The Six Sacred Stones jw-2

by Matthew Reilly

  “Alby’s fine,”another voice came in over the airwaves.

  Jack’s voice.

  Jack was walking quickly around the far side of the pyramidal island, skirting its lower edge, followed by the others.

  “He’s with me. So are Pooh, Astro, and Zoe. We’re all safe. What happened, Wizard?”

  Wizard’s voice said,“Four men, Japanese, just blew themselves up near Ashmont’s escape cars at the dock. It was an ambush. They were waiting. It was like they wanted to destroy the Pillar. I’m in one of the British escape cars now, heading south, away from the town.”

  “What about Iolanthe and the Pillar?”

  “She was knocked to the ground, so I took the Pillar. Not sure if she’s dead or not.”

  “OK,” Jack said. “I want you to get as far away from there as you can, to a spot where Sky Monster can grab you. Sky Monster, Stretch: we need you to give us a boat-drop so we can get back to the shore and catch up with Wizard—”

  Sky Monster’s voice came in.“Er, Huntsman, I don’t think that’s going to be possible—”

  Circling in the sky high above Abu Simbel, Sky Monster peered down at the vast body of Lake Nasser and the highway leading into the town from the north. Stretch sat in the copilot’s seat beside him, also gazing down at the landscape.

  “—This is what I’ve been trying to tell you,” Sky Monster said. “It’s why I’ve been trying to get in contact. Thatsecond convoy we saw earlier is now only about three miles out from the town, approaching fast from the north and it’s not just comprised of tourist coaches. The coaches are cover. It’s a military convoy: rapid-strike cars, armored jeeps, Humvees, and troop trucks. My guess, it’s the Egyptian Army—tipped off by someone. They’re gonna hit your town in about four minutes.”

  Sky Monster and Stretch looked down at the highway coming from the north, a thin ribbon of black overlaid upon the dull yellow of the desert.

  There they saw the convoy speeding along it.

  Tourist coaches led the way, kicking up a tail cloud of dust behind them as they hit the shoulder of the highway, a cloud that concealed dozens of military vehicles: trucks, Humvees, and machinegun-mounted jeeps. All up, the convoy looked like it possessed about fifty vehicles and maybe three hundred men.

  “This is seriously deep shit,” Sky Monster breathed.

  JACK SAID,“OK then. The plan stays the same. Wizard, you run: get out of there; take the highway and head south for the Sudanese border. Sky Monster can scoop you up somewhere down there. We’ll follow as best we can and try to catch up.”

  “Okay…”Wizard said doubtfully.

  Sky Monster said,“Huntsman, standby. I’m sending you two packages. Couple of early Christmas presents.”

  From his rocky island, Jack looked up to see the dark shape of The Halicarnassus bank around in the dawn sky.

  Then he saw the big 747 swing low, barely a hundred feet above the lake, and as it roared by something dropped from its rear loading ramp—something with a parachute attached to it, arresting its fall. Perfectly released, the speeding object landed with a great splash about fifty yards out from Jack’s rocky island.

  As soon as it hit the water, the object sloughed its outer casing and inflated rapidly—revealing itself to be a brand-new Zodiac complete with outboard engine.

  “Merry Christmas,” Jack said.

  Minutes later, he and the others were skimming across the surface of Lake Nasser, heading back for the western shore.

  They hit land a few miles south of the massive statues of Abu Simbel, at a remote fishermen’s dock.

  No sooner had the Zodiac slid to a halt on the decrepit boat ramp than a second parachute-equipped pallet from The Halicarnassus landed lightly on the desert floor a few hundred yards in front of them.

  Sitting on the pallet was a compact Land Rover Freelander four-wheel drive—donated to The Halicarnassus by the British at Mortimer Island—stripped and modified for military work.

  And sitting at the wheel was Stretch.

  “Need a ride?” he asked.

  The Freelander’s tires squealed as the little four-wheel drive shot off the mark.

  Jack sat in the passenger seat while Stretch drove. Piled into the back were Astro, Alby, Pooh Bear, and Zoe—nestled amid a pile of guns and Predator rocket launchers that Stretch had brought along.

  Jack tried his radio again, “Scimitar! Vulture! Come in!” No reply. They were meant to be covering the dock, Jack thought, but Wizard had made no mention of them in his report of the suicide attack. Scimitar and Vulture were suspiciously absent without leave.

  The little Freelander sped across the desert, kicking up a dust cloud behind it, heading for the blacktop highway leading south.

  On that highway, Jack and the others could see the chase at hand: Wizard’s lone white Suburban out in front of the convoy of Egyptian Army coaches, jeeps, trucks, and Humvees.

  “If nothing else,” Jack said to Stretch, “we have to get that charged Pillar out of here safely. The knowledge on it is priceless.”

  “What about getting us out of here safely?” Stretch asked.

  “Only Lily matters. The rest of us are secondary. If we can’t get out ourselves, we have to get her away. She’s more important than any of us.” He offered Stretch a wry look. “Sorry, buddy.”

