The Secret of Excalibur (16 page)

It dawned on Nina that - for the moment - they had taken down all their opponents. But the buzz of a helicopter outside the broken window told her how the Russians had entered the castle - and that there were still others. ‘Come on, Eddie,’ she said, pulling him up, ‘gotta go, gotta go!’

Mitchell reached the bottom of the stairs, regarding the two fallen men with surprise. ‘
You
did that?’ he asked her, voice hoarse.

‘I’m a real bitch when anyone messes with my man,’ she said, grinning.

They ran outside and crossed the courtyard, seeing that the castle’s gates were now open. Two more trucks were parked near their SUV.

‘That was some pretty fancy martial arts back there,’ Nina said to Mitchell as they reached the Suburban. ‘Eddie usually just punches people.’

Mitchell rubbed his throat again. ‘Not fancy enough.’ He got into the driving seat, Nina helping her battered fiancé into the back before running round the truck and hopping in the passenger seat. ‘Call the cops,’ Mitchell told her, tossing her his phone.

A shadow swept over them, the roar of the helicopter echoing round the courtyard as the Suburban set off. Chase tracked the aircraft as the SUV passed through the gates. ‘Chopper’s coming around.’

Nina looked up. ‘You think they’ve got guns?’

A snowbank at the roadside suddenly burst apart as a line of small explosions stitched through it. The helicopter buzzed overhead before pulling up sharply to turn for another pass. ‘Never mind!’ She shoved the sword hilt inside her jacket, fastened her seat belt and raised the phone. ‘What’s the emergency number in Austria?’

‘One three three,’ Mitchell told her, braking hard as the SUV approached the first hairpin turn. Even with four-wheel drive, the big vehicle still fishtailed on the snow.

‘Jesus, watch it!’ Chase warned. ‘You don’t want to roll us over—’

Bullet holes punched through the SUV’s bonnet with a
plunk-plunk-plunk
of cratered metal, followed a fraction of a second later by a bang as one of the front tyres blew out. The shredded wheel bit into the road surface, spinning the entire truck round and slamming it broadside-on into a bank of ploughed snow. The Suburban flipped over on to its roof, slithering to a halt at the very brink of a steep, snow-covered slope.

‘Told you,’ said Chase after a moment of silence.

He and Mitchell were both now on the cabin’s erstwhile ceiling. Nina awkwardly hung suspended by her seat belt, ponytail swishing back and forth against the roof beneath her. Through the cracked windscreen, all she could see were the dizzyingly inverted mountains across the valley and a blank white expanse dropping away to a thin line of trees - and what looked like a cliff edge just beyond them.

Chase, surrounded by the scattered items that had fallen from the SUV’s now open emergency compartment, peered out of the rear window. As well as the helicopter, he could hear another sound, a harsh rasp.

Rapidly growing louder.

‘Snowmobiles,’ he said. ‘They’re coming after us.’

Mitchell looked outside. ‘Where did the chopper go?’

‘Dunno, but it sounds like it’s coming back.’

‘Then we’d better get out of this thing,’ said Nina. She put one hand against the ceiling to support herself as best she could and raised the other to the seat-belt release—

Chase realised what she was about to do. ‘Nina,
wait
!’

Too late.

The buckle popped free, and Nina dropped heavily on to the roof . . .

The SUV shifted.

‘Oh,
bollocks
,’ Chase said as the overturned 4x4 tipped over the edge of the slope.

14

N
ina stared in horror as the landscape through the windscreen tilted sharply - and started moving past her.

‘Nice one!’ Chase shouted sarcastically.

‘Don’t start! I didn’t know that would happen!’

Mitchell grappled with his door handle. ‘It’s jammed. The frame’s bent.’

Nina tried her door, but with the same lack of result. Snow slid past the window as they picked up speed. Behind her, Chase crawled towards the rear door. ‘I’ll open the tailgate. Jack! Find the bonnet release!’

‘What?’

‘The
hood
, the hood release! It’ll drop down and act like a brake!’

Mitchell hunted for the lever as Chase batted aside the coiled tow-cable dangling from the emergency compartment. The roof shuddered beneath him as the SUV bumped over the snow.

