pickup hit the Hummer. Both vehicles slewed round, wheels scraping sidelong over the road as the water swept them along. For an instant, Eddie found himself looking straight at Pachac, the Maoist leader staring back at him wide-eyed through the H3’s window.
Then the Hummer slipped away – and went over the edge.
Eddie had no time to rejoice, or think about anything but his own survival. The steering wheel jerked in his hands as the pickup was carried down the track. If the tyres could find enough grip for him to steer, just for a second, he could try to wedge the F-150 against the hillside—
He didn’t get the second he needed, or even close. The current whirled the truck round. The front wheels dropped sharply, the pickup hanging briefly on the brink . . . then the sodden soil collapsed beneath it and pitched it over the cliff.
38
Nina skidded the Patrol to a desperate emergency stop as the seething wave crashed down the hillside ahead. ‘Holy shit!’
‘Over there!’ said Macy, pointing down the steep slope on the far side of the deluge. Nina saw the yellow Hummer skittering down the hill – and the pickup truck following it over the edge of the road.
The truck Eddie was driving.
She wanted to look away, but couldn’t.
Pachac and his driver screamed as the H3 picked up speed down the steepening slope. The only thing between them and the clouds filling the valley below was a rocky outcrop, a gnarled tree jutting sidelong from it—
The Hummer hit the protruding rock nose-first. The airbags fired, but with neither man wearing a seatbelt they were still slammed brutally forward. Another impact followed as the H3 tipped back and hit the cliff, ending up wedged against the rockface.
Even through his pain and disorientation, Pachac knew he had to get clear as quickly as possible. He swatted away the airbag’s flaccid remains and opened the door. The thin build-up of dirt in which the tree had taken root was already being washed away by the water flowing down the cliff – and with over two tons of automobile on top of it, the rock would probably soon go the same way.
He dragged himself out. ‘Come on,’ he rasped. ‘We’ve got—’
Noise above. Not water, not rock. Metal. He looked up.
Something rushed down the hillside towards him—
Even as the F-150 went over the edge, Eddie was turning the wheel, trying to aim the truck at a tree he had glimpsed below. His chances of reaching it were almost zero, but a minuscule hope of survival was better than no hope at all. He leaned out of the open door as the abused vehicle rushed down the slope—
The Hummer was perched on the rock supporting the tree - off to the side.
He wasn’t going to make it.
Not in the truck—
Eddie dived out, twisting in freefall to land on his back . . .
He hit the Hummer’s roof with such force that all its windows exploded, the expanse of sheet metal crumpling beneath him as the F-150 shot past, missing the rock by inches. The pain was so intense it overwhelmed his senses.
Taste returned first, the metallic sting of blood in his mouth. Other pains reported in throughout his body as he tried to move. His spine was ablaze – broken? No, he realised as his limbs achingly responded, but it could hardly hurt much more.
He forced his eyes open. The tree was a wavering blur, the light from the sky beyond its branches almost painful. All his body wanted to do was lie still and fade away . . .
Pachac.
The thought of the Peruvian pulled him back. Where was Pachac? He had been in the Hummer, and Eddie was now on the Hummer. He had a mission. Make him pay for what he had done to Mac. Catch him. Kill him.
The pain made the cold, ruthless detachment of his pursuit impossible to maintain, animal rage sawing at the clinical parts of his mind. He channelled it, controlled it, used it as fuel as he slowly rolled on his side.
Pachac lay on the rock below.
Their gazes locked on to each other. Disbelief filled the rebel’s eyes, fury Eddie’s. The pain vanished as the Englishman threw himself at the revolutionary leader—
The mangled Hummer tipped into the abyss behind him with a grind of metal and the driver’s petrified scream, but Eddie didn’t even notice, fixated on Pachac. The Peruvian managed to scramble aside as he landed, the desperation of self-preservation overcoming his own