The Sacred Vault_ A Novel - Andy McDermott [103]
Eddie sat up, raising his gun - and seeing a potential target. Mahajan and another man were driving a golf cart towards the palace, the Khoils on the rear seats. He fired at them. Khoil and Vanita flung themselves out of the cart as bullets caught the guard and sent him flailing to the ground. Mahajan ducked and swerved the little vehicle to put it between the gunman and his employers.
Nina headed for the long drive - only to see a second Range Rover brake to block it. With its low ground clearance and damaged suspension, the Veyron had no chance of negotiating the grass verges to get round it. She instead made a hard turn, bringing the supercar on to the runway.
Eddie glanced back at the golf cart. Vanita had snatched up the fallen guard’s MP5 and was pointing it at the Veyron. ‘Down!’ he shouted as she opened fire. Bullets puckered the Bugatti’s bodywork, but none reached the cabin; the Veyron’s engine was mounted behind the seats, the huge block taking the clanging impacts. There was a loud hiss and a gush of steam as one of the radiators was punctured, adding to the wounded car’s woes.
Nina skidded past the parked jet and the now-closed container holding the smaller aircraft, aiming along the length of the runway and slamming up through the gears. The Veyron had all-wheel drive; even with one of them crunching against the wheelarch the response was still frightening. In the mirror, the golf cart was suddenly reduced to a dot as the car blasted through the sixty mile per hour mark in barely four seconds, thundering on towards a hundred. ‘Jesus!’ she yelped.
‘Bloody hell,’ said Eddie, pushing himself upright. ‘I’m jealous that you’re driving now!’
She was not as thrilled with the experience. The collapsed suspension was making the steering wheel judder like a jackhammer, even holding the car in a straight line becoming harder with each passing moment. Dashboard warning lights started flashing - the radiator was not all that had been damaged. The speedometer passed one hundred . . . then dropped back down. ‘I think this thing’ll need more than an oil change at its next service,’ she warned.
Eddie looked back. The steam had been replaced by greasy smoke, swirling in the Veyron’s slipstream. The second Range Rover was now in pursuit.
Ahead, even with the Veyron slowing, they were rapidly running out of runway. Beyond the poles of the landing lights at its far end, Nina could see the estate’s boundary wall. She brought the car into a sweeping, shuddering turn on to an access lane leading to the main drive. Only a short distance to the main gate, and freedom - if they could get through it.
If they could get to it. The engine rasped alarmingly, the stench of burning oil filling the cabin. Even with her foot to the floor, their speed was still falling. Sixty miles an hour, fifty. Nina straightened out as they reached the road, seeing the gate ahead. Guards ran to block their path.
Armed guards.
‘Go through them!’ Eddie shouted. ‘Crash the gate!’
‘There’s no power!’ Nina protested. Forty miles an hour and still slowing, even as she dropped through the gears in a desperate attempt to maintain speed. The vibration from the wrecked wheel was getting worse, the Veyron’s back end starting to weave. ‘We’re not gonna make it!’ Thirty . . .
A huge metallic bang shook the car as the broken wheel finally sheared off its axle, tearing off the Veyron’s back quarter panel and bouncing down the drive. The already low-slung supercar’s ground clearance was reduced to zero as the unsupported body hit the road like an anchor. Grinding over the asphalt, it screeched to a stop.
The guards ran towards them, guns raised—
And whirled at the sound of another vehicle behind them.
The barrier shattered as Kit crashed his car through it. One of the men was hit by a length of broken wood