When he cranked the wheel over, the steel chute pivoted outward like a baseball bat at full swing, knocking over two more men and smashing out the windshield of a parked sedan. A police car charged after him, its siren wailing. When it pulled alongside, Eddie braked hard and turned the wheel. The cement mixer rode up onto the cruiser’s hood. The massive weight of the truck and its load of concrete blew out the front tires and burst the radiator. The truck’s rear wheels skidded into the patrol car so it blocked both the road’s narrow lanes.
The move sent the chute flinging the other way and it tore through the glass of another car. It ricocheted back and forth like a metal tail, smashing into automobiles and keeping the pursuing police well back.
Eddie could see them pause to fire at the truck, but their shots were deflected by the enormous revolving drum, and he was increasing the range with every second. The problem wasn’t them. It was the helicopter circling overhead. Eddie couldn’t make his escape with them watching his every move and radioing his position
The street straightened and widened as he left the neighborhood. In the distance, approaching at nearly seventy miles per hour, were three more police cars, their lights winking rhythmically. Charging along with them was some sort of wheeled armored vehicle. Eddie assumed it would have a mounted heavy machine gun.
He pressed the accelerator to the floor, short shifting the transmission to build up his speed as quickly as possible. With a hundred feet separating him and the cruisers, Eddie slammed on the brakes and spun the wheel over hard. The front fender caught the rear corner of a big delivery truck, and it was enough to unbalance the cement mixer. It went up onto its outside wheels, even as it continued to careen sideways, and then it smashed over onto its side.
Eddie held on to the wheel to stop himself from tumbling onto the passenger’s door, covering his face with his elbow to protect it from the flying glass of the shattered windshield. The truck’s regular operator was sufficiently jammed into place that he was okay as glass rained down on him.
The collision with the ground was hard enough to snap the pins holding the cement drum in place and break the links of its chain drive. Momentum did the rest.
Eleven tons of steel and concrete began rolling down the street, wobbling slightly as the cement sloshed in the huge barrel. Two of the police cars had the good sense to peel out of the way and jump onto the curb, one smashing into a utility pole, the other coming to rest with its front end embedded in a wall. The armored car and the other cruiser were closer and didn’t stand a chance. The barrel rolled up the armored car’s front glacis and tore its small turret from its mount. The gunner would have been sliced in half had he not ducked at the last second.
The drum smashed back onto the road, cracking the asphalt before hitting the police cruiser in a glancing blow that was still enough to flatten it from the rear seat back. The barrel came to rest against the side of a building, with cement as stiff as toothpaste oozing from its open mouth.
Eddie grabbed a spare work shirt that had been hanging from a peg at the back of the cab and stepped through the shattered windshield. He was hidden from the view of the chopper by the truck, so he took a few seconds to wipe the cosmetics from his face and don the denim shirt. The pain radiating from his ankle was something he could contain and compartmentalize, so when he moved away from the truck he walked without a limp. He went no more than a few feet and stopped to stare with the people who’d poured out of shops and homes to see the accident. As simply as that, he was just another rubbernecker.
When the police arrived and began questioning witnesses, he was virtually ignored. They were looking for a Libyan, not an Asian man who spoke no Arabic. He slowly drifted away from the scene, and no one stopped him. Five minutes after calling their hired gang members, he was in the van headed away from the neighborhood entirely.
FIVE MILES AWAY IN the rented Fiat, Tariq Assad was on his cell phone.
“It’s me. There was a raid today. The police almost got me. First, find out why I wasn’t warned. This should have never happened. As it was, I had a little help in escaping from those people off that damned ship. I was pumping them for information when the police arrived.”
He listened for a moment, and replied. “Watch your tone! You arranged the ambush on the coast road, and those were your hand-picked men. We’ve both seen a copy of the investigation report, thanks to our mole in the police. Rather than let vehicles pass unmolested, your supposedly well-trained men were shaking down motorists for bribe money. I don’t know how these American mercenaries managed to kill them all, but they did. Then they proceeded to blow up our Hind, free most of our prisoners, and generally disrupt what had been a perfectly executed plan . . . What? Yes, I said free. Their cargo ship must have been berthed at the coaling station dock. Our men saw an empty train car sinking . . . How should I know? Maybe the vessel is faster than it looks or the men in the chopper were bigger fools than the ones you sent to stop their truck in the first place.
“I have to get out of the city now,” he went on. “Actually, out of the country. I know a pilot who is sympathetic to our cause. I will ask him to fly me in his helicopter to where the men are searching for Suleiman Al-Jama’s tomb, and I will take control personally. Despite the setbacks, it appears you have everything controlled from this end. Fiona Katamora should be in her execution chamber by now, and Colonel Hassad phoned to tell me our martyr force is en route.
“I won’t speak to you again until it’s over. So let me say that Allah’s blessings be upon us all.”
He killed the connection and tossed the encrypted phone on the seat next to him. He was a man who had always been able to keep a grip on his emotions. He wouldn’t have lasted as long as he had if he couldn’t. Today’s close call enraged him. He hadn’t been lying when he said they had spies and sympathizers in every level of the Libyan government. He’d had ample warning that the police were staking out his office and apartment, so he should have been told about the raid.
It seemed the supreme leader, Muammar Qaddafi, needed reminding that his autonomy remained limited.
THIRTY
M OVING AS SLOWLY AS HE COULD, ERIC STONE REACHED under his chest and carefully turned the rock that had been digging into his ribs for the past fifteen minutes. He could feel the disapproval that he’d moved radiating off Franklin Lincoln, who was lying prone next to him. On his other side was Mark Murphy, and beside him was Linda Ross. Next to her was Alana Shepard.
Despite everything she’d been through and the dangers now presented by the terrorists, she had insisted on coming with them. Dr. Huxley had given her a brief medical exam and cleared her for the mission.
Because of her rank within the Corporation, Linda was in charge of the group, so it was her call. She’d figured Cabrillo would nix the idea, so she hadn’t bothered asking when she’d agreed to let Alana come with them.
They were on a ridge overlooking the dry river valley where Alana and her team had spent so many weeks searching for Suleiman Al-Jama’s lost tomb. Below them were a dozen terrorists from the training camp. They might have been proficient at killing and maiming, but they were useless when it came to archaeology. The squad leader had no idea what he was doing, so he had the men scrambling all over the wadi, moving random stones and climbing the steep banks looking for any clue as to the tomb’s location. At their current pace, they’d reach the old waterfall Alana’s team had found in four or five hours.