niceties. He raised the Emir in a fireman’s lift and lumbered down the slope after his wife. Catching up with the limping Lobato, he pulled the other man with him under another heliostat. ‘Get down! It’s gonna expl—’

  The flat whump of escaping fuel igniting warned that his prediction was accurate. He dropped into a barely controlled skid to land beside the base of the mast. Lobato tumbled down next to him as the SUV exploded in a raging fireball.

  ‘Jesus!’ said Nina. ‘Is everyone okay?’

  ‘I am no worse off than before,’ said Lobato shakily.

  ‘Help me with the Emir,’ Eddie grunted, struggling to lift Fadil. Between them they laid the injured man on his back as gently as they could. He was half awake, face screwed up in pain. The Yorkshireman looked at his chest wound. ‘Shit, it’s still bleeding. If I don’t do something soon, he’ll die. How far to this place with the medical centre?’

  Lobato pointed at the hangar-like buildings near the top of the bowl. ‘Over there.’

  ‘It must be half a mile away,’ said Nina. ‘We’ll never get there – not with that chopper after us!’ The Apache was now coming back towards them.

  Eddie stared at the approaching aircraft, then up the slope at the erupting power storage unit. He jumped to his feet. ‘You two carry the Emir,’ he said. ‘Stay behind the mirrors so they can’t see you.’ He helped them lift the wounded man, then stepped back, still watching the helicopter.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Nina asked.

  ‘Away from you. They’ll start shooting any second, and you don’t want to be anywhere near where the shells land!’

  ‘I remember,’ Nina said grimly. She still had a shrapnel scar from her last face-off against an Apache. ‘Gideon, come on!
’

  They hurried into the blind spot behind the heliostat, then Eddie broke into a run. He followed a weaving course, ducking in and out of sight amongst the huge reflectors. If he was lucky, the chopper’s crew wouldn’t realise that only one of the fleeing group was moving . . .

  Some sixth sense screamed in warning. He dropped low – as the heliostat behind him was ripped apart by a storm of explosive 30 mm cannon shells, fragmented glass and aluminium adding to the lethal spray of high-velocity fragments.

  The chain gun’s chattering thud reached him, the shells outpacing their own sound. He kept running, swerving as more projectiles punched through the mirrored forest. Most hit the sandy ground, but a few struck the heliostat masts, scattering more deadly fragments.

  Pain shot through his left arm. He yelled, but didn’t stop moving. His leather jacket’s sleeve was ripped as if someone had slashed a razor across it. Two spikes of sharp metal were embedded in his arm. If he hadn’t changed direction, he would have taken many more in his back.

  The gunfire stopped. He glanced back. Where was the Apache? If it went after Nina and the others, they wouldn’t stand a chance . . .

  He spotted it a few hundred metres away, lower than he’d expected. The pilot had dropped to get a better view under the confusing canopy of mirrors.

  A glint of reflected light from the sensor pod on the chopper’s nose as it pivoted towards him. The cannon followed, fire flashing beneath the fuselage. Eddie changed direction, screwing up his eyes against the rising brightness. The air grew hotter, as if he was running towards an open furnace.

  Another mirror disintegrated in a storm of pulverised glass. The gunship swept towards him. A fearsome barrage struck the heliostats, what little shelter they offered shredded by the storm of shells. He kept going, head down as the world exploded around him.

  The Apache’s engine noise became a deafening roar, the sandstorm kicked up by its rotor wash scouring his skin. It thundered at him—

  And burst into flames.

  Eddie threw himself flat as it hurtled past. He was a couple of hundred yards clear of the battery bank, but the heliostats were still locked on to it, focusing the sun’s relentless power – and he had drawn the gunship straight through the beam. Like the car before it, its paintwork instantly ignited, turning the aircraft into a cruciform torch streaking through the sky.

  The Apache lost height, the pilot blinded—

  Its forward landing struts and cannon hit a heliostat, scything it from its mast and pitching the aircraft down still further. It ploughed into the gleaming forest, flung into a spin as it demolished the next mast like a wrecking ball. The whirling rotors hacked through the mirrors, glass and carbon fibre shattering.

  The gunship hit the ground hard, carving a swathe through a bank of solar panels before slamming to a halt against another mast. Both men inside were still alive – the cockpit was designed for maximum survivability even in a crash – but neither was in any condition to pose a threat.

  ‘That’s what I call catching some rays,’ said Eddie, grimacing as he pulled off his shredded jacket to check his arm. Blood was leaking from the two shrapnel wounds, but he would survive.

  He hurried back to Nina. ‘Eddie!’ she called as he approached. ‘Oh my God! Are you okay?’

  ‘I’ll live,’ he replied. ‘How is he?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Nina told him as he checked the Dhajani. ‘I think the bleeding’s slowed, but that’s not necessarily a good sign, is it?’

  ‘Nope.’ The Emir’s face was paler, his breathing shallow. Eddie looked towards the hangars. ‘We’ve got to get him up there. Gideon, are there guards at the test track?’

  ‘None specifically assigned there,’ Lobato replied. ‘The guards for the facility as a whole carry out regular checks.’

  ‘Let’s hope they’re all with Alula, then.’ Eddie picked up the wounded man, Nina and Lobato assisting, and they struck out towards the test centre.

  Alula glared across the solar plant, searching for movement amongst the mirrors, but saw only columns of smoke. ‘I can’t see them, Your Majesty,’ said al-Asim, scanning the facility through binoculars. ‘They must be dead.’

