Hell Island - Matthew Reilly [15]
Hulk roared in pain—just as the two apes did something totally unexpected: they yanked him off the back of the speeding truck, jumping with him, without any thought, it seemed, to the injuries they themselves would suffer.
Astro saw it all in a kind of surreal slow motion.
He saw Hulk’s eyes go wide as the big man fell to the ramp behind the upwardly-racing truck, gripped by the two gorillas.
Then he saw the onrushing army of apes over-whelm Hulk, choosing to use their M-4s as clubs rather than guns. Astro winced as he lost sight of Hulk amid the mass of black hair.
But even then, not every ape stopped to join in the mauling of Hulk—the rest just kept running, clambering around the gorillas battering Hulk’s body, still chasing the fleeing truck.
‘Jesus . . .’ Astro breathed.
And then wham! Mother’s truck burst into grey daylight, into the pouring rain assaulting the flight deck. Uncountable raindrops hammered its windshield.
The four remaining gorillas on the truck made their move.
They converged on the cab in a co-ordinated manner—swinging down together from the roof, one arriving at each door, the other two landing on the bonnet of the truck, right in front of Mother, guns up.
‘Yikes . . .’ Mother breathed.
There was no escape. No chance.
Except . . .
‘Hang on, boys!’ she called into her UHF radio.
And with that, she yanked on the steering wheel, bringing the truck into a sharp right-hand turn, a turn that was far too fast for a vehicle of its type.
Gravity played its part.
The truck turned sharply . . . its inner wheels lifting off the tarmac . . . and it rolled.
The big truck tumbled across the rain-slicked flight deck, sending the apes on its cab and bonnet flying in every direction. Then it landed on its side and slid for a full sixty feet before coming to rest against the lone Super Stallion helicopter on the deck.
Mother clambered out of the overturned truck, raced to its rear.
‘You okay?’ she called, crouching to her knees.
Sanchez and Astro lay crumpled against the side wall of the tray, bruised and bloody but alive.
‘Come on,’ Mother peered back at the ramp. ‘We gotta keep—’
She cut herself off.
The apes were already at the top of the ramp.
A great crowd of them—easily one hundred strong—now stood on the deck, in the rain, at the entrance to the ramp, grunting and snorting and glaring right at her.
Still on her knees, totally exposed, Mother just sighed.
‘Game over. We lose.’
The apes charged, raising their guns, pulling the triggers.
Mother shut her eyes.
The sound of gunfire rang out—loud, hard and brutal—and Mother imagined this was the last sound she’d ever hear.
Braaaaaaaaaaaap!
But there was something wrong with this sound.
It was too loud for an M-4, too deep. It was the sound of a much larger gun.
Crouched at the rear of her overturned truck, Mother had never noticed the port-side elevator rise up to deck-level behind her.
Never saw what stood on the open-air elevator: an F-14 Tomcat, pointed right at her.
And in the cockpit of the Tomcat . . .
. . . were Shane Schofield and Bigfoot!
Schofield sat in the pilot’s seat, gripping the control stick and jamming down on its trigger.
Sizzling tracer rounds whizzed by Mother on either side, popping past her ears, before razing into the crowd of gorillas beyond her, mowing them down.
The first three rows of gorillas fell at once. The others split up, fanned out, sought cover.
‘Mother!’ Schofield’s voice said in her ear. ‘Get out of here! I’ll hold them off!’
‘Where can we go?’ Mother dragged Astro out of the truck and started running, with Sanchez by her side.
‘Get to Casper’s door!’ Schofield said cryptically. ‘Go over the stern! I’ll meet you there!’
Mother did as she was told, hustling to the rear edge of the deck, where she lowered Astro over the side, down to a safety net just below the edge. She and Sanchez then jumped down after him and disappeared inside a hatch.
That left Schofield and Bigfoot in the Tomcat on the port-side elevator,