Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull Page 17

  Indy spoke as he aimed. “You might want to close your—”

  His finger accidentally twitched. The explosive blast cut off his last word. The windshield cracked. Smoke blasted out the rear of the bazooka, and the missile screamed across the bend in the river, sailing straight as an arrow.

  Indy, his ears ringing, cursed the premature firing. Then again, maybe it was just as well . . .

  As he watched, the rocket blasted across the river’s bend and slammed straight into the jungle-cutter. The vehicle detonated with a great explosion of flame, dirt, and smoking debris. The wreckage shot high into the air in a wicked cartwheel.

  Behind it, the convoy ground to a halt as vehicles smashed into one another in a chain-reaction pileup. Searching through the smoke, Indy spotted the vehicle that had been traveling directly behind the jungle-cutter. It was Spalko’s jeep. In the back, he could see Oxley.

  “Indy!” Marion screamed in terror.

  Irina Spalko gaped as the cutter exploded in front of her.

  One second, it had been cleaving around the river bend—the next it blasted upward amid flames and mud. Its two saw blades ripped away. One sailed ahead, struck a boulder with the ringing note of a great bell, and vanished into the jungle. The other flew straight at their jeep.

  With a gasp of fear, she and the driver flattened, but the whizzing giant disk sailed past overhead, missing their jeep by inches.

  Twisting around, she followed its deadly trajectory toward the rear of the convoy. Back there, she spotted something suspicious. Smoke was pouring out of the cab of the very last truck. A thin contrail of rocket exhaust led back to the same vehicle. She clenched a fist in frustration. The truck had to be the source of the surprise missile attack. And if so, there could only be one explanation.

  Dr. Jones.

  White-hot fury flared through her. Then, just as quickly, it mellowed into amused satisfaction when she noted how the flying saw blade banked and angled around the river. It aimed straight for—

  “Duck!” Marion screamed and yanked Indy and Mutt down.

  She caught one last glimpse of the silver disk as it arced along the curve of the river and flew straight at them. She dove on top of Indy and her son, protecting them while covering her head with her arms.

  The impact shook the massive truck, accompanied by a shrieking rending of tortured steel. Canvas shredded into confetti, showering down over them.

  A second later, it was over.

  Waving debris from her face, Marion sat up in the driver’s seat. She stared at the sight around her. The bright sunlight was blinding. The entire upper half of the truck had been buzz-sawed away.

  “I’ll be damned,” Indy said.

  “We may be, Jones,” Marion muttered.

  THIRTY-SIX

  SPALKO KEPT HER FACE PASSIVE as the jungle-cutter’s saw blade cleaved off the roof of Dr. Jones’s truck. A moment later figures straightened into view in the front cab. She spotted Jones, the woman, and the boy.

  They were still alive.

  Clenching her fingers on the pommel of her sword, Spalko stood in her seat. “Go!” she ordered her jeep’s driver and pointed her arm toward the raw jungle trail beyond the smoldering wreckage of the cutter. “Keep heading down the trail!”

  As the jeep revved with a growl that echoed how she felt, Spalko vaulted over the front seat and into the back. She landed between McHale and Dr. Oxley.

  “Guard that skull!” she shouted to McHale as she continued past them and climbed into the jeep’s rear bed. “Your life depends on it!”

  Soldiers in the back moved out of her way.

  With a two step running start, she flew out of the back of the jeep and landed on the hood of the jeep trailing behind hers. She landed in a crouch like some jungle panther. The driver of the jeep gaped at her.

  She hurdled the windshield, grabbed the assault rifle leaning on the front seat, and hopped into the back. With murderous intent, she lifted the rifle to her shoulder. Nothing would stop her. She would not let anyone have the skull.

  As the jeep slowed under her, she screamed to the driver, “Keep going! Follow the lead jeep!”

  “Keep going!” Indy shouted to Marion as she wrestled the stalled truck into gear.

