Both birds veered upward. The second came close to striking the slope above Bodie before sweeping away. Urged on by Nimrod, it descended at speed toward the glacier. Bodie looked to the path.
Cassidy and Yasmine were down on one knee, taking every opportunity to disable the choppers before they landed. The second one was coming down further away, but mercs were already leaning out as if readying to jump.
Nimrod’s chopper touched rock. The cockpit was honeycombed with bullets. One Hood collapsed out the door, slumping to the ground. Bodie raced back up the mountain toward his team.
“We must have really pissed Nimrod off,” he yelled. “The bastard’s crazy.”
“He’s gonna get us all killed,” Lucie said, looking at the climbing route. “One avalanche and we’re toast.”
The sound of thudding rotors reverberated off the valley walls. Bodie had no choice but to add to the racket, firing his weapon. They took cover down the nearest shallow fracture in the ground, leaning with their faces against the slope to stay in its fragile shelter.
The end was coming. Bodie knew they’d been hounded as far as they were able to go. They were trapped now. Everest would kill them just as surely as Nimrod, and they were outnumbered by mercenaries and Hoods.
For the first time he could remember, he couldn’t see the way out, couldn’t see victory through the fire and the smoke, the heat of battle. His boots scrambled on an outcropping of rock to keep him from falling further down the slope and, just ten feet behind, he spotted a wide crevasse and realized how close they’d come to running into the abyss.
They were all firing their weapons, gunfire filling their ears, but the report that suddenly filled the air and shook the ground with thunder had nothing to do with anything manmade.
Lucie jumped to her feet, terrified, her eyes fixed on the slope above. “Oh my God.”
Bodie knew what it was. He knew what was coming.
They had seconds to react. Not surprisingly, Nimrod also realized and ran back to his helicopter.
You didn’t fuck with nature in the Himalayas.
Bodie reacted in an instant. The avalanche would overwhelm them in minutes as it swept down the mountain and through the pass. He didn’t look for it, didn’t think. He raced up the slope and ran for the second chopper, seeing mercs scattered left and right across the ground and the craft standing empty except for the pilot.
Backed by Yasmine, Cassidy and Jemma, he pounded straight at them, two guns up, squeezing off bullets as fast as his finger could pull the trigger. A wall of lead flew from the relic hunters to the mercs, pounding and pulverizing their bodies. Men twisted and fell; some wounded, others killed.
Bodie ran right past Nimrod’s chopper, not even glancing at the man already strapping himself in. Other Hoods were jumping aboard too, screamed at by the pilot.
Bodie never slowed nor deviated from his course.
The mercenaries managed to return fire, bullets streaking past his head and body, glancing off the mountainside. The terrifying boom of onrushing snow crescendoed, infusing the air, firing every nerve in his body. He couldn’t run any faster. His lungs were laboring, his face coated with sweat, his eyes as wide as dinner plates.
He ran from death, straight at death.
The mercs fell. The last few raced for the chopper. The pilot was already wrenching at his controls, making the bird rock from skid to skid. Lucie outpaced them all, running past on the outside. A merc fell and then fired at her. Yasmine sent a bullet between his eyes without breaking stride.
Bodie dove and skidded in under the chopper, through to the other side. A merc was climbing up into a seat. Bodie grabbed his belt and yanked him to the ground before putting a bullet in his heart. Quick death was a mercy compared to what was coming.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Yasmine shoot a second merc and Cassidy throw herself at the last. Nimrod’s chopper was leaving the ground, rocking from side to side in the air.
Bodie aimed his gun at the pilot. “You’re taking us now.”
Eight mercs lay dead around the chopper, caught in the desperate hail of gunfire. Seconds had passed since the avalanche announced itself.
Bodie threw himself into the first seat, reached back down and helped Lucie and then Jemma up. Yasmine was balancing on the skid at the other side, aiming at Nimrod’s chopper. The helicopter rose three feet into the air.
“Wait!” Bodie cried.
“No time!” the pilot screamed. “No time!”
The bastard was right, Bodie could see. The white wall of death was sweeping down the pass, unstoppable, incredibly fast, obliterating all other views. Cassidy was still struggling on the ground.
“Go!” was his frantic shout.
The pilot complied, wrenching at the controls. Yasmine held on with one hand, still perched on a skid, gun never ceasing its hail of bullets that kept Nimrod’s chopper from turning and attacking.
Bodie leapt out onto the other skid. “Cass!”
The American looked up, saw the chopper rising and the avalanche seconds away. She left her gun, left her pack. Just shoved her opponent away, jumped up and sprinted for the chopper.
The bird rose fast. Bodie straddled the skid and reached down, holding on with one hand. Cassidy leapt into the air, using every ounce of speed and strength, and stretched an arm out.
Bodie’s hand caught her wrist.
He held on as the chopper flew higher, every muscle straining. The wall of snow surged past below them, a blinding sea of white. Winds thrown up by its passing buffeted their craft. Ice and rocks battered their helicopter, making it
