Stretch bolted toward the slipway—as a dozen wraith-like figures rained down the manhole behind him, entering the ante-chamber.
Gunfire.
Rapid-fire.
Freed from the effects of the Warblers, the Europeans were now gladly employing live ammunition.
Stretch was done for.
He was still five steps away from the safety of the slipway when the first few Germans behind him went down in a hail of withering fire.
For just as they had fired, so too had someone else, someone standing guard in the doorway to the slipway.
Pooh Bear.
Holding a Steyr-AUG assault rifle.
The heavy-bearded Arab—who had last been seen getting cut off behind the previous sliding stone—waved Stretch on.
'Come on, Israeli!' Pooh Bear growled. 'Or I'll gladly leave you behind!'
Stretch staggered the last few steps into the slipway and past Pooh Bear just as a dozen bullet-sparks exploded out all around the stone doorway.
'I thought you were dead,' Stretch said, panting.
'Please! It'll take more than a
Down the slipway the Eight ran, dancing around the edge of the small spiked pit—the air filled with the rumble of the new sliding stone—then over the diorite pit that was the Second Gate. The cracked and broken remains of the first sliding stone from before lay strewn about its base.
The Eight swung over the diorite pit, hanging from the steel handholds they'd drilled into the rock ceiling earlier.
'Noddy!' West called into his radio mike when he landed safely on the other side. 'Do you copy?'
There was no answer from Noddy, their man guarding the swamp entrance.
'It's not the Warblers!' Wizard called. 'There must be someone jamming us—'
He was cut off by six Germans who raced into the slipway and opened fire—
—not a moment before the large spike-riddled sliding stone loomed up behind them, rumbling over the doorway to the ante-chamber!
The six Germans ran down the slipway, chased by the sliding stone.
When they came to the spiked pit, one panicked and lost his balance and fell in, chest-first—impaling himself on the vicious spikes sticking up from the stone pit.
The others got to the larger diorite pit of the Second Gate too late.
Two managed to grip West's steel handholds for a couple of swings before all five of the remaining German troops were either impaled on the spikes on the leading edge of the sliding stone or jumped into the diorite pit to avoid those spikes just as—
West's team raced ahead now. The sliding stone had given them the lead they needed.
Having been blocked off momentarily behind it, and not having experienced the slipway before, the remainder of the German troops were more cautious.
West's team increased their lead.
They swept down the tight vertical shaft to the spike-hole where West had correctly chosen the key of life, the ceiling of the water chamber having reset itself . . .
Still no radio contact with Noddy.
Across the water chamber, its stepping-stones still submerged beneath the algae-covered pool . . .
Still no radio contact.
Crouch-running down the length of the low tunnel, leaping over its cross-shafts . . .
And finally they came to the croc-filled atrium with its hand-rungs in the ceiling and the vertical entry shaft at its far end.
'Noddy! Are you out there?' West called into his radio. 'I repeat, Noddy, can you hear me—'
Finally he got a reply.
Two minutes later, West emerged from the vertical entry shaft and found himself once again standing in the mud of the mountain swamp.
Noddy was waiting for him, visibly agitated, looking anxiously westward. 'Hurry, hurry!' he said. 'They're coming—'
Noddy's head exploded, bursting like a smashed pumpkin, hit by a high-speed .50 calibre sniper round. His body froze for a brief moment before it dropped to the ground with a dull smack.
West snapped to look westward.
And he saw them.
Saw two-dozen high-speed swampboats sweeping out of the reeds some three hundred metres away, covered by two Apache helicopters. Each swampboat held maybe ten special forces troops, members of the CIEF.
Then suddenly on one of them the muzzle of a Barrett sniper rifle flashed—
—West ducked—
—and a split second later the bullet sizzled past his ears.
'Get Stretch up here!' he yelled as his team emerged from the hole in the mud.
Stretch was pushed up.
'Give me some sniping, Stretch,' West said. 'Enough to get us out of here.'
Stretch pulled a vicious-looking Barrett M82A1A sniper rifle off his back, took a crouching pose and fired back at the American hovercrafts.
Crack. Sizzle.
And two hundred metres away, the American sniper was hurled clear off his speeding swampboat, his head snapping backwards in a puff of red.
Everybody was now up and out of the hole.
'Right,' West said. 'We make for our swamprunners. Triple time.'
The Eight raced across the swamp, once again running on foot through the world of mud.
They came to their swampboats, hidden in a small glade, covered by camouflage netting.
Their two boats were known as 'swamprunners', shallow-draft flat-bottomed steel-hulled boats with giant fans at their sterns, capable of swift speeds across swamps of unpredictable depth.
West led the way.
He jumped onto the first swamprunner, and helped the others on after him.
When everyone was on board the two boats, he turned to grab the engine cord—
'Hold it
West froze.
They came out of the reeds like silent shadows, guns up.
Eighteen mud-camouflaged CIEF specialists, all with Colt Commando assault rifles—the lighter, more compact version of the M-16—and dark-painted faces.
West scowled inwardly.
Of course the Americans had sent in a
'Damn it . . .' he breathed.
