‘Get us out of here!’ Shaban snapped. The pilot applied more power. The helicopter rose again.
Nina looked up at Eddie as he swept past. Their eyes met.
She didn’t know if she had pulled out enough cable, but it was the only chance she had to save him.
He stretched out his hands.
She hurled the hook with every fibre of her strength.
The line arced towards him, whipping in the downdraft. He stretched out, grabbed—
Caught.
His forefinger closed round the very tip of the hook. He pulled it up, getting a grip with both hands—
The cable reached the limit of the slack Nina had drawn out. It pulled tight, the spool whining as more line was unwound.
It spun faster. She looked up. The helicopter was ascending ever faster.
Straining, foot twisting in the tangled seat belt, Eddie bent at the waist. He couldn’t quite reach the skid. With a roar he pulled harder, crunching his body, but the tension of the cable stopped him short.
The pilot briefly took his hand off the cyclic to close his door, but something obstructed it. Hand back on the stick, he glanced at the straining harness beside his seat. ‘He’s still here!’
‘Lorenz!’ Shaban snapped. ‘Lean out and shoot him!’
Lorenz looked back uncertainly. ‘Lean out?’
‘He’s hanging from the skid! Shoot under us!’ He stabbed an angry finger at the floor. The Dutchman looked more dubious than ever, but obediently turned to take a firm grip on one of his seat belt straps before unlatching his door.
Nina looked frantically between the helicopter and the winch. The cable had almost run out.
Lorenz pushed the door open and leaned out, craning his neck to get a view under the EC130’s fuselage. He spotted the flailing figure on the other side of the aircraft and moved out further, taking aim.
Eddie made one final desperate lunge as Lorenz fixed him in his gunsights—
The hook caught on the skid.
A split second later, the cable reached the end of its reel.
Nina leapt back as the Mitsubishi jumped violently. Above, the slamming jolt as the rapidly ascending helicopter came to an abrupt stop flung Shaban and the pilot upwards, the latter smacking his head on the canopy. Macy, strapped in, cried out as she was thrown against her restraints.
For the two men outside the cabin, the effects were more extreme.
Eddie, a moment earlier struggling to reach the skid, was suddenly hurled up against it. On pure instinct, he wrapped his arms round the metal tube, clinging to it.
Lorenz was less lucky, his gun hand catching the edge of the door frame and knocking the pistol back into the cabin as he was thrown upwards—
His head clipped the rotor blades.
Red and grey sprayed across the windscreen, then he fell, the top of his skull missing in a neat line just above his eyes. The tumbling body smashed on the unyielding stone a hundred and fifty feet below.
The dazed pilot slumped against the instrument console, the cyclic stick pushed under him. The helicopter slewed sideways towards the pyramid, trapped on the cable like a hooked marlin leaping from the sea.
Nina yelped and jumped out of the way as the 4×4 followed it. The Eurocopter didn’t have enough power to lift the two-and-a-half-ton Shogun - but it could drag it.
Eddie pulled up his free leg and hooked it round the skid. A glance down: the chopper was over the pyramid, heading for the shaft of light stabbing skywards from its summit.
He shook his foot free of the seat belt, then hauled himself on top of the skid. A look through the window revealed the pilot, groggily sitting upright, and Macy behind him. Her face was contorted in pain as she clutched one shoulder.
Shaban was bent over beside her, reaching for something in the footwell. At first Eddie thought he was trying to retrieve the spore canister - then he spotted the steel cylinder on the empty seat next to the Egyptian.
He realised what Shaban was after just as the other man found it and snapped upright, pointing the gun at Eddie—
Macy hit his arm as he pulled the trigger.
The side windows were obscured by a burst of gore as the bullet hit the pilot’s head at point-blank range, blowing out half his skull. His body spasmed, kicking down hard on one rudder pedal. The helicopter went into a violent spin.
The pilot’s door swung open. Eddie dragged himself inside, climbing over the corpse. Shaban had been thrown over to the cabin’s opposite side. Gun still in one hand, he clawed for a handhold with the other.
A blinding light filled the cockpit as the helicopter whirled through the pyramid’s beam. Eddie screwed up his eyes, dazzled for the briefest moment.
The flash faded - to reveal Shaban’s gun pointing right at his face—
Below, the Mitsubishi crashed through the pyramid’s glass side - and the cable snagged on the structure’s steel frame. The impact tossed Eddie into the empty front seat and flung Shaban against the door.
It burst open.
The fury in his eyes replaced by fear, Shaban clawed at the door frame. The gun went off in his hand, the shot punching a hole in the rear bulkhead. He dropped the weapon to get a firmer handhold. It spun down to the pyramid below.
Warning buzzers rasped urgently from the console, red lights flashing. Eddie’s gaze flicked to them to see one gauge dropping rapidly. Oil pressure. The bullet had damaged the engine.
The EC130 jolted again, straining against the cable. The canister rolled across the rear seats. Eddie and Shaban both looked at it, then each other.
Save it, or destroy it—
Eddie scrambled over the seat as Shaban dragged himself back inside. The cult leader reached the canister first, whipping it up by its handle and catching Eddie a vicious blow on his temple. Another silent explosion of light filled the cabin as the helicopter whirled back through the beam, unable to tear free of its vehicular anchor.
Shaban clutched the cylinder to his chest, kicking at Eddie. ‘You are nothing!’ he screamed. ‘You can’t beat me! I’m a god!’
‘If you’re a god,’ Eddie snarled, seeing the other man gripping the door frame, knuckles white, ‘let’s see if you can fly!’
He punched Shaban’s hand with all his might.
Pain erupted in Eddie’s fingers, skin splitting and joints crunching - but it was nothing to what Shaban felt as his hand was crushed against the hard-edged metal. The longest bone of his middle finger snapped. With a scream, he let go - and Eddie drove his bloodied fist into the Egyptian’s scarred face.
The Eurocopter swayed back into the dazzling beam . . . and Shaban fell.
Still clutching the canister, he plunged almost seventy feet down the blinding shaft of light - and hit the pyramid’s peak with a spine-splintering crack.
Eddie stared down at the splayed figure now blocking the beam, the tip of the summit poking up through his stomach. ‘Get the point?’ he yelled.
But Shaban wasn’t quite dead.
Blood streaming from the massive wound where he was impaled, he still had just enough strength to raise one hand as he tried to open the container - and scatter its deadly contents into the wind.
Eddie was no longer watching - the increasingly noisy warnings from the console had captured his attention. The oil pressure gauge was in the red, dropping rapidly. The engine was about to fail.
Wincing at the pain in his hand, he slid back across the cabin. ‘Macy! You okay?’
‘He - pulled my damn shoulder out,’ she said through clenched teeth. ‘Can you land this thing?’
‘Nope.’
‘What? But - but I thought you were some kick-ass super soldier! You mean you can’t fly a helicopter?’