  With smoke from the rocket exhaust still choking the cab, the troop transport lurched forward. Marion pounded the gas, and the truck bucked and rolled toward the pileup of vehicles. Indy climbed up into the passenger seat and shoved back a flapping piece of the shorn roof. He studied the remains of the crashed convoy. At the opposite end of the wreckage, he spotted two jeeps crawling around the remains of the jungle-cutter and striking off into the jungle by themselves.

  Spalko was trying to escape with Oxley and the skull.

  Indy recognized another problem. The pileup of trucks blocked the way ahead. Their large troop transport would never make it through the mess. Some of the smaller vehicles were already skirting and grinding around other stalled trucks, trying to continue after the lead jeeps.

  It gave him an idea.

  Their truck bumped and rattled toward one of the odd-shaped amphibious vehicles as it fought its way free. Indy eyed the machine gun mounted at its front end.

  He yelled over to Marion and pointed down to the boat-like vehicle. “Pull up alongside that!”

  She nodded and gunned the engine. The noise drew the attention of the duck’s driver and passenger as they drew up next to them.

  The driver shouted and pounded a fist on his steering wheel. The other soldier squatted up and swung around with a rifle.

  No you don’t, buster.

  As the truck pulled up alongside, Indy used the edge of the roof to swing through the open passenger-side window and fly across the gap. He crashed between the startled driver and the soldier.

  Grabbing the business end of the soldier’s rifle, Indy yanked it sharply—then battered it back, slamming the wooden butt straight into the Russian’s nose.

  The soldier’s finger caught on the trigger, and a spat of automatic fire blasted from the rifle. The rounds burned past Indy’s ear and pinged against the flank of the truck.

  Concerned, Indy glanced to the troop transport. He need not have worried. Mutt hung out the side window of the roofless cab. Holding a length of wood in his hands, Mutt swung from the shoulders and clubbed the driver.

  “Not bad, kid!” Indy called up to him.

  Shots startled him awake.

  Dovchenko groaned and sat up in the back of the bumping truck. He shoved a tumbled crate off his legs. Overhead, tree branches whisked past; sunlight shone down. It made no sense. It took him a full dazed breath to realize the roof of the transport was gone.

  He swore in Russian. Though he didn’t know what had happened, he knew who to blame.

  Jones.

  Dovchenko shoved to his feet, wobbled a bit, then stumbled over to a torn section of canvas on the truck’s side. Through the flap, he spotted the American in one of the Russian ducks. Jones tossed the limp driver out the side and waved to the truck.

  Dovchenko struggled for comprehension.

  Then a figure leaped from the cab of the truck and into the duck.

  Dovchenko recognized the boy.

  Swinging around, he stalked toward the front. Through the loose steel door as it swung open and shut, he caught a stuttering view of the cab. The driver rolled from behind the wheel and dove for the passenger side. Her slender form and dark hair left no doubt who she was.

  Marion Ravenwood.

  With no one behind the wheel, the truck swerved in an uncontrolled turn. Dovchenko stumbled to the side, catching himself on a pile of crates. He heard a feminine cry as the woman leaped after her son through the passenger window. Outside, the duck’s engine roared as it fled away from the side of the driverless truck.

  Dovchenko lurched toward the open door to the cab.

  Through the cracked windshield, he saw to his horror that the unguided truck was headed straight for a massive tree. His heart hammer
ing, Dovchenko dove through the door and shoved into the driver’s seat. Grabbing the steering wheel, he yanked it hard and lifted the troop transport up on two wheels in a sharp turn. He missed the tree trunk by less than a foot, then slammed back down on four tires.

  With a squeal of brakes, he slowed the large truck. He could go no farther. The wreckage of the convoy blocked the way forward. He was trapped behind it.

  Up ahead, the Americans raced away in the stolen duck. The amphibious vehicle swerved this way and that around the stalled convoy, like a racing boat in a choppy sea. As Dovchenko watched, it headed off around the curve of the road.

  Dovchenko’s fingers tightened on the wheel.

  This was not over.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  WITHOUT SLOWING, Indy cleared the smoking wreckage of the jungle-cutter. Beyond the blasted vehicle, the trail narrowed into a tortuous overgrown path, thick with patches of wild undergrowth and treacherous with fallen logs. It would be madness to traverse this at breakneck speeds.

