More shots fired.
They landed wide, but were close.
Sam glanced at the aircraft in the distance. It was still another mile away. In a straight line course, he’d outpace the Montecarlo, but he’d make one hell of an easy shot for whoever was trying to kill him.
He swerved to the right again, behind the row of trees and onto a dirt roadway that ran parallel to the airstrip.
He would just have to hug the trees and hope that they could protect him.
He caught a glimpse of Tom’s face as he brought the antique around to follow. The man looked incredulous — as though he was still waiting for Sam to give up. Sam brought the Ducati closer to the trees, defiant to the end to make sure that Tom didn’t win. Whoever had convinced Tom to betray him, Sam was damned if he was going to let them be victorious.
Sam couldn’t believe it.
The only thing he thought he knew for certain was that Tom Bower was meant to have been his best friend since childhood. Even Catarina said that she didn’t know who he spent time with these days, but that he was inseparable from a dive buddy he’d had since school. If he could trust anyone, it was supposed to be Tom Bower — but now, one thing was certain, Tom Bower had betrayed him and was now actively trying to kill him before he reached the extraction plane.
He didn’t know who was onboard, but so long as Tom was going to try and kill him to prevent reaching the C17 Globemaster III, he was willing to bet his life that whoever was waiting for him onboard was more of a friend than Tom.
Sam opened up the throttle racing along the dirt roadway, leaving a trail of dust in his wake.
Behind him, he heard the growl of the Lancia Montecarlo’s engine, complaining about the abuse its driver was inflicting.
Up ahead he heard the wail of Polizia sirens. They were followed by two Alfa Romeos. All were driving hard and straight for him.
Sam cursed.
The Ducati’s speedometer showed him flying across the dirt road at ninety miles an hour.
He glanced at the C17 Globemaster III. Its brakes had been released, and the giant bird had commenced rolling forward. Slow at first, but it would pick up speed quickly. An aircraft that size would need every inch of the grass airstrip to get off the ground.
Sam swallowed.
His only hope for salvation was about to take off without him.
Even if they spotted him now, it was too late for them to try and go around for a second pass. He tried to compute a second option. Then he spotted the shots coming from the back of the C17. Its massive tail gate was fully open and soldiers inside were shooting at the police and Alfa Romeos.
He grinned. With attackers chasing him from behind and up ahead, Sam swerved to the left to approach the middle of the airstrip. By his calculations, he would be intercepting the aircraft as it crossed two thirds of the way down the airstrip.
The Montecarlo swerved through the gap in the trees, following him.
The C17 picked up speed.
Sam’s ears were filled with a barrage of machinegun fire and the thunderous roar of the aircraft’s four Pratt & Whitney Turbofans running at full power.
Dust flew everywhere.
He was too slow. The C17 was going to beat him.
Sam turned diagonally toward the end of the runway.
He pulled back his left foot, throwing the bike into its top gear and fully opened the throttle. The C17 went past him.
Sam leaned slightly to the left and straightened up directly into the C17’s trail.
The massive cargo aircraft was still picking up speed.
Sam dipped his head low, and the Ducati crept toward its reported top speed of 169 miles an hour. He gritted his teeth as more shots were fired at him from behind. He kept his eyes glued to the open tail gate, the tip of which glided mere inches off the ground.
The gap closed.
Shots raked his back tire.
A moment later, his front wheel reached the tail gate and he rode up into the C17. At the top of the up-ramp, the Ducati became airborne. Sam locked onto the bike with his knees, gripped the handlebars, and braced for the hard landing. The rear wheel struck the loading bay first; he planted his foot on the rear brake. The front wheel slammed down and he jammed on both brakes, bringing the bike to a stop at the end of the cargo bay, just before the entrance to the cockpit.
The pressure from the ground suddenly pulled up toward him.
Sam felt the suspension in the motorbike depress against the new force. There were no windows along the fuselage, but Sam knew without a doubt that the C17 had left the ground, and was now rising steeply into the air.
He held onto the bike for a couple seconds. The aircraft’s angle rose upward in a steep incline.
And the Ducati Diavel began to roll backward.
Sam gripped the brakes and cursed.
He glanced over his shoulder, taking in the empty fuselage at a glance. There was no equipment inside. Nothing tied down. The cargo bay was wide enough to fit an M1 Abrams tank. Empty, it was like a giant slide to the ground rapidly becoming far below. Four soldiers, tethered into safety lines, were at the end of the open tail gate.
His eyes darted toward a cargo net lining the fuselage. It was more than ten feet away. Too far for him to reach.
The Ducati rolled backward.
Sam dropped the bike. It slid all the way out the open tail gate, toward the ground far below. Irrationally, Sam wondered how he was going to explain its loss to Catarina.The thought didn’t last long. His second thought was that he would be following the Ducati any second if he didn’t do something to avert it.
Spreading himself flat on the steel flooring, he tried to grasp anything he could find. There was nothing but smooth steel.
He tried to jam his fingers into a single opening in the floor — a small hole, designed to attach locking restraints — but it wasn’t big enough to grant any real sort of perch to his fingers. Sam gripped it for a few seconds, the angle on board the C17 increased, and he fell quickly.
Like a kid on a slide, he picked up speed, and slipped past the remaining fifty feet of the cargo hold and out the door.
His fingertips scraped along the edge of the tail gate before he fell into the void that now extended more than a thousand feet below.
A hand gripped his, and his freefall was suddenly suspended with a jarring halt that threatened to rip his arm right out of his shoulder socket.
He locked eyes with his benefactor — one of the soldiers who had been secured to the tail gate by a ten-foot tether had jumped out of the aircraft just to save him.
Sam brought his second hand up to strengthen their grip into a two handed one.
Wind raced passed them, dragging them nearly horizontal, as Sam and the soldier, were dragged along in the air behind the C17 Globemaster III about ten feet outside the aircraft. Neither man spoke. The wind pummeled them, making any verbal communication impossible.
Inside, four soldiers pulled in the tether, dragging Sam and his benefactor into the cargo hold. As soon as they were inside, the C17 leveled out, and someone closed the tail gate.
The man who had saved his life shook his hand, “Sam Reilly?”
Sam grinned. “So I’m told.”
His benefactor met his eye and made a knowing smile. “My name’s Andre Dufort. I work with Interpol, and I’m here to bring you up to speed with the mission.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Sam shook the stranger’s hand. “Thank you. I suppose I owe you my life.”
Andre dismissed the praise with a wave of his hand. “It was nothing. I was just lending a helping hand.”
Sam smiled at the joke. “All the same, thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Now what?”
Andre said, “You can rest now, Mr. Reilly. We’ll be in international air space within a few minutes. They won’t be able to touch us there.”