Scorpia Rising

hadn’t seen him. Somebody shouted. The guards were spreading out on foot as well. It wouldn’t take them long to find him. He slammed the door and turned the key.
    The 1.3 cylinder engine rattled noisily to life. The guards wouldn’t expect him to have a car, but they must have heard the sound and would know—if they hadn’t already guessed—that every aspect of this escape had been planned, with help from outside. Julius jammed the gear into reverse, then shot out onto the lane, the wheels spinning and sending out clouds of dust. The Suzuki was cramped and handled badly. It would struggle to get around the curves. Still, it was better than walking.
    A shot rang out, slamming into the bodywork just above the rear tire. One of the guards had seen him. Julius shoved the gearshift into first and accelerated. The Suzuki leapt forward even as the guard fired again, his second shot splintering the branch of a nearby tree. Julius was hunched over the wheel. There was another guard on the lane ahead of him. How had he gotten there so fast? As he brought his gun around, Julius floored the accelerator pedal. For a brief second the guard filled the front window. Then the car hit him and there was a sickening thud as he was thrown into the air, the gun spinning out of his hands.
    Julius was ten yards down the road before the man hit the ground. There were two prison jeeps behind him. He could see them in his rearview mirror. They were faster than the Jimny, getting closer by the second. If he hadn’t been driving downhill, they would already have caught him. Just ahead, the lane curved steeply to the right. He spun the wheel and suddenly he was on the very edge of the hillside with a sheer drop of a hundred yards. He saw the huge rocks and the sea far below. At the same time, he felt the tires slipping off the track, grit and loose pebbles spraying out. He fought with the steering wheel, forcing the Suzuki back under his control. By the time he had rounded the corner, he had put some distance between himself and the pursuing vehicles—but he had almost killed himself too.
    The next corner was easier. It bent to the left so that this time the car was hugging the cliff face, away from the sea. Even so, Julius miscalculated and there was an explosion of glass and plastic as one of the mirrors disintegrated against a rocky outcrop. The jeeps were catching up again too, and looking ahead, he could see the fleet of Land Rovers belonging to the Royal Gibraltar Regiment climbing toward him.
    There was no way down. There was no way back. The next hairpin bend and a sheer drop to certain death were straight ahead.
    Julius wrenched the wheel to the right. The driver of the nearest jeep saw the Suzuki leave the road, weaving across a patch of scrubland toward a dilapidated barn. The boy was out of control. He tried to steer the car back onto the track but instead smashed straight into the barn door, disappearing in a blast of shattering wood. For the next few seconds, the car was out of sight, inside the barn, but then it reappeared, breaking through the other side, the hood crumpled, the front window now a spider’s web of cracks. Julius Grief could only be glimpsed, staring out with a rictus smile, his light brown hair sweeping down over his eyes, his hands glued to the steering wheel.
    There was nowhere to go. The cars from the barracks had almost arrived and were taking up positions lower down the hill, blocking the way. With the rocks on one side and the drop on the other, there was no way to get past.
    Julius didn’t even try. Perhaps he couldn’t see. Perhaps he had been concussed when he hit the barn door. He didn’t even attempt to steer the car, tearing dead straight across the scrubland, rejoining the track, then continuing over it. As the horrified prison drivers skidded to a halt, the Suzuki reached the other side of the track, smashed through a barbed-wire fence, and launched itself into the void. Briefly it hung in the air. Then it plunged down, following the sheer edge of the Rock in a long, terrible descent toward the sea. About halfway down it hit a boulder. There was a single explosion as it burst into flames, somersaulted, then continued on its way. It was upside down when it hit the water. For a moment it rested there, the flames licking upward as if trying to set the sea alight. Then it sank. A few pieces of broken metal rolled down the hillside. Apart from that, there was nothing left.
    The nearest Land