  “Nice to know where I stand in the scheme of things.”

  Jack nodded at the scene ahead of them: “See that last bus in the convoy, the one trailing behind all the others.”

  “Yeah…”

  “I want it.”

  Wizard drove frantically.

  He gripped the steering wheel of his stolen Suburban with white knuckles, anxiously swinging his eyes between three sources: the road in front of him, the convoy of pursuers behind him, and the passenger seat next to him—in which Lily lolled lifelessly, swaying with every bump in the road, her eyes closed, bloody scratches on her face.

  The chase cars were catching up, filling his rearview mirror. Two fearsome-looking Humvees with gun turrets on their backs were about to pull up on either side of his Suburban.

  “Sky Monster!” he yelled. “Where are you!”

  “Here!”

  Voooooom!

  Without warning, the enormous black underbelly of The Halicarnassus thundered low over the top of Wizard’s car and landed on the highway in front of him, its rear loading ramp folding open as it did so…right in front of Wizard’s speeding car.

  “OK! I’ll slow a little! Bring yourself on board!”Sky Monster’s voice called.

  The big black 747 rolled along the desert blacktop at a cool 80 mph, its wings stretched out over the dusty shoulder, speeding out in front of the collection of cars on the roadway.

  Wizard floored the Suburban.

  It leaped forward, heading directly for the yawning rear ramp of the jumbo.

  At which point, the two Humvees behind it opened fire.

  Bullet sparks exploded all over the Suburban and the plane, even in the hold up inside the loading ramp.

  The rear and side windows of the Suburban shattered. Wizard ducked, shielding his face.

  But he remained focused on the ramp of The Halicarnassus.

  The Suburban began to wobble and slide, but he held her tight and with a final thrust on the gas pedal, he took the plunge and lunged at the ramp…and hit it perfectly…and swooped up into the rear hold of the Hali where he slammed full tilt into the forward wall!

  The Suburban jolted to a halt, safely inside.

  “Oh my goodness, I did it…” Wizard exclaimed.

  “Jesus, Wizard, you did it!”Sky Monster said.“Man, I thought you were going to miss by a yard! Nice driving, Fangio…”

  Wizard turned to check on Lily, and he saw her eyes open weakly.

  “Hi there. Nice to see you awak—”

  He was cut off as their car was jolted violently, hit from behind by one of the Egyptian Humvees that had itself charged up the loading ramp after them!

  Wizard wa
s thrown forward, then he snapped round and saw the intruder.

  Instinct kicked in.

  He jammed the Suburban into reverse and hit the gas.

  The Suburban lurched backward and slammed into the unsuspecting Humvee, shunting itback down the ramp and out of the plane, back into the sunshine, where the hapless Humvee hit the road and, its brakes locking, jackknifed sideways and tumbled into a roll. Two chase cars managed to avoid it before a third car—a big troop truck—hit it square in the side and finished both of them off.

  “Sky Monster!” Wizard called from the hold. “Pull up that ramp and go!”

  “On it, Wiz!”

  the Hali ’s engines roared louder, firing up for takeoff. At the same time, the loading ramp came up and through the slowly closing aperture, Wizard saw the chase convoy—an angry body of heavily armed vehicles.

  But then just as the ramp was about halfway closed, he saw the convoy split in the middle and allow a Humvee to come to the front: a Humvee with a rocket-launcher pod mounted on its back.

  The Humvee fired—a single lethal rocket streaking out of its pod, and Wizard’s eyes boggled at the thought that the rocket might shoot inside the hold and go off, but instead the missile banked away to the side, darting out of Wizard’s sight.

  He sighed with relief. A miss.

  Only to realize a sickening moment later that it wasn’t a miss at all.

  For right then he heard one of the Hali ’s two starboard engines get hit.

  IT WAS A DIRECT HIT—the missile slammed into The Halicarnassus ’s outer starboard engine, causing it to blast out in a thousand pieces and spew a thick horizontal column of black smoke.

  “Fuck me sideways!”Sky Monster yelled, flicking switches, dumping fuel that could be ignited by the exploded engine and cutting all excess lines so that the fire didn’t spread to the tanks inside the wing.

  He looked out his starboard cockpit window. The engine was a tangled mess of twisted metal and smoke. He’d have to jettison it. Takeoff was still possible, but with only three engines it would be a whole lot harder: they’d need a longer runway.

  The damage had been done.

  The plane slowed.

  And the chase convoy pounced.

  It was an incredible sight.

  A 747 jumbo jet racing down a vast desert highway, pursued by a horde of military vehicles—Humvees, jeeps, trucks, and coaches—all of them rushing along at well over sixty miles an hour, like a pack of hyenas chasing down a wounded water buffalo.

  When they got in range, the chase convoy attacked.

  Naturally, their first strategy was to fire at the Hali ’s tires, but the big plane had a set of Kevlar guards shielding them and the bullets just pinged away.

  So the chasers adopted a second, more ruthless option.

