Seven Ancient Wonders - Matthew Reilly [88]
And within a minute, they took it.
First, two troopers landed on the open top deck, whizzing down the drop-ropes suspended from the chopper. They were quickly followed by two more, two more and two more.
The eight French troopers now moved to the rear stairwell of the bus, guns up, preparing to storm the lower deck. . .
. . . just as, downstairs, West called: ‘Stretch! They’re crawling all over the roof! See that exit ramp up ahead! Roll us over it!’
Immediately ahead of them was another overpass, with an exit ramp rising to meet it on the right-hand side of the riverside drive. A low concrete guard-rail fence separated this ramp from the roadway which continued on underneath the overpass as a tunnel.
‘What?’ Stretch shouted back.
‘Just do it!’ West yelled. ‘Everybody, grab onto something! Hang on!’
They hit the exit ramp at speed, and rose up it briefly—
—at which moment Stretch yanked left on the steering wheel, and the bus lurched leftward, hitting the concrete guard-rail and. . .
. . . tipped over it!
The double-decker bus overbalanced shockingly and rolled over the concrete fence, using the fence as a fulcrum. As such, the entire double-decker bus rolled, going fully upside-down—off the exit ramp, back down onto the roadway proper—where it slammed down onto its open-topped roof. . .
. . . crushing all eight of the French troops on it!
But it wasn’t done yet.
Since it had tipped over the dividing rail from a considerable height, it still had a lot of sideways momentum.
So the big bus continued to roll, bouncing off its now-crushed roof and coming upright once again, commencing on a second roll—only to bang hard against the far wall of the sunken roadway, which had the incredible effect of righting the bus and plonking it back on its own wheels, so that now it was travelling once again on the riverside drive and heading into the tunnel having just performed a full 360-degree roll!
Inside the bus, the world rotated crazily, 360 degrees, hurling West’s team—Lily included—all around the cabin.
They tumbled and rolled, but they all survived the desperate move.
Indeed, they were all still lying on the floor when West scrambled to his feet and launched into action.
He took the wheel from Stretch as their mangled and dented bus swept out of the tunnel and into the Arsenal district. Having seen what West was prepared to do to anyone who tried to storm his bus from above, the Super Puma just flanked them now, swooping low over the river parallel to the speeding bus.
And just then, the modern glass-and-steel towers of the Economics Ministry came into view up ahead.
‘That bridge up ahead is the Pont d’Austerlitz,’ Pooh Bear said, peering over West’s shoulder. ‘The Charles de Gaulle Bridge is the one after it!’
‘Gotcha,’ West said. ‘Tell everybody to get their pony bottles and masks ready, and then get to the doors. Go!’
Pooh Bear gathered everyone together—Lily, Stretch and Big Ears—and they all clambered to the side and rear doors of the bus.
The bus swept past the Pont d’Austerlitz, roaring towards the next bridge: the Pont Charles de Gaulle. Like the Austerlitz before it, the Charles de Gaulle Bridge branched out to the right, stretching over the river; beyond it, the glass towers of the Economics Ministry stabbed into the sky.
The riverside drive rose to meet the Charles de Gaulle Bridge, providing West with a ramp of sorts.
And while every other car in Paris would have slowed as they climbed this exit ramp, West accelerated.
As such, he hit the Charles de Gaulle Bridge at phenomenal speed, whereupon the great battered double-decker tourist bus performed its last earthly feat.
It exploded through the low pedestrian fence on the far side of the bridge and shot out into the air above the Seine, flying in a spectacular parabolic arc, its great rectangular mass soaring through the sky, before its nose tipped and it began to fall, and West bailed out of the driver’s compartment and the others leapt from