of it was too much for Johan Akkers.
The appearance of the aircraft dead in the centre of the road, bearing
down on him with the terrible spinning discs of the propellers was too
much for nerves already run raw and ragged.
He wrenched the wheel hard over, and the truck went into a broadside dry
skid. It missed the port wing-tip of the Navajo as it went rocketing
off the narrow road. The front wheels caught the drainage ditch and the
truck went over, cartwheeling twice in vicious slamming revolutions that
smashed the glass from her windows and burst the doors open. The truck
ended on its side against one of the trees.
David shut the throttles and thrust his feet hard down on the wheel
brakes, bringing the Navajo up short. .
Wait here, he shouted at Debra, and jumped down into the road. His face
was a frozen mask of scar tissue, but His eyes were ablaze as he
sprinted back along the road towards the wreckage of the green truck.
Akkers saw him coming, and he dragged himself shakily to his feet. He
had been thrown clear and now he staggered to the truck. He could see
his rifle lying in the cab, and he tried to scramble up on to the body
to reach down through the open door. Blood from a deep scratch in his
forehead was running into his eyes blinding him, he wiped it away with
the back of his hand and glanced around.
David was close, hurdling the irrigation ditch and running towards him.
Akkers scrambled down from the battered green body, and groped for the
hunting knife on his belt. It was eight inches of Sheffield steel with
a bone handle, and it had been honed to a razor edge.
He hefted it under-handed, in the classical grip of the knife-fighter
and wiped the blood from his face with the palm of his free hand.
He was crouching slightly, facing David, and the haft of the knife was
completely covered by the huge bony fist.
David stopped short of him, his eyes fastened on the knife, and Akkers
began to laugh again. It was a cracked falsetto giggle, the hysterical
laughter of a man driven to the very frontiers of sanity.
The point of the knife weaved in the slow mesmeric movement of an erect
cobra, and it caught the sunlight in bright points of light. David
watched it, circling and crouching, steeling himself, summoning all the
training of paratrooper school, screwing up his nerve to go in against
the naked steel.
Akkers feinted swiftly, leaping in, and when David broke away, he let
out a fresh burst of high laughter.
Ago in they circled, Akkers mouthing his teeth loosely, sucking at them,
gigglin& watching with those muddy green eyes from their deep, close-set
sockets.
David moved back slowly ahead of him, and Akkers drove him back against
the body of the truck, cornering him there.
He came then, flashing like the charge of a wounded leopard. His speed
and strength were shockin& and the knife hissed upwards for David's
belly.
David caught the knife hand at the wrist, blocking the thrust and
trapping the knife low down. They were chest to chest now, face to
