The Sacred Vault_ A Novel - Andy McDermott [153]
The Indian’s palm snapped up, stopping the punch an inch short.
Before Eddie could react, another savage kick caught him in the midsection. Winded, he lurched backwards, wobbling at the top of the broken stairway . . .
With a cruel smile, Tandon darted at him to deliver a final strike. It wasn’t a kick, or a punch - insultingly, it was nothing more than a poke to Eddie’s chest.
But it was enough to push him down the stairs.
With a yell, Eddie bounced down the stone steps - and flew off the end into the void below.
28
The tiers along the valley sides flashed past as Eddie fell, one, two—
A white line rushed at him. He desperately grasped at his only chance of survival - and jolted to an agonising stop as he caught one of the ropes stretched across the valley.
The line shook, batting him like a cat toy as he clung with one aching arm - and saw Tandon looking over the edge of the steps above, the expectant satisfaction on his face replaced in quick succession by disbelief, then anger. The Indian shouted to Zec.
He was a sitting duck. He had to reach the valley’s side before Zec shot him—
A crack - and he fell again.
The rope had broken!
Only at one end. He was swinging like Tarzan - straight at a cliff face.
Eddie braced himself, but knew he had no chance of surviving the impact. The wind whistled in his ears as he followed his inexorable arc towards the wall. He would hit under the fourth tier, smacking against the carved rock.
But it wasn’t rock. An archway loomed, darkness beyond—
The rope caught on the edge of the fourth tier as he whipped beneath it - flicking him upwards through the doorway. He sailed across the room, bouncing off the ceiling before falling again . . . to land with a huge thump amid an explosion of something soft.
He choked, grains filling his nostrils and mouth. For a moment the fear of suffocation overcame any other thoughts and he thrashed wildly, coughing and spitting - to find that he had landed on a pile of rice sacks, the supplies secretly provided to the guardians by the villagers around Mount Kedarnath, the impact bursting them.
‘Saved by Uncle Ben,’ he groaned as he achingly stood, rice cascading from him like dried snow, and staggered to the entrance. He would have to climb all the way back to the Vault to help Nina and Kit—
Only the fact that he was looking up at the ledge as he emerged kept him alive. Several mercenaries were lined up across the top of the stairway - aiming down at him. Muzzle flashes bloomed like deadly sunflowers. He jumped back from the hailstorm of stone fragments that erupted round the archway.
Shit! He was pinned down, no other way out of the room - and now the MD 500 joined the assault. There was no way he could reach the Vault without being cut to pieces . . .
More shots - but from a new kind of gun. The onslaught stopped, and he heard a scream. A sharp clang of lead against thin aluminium, and the MD 500 hurriedly ascended.
Not a new kind of gun, he realised. A very old one.
The Martini-Henry. The weapons the guardians had taken from the unfortunate British explorers in the nineteenth century were not all rusting relics. Some had been well cared for.
The surviving .577/450-calibre ammo was easily powerful enough to penetrate a helicopter’s fuselage. The MD 500 might be acting as a gunship, but it was still a civilian aircraft, lacking any kind of armour. One good shot could kill the pilot, sever a hydraulic line, rupture a fuel tank. Retreating was the smart move.
But that still left the Chinook, an ex-military helicopter with armour where it was needed . . .
Another scream. Eddie risked a glance outside to see a mercenary tumble down the steps and plummet to the valley floor. The others had switched their aim to the new threat - but now they were at a disadvantage. With its short barrel, the MP5K - designed for compactness and easy concealment - had a limited effective range and comparatively low power. The Martini-Henrys, on the other hand, had proved their range, precision and fearsome punch in battles throughout