‘Got it!’ Mitchell shouted. He pulled the lever and the bonnet slammed down in front of the windscreen, its broad front edge digging into the snow. The Suburban slowed, but didn’t stop. Snow sprayed up from each side of the bonnet, gravity and three tons of upside-down truck continuing to drag them down the mountainside.

‘Shit, we’re spinning!’ Nina shouted. The bonnet was scooping up snow unevenly, slewing the SUV round. The trees further down the slope drifted into view through her side window.

An idea flashed through her mind. She squeezed under her seat’s headrest, straining to reach the handle of the door behind her.

Chase reached the rear door and tugged the handle. The tailgate popped open; he braced himself and pushed it down like a drawbridge.

A sound reached him over the thumps of the truck’s descent - engines, rasping and raw. Snowmobiles.

And the helicopter, swooping down to pass them . . .

Nina pulled the handle. The rear door opened slightly. She forced it wider. Snow spat into the cabin, biting at her eyes. Wincing, she pushed harder as the Suburban continued to turn sideways, picking up speed . . .

It swung back, the door acting as a rudder. They straightened out, slowing again as the bonnet gouged into the snow—

The open door hit something under the snow and the window burst apart. Nina shrieked and jumped back. But her idea had worked, and the Chevrolet was back in a straight line - for now.

A large bump threw Nina and Mitchell against the seats, loose items bouncing around them as the slope steepened. Even with their makeshift brake, they were still gaining speed. She looked back - and saw Chase clambering on to the open tailgate. She thought he was going to jump off, but instead he leaned forward, reaching for something on the SUV’s underside. ‘Eddie! What’re you
doing
? Jump, get off !’

Squinting into the spraying snow, Chase had no intention of jumping, however. Instead he bent over the rear bumper for the spare wheel mounted under the cargo bed, all the while aware that the top of the cliff was rapidly getting closer.

The helicopter moved into a hover past the cliff edge, wanting a grandstand view of their deaths. And from behind, Chase heard the rattle of automatic weapons fire, the snowmobilers trying to bring them about even sooner—

The Suburban hit a rock hidden beneath the snow, throwing the entire vehicle into the air. It crashed down nose first, ripping the bonnet loose. The windscreen shattered. The SUV immediately picked up speed on its hellish sledge run down the mountain.

Nina fought her way up the cabin as snow flew all around her. Chase had somehow managed to keep hold, silhouetted in the open tailgate. ‘Eddie!’ she yelled. ‘Save yourself, jump!’

He crouched. ‘Not without you!’ Another side window exploded as the truck smashed over a rock. ‘Give me that line!’

Nina used the headrests to pull herself along. The tow-cable hanging from the emergency compartment twitched crazily at every bump, just out of reach. She stretched for it . . .

Bullets clanked against the Suburban’s flank, one of them piercing the thin steel and hitting the seat above her with a
whump
. She flinched, then grabbed for the cable as it continued its mocking dance. This time, she caught it.

She used it to pull herself closer, then untangled it. Chase leaned into the cabin, arm outstretched. Nina reached out for him . . .

‘Oh shit,’ said Mitchell in a voice of imminent doom. Chase looked ahead. The line of trees was coming up fast - as was the cliff edge just beyond. ‘Whatever you’re doing, do it now!’

Chase’s gaze met Nina’s.

With a final effort, she lunged forward. Chase snatched the cable from her hand and straightened, the wind slashing at his face as he leaned over the rear bumper. He had already freed the spare wheel from its recess; now, he rapidly uncoiled the cable and threaded one end between the alloy spokes before knotting it.

Another window shattered, snow and glass showering around his legs. He ignored it, tying the other end of the cable around the SUV’s towhook. The treeline was only seconds away—

He hurled the spare wheel.

It spun off to one side, the cable snaking behind it. Snow sprayed into the air as it bounced down the slope parallel to the Suburban.

The snowmobiles closed in. Chase ducked, gripping the towhook tightly as another bullet blew out a light cluster just inches from him. The whining chatter of the helicopter rose ahead, chainsaw snarl of the snowmobile engines behind as the Chevy hurtled towards the cliff.

