‘But — but if we’d done something for him, he might—’
‘Bianca, if we don’t get out of here, we’ll be dead too. Come on!’ He yanked the skullcap off the dead man and tossed it into the case, then slammed the PERSONA’s screen shut and shoved the machine into its foam bed. ‘I’ll take this — you carry the recorder.’ He looked round at the lagoon — and froze.
The Hind was coming back.
Chapter 33
Cut Off
Sevnik was in the gunner’s seat, finger on the cannon’s trigger as he surveyed the scene below on the hooded gunsight screen. It had been many years since he had flown in actual combat, attacking rebels in the Second Chechen War, but he had not forgotten how to fight.
‘Come right three degrees,’ he told the pilot in the seat behind him. Unlike earlier models of the Mi-24, which had a rotating turret, the 30mm autocannons on this machine’s nose were fixed and required the entire aircraft to be lined up on its target. The chopper banked gently. ‘Hold.’ He switched the gunsight’s mode to infrared, the cold landscape becoming a dark grey with hot white spots revealing the Americans al-Rais had warned him about.
Two of the spots were at the shore end of the jetty. The line showing where the cannon shells would impact ran right over them. ‘Move in.’
Small flashes of light on the IR display. The Americans were shooting at him! An act of pure desperation: even if they scored a hit, the gunship’s armour was impervious to anything smaller than a .50-calibre round.
His finger tightened on the trigger, ready to fire…
Something flicked through his peripheral vision — not on the screen, but outside the cockpit canopy. The pilot reacted in surprise. ‘What—’
The helicopter shuddered as something hit the engine intakes above the cockpit and exploded.
‘What the hell?’ shouted Baxter as fire and smoke burst from the Hind’s upper fuselage. Debris dropped into the water. The gunship banked sharply, turning away from the pier and crossing the shoreline to drop behind the trees to the south. ‘We didn’t hit it that hard!’
Tony knew what had happened. ‘Kyle! Was that you?’
No answer. Kyle had used the UAV’s self-destruct to make a kamikaze attack on the helicopter — but with the drone destroyed, they had also lost its communications relay. Their headsets, and Adam’s earwig, only had limited range and power. Transmissions to the op centre aboard the plane were now blocked by the hills.
‘Sounds like it’s landing,’ said Baxter. The rumbling slap of the Hind’s rotors changed in pitch as it moved into a hover. ‘We’re gonna be outnumbered any minute!’
‘Adam!’ shouted Tony as two scurrying figures approached. ‘Can you fly the plane?’
Adam jumped down into the cover of the jetty, Bianca following. ‘Touch and go,’ he said.
‘What does that mean?’ Baxter demanded.
‘It means we’ll either go, or we’ll touch something — very hard.’
‘Make it the first one,’ said Tony. He glanced at the Beriev. ‘How long will it take to get that thing moving?’
‘I can do an emergency start-up quickly enough — it’s getting it into the air that’ll be tricky.’
‘Get aboard,’ Tony ordered. He called out to the others. ‘Everyone give Adam cover!’
‘Bring Qasid,’ Adam told him.
‘It’s too risky,’ Baxter objected. ‘If we waste time moving a prisoner while under fire, it’ll get someone killed!’
Tony was silent for a moment, then nodded to Adam. ‘We take him with us,’ he announced. Baxter was about to protest, but he cut him off. ‘No arguments — get him on that plane.’
Adam gave Tony a nod of thanks, then rose. The Hind had landed somewhere on the other side of the woods. The Russian soldiers would be here in a few minutes — but al-Rais was already somewhere much closer. Even without the terrorist leader’s persona, Adam knew he would try to stop the Americans from leaving with the RTG.
No sign of him, though. ‘Okay, I’m ready.’
‘Good luck,’ said Tony.
Adam jumped up on to the jetty — and ran.
Despite some of the covering snow and ice being cleared by the men carrying the RTG, the surface was still slippery. The tip of the Beriev’s starboard wing reached halfway back along the hundred-foot pier. He passed it, skirting a dead terrorist. If al-Rais were going to take a shot, it would be now—
A sharp crack of gunfire — but he had already ducked. The bullet snapped over him and punched a hole in the Beriev’s fuselage.
More shots, these from a G36 as a teammate opened fire on the terrorist leader’s position. Boots skidding over the old planks, Adam threw himself through the open hatch into the Be-200’s cabin. He rolled into cover — and hit something hard and heavy.
The RTG. The nuclear battery squatted inside its protective frame, secured to the deck by thick straps. The core’s green paint was cracked and flaking, exposing the metal of the casing.
The shooting stopped. He glanced through the hatch. Tony and the others still had guns at the ready. They hadn’t hit al-Rais. Beyond the trees, he heard the throb of the Hind’s engines at idle. The pilot probably had no idea what had hit his aircraft, and was unwilling to risk the Americans having more of them.
But Adam knew that as soon as the Beriev started up, Sevnik would not allow the gunship to remain grounded.
He hurried into the cockpit. A moment of terrified shock as he saw the dead pilot still slumped in his seat, the Barrett round having blown half his head away. But he suppressed the young co-pilot’s horror at the sight of his dead instructor and friend and dropped into the empty second seat. The Beriev was a modern aircraft with a relatively high degree of computerisation; he engaged the auxiliary power unit to activate the main systems, then began the procedure for an emergency start-up.
Holly Jo ran back into the Global 6000’s cabin from the cockpit. ‘Better strap in!’ she warned Kyle as she sat and buckled her own seat belt tightly.
‘I can’t believe we’re doing this,’ Kyle said as he followed suit. The lights flickered, then the airframe trembled as the engines rose in power. There was a whine as the thrust reversers opened. The plane began to move — backwards, trundling towards Provideniya’s main runway.
Holly Jo put her headset back on. ‘Oh, they are not happy about this,’ she said as she heard the control tower’s demands to know what was going on.
‘They want us to stop and power down,’ said the pilot. ‘What do we do?’
‘We’ve got our orders — take off and get to US airspace,’ she replied, looking through a porthole. A couple of Russian officials were running across the snow-covered concrete after the retreating jet. ‘Uh-oh.’
The plane swung sharply through ninety degrees to face down the runway. Kyle peered through the window. ‘What’re they gonna do, try to shoot out the— Oh shit. Oh shit! They’ve got guns — they are going to shoot out the tyres!’ He reactivated his own headset. ‘Dude, get us out of here!’
‘Miss Voss, can you keep your people’s chatter down, please?’ the pilot replied testily. The thrust reversers retracted, the jet lurching to a stop.
‘What?’ snapped Kyle. ‘No, wait — I’m not her people! She doesn’t give me orders!’
‘You are such a gynophobe, Kyle,’ Holly Jo said, clutching her armrests as the engines shrieked to full power.
‘No, I’m not, whatever that is — oh Jesus!’ The Russians were taking aim. ‘Go, go go go!’
The pilot released the wheelbrakes. Holly Jo and Kyle were shoved back in their seats as the jet surged forward. One of the Russians gawped at the Global 6000 as it raced past.