Whoever was up there, they knew he was down here. As soon as they spotted him, the hunters would be dropped and come after him on foot. Vermulen had commanded a U.S. Army Rangers regiment, so he’d hire only the best, and then equip them with the finest equipment. Carver had been very, very good in his day, but he was still short of full fighting fitness. Unless he was extremely fortunate, or they suddenly forgot everything they’d ever learned, they would get him in the end.
He did, however, have one advantage. Vermulen could not afford to lose the document that was, he fervently hoped, tucked away in Bagrat’s case. So he was, effectively, holding a precious paper hostage. He had to put himself in a situation where he could not be attacked without the safety of that hostage being threatened. Somewhere like his car.
He waited, motionless, as the noise of the helicopter diminished again, then sprinted, flat out, toward where the Audi was waiting for him, parked just off the path, facing back toward the base of the mountain.
Twice he had to stop and wait again as the helicopter patrolled above him. But then he was there, chucking the bulky grenade launcher onto the passenger seat and getting behind the wheel.
When he floored the pedal, the 4.2-liter engine roared into life. The four wheels spun on the soft earth for a fraction of a second, then found their grip and shot the car forward, rocketing onto the trail that sloped across and down the hillside before reaching the level where it became a proper road.
Carver had arrived at his car just as the helicopter was at the farthest reach of its patrol area. He’d barely gone four hundred yards before it turned, facing in his direction once again. Seconds later he was seen. The helicopter dashed forward like a predatory bird, spotting its prey. Carver saw it looming in his mirrors as it swooped low over the tree line and felt a surge of adrenaline as he forced his rally-bred machine even faster over the rutted, crumbling surface of the path.
Even with his belt on, he rattled around like a dried pea in a whistle as the Audi crashed into potholes, slewed from side to side, and leaped into the air as it hit exposed boulders and tree roots or raced over sudden dips in the road. The hammering impacts of compacted earth, stone, and wood against the bottom of the car created a deafening percussive clamor that almost drowned the howl of the engine, the agonized grind from the overworked transmission, and the whomping of rotor blades just a few feet above his head.
But not the sharp crack of gunfire, or the sound of bullets smashing glass and ripping through the bodywork: Carver heard that, all right.
The pilot was swooping over and around the car, trying to find the best firing position. His guns were all concentrated on one side of the chopper, firing broadside like an old-fashioned battleship. But as long as he flew alongside Carver’s car, parallel to the path, the trees on either side denied the shooters a clear line of fire. But there was another way. The pilot put on speed, racing a few hundred feet ahead of the car, before turning his helicopter ninety degrees and bringing it to a dead stop, hovering directly above, and across the line of the path, directly ahead of the onrushing car.
The windshield seemed to fill with the sight of the helicopter, its open doors, and the men lining up a volley that would hit Carver head-on. He was doing over eighty miles per hour, closing on the hovering chopper at almost 120 feet per second. The mouths of the submachine gun barrels ahead of him lit up like a barrage of paparazzi flashlights. The earth in front of the car was torn apart by the impact of gunshots. He heard and felt the impacts as other rounds ripped out a headlight, demolished a sideview mirror, and ricocheted off the Audi’s flanks.
Miraculously, Carver had not been hit, but his good fortune would not endure much longer. As a futile dash toward certain death, this was right up there with the Charge of the Light Brigade. So Carver did what the Light Brigade could not. He stopped charging.
As he yanked the steering wheel hard left, he slammed on the brakes, but kept the power full on as the rear end of the car fishtailed around, skidding on the trail for a fraction of a second before the rear wheels recovered their grip. In an instant, the car had turned ninety degrees and was now pointing straight downhill, into the trees.
Carver released the brakes and sent the car racing away again. For now the helicopter could not get him. But the trees that gave him shelter were a deadly threat of their own. Forcing himself not to take his foot off the gas, overriding every instinct that told him to slow down and take care, he plunged into an automotive slalom down the face of the mountain, slewing one way and then the other as he zigzagged between the trunks that offered certain death as the price for any miscalculation. Now the ground beneath him was even rougher and less secure, offering precious little traction for his wheels to cling to. His steering wheel was all but useless. He had to navigate with his brakes and gears alone, ignoring the low branches that whipped across the windshield and roof and praying that none of the bushes and saplings through which he drove could offer any serious resistance.
And then ahead of him he saw that the trees were thinning and clear sunlight was shining beyond them, and he knew that his problems had only just begun.
It would have been bad enough if this were the light from a clearing, an open glade in which he would be a sitting target for the helicopter, still pursuing him above. But what lay before him was not a woodland glade, but the near-vertical drop of a deep mountain gorge. A hang glider could swoop from the lip of the cliff and descend in graceful spirals to the river valley below. For a car, the plunge would be fatal.
Carver gave himself one chance of survival. The road up the mountain clung to the side of the gorge, twisting up the rockface in a concertina sequence of hairpin turns. But the road was only a few yards wide and offered no hope of a safe landing for a car traveling across its path at high speed. Carver slewed the Audi left again, changing the angle of approach, so that he came at the road diagonally.
There were just a few more trees to negotiate, a last tangle of brush-wood to charge through, and then the afternoon sun burst through the windshield and Carver was flying through the air, less like a driver than an airman trying to land his plane on the safety of an aircraft carrier’s deck, with an ocean of death all around it.
Beneath Carver’s wheels, the road plunged downhill toward a 180-degree bend. He had to get down onto the pavement in time to be able to brake and turn, but he had too much momentum through the air, and the car would not fall fast enough.
He could see over the corner now, to the drop beyond.
Still the car refused to obey the laws of gravity.
The steel safety barriers guarding the curve were getting closer and closer. They seemed only inches away.
And then the wheels hit the road surface.
Carver turned hard right, hit the brakes, heard the rear wheels scream in protest again as they slewed around the bend, and offered up a prayer of thanks to the inventor of four-wheel drive as the car responded to his
