Page 151 of King’s Ransom

I rolled Murph under a set of concrete stairs.

‘Stay hidden! Don’t let it see you!’ I yelled.

Then I ran off into the concrete maze.

I took two sharp turns and—

—came to a dead end.

Shit!

I backtracked, dashed down another trench.

A second later, the drone dropped into the dead-end trench, its four rotors almost form-fitting inside the narrow concrete walls, a moment too late to see me.

I bounded up some stairs and sprinted across the roof of the giant gun emplacement.

I actually had a plan but I had to move quickly.

I needed to get over, around and behind the drone as it prowled through the battery’s open-to-the-sky passageways.

I reached the far edge of the roof and saw the drone directly below me, moving menacingly through a narrow trench, searching.

I pulled out something that I’d taken from an emergency kit on the chopper: a tent tarp with four nylon ropes, all gathered in a tangled mess.

And I threw it all on top of the drone.

The natural enemies of a rotor are ropes and nets, because they get caught up in the rotor’s blades.

Which was precisely what happened here.

As the tarp and ropes landed on the drone from above, they got entangled in the aerial vehicle’s rotors.

The rotors spluttered and groaned, the gears straining until—whump!—the drone dropped to the ground, unable to stay aloft. It quivered on the concrete floor, struggling against its bonds, convulsing like a wounded bird.

I gripped my pistol and jumped down into the passageway next to it, ready to shoot the thing right through its glowing red eye—

But then the drone sprang up, the bladed edges of its rotors slicing through my net, and all of a sudden it was hovering right in front of me, at full strength again.

It came up firing.

Fortunately, it came up facing the opposite direction and its bullets sizzled away down the passageway.

My plan having failed, I bolted the other way, lunging around the first corner just as the drone swivelled laterally and loosed a wave of deadly rounds that destroyed the wall two inches behind me.

I was in big trouble now.

No more tarps or ropes.

And my Glock couldn’t possibly compete with the drone’s firepower.

I zigged and zagged through the concrete trenches, fleeing for my life.

Left, right.

Under some concrete stairs.

Along another trench.