The Illuminati Sanctum (The Relic Hunters 6) David Leadbeater (new reading .txt) 📖

“Damn them,” Lucie’s said, voice shaking. “They didn’t need to do that.”

Bodie guessed it was yet one more tactic to keep them off balance and vulnerable. To keep them running and ensure they’d make a mistake. “I need to know how they found us,” he said. “That’s what I need to know.”

The ranch house shuddered in the distance as it was engulfed in flames, fire licking up through the windows, taking hold of the wooden walls and snaking up to the roof. Black clouds billowed into the sky.

Bodie turned his gaze from the clouds to the following helicopter.

And saw...

“Oh, bollocks,” he managed. “Hold on. This is gonna be bad.”

CHAPTER TEN

Bodie saw the streak of white fire and yelled out a warning, hanging on as tight as he could.

“RPG!”

Yasmine banked the chopper to the right, throwing them all against their seat belts and Jemma’s head against the window. The missile smashed into their tail rotor and exploded. Deadly metal shards detonated through the air, many spearing into the chopper’s frame right behind the team’s bodies. Bodie heard and saw several fragments tear through the metal shell. One flew past Cassidy and smashed the cockpit window. Another skimmed past Yasmine and disappeared into the control panel.

“Shit that was close,” Bodie began.

The chopper’s engine note became a tortured roar. The craft jerked in mid-air and plummeted several feet. Bodie felt his heart fly up into his mouth and his stomach turn over.

“Yasmine...” he said.

“Shut up.”

The Moroccan heaved at the controls with all her strength, trying to coax the bird back into life. Her efforts were rewarded in fits and starts, the engine kicking in every few seconds with high-pitched screams of mechanical pain. The chopper dropped hard toward the ground below.

Bodie could smell burning metal and oil, mixed with his own fear. Yasmine fought the controls. Lucie was curled up, protecting her head, which was probably the best idea. Bodie stared dead ahead, ignoring their enemies for now as the landscape below came up to meet them.

Yasmine brought the engine to life countless times, arresting their fall. The chopper veered and swung through the air, countryside flitting and spinning before their eyes. The highway came up fast, the twin black snakes growing rapidly.

Of course they were going to land on the hardest, most unforgiving stretch of land for miles around. That was the rule.

Bodie gritted his teeth as Yasmine let the skids punch the ground before restarting the engine, effectively making the bird bounce. Metal shrieked and tore away. Yasmine arrested some of the momentum from the next plunge, using the engine to fight gravity. Bodie watched parts of the bodywork shear away. His chest slammed into the seat belt, which tightened around him. Cassidy was thrown to left and right. The chopper came down for a third time, striking the ground with a crunch.

Ahead, Bodie saw the road filled with headlights. They’d come down on the wrong side of the carriageway. Cars swerved and hit the brakes, slewing left and right. Bodie’s head spun. Pain gripped his chest. Cassidy groaned.

Suddenly motionless and silent, Bodie attempted to focus. “You okay?” he groggily asked the two women up front. Receiving nods, he shrugged off his seatbelt and checked with the others beside him.

Two pairs of eyes stared back at him, blinking.

“We all good?”

Lucie and Jemma nodded, although they were both running their hands across their bodies to make sure. Bodie could see twisted metal and smell smoke through the cracked windows.

“We gotta move,” he said. “They’re not far behind.”

Still in shock, the five of them climbed shakily from the juddering craft. Bodie’s legs folded when he hit the road, sending him headlong. Cassidy came around to help him up.

“You okay?”

“Yeah. I never crashed like that before.”

“Then you’ve never lived. Hey, Jem, you okay?”

Bodie let the shock of Cassidy’s flippant comment slide away as Jemma appeared, forehead covered in blood.

“I’m okay,” she said. “Survived the helicopter crash and then cut my head open on the doorframe getting out.” She sighed. “Could have been worse.”

Jemma and Yasmine appeared then, the latter staring up at the skies.

“They’re coming,” she said.

Bodie glanced up. The pursuing helicopter was growing larger as it approached the scene, drifting lower and lower. Men were already hanging out of the doors.

“Clearly, they changed their minds about shooting at us,” Lucie said.

“Unless they aimed for the tail rotor.” Cassidy shrugged. “It’s possible.”

“We gotta go,” Bodie stated the obvious, pushed everything else aside, and took his first proper look around. Ahead, the cars were backing up, lights shining and doors opening. Across the other side of the carriageway many drivers were rubbernecking, slowing down or braking hard enough to cause more accidents so they could see what the hell was going on.

“Come on,” he said. “We don’t give up that easily.”

Leading the charge, he left the smoking wreck of the chopper behind and ran across the road to the central reservation. Behind, and dozens of feet up, the second helicopter prepared to land. Bodie climbed across the concrete divide and dashed among the slow-moving traffic, waving his hands. When one driver behind the wheel of an old Seat slammed on his brakes, Bodie raced around and opened the man’s door.

“Out,” he said. “National emergency.”

When the driver didn’t move, Cassidy reached in and dragged him over the sill. Luckily, he was alone. The others climbed in and ducked down.

“Drive,” Cassidy said.

Bodie stamped on the gas pedal, accelerating up through the gears. In his rearview he saw a line of traffic and, rising once more like a predatorial bird, the black chase helicopter. The road was busy, but not jampacked enough that he couldn’t weave through it, over- and undertaking at