  Still, Indy shoved the gas pedal to the floor. He had no choice. Oxley needed to be rescued, and Indy refused to leave that crystal skull with Spalko.

  And besides—

  Gunshots rattled across the back of his vehicle.

  —he was being chased by a jeepful of Russians.

  Indy gunned the engine and banked around a bend in the trail. His back end fishtailed, but he cleared the sharp turn, only to face another.

  “Hold tight!” he yelled to Marion and Mutt as he hauled on the wheel.

  Around they went again, this time up on two wheels.

  “I think I’m getting seasick,” Mutt shouted.

  “Can’t stop now, kid!”

  After they rounded the bend, the trail went straight for a stretch. Indy spotted the fleeing jeeps as they disappeared around the far turn.

  He flattened the accelerator again.

  They buzzed through undergrowth as high as the flanks of the vehicle. It was like jetting through a verdant sea. Though the others had a head start, he had an advantage over the jeeps ahead. They had to forge a trail across the rough terrain. All he had to do was to follow in their wake.

  Speeding down the straightaway, he hit the next corner too sharply. Momentum threw them off the forged path. He fought to keep from crashing sideways into the dense forest. Their port side grazed a tree.

  Mutt yelled, but then they were clear.

  Indy pounded back to the center of the path.

  Speeding around the next corner, Indy discovered the two jeeps directly ahead. A fallen tree blocked the path, and they were slowly edging around it.

  Flying too fast to get out of the way, Indy’s duck blasted straight toward the two jeeps. They were going to collide.

  Worse yet, a figure stood in the back, a rifle leveled at them.

  Spalko.

  “Get down!” Marion yelled.

  Indy ducked as the windshield splintered and shattered under a hail of bullets. Blindly, he yanked the wheel to the left. The duck swerved out of the line of fire.

  He heard screams behind him and looked up.

  The jeepful of Russians that had been chasing after them, taking potshots at the escaping prisoners, had swerved around the last corner and come directly into the line of Spalko’s fire. Inside the jeep, bodies jerked and bled. Uncontrolled, the vehicle slammed into the back of Spalko’s jeep. She went flying across the hood and smashed into the windshield.

  Indy regained his seat as he shot ahead. He glanced into the rearview mirror.

  Behind him, Spalko pushed to her feet and glared at him.

  Indy grinned and punched the gas. Just ahead, the lead jeep bounced and rattled. It had cleared the fallen tree and sought to escape.

  Not today.

  Indy swung the duck to the right and drew even with the other vehicle. Oxley sat in the backseat, but the jeep’s bed was crowded with Russian soldiers.

  “Take the wheel again!” he shouted to Marion.

  “This is becoming a bad habit, Jones!”

  But Indy was already moving, hauling his feet under him. He waited until the jeep crashed through a low-hanging section of the forest. The vehicle was slapped and whipped by leaves and vines.

  Taking advantage of the confusion, Indy leaped.

  He crashed in a sprawl across the front seat of the jeep. He caught a brief glimpse of Oxley, flanked by soldiers, in the backseat—mostly because the man waved good-naturedly at him.

  Unable to return the greeting, Indy rolled to the driver and slammed an elbow into his face. As the driver let go, Indy grabbed the wheel with one hand and punched out in the other direction.

  His fist struck the passenger, who was just straightening up, square in the face. The man crashed into the dashboard, crumpled into the foot well, and cradled his nose. He spoke through his fingers.

  “Goddamn it, you broke my nose again.”

  It was Mac.

  But Indy had his own problems. The driver reached for him, and the soldiers in the back lunged. Luckily that meant they weren’t holding on to anything. The jeep struck a buried log.

  Soldiers flew high.

  Indy yanked the wheel, swerving—and the soldiers went tumbling out of the jeep and into the underbrush with wild screams.

  With one hand clamped to the wheel, Indy gained the driver’s seat. A peek at the rearview mirror revealed Oxley safe and sound, belted in his seat. His hands were held up high in the air. Then a heavy burlap sack, tossed aloft like the soldiers, landed safely in the professor’s hands. Indy caught a glimpse of bright crystal inside it.

