Empire of Gold nwaec-7

by Andy McDermott

Macy raised her hands to her mouth, horrified. ‘Oh no. Oh, God. Is – is he okay? Is he . . .’

  Eddie abruptly stood and turned. Nina almost flinched at a frighteningly unrecognisable new aspect to his familiar features. His eyes were wide, clear, intensely focused – but his face was utterly, chillingly blank, devoid of expression. Stone cold. ‘He’s dead,’ he said flatly, pushing past Nina to go to Kit. He picked up the gun from the floor beside him and ejected the magazine. Nine rounds left, plus one in the chamber. He snapped the mag back into place and headed for the stairs, almost barging Macy and Osterhagen aside.

  ‘Eddie, wait!’ Nina shouted. ‘There are too many of them, they’ll kill you!’

  But he was gone. ‘Shit!’ she cried, rushing down the steps after him. ‘Leonard, Macy, stay with Kit!’

  ‘I’m coming with you,’ Macy insisted, following. Osterhagen went to the wounded Indian to examine his injury.

  Eddie ran through the abandoned city, eyes sweeping like radars, hunting for threats. For targets. Nobody there; they had all evacuated the cavern. He reached the reservoir, skirting the top of the entrance shaft to the great gap where the defences had collapsed. He pressed himself against the edge and checked outside.

  The jungle’s colours were muted, clouds having descended. A great pile of broken rubble was strewn across the pool. On the far bank, about fifty yards away, were two of Pachac’s men. Both held AK-47s.

  The knowledge that he was outgunned didn’t cause even a fraction of a second’s hesitation. Eddie whipped round the wall, locking the Steyr on to the centre of mass of the man on the left with mechanical precision. He squeezed the trigger three times. The first shot narrowly missed, kicking up a clod of earth from the ground, but he had already compensated. The second and third bullets hit the rebel in the arm and stomach. He dropped.

  The other man raised his AK. Too late. This time, all three rounds hit their target. The revolutionary fell, blood spurting from his chest.

  Eddie ran down the pile of stones and splashed through the pool to the bank. The first man was still alive, writhing in agony. Without the slightest emotion, Eddie shot him in the head, then shoved the Steyr into his jacket and scooped up an AK-47 before continuing into the jungle.

  Nina reached the ruined wall just in time to see him disappear into the trees. She called his name, but knew she wouldn’t get a response. ‘What’s he doing?’ Macy asked as she caught up.

  ‘He’s going to kill Pachac,’ Nina answered grimly as she began to pick her way down the unstable slope. ‘And everyone with him.’

  Pachac, in the Hummer’s passenger seat, looked back sharply at the distant echo of gunfire. The shots weren’t the distinctive thump of an AK-47 – and the lack of returning Kalashnikov fire suggested that the two men he had left to guard the cave were dead.

  He tried his phone. No signal. Even though they had reached the road, there was still no reception; the nearest cell mast was several kilometres away in the village down the winding mountain valley. That meant the survivors of the archaeological team couldn’t call for help, but he couldn’t summon support for his much-diminished force either.

  ‘Stop the car!’ he ordered the driver. The H3 came to a halt. Pachac got out as the other two 4×4s pulled up behind him. ‘Somebody’s coming after us,’ he shouted to his men. ‘Make sure they don’t catch up.’

  They got the message, readying their guns. Pachac climbed back into the Hummer and the convoy set off again.

  Eddie reached the spot where the expedition had parked. Their three off-roaders were still there – as were the corpses of the two soldiers who had been left to guard them. A rumble of engines from the direction of the road told him that the revolutionaries had left – probably going to get backup to raid the incredible wealth of El Dorado before the Peruvian authorities could secure it.

  But their purpose didn’t interest him. All he cared about was catching them.

  He ran to the military Jeep, the lightest and fastest of the 4×4s. No key. Who had been driving? One of the privates, he remembered; he quickly searched their bodies and found it. He jumped in and started the engine, reversing into a slithering half-turn on the muddy ground. Flattened bushes to one side marked where Pachac’s men had left their own vehicles. Three of them, the tyre tracks told him.