The spare wheel bounced past a tree - on the opposite side from the Suburban.

The cable snapped taut, whipping the spare wheel round the trunk once, twice, before it smashed into the bark. The SUV suddenly jerked round, sweeping across the clifftop at the end of the line, so close to the edge that there was nothing below the frame of the broken windscreen but empty space. Nina screamed as centrifugal force tore loose her grip and threw her towards the hole—

Mitchell’s hand clamped round her wrist.

The Suburban continued along its arc, swinging back
up
the slope. One of the snowmobilers had swerved to avoid the trees - now he found three tons of battered steel whooshing straight at him like a giant’s hammer.

The two vehicles collided, the sheer momentum of the SUV swatting the lightweight snowmobile backwards. The rider was flung skywards as its rear end flipped up. He somersaulted over the Suburban, over the cliff . . .

And into the blades of the hovering helicopter.

The man instantly became nothing but a red haze spraying out from the whirling rotor. The helicopter reeled from the impact. Its nose dipped sharply, pulling the aircraft into a steep descent despite the pilot’s desperate attempts to level out.

Rotor blades slashed against the sheer rocks, shattered—

The helicopter ploughed into the cliff, smashing the cabin and its occupants flat before the rest of the fuselage tumbled down the wall and exploded.

Chase finally lost his hold, thrown from the tailgate into the snow as the SUV swung round the tree. It hit a rock broadside-on, the roof caving in and rolling the Suburban back on to its side. Its wheels dug into the snow, flipping it upright and bouncing it into the air—

The second snowmobiler had stopped his stolen vehicle short of the cliff - only to be smacked from his seat as the Suburban tumbled over it at chest height. He hit the ground, - and the SUV landed on top of him. Roof crushed, chassis bent, it finally slid to a stop, upside down once again.

Chase shakily stood and picked his way across the steep slope. He passed the idling snowmobile and reached the wreckage of the Suburban, a long red smear marking where the rider had been scraped along beneath it. ‘Nina!
Nina!
Are you okay?’

No reply. He crouched and looked inside.

The flattened interior was filled with snow and dirt. He peered round the seats.
‘Nina
!’

Movement from the front. ‘Eddie?’ grunted Mitchell, dazed.

‘Jack! Where’s Nina?’

‘I dunno. I . . . I couldn’t keep hold of her.’

A cold stone formed in the pit of Chase’s stomach. ‘Are you okay?’ he asked, forcing himself to check on the closest person first when every part of his mind was screaming at him to search for Nina.

‘Think so . . . banged up, but I don’t think anything’s broken . . .’

‘Good. I’ll be right back.’ Chase stood, looking for any sign of his fiancée.

He stumbled round the wreck, eyes hunting desperately for anything that wasn’t white or brown or green. ‘Nina!’ He turned, and kept turning, the mountainous landscape around him becoming a blur—

Red
.

Not blood, but the subtler shade of her hair poking above a snowdrift a few yards away.

He ran to it, snow crumping under his feet. Nina was sprawled on the cold ground, thrown out of the SUV as it flipped over. She lay face down, not moving.

Chase reached her and dropped to his knees, feeling for signs of life - or death. It was impossible to pick out a heartbeat through her thick jacket, and he couldn’t even tell if she was breathing. His hands moved to her neck, brushing her ponytail aside as he pressed his fingertips under her chin. She was still warm to the touch, but he didn’t feel a pulse.

His own heart racing, he tried a different spot.

A pulse.

He waited, holding his breath.

Another, and another. Steady. Gasping in relief, Chase carefully supported her head and turned her on to her back. Her face was cut in several places, red lines running down her cheek and chin.

He quickly unzipped her jacket. The sword hilt weighed down one side as he opened it, but he ignored the hunk of metal as he hunted for signs of other injuries. No blood, no spikes of broken bones as he ran his hands over her chest—

‘There’s . . . a time and a place for that, Eddie,’ she whispered.

Chase realised both his hands were on her breasts. Her eyes flickered open, and she managed a weak smile.

