Aella had fired at the same time as Saint, and that motorcycle threat was neutralized. They couldn’t keep this up. Sooner or later, there was going to be a lucky shot and they were either going to lose tires or a bullet would hit the gas tank and it would all be over. But at this point, there was nothing he could do except try to outrun them and possibly lose them.
The men in the jeeps started firing at them again after the two motorcycles failed to stop them. Thank God this van was a Mercedes. It was built like a tank and provided some shield from the bullets. He had to keep them all safe. Well, as safe as he could, providing he didn’t get hit and they didn’t crash, and providing everything else went all right.
“Get down, stay down,” he said to Chry.
Bursts ping, ping, pinged against metal. The van’s passenger side mirror exploded. Bits of glass flew as the mirror disintegrated, leaving only a part of the shell hanging from the support.
She looked at him and complied.
“Oh, dammit,” Chry swore. She was in almost a fetal position now, her legs drawn up under her, her shoulders hunched around her knees.
If only he could gain on them a bit, he could pull off onto one of those side roads and hopefully lose them. But Darko and his hired muscle were sticking to them so tight, there was no way to pull a fast one.
He pushed the van hard, screaming around the curves, looking for those extra few seconds to put them out of sight.
They passed more houses, then there was nothing but dark on either side of them as they accelerated up into what looked like a mountainous road. He had a white-knuckled grip on the wheel as he looked out his side window to see a drop off.
Darko always played for blood and shoving them off a mountainside would work for him quite handily. The rest of his pay-for-hire goons weren’t any better, but with at least a dozen bikes and three jeeps full of submachine-gun-toting a-holes, those were ugly odds. He couldn’t outrun them.
Nevertheless, he had no choice. He gunned the engine and came around the next curve—almost head-on into the rear end of a freaking truck laden with vegetables. A humongous RV was approaching in the other direction, both of them poking along. He tapped the brakes, hard, shooting everyone forward.
This was absolutely the worst time for these two vehicles to block his way.
The RV slowly rumbled forward, blocking off any escape. Chry was huddled down in her seat. It crossed his mind to yell for everyone to brace. The truth was, she was never going to know what hit her. They were going to annihilate the veggie truck and themselves in about two seriously harrowing seconds with the phalanx of dangerous gunslingers behind them.
Everything happened in split seconds. He held on to the wheel, played the brakes and prayed and cursed at the same time. Just a millisecond from impact, the RV rolled far enough past the veggie truck to create the narrowest of openings, and 2-Stroke shot through. The fit was so tight, the rear light of the RV went by him less than six inches from Chry’s window. The shattered remains of the van’s side mirror were sheared off.
They barely maintained purchase on the road into the narrow shoulder over the drop-off, overshooting the road by two feet before he was able to muscle the van back onto the asphalt in front of the veggie truck. The RV slowed their pursuers down and the jeeps held onto the road by the same hairsbreadth, sending up a plume of dust before screeching in behind the van.
More shots dinged into the van’s rear end. Now it was an all-out run, and it was going to be all about speed. There was a straightaway up ahead as they rolled down off that scary piece of road. A straight stretch he could use to try to gain some speed that the armada of vehicles behind him had lost.
“Hold on,” he warned as they flew up a small rise. At the top, one look proved the straightaway was clear of traffic, and from what he could see, there was a side road. He didn’t hesitate. He stomped the gas pedal all the way to the floor, blasting away from the group like a rocket taking off.
“What the hell are you doing?” Saint yelled.
“We’re going to make that turn!”
Saint came up behind his seat and looked at the road ahead of him. 2-Stroke noticed in the rearview how his eyes widened.
“You can’t make that turn. We’ll tip the fuck over!”
“We don’t have a choice!”
“Everyone to the left side of the van. We’re going to need the weight! You, too, Chry!”
He looked in the rearview and they were only going to be out of sight for seconds.
“Get ready!” 2-Stroke yelled.
As soon as the road dipped, he was almost to the turn. Fuck me, he thought. He wasn’t exactly a bus going like hell, but this reminded him of that crazy-ass turn in the movie Speed. He pushed the van harder, looking for any seconds he could get. When the headlights disappeared from behind him, and there was nothing but black, he jerked the wheel. The van zoomed, the centrifugal force dragging at him. Even with everyone on his side of the van, he could feel the tires lift.
Then they were around the bend and 2-Stroke hit the lights and hit the brakes hard, catching his breath and lurking on the road in the dark.
Damn, his heart was pounding. Sweat poured down the sides of his face and under his arms. His heart was in his throat, but he didn’t waste a second. He pulled his weapon at the ready as the first sets of motorcycles zoomed past, then a second set whizzed and finally the jeeps.
Then Saint lifted his head and said, “What is that?”
The whop, whop, whop of a chopper sounded as they exited the van and ran to the road. The whole group of vehicles had stopped just up the road. They must have realized that they had lost them. But luckily there were many side roads peppered along the way, and they would have to do a search of all of them.
“Dammit. That chopper is bad news,” Aella said between gritted teeth.
“We’ll have to run without lights,” 2-Stroke said.
“Are you crazy! Pitch dark, mountainous region. We’re likely to fall off the edge of a cliff.”
“What choice do we have? Do you want to go on foot? Chry isn’t in any shape to hoof it all the way to Sarajevo!”
“I’ll carry her if we have to. It gives us a better chance to live through this. Besides, we can get another vehicle along the way.”
“What is that chopper doing?” Chry asked.
They all looked back at the helo and it was not only getting low, but that .50 cal was swiveling around. Suddenly, it opened fire and cut down five of the front-line motorcycles. Men shouted and the jeeps turned around and started to come back their way.
But the chopper wasn’t done. A rocket accelerated toward the jeeps and hit, causing a crater in the road and sending the three jeeps off in different directions. One completely flipped over and crashed down on the people inside, and one swerved and hit a tree, sending its passengers flinging out every which way. The third jeep careened into the brush and rolled as people jumped from it.
The .50 cal sounded again and cut down the rest of the fleeing motorcycle riders. Then a rope dropped from the chopper
“That’s Striker,” 2-Stroke yelled, relief washing through him. Leave it to his brother to commandeer a chopper and turn it against the enemy. He was as badass as SEALs got.
His brother hit the ground and started running toward them as he returned fire from several of the conscious jeep riders. 2-Stroke, Saint, and Aella also fired back at them.