  ‘I won’t believe that – I can’t believe that – until someone finds their bodies,’ she said. ‘Order the guards to search for them. And call in more forces from Dhajan City. They can’t be allowed to escape, or to warn anyone what’s happened. Cut the landlines and shut down the cellular network.’

  Al-Asim handed the binoculars back to the technician, then picked up the spearhead. ‘Just here at the facility, or . . .’

  Alula knew the implications of the unspoken words. ‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘It’s time. Over the whole country.’

  ‘It’s sooner than planned,’ he cautioned. ‘Not everybody will be ready.’

  ‘They’ll have to improvise. Give the order – Dhajan is now under martial law. Then start my helicopter.’ She regarded the cosmic forces seething inside the crystal with almost predatory anticipation. ‘I have a ship to catch.’

  40

  The journey to the test centre under the unblinking sun left the fugitives sweating, parched and exhausted. They reached the entrance with relief, but Nina looked around at a distant noise. The other helicopter was taking off. ‘Oh crap.’

  But rather than come after them, it headed north. Eddie watched it go. ‘Must be Alula going back to Dhajan City.’

  ‘Or the Pacifia,’ she said. ‘She’s still got the spearhead.’

  Lobato went to the entrance and, grimacing in pain, pressed the palm of his injured hand against a touchscreen. The mirrored doors slid open. ‘The medical unit is in here,’ he said, limping through.

  Eddie paused, seeing a vehicle following a road through the solar plant towards them. ‘Shit. They’ll be here in a couple of minutes.’

  ‘Can you stabilise him before they get here?’ asked Nina as they carried the Emir inside.

  ‘I might be able to get the bullet out, but that’s all.’ His eyes adjusted to the soft light. While the building was a test facility, it was also a showcase for Lobato’s technology, the spacious lobby home to display stands bearing large photographs and scale models of his electric vehicles. ‘Christ, it looks like a car dealership. Think we could buy one while we’re here?’

  ‘It’d be a fast way out,’ Nina replied.

  She had meant it as a joke, but then she caught Eddie’s eye. ‘Oh no,’ she said.

  ‘Oh yes,’ he countered with a grin. ‘Gideon!’

  Lobato looked back. ‘Yes?’

  ‘This place is where you test your cars, right?’

  ‘Yes?’

  The Yorkshireman’s smile widened. ‘So let’s have a test drive.’

  An SUV bearing the solar facility’s logo pulled up outside the portico. Three guards emerged, drawing their guns. ‘They definitely went inside,’ said the leader into a radio, peering at the doors but seeing only himself and his companions reflected in the mirrored glass. ‘I can’t see through the windows, though.’

  ‘Go in and kill them,’ was al-Asim’s blunt response. ‘That’s a direct order from Her Majesty. Everyone in that building is a threat to Dhajan and must be eliminated. Everyone. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said the guard, recognising which way the political wind had blown. He replaced the radio on his belt. ‘Move in.’

  The trio advanced cautiously, the leader sidling to the touchscreen. ‘You two cover me. If you see anyone inside, shoot them.’

  His companions took their positions. The guard reached up, then hesitated at a noise over the constant whip of wind across the desert. He looked around, but saw nothing. ‘What’s that?’

  The other men tipped their heads. There was a new sound, a soft, purring whisper, but it was getting louder.

  Getting closer, fast—

  The mirrored windows burst apart as a sleek and futuristic car smashed through them.

  Nina jinked the electric-blue super
car between the guards as they dived out of her way, then swung it towards the pit lane leading to the test track. The cockpit was beyond crowded. Lobato’s pride and joy had only three seats, Nina’s in the centre with the other two behind on each side. Lobato himself was on the left, the Emir tightly buckled into the right, with Eddie forced to squeeze into a small luggage space behind his wife.

  The tinkle of glass faded, replaced as she accelerated by . . . almost nothing. The Raiju was eerily quiet, a muted whine from its electric motors the only sound – except for the distinctly 1970s tune her husband was humming. ‘What’s that?’ she asked.

  ‘The Professionals theme,’ he replied. She could tell from his tone that he was smirking.

  ‘I don’t even want to know . . .’

  Gunshots cracked behind them. Carbon fibre splintered as one of the swooping wings sculpted into the rear bodywork took a hit, but the car’s mechanical components were undamaged. Nina glanced at where she expected to see a wing mirror, finding instead a small screen set into the window’s bottom corner. The rapidly shrinking figures on it sent a few last rounds after them, then ran for their SUV. ‘Hope this thing’s as fast as it looks.’

  ‘It is faster,’ said Lobato, wrapping her headscarf around his wounded hand. She gave him a sardonic glance as she brought the car into the pit exit, then floored the accelerator.

  The response felt more like a rocket than a road vehicle, G-forces kicking her into the seat. ‘Oh my God!’ she squealed. ‘This ain’t no Prius!’

  ‘Nina, ease off!’ Eddie barked as the semi-conscious Emir gasped in pain. ‘You’ll put the bullet out through his bloody back!’

  ‘Sorry,’ she said, glancing at the speedometer as she lifted her foot. They were already doing – she blanched – a hundred and seventy kilometres per hour, over a hundred mph. Despite that, the Raiju felt firmly planted on the road, boosting her confidence. ‘I don’t think we’ll have trouble outrunning them. How fast can it go?’

  ‘This car was recently upgraded, but has not yet been fully tested, so I do not know,’ said Lobato.