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But how do you force a helicopter down? He saw the answer almost as soon as the thought formed, and groaned. But he had already used up more lives than a cat since meeting Capri; what was one more?

He pushed the cyclic forward, accelerating the helicopter until he was practically kissing the tail rotor of the lead aircraft, the one with Capri. It was impossible to see the blades as they knifed through the air, providing lateral stability to counteract the torque generated by the main rotor, but they were there nonetheless. He held that distance for a moment, steeling himself against what he was about to do. If the pilot at the head of the formation knew that Kismet was in control of the helicopter that was sidling closer, he gave no indication; the Jet Ranger stayed on course, descending and decelerating steadily. Kismet matched his movements, and then abruptly moved even closer, leading the target.

When the time came, he did not hesitate. He stomped one of the rudder pedals, and the helicopter pirouetted on its axis. The tail boom whipped around violently and the steering rotor of Kismet’s helicopter met the tail assembly of the lead chopper in a collision of metal. An awful shudder and a noise like a train wreck, rippled through both aircraft as the tail rotors annihilated each other in an explosion of shrapnel. The helicopter lurched, as if abruptly coming to a halt, then began to spin violently as torque from the main rotor whipped the fuselage in the opposite direction. For just an instant, Kismet saw the shattered remains of the lead helicopter’s tail boom began to whip sideways, then everything became a blur of motion.

He was ready for the loss of control and immediately increased both pitch and throttle, and then pushed forward on the cyclic. At first, his wounded aircraft corkscrewed through the air, dropping lower with each circuit. Then, as his airspeed grudgingly increased, the helicopter began to stabilize. At sixty knots, the wind of his passage through the air was enough to hold the airframe steady beneath the rotor, like a weather vane in a stiff breeze. It took a moment longer for Kismet, still reeling from the dizzying spirals, to ascertain that the pilot of the other helicopter had emulated his movements and was currently charting almost the same course away from the naval yard, a northeast vector that had already passed the Williamsburg Bridge and would shortly take them into the borough of Queens.

He eased off the cyclic just enough to let the other helicopter pull ahead. Although he had prevented the kidnappers from making their rendezvous, they were still calling the shots. Kismet would have to wait and see where the pilot decided to put down; only then would he have a chance at liberating Capri. Admittedly, not a great chance, but maybe the only one she would get.

The pilot of the lead chopper wasted no time finding an open area to set down. Kismet saw, to his chagrin, that the new course was heading toward a rail bed where several lines from the Long Island Railroad formed a junction. It was one of the few areas in the massive New York transit network where the tracks did not run either on elevated platforms or through subterranean tunnels. While the area was clear of buildings, it was cris-crossed with a web of virtually invisible overhead power lines. While an expert pilot might be able to guide a disabled helicopter through the net, Kismet would be hard pressed to make any sort of landing. He racked his brain to remember the steps for a controlled "hard landing"-pilot-speak for a crash.

The first Jet Ranger lined up on the rails as it descended, and when its landing assembly was almost kissing the tracks, the pilot pulled back on the cyclic. The fuselage immediately began to slough sideways, but an instant later the skids touched down. The helicopter started to whip around in a shower of sparks, but the friction of contact rapidly cancelled out the torque forces. After spinning three tight circles, the fuselage ground to a halt, while the main rotor began winding down.

Kismet knew he didn’t have a prayer of imitating the other pilot’s landing; he simply wasn’t familiar enough with the aircraft to achieve the sort of instantaneous response to the vagaries of an emergency descent. But like it or not, he had to put the stricken helicopter on the ground. He swooped down toward the rails, threading between the power lines, and when he thought he was low enough, straightened the stick and throttled off.

The helicopter instantly began to auto-rotate; the fuselage spun in the opposite direction of the rotor blades, reducing its lift to almost nothing. The airframe slammed into the tracks with a force that shook Kismet’s hands from the controls. The Jet Ranger’s forward momentum sent it like a runaway train toward the first aircraft, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. Then one of the rotor blades clipped the ground and all hell broke loose.

The Jet Ranger came apart, flinging parts in every direction, as it began rolling end over end down the tracks. Shattered fragments of the rotors slammed into the parked helicopter like guided missiles and knocked it on its side, triggering a similar catastrophe as that aircraft’s main rotor slammed into the ground, one vane at a time. An instant later, the two demolished aircraft embraced in a spectacular collision, throwing fragments of metal and plastic confetti in a lethal shower. A fifty-yard section of the rail line was plowed up, strewn with wreckage before the twisted ruin finally came to rest.

At the heart of the storm, Kismet had escaped injury from flying shrapnel, but was nevertheless disoriented from the centrifugal and kinetic forces generated by the crash landing. Even after physical motion had ceased, everything in his world continued spinning for several seconds. When he was certain that he had suffered no mortal injury, he gingerly extricated himself from the wreckage. As soon as his legs were free of the crumpled cockpit panels, he dropped from his seat and spilled out onto the debris-strewn ground. Until his fall, he had not even realized that the wreck had left him hanging upside down.

After finally wrestling free of his necktie and the rope to which it was anchored, he cautiously approached the ruins of the second helicopter. An oily smell pervaded the air and a plume of smoke was rising from the engine cowling. It had not been his intention to demolish the aircraft and as the scope of the devastation hit him, he felt a pang of guilt; in attempting to save Capri, he might very well have killed her. A stream of blood trickled from beneath the twisted sculpture of destruction; a long shard of metal, probably one of the rotor blades from Kismet’s chopper, had spitted the fuselage. With growing dread, he began tearing at the panels and like a grim surgeon, exposed the gory mess within.

Despite the carnage, he experienced a moment of relief. The barely recognizable form impaled on the rotor vane wore high-top basketball shoes, not stiletto heels. The next human form he encountered, though bruised and unmoving, was still alive but it wasn’t Capri; he kept digging. Deep within the shattered airframe, his hands closed on a piece of aluminum tubing, and when he pulled it free, he saw her.

Capri was still unconscious and still secured within the Stokes litter. Although her expensive suit was stained with blood and grease, she appeared to be uninjured; her impromptu cage had afforded her an additional level of protection during the crash, and the sedative in her bloodstream had relaxed her muscles, further sparing her from injury. Kismet loosened the straps and pulled her away from the smoldering wreck. Once in the clear, he slipped an arm under her knees and lifted her off the ground. She wasn’t heavy-with a fashion model’s physique, she probably weighed a hundred pounds soaking wet-but Kismet’s muscles were exhausted beyond fatigue. His legs felt like lead, and although he was trying to run from the scene of the dual aircraft collision, he appeared to merely stagger.

Sirens were audible in the distance, but the familiar thump of rotor blades gradually drowned out the shrill noise of approaching emergency vehicles. The third helicopter was on its way and Kismet knew his enemies would arrive before the police. He had to get Capri away from the train line, away from anywhere her kidnappers might think to look. Every step was an ordeal.