He rolled on to his back and delved into his combats, pulling out his compact Thuraya satphone and punching speed-dial for the Airlander. Miles answered almost immediately.
‘The helo’s been hit! There must be a Reaper above us.’
‘We’re on it. We have the Taranis involved in a nasty little dogfight with a Reaper right now.’
‘Win it, or we’re toast.’
‘Understood. Plus get this. We’ve detected three 4x4s making for the resort. They’re moving fast, maybe five minutes out from the front gate. I don’t believe they’re coming with any good intentions.’
Shit. Kammler must have deployed a ground force, as well as drones. It made sense for him to have done so. He was too careful to leave the kid to an unverified Reaper strike from ten thousand feet.
‘Once we kill his drones, we can get the Taranis to deal with the road convoy,’ Miles continued. ‘But they’ll likely be in amongst you by then.’
‘Right, there’s a bunch of boats along the beach, at the jetty,’ Jaeger told him. ‘I’m gonna grab one and bring the kid out that way. Can you get the Airlander down for a pickup at sea?’
‘One moment, I’m passing you across to the pilot.’
Jaeger spoke a few words to the Airlander’s pilot. Pickup plan sorted, he prepared to move.
‘On me!’ he yelled into his radio. ‘All, on me!’
One by one his team gathered. Having taken good cover, all had survived the Hellfire strike.
‘Okay, let’s move it – and fast.’
With that, Jaeger started sprinting down the beach, his team right on his heels. They knew better than to ask for any kind of an explanation.
‘Keep the kid in the centre of us!’ Jaeger yelled over his shoulder. ‘Shield him from fire. The kid is all that matters!’
88
A short burst of machine-gun fire echoed out of the resort, a few hundred yards along the beach. Amani had guards, and maybe they’d tried to put up some form of resistance. But somehow Jaeger doubted it.
The shots were most likely Kammler’s force shooting their way in.
Jaeger shoved Dale and the kid aboard the RIB. It was a big, sleek ocean-going craft, and he prayed the thing was fuelled and good to go.
‘Spark up the engine,’ he yelled at Dale.
He ran his eye along the smart-looking wooden pier. There were maybe a dozen boats that could conceivably give chase. Too many to disable, and especially with Kammler’s ground force closing in.
He was about to order his team to break from their defensive positions when the first figures came dashing on to the open sand. Jaeger counted six, with more arriving by the second.
They scanned the beach with their weapons, but Raff, Alonzo, James and Kamishi were quicker. Their MP7s barked, and two of the distant figures crumpled. The first savage return of fire came cutting in. The beach spat vicious gouts of sand, the long eruption ending in the water at Jaeger’s feet.
Narov dashed across to him, dodging fire as she went.
‘Move it!’ she yelled. ‘Go, go, go! We’ll hold them off. GO!’
For an instant, Jaeger wavered. This went against all his instincts and training. You never left a guy behind. These were his team. His crew. He couldn’t just abandon them.
‘GET MOVING!’ Narov screamed. ‘SAVE THE KID!’
Without a word, Jaeger forced himself to turn away from his team. At his signal, Dale gave a quick burst of power and the craft tore away from the pier, a storm of bullets chasing after it.
Jaeger searched for Narov. She was sprinting down the length of the pier, unleashing rounds from her MP7 into the engines of the tethered craft. She was trying to ensure that Kammler’s gunmen had no vessel in which to mount a pursuit, but in doing so she was exposing herself to a murderous amount of fire.
As the RIB rounded the end of the pier, she made a final dash and a leap. For the briefest of moments she sailed through the air, her arms reaching for the speeding craft, and then she hit the water.
Jaeger reached over, grabbed her by the scruff of her shirt and, with powerful arms, hauled her sodden form aboard. She lay in the bottom of the RIB, fighting for breath and choking out seawater.
The RIB approached the first reef. Already it was well out of range of any accurate fire. Jaeger helped Dale lift the heavy outboard engine and tilt it forward, so it was free of the water. The hull bumped over the shallows, where there was a narrow gap in the coral, and then they glided out into the open sea beyond.
Dale went to full throttle, and the boat powered away from the dark, smoke-enshrouded beach, leaving the burning wreckage of the Wildcat, plus the dead aircrew, behind her. Yet Jaeger remained painfully aware that most of his crew was trapped on that beach, embroiled in the fight of their lives.
Narov glanced at him. ‘I always hated beach holidays,’ she yelled over the noise of the engine. ‘The kid’s alive. Focus on that. Not your team.’
Jaeger nodded. Narov seemed able to read his mind, always. He wasn’t sure he liked that.
He searched out Simon Chucks Bello. The boy was crouched in the lowest point of the RIB, eyes wide with fear. He seemed a lot less cool now. More like the orphan kid he really was. In fact, he looked distinctly ashen-faced. Jaeger didn’t doubt this was the first time this kid from the ghetto had ever been in a boat, let alone experienced a full-on firefight.
All things considered, he was bearing up remarkably well. Jaeger was reminded of Falk Konig’s words: they build them tough in those slums.
They sure did.
Jaeger wondered where Konig was now, and where his allegiances ultimately lay. They say blood is thicker than water, but he still figured that Falk was on the side of the angels. Even so, he couldn’t exactly bank humanity’s future on it.
He turned to Narov, jabbing a finger in the kid’s direction. ‘Keep him company. Calm him down. I’ll sort the RV.’
He pulled out his Thuraya, punching speed-dial. A flood of relief washed over him as he heard the calm tones of Peter Miles.
‘I’m on a RIB with the kid,’ Jaeger yelled. ‘We’re moving due east at thirty knots. D’you see us?’
‘I have you visual via the Taranis. And you’ll be happy to hear the Reaper drones are no more.’
‘Nice one! Give me a grid to head for, for the pickup.’
Miles gave him a set of GPS coordinates some thirty kilometres out from the coast, well into international waters. With the Airlander needing to descend from ten thousand feet to sea level, it was also the closest practicable interception point.
‘Half my team is on the beach fighting a rearguard action. Can you get the drones over them to mallet Kammler’s guys?’
‘There’s only one Taranis remaining, plus it’s all out of missiles. Gone in the dogfight. But it can fly low-level runs at Mach 1, burning up the sand.’
‘Do it. Keep eyes on the team. We’re safe. The kid’s safe. Give them all the support you can.’
‘Understood.’
Miles would get his drone operator to bring the Taranis low across the beach, flying repeated shows-of-force. That should drive the gunmen’s heads down. And under the shock of those low-level passes, Jaeger’s team would have to seize their chance to escape.
He allowed himself a moment to relax now. He rested against the RIB’s side, fighting off the waves of exhaustion. His mind drifted to thoughts of Ruth and Luke. He thanked God they were still alive, and that Simon Bello was too.
It was close to miraculous that they had the kid safely in that boat.
More to the point, he was the key to Jaeger’s family’s survival.
89