Ice Station - Matthew Reilly [118]
The SAS guy was all over Schofield. One hit to his injured throat and Schofield couldn’t breathe, another to the rib cage and Schofield heard one of his ribs snap. Schofield doubled over and the SAS man grabbed him by his collar and his belt and hurled him out through the destroyed forward windscreen of the speeding hovercraft.
Schofield thudded against the forward hood of the hovercraft. His body ached, he couldn’t breathe. He coughed up blood as he looked up –
– just in time to see the SAS commando reach for his holster and draw his service pistol. At the sight of the gun, suddenly Schofield’s breath
came back to him and everything became clear.
Speeding hovercraft.
Man, gun.
Certain death.
His body aching, Schofield rolled forward, toward the rounded bow of the hovercraft. The black rubber skirt dropped away in front of him. The ground rushed by beneath it at seventy miles an hour.
You are going to die . . .
Schofield found a handhold and quickly lowered his feet over the bow of the speeding hovercraft. His feet touched the speeding earth and skipped up off the surface.
The SAS man in the cabin seemed to be amused by what Schofield was doing, and he paused for a fraction of a second as he levelled his automatic pistol at Schofield’s head.
Schofield – his face bruised, his teeth bloody, his body bent over the inflated skirt at the bow of the hovercraft – looked up at the SAS commando and smiled. He saw the SAS commando smile back at him. And then he saw him raise his gun a little higher.
At that moment, Schofield ducked his head beneath the skirt of the hovercraft. He heard the gun go off, heard the bullet ping off the top of the skirt.
Schofield was hanging off the bow of the speeding hovercraft now, pressing his body against the inflated rubber skirt. His feet were dragging on the ground as it rushed by beneath him at incredible speed.
Suddenly, he heard a sound and he looked up and saw the SAS man standing above him, on the forward hood of the hovercraft, looking down at him, with his gun still in his hand.
And as the SAS commando raised his gun to fire, Shane Schofield knew there was only one thing he could do. He released his grip on the inflated rubber skirt and disappeared under the bow of the hovercraft.
The sound of the turbofans was absolutely earshattering.
Schofield’s helmet slammed down against the ground and Schofield slid on his back underneath the hovercraft.
The rush of air and the deafening roar of the four turbofans above him was like being in a wind tunnel. Schofield saw the inflated insides of the skirt, saw the rapidly-rotating blades of the turbofans –
And then he shot out from underneath the speeding hovercraft, and the deafening roar of the turbofans was gone as Schofield slid on his back across the flat, icy plain behind the hovercraft he had been standing on only moments before.
Schofield didn’t waste any time.
He rolled onto his stomach as he aquaplaned across the ice and in one swift movement, he pulled his Maghook from his belt and looked up at the rear of the hovercraft as it sped away from him. He raised the Maghook and fired.
The bulbous magnetic head of the Maghook flew through the air, its tail of rope unspooling wildly behind it. The magnet thudded into the metal wall of the cabin just above the hovercraft’s skirt and stuck, and Schofield was suddenly yanked forward behind the speeding hovercraft.
He was now being dragged across the ice plain behind the speeding hovercraft, like a flailing water-skier trying desperately to get back on his feet again.
And then abruptly the ground all around Schofield was raked with gunfire.
Schofield spun to look behind him.
A second British hovercraft was right behind him!
It was bearing down on him, as if it were about to trample him.
Schofield rolled onto his back – holding onto his Maghook’s launcher with one hand – as he was dragged behind the first hovercraft. With his free hand, he drew his Desert Eagle and fired back at the pursuing hovercraft. The Desert Eagle boomed, ripped open several holes in the skirt of