‘Hah!’ gasped Chase, the exhalation somewhere between relief and annoyance. ‘Very fucking funny!’ He withdrew his hands. ‘Are you hurt anywhere?’

‘I’m hurt
everywhere
. . . but I think I’m okay.’ She tried to raise herself. ‘Ow, ow.’ Chase helped her to sit up. She caught sight of the mangled Suburban nearby. ‘Oh, my God! Where’s Jack? Is he all right?’

An arm waved from the open tailgate in reply. Mitchell wormed his way between the seats of the overturned SUV into the cargo space. ‘I’m fine,’ he called. ‘The sword! Have you still got the sword?’

Nina pawed at her open jacket. ‘Shit, it was right—’

‘It’s here,’ Chase told her, holding it up. ‘We’ve got it, don’t worry.’

Mitchell crawled from the Suburban. He looked at the nearby cliff edge, and the swathe of snow the truck had scraped from it. ‘Jesus! That was close.’

‘We’re not done yet,’ said Chase, as he looked back up the mountainside and saw reflected sunlight flash from one of the Russians’ SUVs as it rounded the first hairpin. ‘Got to keep moving.’

Nina eyed the snowmobile. ‘You’re not thinking . . .’

‘ ’Fraid I am, love.’ Chase pointed down the valley: the sheer cliff gradually shallowed, becoming a steep but traversable slope down to the valley floor - and the road leading through it. ‘We can get down that way, and we’ll do it a lot faster than those Russian twats. Did you call the police?’

‘I lost the phone,’ Nina admitted.

Chase looked back at the path of their wild ride down the mountain. ‘Suppose I can let you off, considering.’ Unzipping a pocket, he took out his own phone and gave it to her. ‘Call the cops. As long as we can stay ahead of those arseholes until they arrive, we’ll be okay.’

Mitchell joined them as Chase lifted Nina to her feet. ‘Three people on a snowmobile? We should split up. You two go on ahead - I’ll take the sword into those trees over here and call the embassy, get them to send a chopper.’

‘Do a lot of alpine survival training in the navy, did you?’ Chase asked. Mitchell looked irked.

‘We should stick together,’ Nina insisted as she dialled the Austrian emergency number. On getting through, she explained the situation as best she could in fractured German while Chase checked the snowmobile for damage. ‘Okay, the cops are on the way,’ she said, finishing the call. ‘They don’t know how long it’ll take to get here, though.’

Chase climbed aboard the snowmobile. ‘Call Mitzi, the number’s in the memory. If she picks us up we can drive back and meet ’em halfway. Okay, let’s go.’ He revved the engine. Nina clambered on behind him, Mitchell sandwiching her. ‘Hold tight!’

He set off in a spray of snow, pointing the snowmobile’s nose uphill at an angle for maximum traction on the treacherous surface. Nina glanced nervously up the mountainside. The Russian SUVs were still descending, but Chase was right: the snowmobile would reach the road below long before they could negotiate the winding route.

Mitzi answered the phone. ‘Hello?’

‘Mitzi, it’s Nina! Sorry, this is an emergency - we’re coming back from the castle and we need you to pick us up.’

The young Swiss woman’s voice filled with concern. ‘Are you okay? What’s happening? Is Eddie okay?’

‘Mitzi, sorry, there’s no time to explain right now - please, just meet us on the main road as quick as you can!’

‘I’ll be there in five minutes, less!’

‘Okay, thanks. See you soon.’ Nina rang off. ‘She’s on her way,’ she told Chase.

‘Great! Told you she was a top lass, didn’t I?’

It took them only a few minutes to reach the valley floor through the thickening stands of snow-laden evergreens. Nina looked uphill again as they crossed the road to the castle. The Russians were well behind.

‘There’s Mitzi!’ Chase cried. Ahead on the main road was her red SUV, flashing its headlights as it approached. He skidded to a stop beside the churned line of snow thrown up by the ploughs. ‘Everybody off !’

The Cayenne halted a short distance away. Mitzi jumped out. ‘What’s going on?’

‘Tell you on the way,’ said Chase as Mitchell and Nina hopped off the snowmobile. ‘The police are coming. We need to meet ’em, fast!’