The Persona Protocol - By Andy McDermott Page 0,110

dotted rust-orange line.

His own footsteps ran alongside it.

Nothing he could do about that. He was committed to his plan. If it failed, he would be left with only two choices: either watch impotently from hiding as al-Rais flew the RTG and its deadly contents to parts unknown . . . or make a desperate suicide attack in the hope of at least killing the terrorist leader before he could escape.

Neither appealed. It had to succeed.

His hands tightened around the cable. The Vityaz drew closer, the growl of its engine making the logs tremble. Only seconds away. Wait, wait . . .

It drove past, the fat tracks kicking up clods of snow. The cable bucked in his grip as the ATV rolled over it. Not yet—

Now!

The instant the first of the two articulated units was past, Adam whipped up the cable and snapped it forwards to hook it over the caterpillar tracks.

It caught on one of the deep rubber blocks and was yanked along the top of the tread. The line was snatched from Adam’s open hands. If he had kept hold of it for a fraction of a second longer, it would have sliced off his fingers. The log he had looped the cable around leapt from the pile and spun across the cutting, smashing against the Vityaz’s side in a shower of rotten flinders.

The ATV jerked sharply off course. The cable had jammed the track – and also become entangled in the clutch of hydraulic rams linking the forward unit to the trailer. The two sections of the vehicle convulsed, the trailer slewing sideways and crashing to the limit of its articulation. Metal shrieked. The Vityaz slithered to an emergency stop, the back end of the trailer about thirty feet from Adam.

He pressed himself against the piled logs. ‘Tell me what’s happening,’ he hissed. His cover was already slight enough that he couldn’t risk looking out from it.

‘They don’t know what the hell just happened,’ Holly Jo told him. He heard shouted Russian. ‘Sevnik’s yelling at the driver, the driver’s yelling at him, all the other guys are piling out – lots of guns.’

‘Maybe they’ll shoot each other and save us the trouble,’ Kyle added.

Adam doubted he would be that fortunate. Instead he lay still, listening to the commotion. Zykov implored everyone to calm down, with mixed success. ‘We hit a mine!’ someone cried.

‘It wasn’t a mine – it was a log!’ the arms dealer yelled back. ‘Look! We ran over a log, that’s all.’

‘No, it’s not all,’ said another voice – the driver, Adam realised. ‘The tracks are jammed, there’s something – what the hell? Shit! Look at this.’

‘They’ve found the cable,’ Holly Jo reported. ‘The driver’s trying to pull it out – nope, not happening.’

‘Is it stuck?’ Sevnik asked.

‘It’s caught in the hydraulics!’ A few strained grunts of exertion. ‘Balls! It’s jammed in there.’

‘You didn’t see it?’ al-Rais said with suspicion.

‘It was under the snow! I don’t have X-ray eyes.’

‘Can you get it out?’ asked Zykov.

‘I’ll have to cut it. I’ve got the tools, but it’ll take time.’

‘How long?’ demanded al-Rais.

‘I don’t know. Twenty minutes, half an hour? I need to check that the driveshaft isn’t damaged too.’

‘That is too long,’ said the terrorist leader. ‘We’ll carry the generator to the plane.’

Although he couldn’t see him, Adam somehow knew that the driver was shrugging. ‘Up to you. But I’ll have to cut it free anyway.’

‘Get it out,’ al-Rais ordered. Muffled footsteps followed as the men headed to the trailer.

Frustrating minutes passed, Adam still unable to risk moving. The running commentary from Holly Jo and Kyle told him that the RTG was being taken from the Vityaz, then slowly carried down to the waterfront. Tony and his team were still over two miles distant. ‘It’s all downhill from here,’ Holly Jo added hopefully. ‘Oh, wait, that didn’t come out quite like I wanted . . .’

‘I know what you meant,’ said Adam. ‘Is anyone close to me?’

‘Just the driver. Everyone else is almost at the jetty.’

‘Which way is the driver looking?’

‘He’s got his back to you,’ Kyle said.

Adam raised his head. The driver was kneeling at the Vityaz’s central coupling, using a small saw to cut the cable. Beyond the stalled all-terrain vehicle, he saw the scrum of men bearing the RTG, Zykov’s bodyguards having joined in to lighten the load. He was unsurprised that the leaders of the three groups were not volunteering their own services. ‘Okay, I’m going to get closer to the plane.’ He cautiously