  Eddie powered down the slope. The Jeep bounced over rocks and roots, the suspension crashing to its limits. He ignored the rough ride – and the jolts of pain it sent through his body. All that mattered was his new mission: catch the rebel convoy.

  Pachac would almost certainly be in the lead vehicle. Eddie would have to fight past the other two to get to him.

  No problem. He had enough bullets for everyone.

  37

  Nina and Macy reached the vehicles. ‘Oh, Jesus,’ said Macy at the sight of the dead men. ‘Why are we going after these guys? We should be trying to get a long, long way away from them!’

  Nina ignored her, running to the Nissan Patrol. Eddie had left the key in the ignition. ‘If you don’t want to come with me, then wait here.’

  ‘No, no, I’m coming,’ said Macy, the presence of the corpses making her decision easier. She got in beside Nina. The redhead turned the key, then guided the big off-roader down the hill.

  Pachac looked at his phone again. Still no signal. Once he got into range of the cell tower, though, he would be able to call in more men within hours. The True Red Way had an active membership of close to a hundred, and several times as many sympathisers. It would be tough to remove the Punchaco before government forces reacted, but the longer he could prevent word of El Dorado’s existence from getting out the better . . .

  The road narrowed at a bend beneath an overhang of rock ahead – with a truck coming the other way.

  ‘Mother of God!’ the driver blurted as he braked hard. Maoism and religion may not have been complementary, but some things were too deeply ingrained to remove. Both vehicles stopped. He leaned out of the window. ‘Hey! Back up!’

  The sweating, overweight truck driver scowled at him. Under the unwritten rules of the mountain road, the bigger vehicle always had right of way. ‘You back up!’

  ‘We don’t have time for this shit,’ Pachac growled, drawing a gun and firing it out of his window. The truck’s windscreen shattered. ‘Get out of my way or I’ll kill you!’

  The terrified driver decided that unwritten rules were made to be broken and put his truck into reverse, backing up as quickly as he dared. ‘Move,’ Pachac told his own driver. The H3 set off again, almost nose to nose with the lumbering transport. The road widened round the bend, and the driver moved to let the convoy pass.

  Even as far over as the truck could possibly go, the gap was actually a few centimetres narrower than the Hummer, nothing but air beneath the rims of its left-side tyres. Pachac’s driver cringed as he edged past the truck, looking down at the near-vertical drop into the clouds below. The H3’s chromed wing mirror scraped against the other vehicle’s cab, and broke off. The driver gave his leader an apologetic look. ‘Maybe we should have stolen something smaller?’

  ‘Just get going,’ Pachac snapped once they were clear.

  Eddie saw a bright yellow Hummer disappear round the overhang about a quarter of a mile ahead, another two vehicles trundling in a line behind it: an old Land Cruiser and a big American pickup truck. Pachac and his men.

  He put his foot down, the Jeep jolting over the rutted road. He would soon catch up.

  The Land Cruiser slowly followed the Hummer. Even though it was several inches narrower than the American behemoth, its two occupants still tensed as they crawled along less than a hand’s-width from the precipice’s ragged edge. Next, the pickup truck squeezed through, the rebel in the cargo bed leaning out and shouting instructions to the two men in the cab.

  The F-150 disappeared from Eddie’s view behind the overhanging cliff. The time the larger vehicles had taken to squeeze past the obstruction meant that he was now almost upon them.

 
; He slowed to pass the stationary truck, then readied the Kalashnikov.

  ‘There he is!’ Macy cried, pointing ahead.

  Nina saw the Jeep go out of sight around a narrow bend. ‘I just hope we can reach him before he gets himself killed,’ she said, guiding the Patrol in pursuit.