  The first chase truck rushed forward and swung in under the left-hand wing of the Hali, where it threw off its canvas roof to reveal a platoon of fully armed Egyptian special forces troops.

  They wasted no time employing a standard plane-storming technique—they danced up onto their truck’s driver’s cabin and from there leaped up onto the wing at its lowest point, at the spot where it met The Halicarnassus ’s fuselage.

  Sky Monster watched helplessly from the cockpit. “Oh, damn, damn, damn.”

  He went to the window on the other side and saw an entire bus of soldiers swing in under the armpit of the starboard wing with more men climbing up through a hatch onto its roof, readying themselves to storm that wing.

  “Shit, shit, shit…”

  Wizard arrived in the cockpit with Lily. “What’s going on?”

  “We’ve lost engine four and now they’re boarding us via the wings!” Sky Monster said. “And we have no defense against that! They’re like fleas I can’t shake.”

  “You have to do something…!”

  “Wizard, I don’t know of any pilots who’ve been in this kind of situation before! I’m adapting the best I can!”

  “Can we take off?”

  “Yes, but we’ll need a hell of a long runway.” Sky Monster started swinging The Halicarnassus wildly left and right.

  On the wing outside, the Egyptian troops staggered and struggled for balance, grabbing for handholds, one of them dropping off the wing with a shout and falling to the road below.

  But they soon got their balance, and the bus under the starboard wing began unloading more troops.

  The Halicarnassus —speeding along the desert highway, unable to take off—was under siege.

  In the cockpit, Wizard clumsily unfolded a map. “This highway straightens out in about three miles into a long unbroken stretch about two miles long. But after that it twists and turns through hills all the way to the Sudanese border.”

  “Then that’s our runway,” Sky Monster said.

  “Our only runway.”

  Sky Monster was still staring anxiously out the starboard window. “Wizard, you think you can drive this for a few minutes,” he said, standing suddenly.

  “Drive?” Wizard blanched. “I don’t even drive a car very well, Sky Monster.”

  “Well it’s time to learn. Here, pay attention, I’ll show you how…”

  About a mile behind the desperate scenes on the Hali, the last bus in the Egyptian military convoy drove quietly in its allotted place, everyone on board it keenly watching the spectacular goings-on up ahead.

  They never noticed the little Land Rover Freelander—now driven by Pooh Bear—swing onto the highway behind it, never noticed it creep right up close to its rear bumper, never noticed the three figures of West, Stretch, and Astro clamber out onto the hood of the Freelander and climb up the ladder attached to the back of the big coach.

  The three small figures then danced along the roof of the speeding coach, pausing briefly to drop two of Astro’s knockout-gas grenades through a hatch.

  A moment later—as all the occupants of the bus passed out and the coach began to veer off the bitumen, West lay on his belly and reached down, unlatching the safety catch on the coach’s forward door, and swung himself inside, followed by his two comrades-in-arms.

  Inside the bus, wearing his lightweight half gas mask, West pulled the unconscious driver out of the driver’s seat and took the wheel.

  He scanned the road ahead: beyond the convoy, he saw the wounded Halicarnassus lumbering along, spewing black smoke from its right wing, and bearing bad guys on the inner segments of both its wings.

  Astro examined the rest of their bus. It was filled with slumped-over soldiers, all of them low-level infantrymen.

  “They’re Egyptian Army,” he said, grabbing the uniform of the nearest trooper.

  “Like a lot of African countries, sometimes Egypt’s army is up for hire,” Jack said. “If you’ve got enough dough and the right contacts, you can buy yourself some local muscle for a day or two. The question is: Who’s paying for Egypt’s services today? Now, if you don’t mind, it’s time to clear the road and get those bastards off our plane. Stretch, I don’t need this windshield anymore.”

  Stretch stepped forward and fired a burst from his submachine gun into the windshield. It shattered and dropped from view. Wind rushed in.

  “Gentlemen,” Jack said, removing his gas mask. “Tires.”

  With wind now blasting into his bus, West gunned it, lifting his coach to over 80 mph and bringing it forward through the convoy, at the same time as Stretch and Astro fired their guns out the open front windshield, blasting the rear tires of the other buses in the convoy.

  The tires of the other buses punctured loudly and caught off guard, they fishtailed crazily, skidding off the roadway and onto the sand shoulder while West’s bus shot past them, moving ever forward.

  After four such bus crashes, one of the Egyptian Humvees noticed West’s rogue bus and it turned its turret gun on Jack—just as Stretch nailed the Humvee with a Predator missile. The Humvee exploded, lifting completely off the ground before flipping and rolling in the dust.

  Another jeep saw
them and brought its gun around, only for West to ram it with his bus, sending the jeep spinning off the road like a toy.

  “Pooh Bear!” he called into his radio. “Stay in our shadow! We’ll shield you all the way to The Halicarnassus ’s loading ramp!”

  At the wheel of the Freelander, Pooh Bear shouted, “Roger that!”

  Beside him, Zoe and Alby peered out at Jack’s stolen coach and at the vehicles of the enemy convoy ahead of them.