The Vengeance Man Read Online Free

beyond. In every other direction there was just barren fields and gravel, shimmering in the heat, dotted with the occasional palm tree.  The blue of the mountains brooded in the distance. The sky was deep blue and cloudless.  The sooner we got to those mountains the better. I let in the clutch and followed Jamal to the north west. The dark blood spot on my trousers didn't go away in the heat, I noticed.
    I’d have to wash the blood out.
    But first we’d got to get into the mountains.

CHAPTER 2
    On the Run. North Western Iran 
     
    It was twenty miles to the protection of the mountains. I was sweating and not just from the heat. The two Kurds in the back must have got cricks in the neck from watching the sky.
    I had reckoned on an hour, because the terrain in this remote North West corner of Iran is rough and seamed with scrubby green bushes and small half dry watercourses. Jamal's bug-out plan relied on running hard to the north west as quickly as possible, knowing that any Irani an response would probably be from the air, and would assume that the raiders had fled west back into the mountains we had come from.  But the plan relied on getting away quickly. Speed was everything. Jamal's looting and little act of revenge had cost us valuable time. And I was worried about th at missing helicopter.
    I spent a lot of time glancing over my shoulder at the diminishing smudge that had been Hasak as it fade d to the horizon. Jamal's overloaded trucks were spread out in front, each making their best speed for the B'ir Hadi track with its protecting overhangs in the mountains and its deep, safe ravines.  Yusif and Nusret scanned the sky: they knew what to expect.
    It was Nusret who saw them first.   He shouted to me above the engine, and waved at the sky. At first I saw nothing, but then noticed two pursuing specks just above the skyline, closing fast. Two!
    I glanced at the line of the mountains ahead and then at my watch.   We'd been going for 50 minutes and had made about 15 miles.
    I looked back again.   Christ!  They were gaining fast.   Even as I looked, the helicopters split apart and climbed. They'd spotted the fleeing vehicles.
    One of the trucks started firing. It was pointless because they were miles out of range.  The line of tracer arched into the sky and fell back. All it did was advertise the firer’s position. Bloody fool… The silhouettes of the helicopters promptly turned towards it and began to swing around our flanks. The nose of the Rover suddenly dropped with a crash and I cursed as we hit a flat dry water course. By the time I had swerved to the right and regained control, the helicopters were on us. One swept by about half a mile to our right and bored in after the fleeing trucks. Nusret shouted something.
    "No!" I shouted, "Don't fire!" and slowed the Rover to a stop. There was a confused thudding ahead and then the 'clop, clop, clop' of stressed rotors as the big helicopters pulled up hard, surrounded by cascades of sparklin g tracer.
    The dust and smoke of  his rocket  strike boiled among the trucks, and a momentary red glow indicated a hit.  Then the helicopter swept  straight overhead and I realized that he hadn't spotted us, stationary in the slight depression.
    He banked in again and this time I saw the darting chain of rockets bursting from his wing stubs.
    Again there was the chaos of a successful strike and then he was gone, clattering away to the South, a thin trail of smoke fleeting from his exhaust.  Well, at least someone had hit back.  But where was the other one?
    I engaged gear and began to drive north out of the wadi.  A burning truck sprawled on its side about a mile away, its size fantastically distorted in the heat haze.  Scurrying figures darted to and fro between it and a couple of other vehicles stopped nearby.  As we drew nearer I could see  Jamal supervising the transfer of equipment to the waiting trucks.  A high pitched screaming came from the ground by