Two minutes later, West emerged from the vertical entry shaft and found himself once again standing in the mud of the mountain swamp.

Noddy was waiting for him, visibly agitated, looking anxiously westward. 'Hurry, hurry!' he said. 'They're coming-'

Shlat!

Noddy's head exploded, bursting like a smashed pumpkin, hit by a high-speed .50 calibre sniper round. His body froze for a brief moment before it dropped to the ground with a dull smack.

West snapped to look westward.

And he saw them.

Saw two-dozen high-speed swampboats sweeping out of the reeds some three hundred metres away, covered by two Apache helicopters. Each swampboat held maybe ten special forces troops, members of the CIEF.

Then suddenly on one of them the muzzle of a Barrett sniper rifle flashed- -West ducked- -and a split second later the bullet sizzled past his ears.

'Get Stretch up here!' he yelled as his team emerged from the hole in the mud.

Stretch was pushed up.

'Give me some sniping, Stretch,' West said. 'Enough to get us out of here.'

Stretch pulled a vicious-looking Barrett M82A1A sniper rifle off his back, took a crouching pose and fired back at the American hovercrafts.

Crack. Sizzle.

And two hundred metres away, the American sniper was hurled clear off his speeding swampboat, his head snapping backwards in a puff of red.

Everybody was now up and out of the hole.

'Right,' West said. 'We make for our swamprunners. Triple time.'

The Eight raced across the swamp, once again running on foot through the world of mud.

They came to their swampboats, hidden in a small glade, covered by camouflage netting.

Their two boats were known as 'swamprunners', shallow-draft flat-bottomed steel-hulled boats with giant fans at their sterns, capable of swift speeds across swamps of unpredictable depth.

West led the way.

He jumped onto the first swamprunner, and helped the others on after him.

When everyone was on board the two boats, he turned to grab the engine cord- 'Hold it right there, right there, partner,' an ice-cold voice commanded. partner,' an ice-cold voice commanded.

West froze.

They came out of the reeds like silent shadows, guns up.

Eighteen mud-camouflaged CIEF specialists, all with Colt Commando a.s.sault rifles-the lighter, more compact version of the M-16-and dark-painted faces.

West scowled inwardly.

Of course the Americans had sent in a second second squad from the south, just in case-h.e.l.l, they'd probably found his boats by doing a satellite scan of the swamp, then sent this squad who'd just come out and waited. squad from the south, just in case-h.e.l.l, they'd probably found his boats by doing a satellite scan of the swamp, then sent this squad who'd just come out and waited.

'd.a.m.n it ...' he breathed.

The leader of the CIEF team stepped forward.

'Well, would you look at that. If it isn't Jack West Jack West ...' he said. 'I haven't seen you since Iraq in'91. You know, West, my superiors still don't know how you got away from that SCUD base outside Basra. There musta been three hundred Republican Guards at that facility and yet you got away- ...' he said. 'I haven't seen you since Iraq in'91. You know, West, my superiors still don't know how you got away from that SCUD base outside Basra. There musta been three hundred Republican Guards at that facility and yet you got away-and managed to destroy all those mobile launchers.' managed to destroy all those mobile launchers.'

'I'm just lucky, I guess, Cal,' West said evenly.

The CIEF leader's name was Sergeant Cal Kallis and he was the worst kind of CIEF operative: an a.s.sa.s.sin who liked his job. Formerly from Delta, Kallis was a grade-A psycho. Still, he wasn't Judah, which meant West still held out a hope of getting out of here alive.

At first Kallis completely ignored West's comment. He just whispered into a throat-mike: 'CIEF Command. This is Sweeper 2-6. We're a klick due south of the mountain. We got'em. Sending you our position now.'

Then he turned to West, and spoke as if their conversation had never been interrupted: 'You ain't lucky anymore,' he said slowly. Kallis had cold black eyes-eyes that were devoid of pity or emotion. 'I got orders that amount to a hunting licence, West. Leave no bodies. Leave no witnesses. Something about a piece of gold, a very valuable piece of gold. Hand it over.'

'You know, Cal, when we worked together, I always thought you were a reasonable guy-'

Kallis c.o.c.ked his gun next to Princess Zoe's head. 'No you didn't and no I wasn't. You thought I was "a cold-blooded psychopath"- they showed me the report you wrote. The Piece, West, or her brains learn how to fly.'

'Big Ears,' West said. 'Give it to him.'

Big Ears unslung his backpack, threw it into the mud at Kallis's feet.

The CIEF a.s.sa.s.sin opened it with his foot, saw the glistening golden trapezoid inside.

And he smiled.

Into his throat-mike, he said: 'Command. This is Sweeper 2-6. We have the prize. Repeat, we have the prize.'

As if on cue, at that moment two US Apache helicopters boomed into identical hovers in the air above West and his team.

The air shook. The surrounding reeds were blown flat.

One chopper lowered a harness, while the other stood guard, facing outwards.

Kallis attached the pack holding the Piece to the harness. It was winched up and that helicopter quickly zoomed off.

Once it was gone, Kallis touched his earpiece, getting some new instructions. He turned to West ...and grinned an evil grin.

