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The thundering roar stopped, and I spun around. The drone darted toward us like a wasp, thumping bullets into Rhino’s deck behind us.
“Take cover!” I yelled.
She darted into the tiny alcove beneath the crane. Shielding her with my body, I gritted my teeth, took aim, and forced myself to wait. When the silent killer was forty feet away, I squeezed the trigger. Sparks showered the air.
The drone dodged the bullets like a metallic insect that was impossible to swat from the sky. Every single bullet missed. The fucking thing must have evasion technology.
Bullets pinged off the crane, and the metal cable released a shuddering twang.
Fuck. We’re marked. It’s about to deliver its deadly message without remorse.
The staccato rhythm of gunfire pounded our little metal alcove.
“Indy!” Old Smithy’s scream tore through the gunfire, followed by a guttural sound of pure agony.
“Let me out!” Indy thumped my shoulders.
“No!” My voice was swallowed by roaring gunfire.
“Move, you bastard!” Her wide eyes were full of fear and fury.
The drone darted into my peripheral vision, and rage gripped me as I spun toward it and pulled the trigger.
Indiana darted out behind me and raced along the bullet-ravaged deck.
“Indiana!” Yelling her name as a curse and a prayer, I stepped out from cover and pumped bullets at the darting drone, swinging my aim and attempting to pre-empt its defensive moves. The technology was a deadly blur, a ruthless enemy that felt no pain or fear.
A spray of sparks pinged off the drone.
“Yes! I hit it.”
The drone swooped left, plunging toward the bridge. Just before the drone hit the roof, it pitched toward the deck, skirted over the bullet-ravaged timber, darted between the side railings, and disappeared from my view.
Rhino groaned beneath me as if protesting the fierce attack, and I chased after Indy, praying the drone didn’t pop up ahead of her.
Old Smithy’s cries sounded brutal.
Following the blood trail through a field of banknotes from the rear deck to the equipment cupboard, I found Indiana and her dad inside. Smithy was sprawled on his back on the ground amongst the equipment. Blood pooled beneath him like a gruesome crimson river.
“Oh, Jesus.” I squatted at his side.
With trembling hands, Indiana tried to stem the blood oozing from his stomach.
Her eyes bore into me, pleading with me to do something, and her terror tore my heart out.
Gripped by a sense of helplessness, I forced my brain to focus.
“It’s going to be okay,” I said, but my words were futile. Smithy had already lost too much blood. He was barely clinging to life.
We were a fucking long way from help.
I gripped his shoulder. “You hang in there, old man. Do not give up. We need you.”
My words were barely audible over the chaos crashing through my mind.
He reached for my arm and clung with a strength that only a dying man could summon. “Look after my Indy.”
“Hey, you cut that out?—"
