Zhernastyn was back in control of his own life again; nothing Max could do or say now could harm him. “The nearest hospital is on a military base, a day’s drive from here, and Mr. Chang is hardly going to let him go there. Besides, you have no means of talking to Mr. Chang now, and in a couple of minutes, after he’s checked that disc, this man will shoot you. The vultures will pick your bones clean in hours. Why do you think they call this place Skeleton Rock?”
Zhernastyn walked away.
Max immediately slid across to his friend, his father at his shoulder. The armed guard kept his distance; these two were no threat.
Max touched!Koga’s clammy face.
“Dad, what do we do?”
His father eased open!Koga’s eyelids.
“The pupils are a different size, Max. I reckon that quack was right. His skull is fractured.”
Tom Gordon helped to raise!Koga’s shoulders so that they were supported on Max’s lap and chest. “That’s it,” his dad showed him. “Support his head against your chest. Keep it turned away from where the blood’s coming from.” As Tom Gordon kept a couple of fingers on the pulse in!Koga’s neck, he whispered, “Is there any other way out of here?”
Max’s back was to the armed guard, muffling his own whispered reply. “There’s another smaller hangar, but there’s only motorbikes and stuff in there. Dad, we can’t let him die.”
The Humvee’s key appeared magically in his dad’s fingers. “I don’t know how we could get him into that and escape. It’s a fair way to the doors, and they’d stop us as soon as they heard the engine start. Max, think, is there anything in there you could use to get!Koga away?”
It took only a heartbeat for Max to realize what his father meant.
“Dad, we’re all getting out of here together. I’m not leaving you. Not now.”
Max felt the warmth of his father’s hand on his shoulder. “Every moment we’re alive, we’re beating the odds. I can’t move fast enough. I’m too weak. If you can get him out and make a run for that hospital, you have to take it, or he’s going to die. He may even die in the attempt. But we can’t just sit here and let them kill us. Then it will all have been in vain. Understand?” He nodded at his son, emphasizing the near finality of their lives. “You have to make the decision. Save him. If you can.”
Max fought the swell of tears. Then he nodded. “I think there’s a way. It’s a one-off chance, but I’ve got to get him to the next hangar, through that passage.”
“Then that’s what we’ll do.” His father took!Koga’s weight, allowing Max to prepare for the most important run of his life. “This kid’s been banged about so much, but we have to risk carrying him. Can you get him there?”
Max nodded.
“OK. You’ll know when to go.”
“I’ll come back for you, Dad. I promise,” Max said with a fierce determination.
His father touched Max’s face tenderly, then the boy saw his father’s expression harden. It was just like the time on the boat when the pirates had attacked. As if another person was in there under the skin. Hard and tough and unyielding.
Before the guard realized what was happening, Tom Gordon heaved!Koga’s weight onto Max’s shoulder, ready to jump up and make the run. As the guard brought the gun to bear, Max had the horrendous realization that his father could never reach the gunman in time, that he would be cut down in seconds. And his father had only made what seemed to be a feeble lurch towards the guard. But neither Max nor the guard had noticed a mechanic’s work trolley, just out of sight under the Humvee’s chassis. Tom Gordon’s lunge was to reach the wheeled inspection trolley and whip it into the guard’s ankles. And that was what happened. The trolley smashed into his ankles, the guard fell backwards, and suddenly his dad’s slithering body was across the floor and using the man’s AK-47 as a club.
He barely looked around as he dragged himself away. “Go, Max!”
Max snapped out of his stupefaction and pushed his legs upwards, gulping air as he ran for the passageway.!Koga was hardly more than skin and bone, but it was weight to be carried nonetheless. As he was about to plunge through the entrance, he couldn’t resist looking back. He saw that his father had reached the workbench, his hand stretching out for the wall socket that held the cable’s plug. Men were shouting now, their voices echoing around the hangar, their shadows making them giants as they ran to attack.
Max’s dad looked at him, nodded, and a second later a tremendous explosion erupted from the inspection pit where they had stored the petrol cans. He’d obviously pressed the switch and sent a surge of power down the bare-ended wires. The vehicle straddling the pit didn’t move for a moment as flames surged around it, then it too exploded in a muffled
Max ran,!Koga’s body already feeling lighter as adrenaline surged through his limbs.
He reached the second hangar, hit the big red button that said On and heard the whirring blades of the industrial wall fan hum into life. Easing!Koga into the cockpit of the sand yacht, he could already feel the blast of air hitting his back. He climbed in behind him; it was an incredibly tight fit, but he lifted the boy’s body onto his lap, stretched out his legs, made sure!Koga’s head was still nestled down on its uninjured side and gathered in the ropes attached to the sail.
Gunfire echoed behind him from the other hangar; heavy black smoke billowed through the passageway into this area, sucked through the vortex of the narrow passage. It swirled like the turbulence behind a jumbo jet as the fan whistled into full speed. Max felt the air punch the sail as with a tremendous surge it hurled the sand yacht clear.
They burst out through spiraling smoke into a faceful of wind-lashed sand. With eyes barely open, Max maneuvered the sand yacht, filling the sail with the veering wind as he struggled for control. Rope burns already stung his hands, but once he got the yacht on a course that put the wind across his right shoulder, the wheels skimmed over the baked surface.
He dared a look back. There was plenty of smoke, but no flames. Shaka Chang must have had an extinguishing system that smothered any threat from fire, particularly in those hangars where the planes and vehicles were kept. Max knew he had to sweep around the fort and head back in the direction he and!Koga had come from. Luckily the black smoke curling from Skeleton Rock screened him from searching eyes.
They rattled along, the wind buffeting the lightweight sand yacht. Max almost lost control when one of the wheels lifted clear of the ground, but he leaned into it and it bumped down, spinning for purchase. A plume of sand sprayed behind them as they skimmed along, faster and faster. The speedo needle hovered between 77 and 80 kilometers per hour, and Max could hear the humming of the wing sail, taut with energy. The ropes vibrated between his fingers as he steered for the vast openness that lay before him. His mind raced almost as fast as the wheels. He had to remember where the broken fingers of cracked earth lay waiting to ensnare him-one mistake and he would drive the sand yacht to destruction. And kill them both.
He struggled to keep control. The wind was doing all the work, and he knew he had been lucky so far, but his limited skill could also be their downfall. He trimmed the sail, felt the speed drop slightly. If he could keep it going steadily, he and!Koga stood a better chance of survival. The heat from his friend’s body lying against him wasn’t just from the cramped conditions;!Koga’s temperature was burning up.
The sand yacht shuddered. He was hitting rougher ground. The fixed rear wheels bounced across the ruts, following wherever Max steered the front wheel, which was now twisting out of control. Max edged the yacht first one way then the other, until it settled again.
Now he had it. The harmony of wind and sail joined forces to push him at a steady speed: 80, 85, 87. As straight as an arrow he kept his heading. They were in with a chance. He had already saved thirty or forty kilometers by heading right out across the plain. When he and!Koga had crept within sight of Skeleton Rock, they had taken a roundabout, looping course. Now it was as straight as the crow flies. Or the vulture. And it still wouldn’t take much to give the scavengers breakfast.
His brief moment of satisfaction turned into one of fear when he saw the straining black fist that was a wind- filled sail soaring towards him from behind his left shoulder. It was the second sand yacht. But this pilot knew what he was doing. He was nursing the black, bullet-shaped body at an angle that would intercept Max. And it must have been doing over a hundred-its lethal beauty would be upon him in a couple of minutes at that speed.
