Chapter 58 - Battle on the High Pass
Before Maxwell could extract Croft’s exact coordinates from Damian, a deafening explosion ripped through the ceiling of the drydock.
"Max!" Martha yelled through the static. "Gunship approaching! Croft isn't rescuing anyone—he’s sanitizing the site!"
Croft had cut his losses. An unmarked black attack helicopter hovered over Pier Four, its 30mm chain gun turning the docks into a meat grinder.
Maxwell sprinted out of the collapsing bunker, hauling Damian with him. Just as he cleared the threshold, a Hellfire missile struck Crane Three.
SHATTER!
The massive crane structure groaned and sheared in two. Martha rode an emergency descent cable down to a container roof, leaping clear seconds before the operator's cab smashed into the pavement. The concussive blast hurled her across the corrugated metal, lacerating her shoulder.
Maxwell dropped Damian, ignored the strafing fire chewing the tarmac, and scaled the container, scooping Martha into his arms as the helicopter circled for a secondary pass.
"Are you hit?" he demanded, checking her vitals with frantic hands.
"I’m fine... just bruised," Martha gasped, pointing toward an armored command truck fitted with a dual Stinger anti-aircraft rack parked near the gate. "Croft’s command chopper just broke formation! He’s fleeing across the Andes via the Paso Los Libertadores pass!"
Maxwell hauled Martha into the passenger seat of the armored truck, took the wheel, and slammed through the perimeter wreckage, roaring onto the mountain highway.
The pursuit up the high pass was a descent into hell. The narrow, two-lane asphalt coiled along sheer abysses thousands of meters deep, while a blinding blizzard gathered strength at higher altitudes. Ahead, the flashing navigation beacons of Croft’s command transport swayed violently against the mountain turbulence.
The trailing attack helicopter banked hard, diving down the ravine to obliterate their truck with rockets.
"Martha, the Stinger turret!" Maxwell shouted, drifting the heavy truck around a hairpin turn inches from the precipice. "Lock onto the engine exhaust!"
Bleeding and battered, Martha popped the roof hatch into the sub-zero gale. She hoisted the heavy optical tracker of the missile system to her shoulder, aligning the reticle with the gunship's thermal signature.
The acquisition tone shrilled into a solid scream.
"FOX TWO!"
The missile leaped from the rail, trailing a brilliant white arc through the blizzard. It struck the gunship's tail rotor dead center. The aircraft spun wildly out of control, slamming into a granite cliff face and triggering a colossal avalanche that swallowed the wreckage in thunderous white.
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Croft’s transport helicopter, crippled by the shockwave and mountain downdrafts, was forced into a hard crash-landing on the windswept tarmac of an abandoned border station at the crest of the pass.
Maxwell slammed the brakes, the armored truck sliding sideways to a halt fifty yards from the smoking wreckage.
