They blasted down the runway, directly behind the left wing. The open door sat at a diagonal to their vehicle, slightly ahead and to the right. King gripped the armoured frame and swung across the outside step, feeling the wind blasting against his clothes, ignoring the pain racking his system. He got a foot on the bonnet and levered himself onto the front of the vehicle. He tried not to focus on the ground below, speeding by at an unbelievable rate.
One wrong step and he would die.
He knew the Hawkei would reach its maximum speed shortly. Basic physics meant it couldn’t go much faster than this.
He braced against the elements and began to assess when would be the best time to jump. He had to time it perfectly. He guessed there was a few feet between their vehicle and the side of the plane.
So perhaps…
Then he saw the front wheels of the P-750 lift off the runway and knew if he did not move now, he would never see the plane again.
He threw caution to the wind and leapt off the bonnet.
Arms outstretched.
For a terrifying beat he thought he wouldn’t make it. His back arched, his legs splayed, his fingers reaching for any kind of handhold. It was so close. It was right there.
He began to fall.
His hands slammed into the very lip of the doorway, harder than he anticipated. His grip slipped and his legs dangled in thin air and he started to fall away from the plane. He ignored the sudden numbness in his fingers and locked them tight. They seized the lip. Miraculously, they held.
His stomach dropped into his feet as the plane took off, parting from the ground, ascending fast. He didn’t dare look down. He held onto the fuselage by a hair’s breadth, clutching the floor of the plane, heart hammering, mind racing.
Straining his forearms, he levered his body up. Bringing his head over the lip of the plane. He took a look inside. Lars sat in the pilot’s seat, unaware that King had jumped, concentrating on piloting the aircraft. He battled to control its takeoff, especially in such windy conditions.
King knew he had to act fast. If Lars heard a single odd noise he would turn, see him and put a bullet in his head. He had to get his bulk inside the fuselage and then act with lethal ferocity, making sure he did not come this far for nothing.
He still refused to see how high the plane was. The forest would be nothing than a mountainous blanket of green far below, and he knew the vertigo from such a sight would weaken his limbs, especially with no parachute on his back to save him from falling a thousand feet to his death.
He poised, ready to explode. Both elbows against the plane floor. Upper body inside. Legs hanging out.
Go.
CHAPTER 43
He vaulted into the plane, shaking the fuselage, drawing Lars’ attention. But by then it was too late. He got his feet underneath him and took two bounding steps, crossing to the pilot’s seat in the blink of an eye. Lars swung a hand up. It contained the M&P. He searched for a good shot, desperate to get the barrel on target.
Not this close.
King smashed the gun with a meaty forearm, sending it clattering away. It came to rest somewhere under the controls. Well out of reach. He looped an arm around Lars’ neck and squeezed tight. The move crushed the man’s windpipe, eliminating any chance of movement. He held his old handler against the seat for a beat. Waiting for Lars’ instinctual struggle to lose steam. When he finally began to tire, King let go and burst forward, ducking into the footwell. He got a hand on the M&P. Before Lars had time to mount any kind of significant attack he peeled away, back into the middle of the fuselage.
Effectively disarming the man sitting across from him.
‘What are you going to do?’ Lars said. ‘Shoot me? I was your boss for years. I know you can’t pilot an aircraft.’
King kept the gun trained on Lars. He snuck a look over his shoulder, past the stacked crates of anthrax spores, to the rear of the fuselage. Sure enough, he found what he was looking for. A spare parachute container, kept in the plane in case of emergencies. A Javelin Odyssey, by the looks of it.
Perfect.
‘Don’t need to know how to fly,’ he said.
He retreated to the back of the fuselage, looped one hand around the backpack and stepped into its harness. He worked quickly. Moving with the speed of a man who had thousands of jumps worth of experience.
Lars cocked his head. ‘If you kill me and then jump, it’ll crash.’
‘You’re spot on there.’
‘You’d risk that?’
‘Look down,’ King said. ‘Nothing but uninhabited forest for miles in any direction. And I recall you saying these spores aren’t weaponised yet. They’re not in aerosol form.’
‘Maybe they are.’
‘Backtrack as much as you like,’ King said. ‘Won’t change a thing.’
He clipped the final strap around his waist and strode forward to the open doorway. He aimed the M&P at Lars.
‘Now I win,’ he said.
Lars let out a primal scream. The type of outcry that came from watching a meticulous plan crash and burn. He ducked low and powered across the final stretch of fuselage in a last-ditch effort. King saw it coming. But he didn’t pull the trigger. He saw an opening. He decided to take it.
This way, Lars would at least face unbridled terror before he died.
A gunshot would be too quick.
So he sidestepped, moving to the right. Lars overshot his charge and had to screech to a halt directly in front of the open doorway. Instincts kicked in and he slowed, terrified to fall out of the plane. He reached for a handhold.
A waste of time.
King checked one last time that his parachute was securely fastened, then dropped his shoulder low and rammed Lars in the stomach, lifting off with both feet at the same time. The momentum behind the tackle sent both men tumbling out into open sky.
The wind took them and they spun like rag dolls through the air. King experienced the momentary sensory overload he’d felt a thousand times before, as his brain became suddenly overwhelmed by the sensation of freefall. He let natural reflexes kick in. After more than a thousand skydives, many under dangerous conditions, he’d developed an instinctive response. He thrust his chin up and arched his back and splayed his arms out on either side. Almost instantly he stabilised in the air.
Alongside him, Lars panicked. He thrashed his limbs, turning over and over. King knew his brain would struggle to process what had occurred. With no form of parachute or means of slowing down, death was inevitable.
He wondered if Lars had accepted that yet. Or if there was still some inkling of hope. Whatever the case, his old handler did nothing but flail as the trees far below grew ever closer.
King estimated that they had exited the plane at somewhere close to five thousand feet. He would have to open his parachute soon, after only a few seconds of freefall. He looked at Lars, who managed to right himself for just a moment.
The two made eye contact.
King saw the man’s boggling eyes, pale-white expression, clammy hands.
Now he knew what true fear looked like.
He reached back and tugged the ripcord out of its pouch. There was a moment of delay as the parachute shot out of the pack, still clustered tightly in a ball. The wind did not catch it for a second.
Just enough time to give Lars the thumbs up sign.
Then the canopy billowed out and the shoulder straps dug tight into King’s shoulders, slowing his descent. Lars spiralled away, falling at terminal velocity.
King looked up and saw the P-750 far overhead, its nose starting to dip. He analysed its trajectory and figured it would come down somewhere in the valley to the east. The valley held nothing but an uninterrupted wave of pine trees. No towns, no civilisation of any kind. The gamble had paid off. Then he looked down and saw Lars’ tiny figure disappear into the trees. The impact zone was obscured, hiding the grisly results.