  The skull!

  Movement on the passenger side drew his eye. Mac struggled back into his seat from the foot well.

  Indy cocked his arm back, ready to pop Mac again.

  Mac cowered back into the passenger seat, both palms raised. He shouted at him. “INDY! Listen to me, you dumb son of a bitch! I’m CIA!”

  Back in the duck, Mutt continued his search of their amphibious vehicle, looking for a weapon . . . any weapon.

  “Check the back!” his mother called to him.

  Swinging around, Mutt leaned over the front seat and searched the rear compartment. On the floor, he spotted a familiar rosewood box.

  Stretching, he unlatched the case’s lid and flipped it open. Silver gleamed back at him from inside the velvet-lined box. He smiled down at the assortment of swords, sparkling brightly in the dappled sunlight.

  “What are you doing?” his mother called from the driver’s seat.

  He answered as he reached down toward a rapier’s grip.

  “Just finding myself something to do.”

  “CIA? Mac . . . you?” Indy could not keep the incredulity from his voice.

  “Yes, you dense son of a bitch!” Mac glowered at him from the passenger seat, holding a hand protectively over his nose. “I practically shouted it at you in the tent. I said Like in Berlin! Remember? Back in the tent when you woke up here!”

  Indy frowned. He did remember Mac leaning forward as Spalko entered the tent. Mac had whispered in his ear conspiratorially.

  —like in Berlin. Get me?

  He hadn’t gotten Mac then, and he didn’t now, either.

  Mac sighed in exasperation. “What were we in Berlin, mate?” Mac’s eyes widened on Indy. “We were double agents, yeah?”

  Indy thought back, then his eyes grew larger, too.

  That’s right! They’d been pretending to be Nazis to gain the Enigma Code.

  Mac continued to plead his case. “And you think General Ross just happened to be in Nevada to bail you out? I sent him, Indy! He’s my control agent.”

  Indy’s mind spun, trying to recalibrate to all these new revelations. Before he could settle his thoughts, Spalko’s jeep shot forward out of nowhere, crashing through underbrush and pulling up alongside him. Spalko stood in the backseat of the jeep and shouted at Indy in Russian.

  He frowned. Why was Spalko yelling at him in Russian?

  Then he noted
motion in his rearview mirror. He spotted the top of a lone soldier’s head popping into view beyond the rear guard. The man clung to the back of the jeep. It seemed not all of the soldiers had been thrown clear.

  The soldier hauled himself up and lunged forward, clambering toward the backseat. He struck Oxley and knocked the professor down. His hand grabbed for the burlap sack as it rolled across the seat.

  No!

  The soldier snatched the prize and underhanded the sack over to Spalko. She caught it with a triumphant cry. Her jeep slowed, dropping back. She had what she wanted.

  Behind Indy, the soldier reared up with a long serrated dagger in hand—but Mac punched him square in the nose. The soldier fell backward and tumbled out the rear.

  “Hurts, don’t it?” Mac called after the Russian. He returned to his seat. He cocked an eyebrow. See?

  “Why didn’t you just tell me, Mac?” Indy yelled.

  “What did you want me to do? Paint it on my ass cheeks?”

  Indy smiled at his old friend. “There’s plenty of room back there!”

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  SPALKO SECURED THE SKULL in the back of the jeep—then yanked out her sword from its scabbard and focused on the fleeing jeep.

  And Dr. Jones.

  She’d had enough of the American. She barked an order to her driver and her vehicle surged ahead, hurtling down the overgrown trail toward her adversary. She rose to her feet and brandished her rapier. The distance between the two vehicles narrowed.

  It would be over soon.

  As her jeep drew even with the American’s vehicle, she raised her blade for a killing stroke—then the hairs on the back of her neck twitched. Sensing danger, she spun around and backed half a step.

  A sword’s razored tip sliced through her shirt and grazed a bloody line across her midsection. She stared up at her assailant.

  “You!”

  Mutt Williams balanced on the rear half of a rampaging duck. The amphibious vehicle had raced up on her blind side. She parried the boy’s blade with a smack of her own.