‘Slight problem,’ he told Eddie as he bent back down into the cabin.
‘Only one?’ Nina hooted.
‘Nope, more than that.’ Eddie saw the green coming up fast. Beyond the circle of perfectly manicured turf were trees – then buildings. ‘We’re out of course!’
The V-100 sliced across the green, bounding over the rougher ground beyond as it ripped up bushes. More shots hammered against the rear hatch. A wooden fence disintegrated into splinters, and the APC was in a garden behind a house. There was a driveway down one side of the building; Eddie swerved for it, barging a Mercedes aside before bringing the APC squealing on to a residential street.
Kit looked back at the sound of another collision. The Tiuna shoved past the crumpled Mercedes and skidded after them.
Quickly gaining. On a paved road, it could reach its top speed, which was considerably higher than that of the vehicle it was chasing. Rojas aimed his gun at the damaged hatch. ‘Eddie, he’s right on us,’ the Indian warned.
No way to outrun or evade. Instead, Eddie braked hard. The V-100 screeched to a standstill. The Tiuna’s driver was forced to swerve past it.
Eddie saw the vehicle overtake, Rojas clinging to the machine gun to avoid being thrown off. ‘Mac, now! Get him!’
Mac tried to slide the .50-cal back to its original position, and found that the pin locking the gun in place had stuck. He turned the weapon on its mount, but it only had a hundred and eighty degree firing arc. He couldn’t bring it to bear.
The Tiuna made a shrieking handbrake turn to point back at the stationary V-100. Rojas righted himself and opened fire once more.
Mac hurriedly retreated into the cabin. ‘I can’t bring it round, it’s jammed!’
‘Eddie, that tank’s back!’ Nina gasped. The V-300 crashed out of a driveway, scattering shrubs and garbage cans.
Eddie made a split-second decision and shoved the V-100 back into gear, putting his foot to the floor. Rojas aimed at the armoured car’s slit-like windscreen. More rounds thunked off the forward armour – and the toughened glass began to craze.
The crazing became cracks, cracks spreading and widening—
Eddie ducked as the pane blew apart, glass chunks slashing at his face. Everyone dropped as low as they could as the gunfire continued.
It suddenly wavered, the stream of bullets sweeping across the V-100’s front—
The Tiuna’s driver had remembered what had happened to its sister vehicle at the Clubhouse when confronted by a charging Commando and set off again, jolting Rojas. Eddie popped his head up. The 4×4 was coming at him, trying to swing past on one side.
He turned hard—
The two vehicles hit head on at a closing speed of over sixty miles an hour. The Tiuna took the brunt of the collision, the vastly heavier V-100 flipping it up over its wedge-shaped prow to smash down, inverted, on the still moving APC’s roof. The .50-cal was crushed, its severed ammo belt whipping down into the cabin like a brass snake.
Something else had come through the hole. Rojas. He hung upside down from the wrecked Tiuna’s top hatch, by some fluke having landed squarely on top of the open parapet. Dazed, he tried to wriggle free – then his eyes snapped into shocked focus as he realised he was looking directly at Suarez.
The wounded President stared back at him. For a moment everyone in the cabin was frozen . . .
Then Rojas yanked his pistol from its holster and pointed it at Suarez’s head.
24
Eddie stomped on the brake. The V-100 screeched to a stop, tossing its occupants forward – and sending the mangled Tiuna sliding off its roof.
Rojas had just enough time to scream before the 4×4 dragged him away with it, breaking his back against the parapet – and slicing off his outstretched arm. The vehicle crashed down in front of the APC, the severed limb landing with a thump before Suarez. The President hesitated, then plucked the gun from its dead fingers.
‘Okay, he’s disarmed,’ said Eddie, restarting the Commando and flattening what remained of the Tiuna and its passengers. ‘Nina, where’s that tank?’
She searched for the V-300. ‘Behind us!’ The six-wheeled armoured car was thundering up the street in pursuit.
Eddie threw the APC into a turn on to another road as the V-300 fired, the shell shrieking past and blasting a crater out of the tarmac. Suarez spoke urgently, Macy translating for Eddie. ‘He says to take the next left – we’ve got to cross a bridge.’