'Colonel Judah sends his regards, West. Seems he'd like to have a word with you. I've been instructed to bring you in. Sadly, everybody else dies.'

Quick as a rattlesnake, Kallis then re-a.s.serted his aim at Princess Zoe and squeezed the trigger-just as the remaining Apache helicopter above him exploded in a fireball and dropped out of the sky, hit by a h.e.l.lfire missile from ...

...the Europeans' Tiger attack helicopter.

The charred remains of the Apache smashed to the ground right behind the ring of CIEF troops-crashing in a heap, creating a giant splash of swampwater-in the process scattering the CIEF men as they dived out of the way.

The Tiger didn't hang around-it shot off after the other Apache, the one with the Piece of the Capstone in it.

But its missile shot had done enough for West.

Princ.i.p.ally, it allowed Princess Zoe to leap clear of Kallis and dive to the floor of her swamprunner just as West started it up and yelled: 'Everybody out! Now!'

His team didn't need to be told twice.

While the Delta men around them clambered back to their feet and fired vainly after them, West's two swamprunners burst off the mark and disappeared at speed into the high reeds of the swamp.

Kallis and his men jumped into their nearby swampboats-four of them-and gunned the engines.

Kallis keyed his radio, reported what had happened to his bosses, finishing with: 'What about West?'

The voice at the other end was cold and hard, and the instructions it gave were exceedingly odd: 'You may do whatever you want with the others, sergeant, but Jack West and the girl must be allowed to escape.'

'Escape?' Kallis frowned.

'Yes, sergeant. Escape. Is that clear?'

'Crystal clear, sir. Whatever you say,' Kallis replied.

His boats roared into action.

West's two swamprunners skimmed across the swamp at phenomenal speed, banking and weaving, propelled by their huge turbofans.

West drove the lead one; Stretch drove the second one.

Behind them raced Kallis's four swampboats, bigger and heavier, but tougher-the men on their bows firing hard.

West was making for the far southern end of the swamp, 20 kilometres away, where a crumbling old road had been built along the sh.o.r.e of the vast waterfield.

It wasn't a big road, just two lanes, but it was made of asphalt, which was crucial.

'Sky Monster!' West shouted into his radio mike. 'Where are you!'

'Still in a holding pattern behind the mountains, Huntsman. What can I do for you?' came the reply.

'We need exfil, Sky Monster! Now!'

'Hot?'

'As always. You know that paved road we pinpointed earlier as a possible extraction point?'

'The really tiny potholed piece-of-s.h.i.t road? Big enough to fit two Mini Coopers side-by-side?'

'Yeah, that one. We're also going to need the pick-up hook. What do you say, Sky Monster?'

'Give me something hard next time, Huntsman. How long till you get there?'

'Give us ten minutes.'

'Done. The Halicarna.s.sus Halicarna.s.sus is on its way. is on its way.'

The two swamprunners blasted across the waterfield, ducking the constant fire from the four pursuing CIEF swampboats.

Then suddenly, geyser-explosions of water began erupting all around West's boats.

Kallis and his team had started using mortars.

Bending and banking, West's swamprunners weaved away from the explosions-which actually all fell a fraction short-until suddenly the road came into view.

It ran in an east-to-west direction across the southern edge of the swamp, an old blacktop that led inland to Khartoum. Like many of the roads in eastern Sudan, it actually wasn't that bad, having been built by the Saudi terrorists who had once called these mountains home, among them a civil engineer named Bin Laden.

West saw the road, and risked a smile. They were going to make it ...

At which moment, three more American Apache helicopters arrived, roaring across his path, shredding the water all around his boats with blazing minigun fire.

The Apaches rained h.e.l.l on West's two boats.

Bullets ripped up the water all round them as the boats sped through the swamp.

'Keep going! Keep going!' West yelled to his people. 'Sky Monster is on the way!'

But then fire from one of the Apaches. .h.i.t Stretch's turbofan. Smoke billowed, the fan clattered, and the second swamprunner slowed.

West saw it instantly-and knew what he had to do.

He pulled in alongside Stretch's boat and called: 'Jump over!'

A quick transfer took place, with Stretch, Pooh Bear, Fuzzy and Wizard all leaping over onto West's swamprunner-the last of them, Wizard, leaping across a split second before one of the Apaches let fly with a h.e.l.lfire missile and the second swamprunner was blown out of the water, disappearing in a towering geyser of spray.

Amid all this mayhem, West kept scanning the sky above the mountains-and suddenly he saw it.

Saw the black dot descending toward the little road.

A black dot that morphed into a bird-like shape, then a plane-like shape, then finally it came into focus and was revealed to be a huge black plane.

It was a Boeing 747, but the most bizarre 747 you would ever see.

Once upon a time, it had been a cargo plane of some sort, with a rear loading ramp and no side windows.

Now, it was painted entirely in black, dull black, and it bristled with irregular protrusions that had been added to it: radar domes, missile pods, and most irregularly of all: revolving gun turrets.

There were four of them-one on its domed roof, one on its underbelly, and two nestled on its flanks, where the plane's wings met its fuselage-each turret armed with a fearsome six-barrelled Gatling minigun.