running across one of the rope bridges.
Chase! The Englishman was certainly a survivor, he admitted with grudging admiration. But his luck had surely run out - the gunship could use the tracers to ‘walk’ its fire on to its target. One hit, and he would fall to his death - if the onslaught didn’t destroy the entire bridge under him.
But he couldn’t spare the time to watch. The last five men were jumping on to the ramp, others inside pulling them into the hold. Behind them was Tandon, but he wasn’t moving to board. ‘Get inside!’ Zec ordered.
‘We have to wait for Dhiren,’ Tandon insisted.
‘There’s no time! We need to—’
Two sounds hit him simultaneously. The first was a salvo of booms from the guardians’ rifles as they opened fire on the MD 500 - and the second was an explosion inside the Vault.
A few seconds earlier, Nina had found Kit, curled in agony as he clutched his injured leg. She dragged him away from the burning swathes of fabric draped over the treasures around him—
The next instant, they were knocked down by an explosion.
The rockets!
Stacked behind the
A second rocket detonated - then a third shot upwards, slamming into the ceiling and bursting apart like a bomb.
‘Jesus!’ Nina cried, pulling Kit under a statue as sparks rained down. Another rocket flew past, streaking towards the rear of the cavern like an enormous firework.
Eddie had no idea what was happening as he heard what sounded like explosives going off in the Vault - all he knew was that the guardians had saved him from being torn apart by the MD 500’s machine gun. At least two shots had hit the gunship, which was now hurriedly ascending.
He jumped over a bullet-riddled plank and continued across the bridge. Halfway there, but he still had to go up another two levels . . .
Zec grabbed Tandon. ‘Get aboard, now!’ He pulled the Indian towards the Chinook’s gaping maw—
Something black shot at them on a trail of flame.
The explosion of the first rocket had flung the others in all directions. One landed between the two high walls of the launch ramp, blunt nose pointing towards the open doors . . . and its fuse sparking and sizzling.
The fire reached the rocket’s tail—
It blasted off with a sizzling whoosh, the stonework on each side channelling it straight ahead. It shot through the entrance, searing past Zec and Tandon as they dived out of its way - and flew into the Chinook’s hold.
One mercenary was set aflame as it passed, another almost decapitated by the cylinder as it smacked into his head. The blow deflected it upwards to hit the ceiling - and ricochet down again.
Into the cockpit.
It slammed into the central instrument console, flicking round madly and blasting fire into the pilots’ faces. They screamed, flailing blindly in unbearable pain - and let go of the controls.
The Chinook rolled violently, slewing away from the ledge. The burning mercenary fell from the rear hatch, other men dashed against the cabin’s unyielding metal wall. Zec and Tandon hurled themselves flat as the rotor blades scythed above them.
The backwash of fire burned through the rocket’s silk-wrapped body - and it exploded, blowing out the cockpit windows. Pilots dead, controls smashed, the helicopter barrelled down the valley in a death-roll—
Straight at the rope bridge.
Eddie was three-quarters of the way across, coming up fast on the plank that had broken under him on the first crossing, when he heard another explosion, nearer but oddly muffled. He looked round for its cause—
‘Oh,
The Chinook, smoke pouring from its shattered cockpit, rushed towards him.
He ran, not caring any more if the planks could take his weight. All he cared about now was staying ahead of the deadly blur of the front rotor, the blades a giant circular saw carving through the air . . .
29
Eddie dived as the rotor slashed through the bridge less than a foot behind him.
The severed ropes cracked like whips as their tension was released. The Chinook roared past, sucking a blizzard of loose snow into its rotors. The storm almost blinded him as he grabbed a plank with one hand, swinging with the collapsing bridge. The wall rushed at him through the whirling snow—
His other hand found a rope just as the bridge crashed against the valley side. The plank he was holding snapped, leaving him dangling by only his straining arm, swaying on the line like a human plumb bob. Chunks of smashed wood tumbled past.
A colossal boom shook the valley as the Chinook slammed into the cliff at its end and exploded. Boulders and burning wreckage tumbled down to block the passage beneath a huge cloud of dust and snow and black smoke.
Eddie struggled to find a new handhold. He managed to reach an intact plank above, only to wince as a splinter stabbed into his middle finger. He pulled himself up. The remains of the bridge had turned into a fractured ladder. Some of the planks - now rungs - were broken, others missing entirely, but there were enough left intact for him to reach the fifth tier.
Holding the rope tightly, he pulled the inch-long splinter out from his finger with his teeth, then began his ascent.
From the Dhruv, Khoil gawped at the Chinook’s blazing wreck. ‘What happened?’ he demanded into his headset. ‘Zec, what happened?’
It took several seconds before the Bosnian managed a reply. ‘A rocket - I don’t know where it came from. All my men are dead!’
‘What about Chapal and Dhiren?’
‘Your man Tandon is here with me. The other—’ He broke off at the sound of another explosion in the cavern. ‘The other one, I don’t know. He’s probably dead.’
‘Pramesh, we have the Vedas,’ said Vanita. She tapped the chest, now safely stowed in the cabin. ‘Let’s just go.’
‘Chapal is still down there - and I want to be sure Chase and Dr Wilde are dead,’ he replied firmly. ‘Pilot, move back to the cliff. Tell the gunship to cover us.’ The Dhruv turned and headed back for the Vault.
Eddie reached the top of the makeshift ladder, seeing footprints in the snow where the group had walked along the tier earlier in the day. More snow billowed past as the Khoils’ helicopter moved overhead, lowering the harness.
Nina poked her head out from beneath the statue. Most of the rockets had fired or exploded, the remainder duds, the gunpowder in them broken down by time as Eddie had predicted.
They weren’t out of danger, though. The explosions had stopped, but fires were still burning, the Vault filling with smoke. Most of its treasures would be unharmed beyond being blackened by soot, but there was still enough wood and fabric to keep the flames alive for some time. ‘Can you move?’ she asked Kit.
‘I think I will have to,’ he said, suppressing a cough as grey wisps coiled round him.
She helped him up. Together, they picked their way through the fires to the entrance.
They gave the area behind the ramp a wide berth in case a rocket went off - but then stopped as they saw
