A second explosion rolled across the beach as another round detonated. It hit just below the snipers’ den and did nothing more than pock the stone with a thousand tiny pits.
“I know, I know,” Wepps called, and, twelve seconds later, the western cliff was obliterated.
The guards threw Max into the back of a pickup, the one pressing Max’s head to the floorboard with a submachine gun while Nigel jumped behind the wheel. They had gone no more than fifty feet when the guardhouse took a direct hit from a high-explosive shell. The corrugated-metal building blew apart at the seams, blossoming with orange fire like a deadly rose. The concussion rocked the pickup forward, and, for a moment, Nigel lost control, but he fought the wheel and kept on the road.
The two guards remaining on the beach must have thought a retreat had been called, because they hopped onto their ATVs and chased after the pickup.
George swung the Robinson around and came up behind the three vehicles, keeping to their right to give Juan a clear line of sight.
“Wepps, lay in an AP directly in the road ahead of that truck and keep firing ahead of them to keep them slowed.” The reply was lost in a staccato burst as Cabrillo opened up with his HK.
The ATV driver he’d targeted swerved but kept going. Juan was an expert shot, but firing from a moving chopper at a moving target was next to impossible. The guy fired back, one-handed, and the stream of bullets came close enough to the chopper that George had to momentarily break off the chase.
The road a hundred feet ahead of the hurtling pickup suddenly vanished, as the depleted uranium core of an armor-piercing round slammed into the earth. Juan had specifically called for AP, because any other projectile in their arsenal would have torn the truck to shreds.
The driver slammed the brakes and cranked the wheel hard over. The road lay in a shallow defile, and the tires spun as he tried to claw the vehicle out.
Cabrillo saw his chance. “George, now!”
The pilot spun the helo and dove after the pickup. The guard holding Max went to raise his weapon, but Max kicked at him, forcing him to contend with his prisoner. With no time to ram a fresh magazine into his machine pistol, Juan tossed it into the back of the chopper and pulled off his safety harness.
Dust kicked up by the whirling blades partially obscured Juan’s target, but he could see well enough, as George dropped their airspeed to match the pickup’s as it neared the crest of the hill.
Juan didn’t hesitate. He leapt when they were ten feet above the truck. The second guard had pounded on the pickup’s roof to warn Nigel as soon as he saw a figure leaning out of the helicopter and Nigel turned the wheel.
Cabrillo landed on the edge of the pickup’s bed, and as his knees bent to absorb the brutal impact, the momentum of the pickup’s turn started throwing him bodily out of the vehicle. He scrambled to grab the guard but couldn’t, and he just managed to snag his fingers over the bed as he tumbled back. His legs were left dragging against the ground as he attempted to pull himself back into the truck.
The guard’s leering face suddenly loomed above him. Cabrillo let go with his right hand to draw one of his automatic pistols but wasn’t fast enough. He had his hand on the weapon when the guard punched the tips of Juan’s left fingers so hard that they opened automatically.
Cabrillo hit the ground hard and rolled with the impact, tucking his body into a ball to protect his head.
He came to a stop as the pickup reached the top of the hill and started accelerating away.
He got to his feet with a curse, a bump to the back of his neck leaving him momentarily stunned. He shook cobwebs from his mind and looked skyward to wave George in to pick him up. Flying up from the road came the two ATVs, their drivers needing both hands on the handlebars to keep the vehicles steady on the hill’s rocky surface.
The range was extreme, but he couldn’t risk them opening up at him with their automatic weapons. Juan drew the two Five-seveNs from the hip holsters and laid down a barrage at the driver coming up on the right. The guns barked as he torched off twenty rounds in less than six seconds. Eight of the rounds hit the guard, pulping his internal organs and blowing away half his skull.
Cabrillo dropped the two smoking pistols, drew his second pair from behind his back, and started blasting again even before the corpse of the first guards tumbled off the quad bike.
The remaining guard drove with one hand, as he reached for the AK-47 slung over his back. He kept charging, even with the air around him coming alive with bullets. He managed to get off a few shots before he took his first hit, a glancing shot that carved a trench through his outer thigh. He fired again, but it was as though his target didn’t care.
Juan didn’t flinch as rounds whipped past him. He calmly kept firing until he found his mark. Two rounds triggered in the time it takes to blink hit the rider in the throat, the kinetic impact tearing the last remaining bits of tendon and sinew so that his head fell off the stump of his neck. The ATV continued climbing the hill, like a modern version of Washington Irving’s headless horseman. When it reached Cabrillo, he lashed out with his foot to kick the body off the saddle seat. The dead fingers still gripping the throttle released, and the machine slowed to an idle.
Cabrillo jumped aboard and took off after Max, hitting the crest of the hill so fast he caught air. The truck had gained a quarter mile on him, but when another armor-piercing sabot round blasted the rock ahead of it the driver veered sharply and gave Juan a chance to cut his lead.
CHAPTER 37
MARK MURPHY HAD NEVER FELT WORSE. HIS NOSE was red and painful to touch, but he kept having to blow it, so it felt like it would never heal. To make things worse, he was a serial sneezer. If he did it once, he’d do it four or five times in a row. His head felt stuffed to the bursting point, and every breath sounded like there were marbles rattling in his chest.
If there was one thought to give him comfort, it was that misery loves company, because nearly everyone on the
They were alone in the library, sitting opposite each other, and holding books on their laps in the off chance anyone wandered in. Both had tossed wads of used tissues on the nearest coffee table.
“I now understand why they chose to release the virus on a cruise ship.”
“Why?”
“Look at us. For one thing, we’re basically trapped here like rats, stewing in our own juices. Everybody gets exposed and remains exposed until they catch the bug. Second, there’s only a doctor and a nurse.
With everyone getting sick at the same time, they’re overwhelmed. If these terrorists hit a city, there are plenty of hospitals to help and therefore much less exposure time for people to infect others. An outbreak could be isolated and the victims quarantined pretty quickly.”
“That’s a good point,” she said idly, too miserable to become engaged in conversation.
A few minutes later, Murph said, “Let’s go over it one more time.”
“Mark, please, we’ve done it a thousand times already. It isn’t the air-conditioning or water systems, it’s not in the food or anywhere else we’ve checked and double-checked. It’s going to take a team of engineers, tearing this tub apart piece by piece, to find the disbursal device.” Murph had been unable to come up with the solution without the distraction of the cold racking his body, and he really held little hope that it would come to him now, but he wasn’t one to give up.
“Come on, Linda. Think. This is basically a floating city, right? What does it take to run a city?” She gave him a look that said she wasn’t interested in playing his game, so he answered his own question. “Food, water, septic, garbage removal, and electricity.”
“Yes, they’re going to poison the garbage.”
He ignored her sarcasm. “Or let’s look at this another way. A cruise ship is a hotel. What do you need to run a hotel?”
“The same things,” Linda said, “Plus little mints on your pillow at night.”
“You’re not helping.”
“I’m not trying to.”
