Empire of Gold

‘This ought to change their minds.’ Eddie aimed the APC directly at the barricade. The soldiers fled as the hulking machine demolished it and swept across the bridge. Cheers rose in its wake.

Suarez spoke, drawing Macy into a brief argument. ‘He wants to put his head out the top so everyone can see him,’ she complained.

‘Might be useful at the right time,’ said Mac. ‘Not just yet, though.’

Nina looked back. The crowd was running for the bridge, only to scatter before the oncoming V-300. ‘It’s still coming!’

Eddie turned again to keep out of the larger armoured vehicle’s line of fire. But they were still a couple of miles from the TV station – and would almost certainly encounter better-defended roadblocks along the way.

At the Clubhouse, Callas banged an angry fist on a table at another radio report. ‘They have crossed the river! This is insane! Why can’t we stop them?’

‘How far are they from this TV station?’ Stikes demanded.

‘Less than three kilometres – and we still do not have control of it. The crowd protecting it keeps growing.’

‘Then tell your men to fire into the crowd.’

The general’s expression went from rage to hesitancy. ‘If I don’t have popular support, I will not be able to hold on to power – the army is not strong enough to control the entire country by force.’ He pointed at a television showing a live broadcast from the government-controlled station – the stand-off between civilians and military outside it. ‘That is going out across the country – across the world. If my troops are seen slaughtering unarmed civilians, I will lose.’

‘So make sure they’re not seen doing it,’ said Stikes with growing impatience. ‘Destroy the transmitter.’

‘It’s on the roof,’ Callas snapped back. ‘And before you suggest using tanks to destroy it from the ground, they can’t get line of sight on it! There are too many other buildings nearby.’

‘Then destroy it from the air . . .’ Stikes began, before tailing off.

Callas saw his calculating look. ‘What is it?’

‘A way to kill two birds with one stone.’ He turned to Baine, who had a savage bruise across his jaw and cheek. ‘Tell Gurov and Krikorian to get the Hind ready for takeoff!’

Despite Eddie’s best efforts, he couldn’t shake off the V-300. The heavily armed vehicle was slowly but relentlessly gaining, its more experienced driver extracting every morsel of speed from his vehicle as he chased the smaller APC through Caracas. And the chaos in the city was not helping; Eddie had several times been forced to slow or swerve to avoid fleeing civilians, while the other vehicle ploughed on without a care for collateral damage.

Suarez’s directions, relayed through Macy, brought them on to an overpass bridging a wider avenue below. Traffic on the lower road was at a standstill, open doors where drivers had abandoned their vehicles showing that the situation was far worse than Caracas’s usual gridlock.

A roadblock ahead. The soldiers had been warned about the stolen APC and were readying weapons . . .

More vehicles emerged from behind buildings.

Very large vehicles.

‘Buggeration and fuckery!’ Eddie gasped as a pair of T-72 tanks clattered to a stop at the roadblock, chunks of torn asphalt spitting up from their tracks. The Russian behemoths were dated compared to modern Western armour, but there was a reason they had been in continuous production for four decades: they were still tough and deadly. Their turrets rotated, bringing their 125mm main guns to bear on the approaching V-100.

And there was no way to retreat. The V-300 reached the overpass, its own gun swinging towards its target.

A glimpse of red and white on the road below, a familiar logo on the side of a stationary truck . . .

Eddie swerved the V-100 towards the overpass’s low wall. ‘You’re probably getting sick of me saying this, but really, really hang on!’

He aimed for the trailer, bracing himself.

The V-100 smashed through the wall and plunged towards the road below.

Everyone screamed—

There was a colossal crump of metal as the APC landed on the trailer, nine tons of steel crushing it and blowing its contents apart in an explosion of brown liquid and froth. The truck was a Coca-Cola transporter, the trailer a forty-foot-long advertisement for its cargo, tens of thousands of cans stacked to the ceiling. The cans flattened and burst under the V-100’s immense weight – but, with so many pallets on top of each other, each layer cushioned the falling vehicle just a little bit more as it dropped.

Even so, the impact when the armoured car hit the floor was still shattering. The trailer’s suspension collapsed, and the trailer itself sheared in half behind the prime mover’s rear wheels. The unsupported end slammed down, digging a foot-deep gouge in the road surface. On a foaming carpet of squashed red and white aluminium, the V-100 slithered down the makeshift ramp until its wheels touched the avenue.

Dazed, Eddie lifted his head. ‘Wow. That actually worked.’ He put the APC back into gear. ‘Mac, what’re those tanks doing?’

Mac peered through the parapet as the V-100 ground out of the wreckage. One of the T-72s appeared on the bridge, its turret tracking them, but its gun couldn’t angle down far enough to lock on. ‘We’re too low for them to shoot.’

‘What about the other APC?’

Nina shouted in alarm. ‘You’re not gonna like this!’