  The man in the F-150’s pickup bed looked back along the road - and saw a military Jeep coming after them. Fast. He banged on the cab’s rear window. ‘Hey! He’s catching up – tell Inkarrí!’

  He drew his gun, an old Colt .38 revolver, as the passenger used a walkie-talkie to relay the message to the Hummer.

  Pachac listened to the urgent radio report, twisting in his seat. The Land Cruiser filled most of the view behind, but the road’s curves gave him a glimpse of what was happening beyond.

  He didn’t like what he saw. ‘What are you waiting for?’ he shouted into his radio. ‘Kill him!’

  Eddie saw the Ford pickup slowing, its occupants getting ready to attack. One man in the back, holding on to the F-150’s rollbar, and from the silhouettes it looked like two in the cab.

  No rifles; they must have lost them in the flood. The guy in the rear bed was instead taking aim with a pistol—

  The Englishman had something bigger. He fired the AK-47 through the broken windscreen.

  The rebel got off three shots, but firing single-handed from a jolting vehicle didn’t even hit the speeding Jeep, never mind its driver. Eddie’s shooting was just as wild – but with far more bullets. One clanged off the pickup’s tailgate, another cracking the rear window – and a third tore into the gunman’s chest in a gout of blood. The man fell backwards, his clothing catching on one of the rollbar’s lamp brackets to leave him hanging against the cab, the revolver clattering to the metal floor.

  But the passenger in the front was bringing up an automatic. Eddie fired again—

  Two shots – and the Kalashnikov’s bolt stopped with a dry clack. Out of ammo.

  He dropped the AK and ducked as the rebel fired. More bullets struck the Jeep, shattering a headlight, ripping another hole through the already damaged radiator with a shrill of escaping steam.

  And hitting a wheel.

  The tyre didn’t blow out, the thick, heavily treaded rubber only holed, but the effect on the Jeep was immediate. The steering wheel jerked in Eddie’s hands as the vehicle pulled to the left, towards the cliff. He dragged it back into line. But the vibration grew worse as the tyre deflated, the 4×4 harder to control with every second.

  The shooting stopped. Eddie raised his head. The gunman was fumbling for a replacement magazine.

  The Jeep swerved back towards the precipice. He forced the steering wheel hard over to the right, but the tyre was almost flat, weaving on the wheel rim. A few more seconds and it would collapse . . .

  He snatched up the empty AK-47 and jammed its stock down on the accelerator. The Jeep surged forward, engine screaming. He wedged the rifle’s barrel against the front seat and jumped up, gripping the steering wheel in one hand as he clambered over the broken windscreen on to the bonnet.

  The man in the cab had slapped in a new magazine. He turned to fire—

  Eddie lined up the Jeep with the pickup, and let go of the wheel as his vehicle rammed the Ford from behind.

  He was flung over the tailgate into the cargo bed – and slammed against the corpse hanging from the rollbar. The breath was knocked from him, but the body cushioned his landing, the damaged rear windscreen behind it shattering and spraying the gunman in the cab with glittering fragments.

  Eddie dropped heavily into the pickup bed, the angular body of the Steyr inside his jacket digging painfully into his ribs. The revolutionary shook off broken glass and turned again to find his target—

  Eddie grabbed the fallen revolver and fired three shots at the cab’s back wall.

  Bullets ripped through the rebel’s seat into his body. He fell against the passenger-side door, which burst open. He rolled out of the cab with a shriek of terror that was cut short as he was crushed under the wheels of the still speeding Jeep.

  The 4×4 swerved sharply as it bounded over the human speed bump, veering at the cliff—

  ‘No!’ Nina screamed as she watched the Jeep sail off the road and arc down into the valley. ‘Eddie, oh my God!’

  ‘He’s okay, he’s okay!’ Macy desperately reassured her. ‘He jumped into the truck!’

  ‘He what? Oh, Jesus Christ . . .’ Nina gasped for breath, the horror of what she thought she had just witnessed still clutching at her heart.

  Eddie pulled himself up and pointed the revolver into the cab. ‘Stop the truck!’ he yelled at the driver.

  The rebel instead clawed inside his wet, grubby jacket. Eddie pulled the trigger—

  Click. The hammer fell, but the gun didn’t go off. All the bullets in the cylinder had been fired.

  The driver drew his own gun, twisted—

  Eddie dropped and rolled as the rebel opened fire. Unable to turn any further without risking losing control of the truck, the driver unleashed a couple more shots blindly over his shoulder. One hit the floor as Eddie jerked out of the way, the other blasting messily through the dangling corpse’s stomach.

  Eddie flipped the useless revolver over in his hand. He scrambled forward and lunged through the broken rear window, brutally cracking the empty gun against the driver’s head like a knuckleduster.

  The man reeled, the pickup swerving to the right. Before he could recover, Eddie grabbed his gun hand and slammed it against the window frame, rasping his wrist against the broken glass. The driver yelled in pain and fired again, forcing Eddie to duck – but not before he pushed the weapon’s magazine release button. The automatic’s slide locked back as the mag clattered into the cargo bed.

  The driver pulled the trigger twice more, getting nothing but metallic clicks in response. By the time he realised his gun was empty Eddie had shoved the corpse over the truck’s side and reached into the cab to hook an arm round his neck. Choking, the driver struggled to break free – then saw that the truck was heading for the side of the little wooden bridge. He yanked at the steering wheel—

  The F-150 lurched, tilting on its suspension and throwing Eddie sideways. He lost his hold on the driver and reeled across the cargo bed, almost falling out before grabbing the rollbar.

  The passenger door swung open and hit the bridge’s fence with a huge bang. It was ripped away, spinning backwards. The mangled metal scythed past Eddie, slashing the back of his jacket.

  The driver regained control, straightening out. Eddie was about to attack again when he saw something ahead – something that hadn’t been there when the expedition drove up the road. A waterfall spewed down the hillside from high above, pounding the road in a swirling cloud of spray.

  He gripped the rollbar tightly as the truck drove through the torrent, crashing across the newly created dip where the muddy track had been washed over the cliff. The driver fought with the wheel as the pickup skidded.

  Eddie saw his chance. If he got into the cab through the missing door, he could use the Steyr to kill the driver and immediately take the wheel before the F-150 went out of control.

  He drew the gun from his jacket and climbed over the pickup’s side.

  The Nissan rounded a bend. ‘Where the hell did that come from?’ Macy gasped, seeing the new waterfall.

  Nina looked up for its source. There was only one possible explanation: when the river feeding the falls concealing El Dorado had been blocked, the water rose behind the dam . . . and was now finding other ways downhill. ‘Oh God,’ she said in alarm. ‘This whole valley might flood!’

  Eddie swung into the cab, aiming the Steyr at the driver—

  The Peruvian hurled his empty gun.

  Eddie jerked his head sideways, but the automatic struck his cheek hard enough to draw blood and knocked him backwards. The Steyr dropped into the footwell as he grabbed at the dashboard, missed, toppled through the gaping doorway . . .

  His hand clamped rou
nd the seatbelt.

  It didn’t stop him. The reel unwound, pitching him out of the truck—

  Thunk!

  The seatbelt’s inertial lock mechanism activated, yanking him to a stop. One hand clutching the belt, Eddie dangled out of the open door, his back almost parallel to the ground.

  Grinning sadistically, the driver turned the wheel to smear him against the rock wall.

  Eddie grabbed with his free hand for the seatbelt, the door frame, anything – but there was nothing within reach. The cliff face rushed past, getting closer . . .

  Something sticking out of the ground, right ahead—

  He snatched up the wooden cross and hurled it into the cab.

  The driver had turned to watch Eddie’s head hit the wall – but instead took the pointed stake in his left eye. He screamed, reflexively bringing up both hands to pull out the cross. The F-150 swerved away from the wall – and towards the precipice.