by Rob Jones
Without looking back, Ryan Bale sprinted from the hangar and headed back over to the field outside. As terrible and violent as it was, he knew those few minutes fighting with Bruno would change the rest of his life, and now, as he moved into the battle to fight beside his friends one more time, his change was complete.
He was a stronger man now, mentally and physically, hardened like steel by the bitter experiences he had suffered: the deaths of Sophie Durand and Maria Kurikova and now the brutal murder of Bruno. Yes, it had been self-defense, but there was nothing stopping him running from the hanger when the Italian was choking on the floor. He had stayed and finished the job the way Hawke or Scarlet or Devlin would do – because that was what you did when you had a mortal enemy: you fought to the death or they would rise up and kill you later. He understood that now.
He sprinted around to the rear of the hangar to find Scarlet and Devlin helping Kim to her feet. He knew they had to get back to Hawke and reunite the team but then they all saw something that stopped them dead in their tracks. A wide-bodied jet was flying to the north of the property, around three or four thousand feet high and a strange blue lightning was crawling all over its aluminum skin.
“My God,” Devlin said. “That maniac Kruger must be testing the sword out on a jet!”
“It’s a 747,” Ryan said, holding his hand up to shield his eyes from the sun’s glare. “There could be four hundred people on board!” He rubbed a shaking hand over his face. “And if it’s under attack that means Joe failed.”
“We have to get over there!” Scarlet cried out.
“Wait... that’s not any old 747,” Kim said grimly. “That’s Air Force One!”
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Colonel James Scott fought with everything he had to control Air Force One as the blue fire streaked across the 747’s metallic fuselage.
Sitting beside him in the first officer’s seat, Lieutenant Colonel Matt Jennings was also fighting hard to keep the aircraft level. “We’re going down, sir!”
“I know, dammit! We’re losing power!” Scott said.
President Jack Brooke burst into the cockpit, followed closely by his terrified advisor, Todd Williams. “What the hell is going on?”
“We don’t know,” said the Colonel. The yoke was vibrating wildly in his hands and a series of various warning alarms were sounding out in the small cockpit. “It’s some kind of electrical attack!”
“I thought this plane could defend against an EMP?” Todd said.
Scott shook his head. “Sure, but this ain’t no EMP!”
They all heard the grim sound of the four General Electric turbofans powering down as the terrifying neon-blue electrical fire leaped and crackled over the aircraft. Brooke shielded his eyes from the blinding flashes sparking across the windshield.
“Five thousand feet and going down fast!” Jennings said.
With wheels up only a few moments ago, London Heathrow’s Runway 27R was only seven or eight miles behind them and the gear was barely retracted inside the plane.
“Can she stay in the air?” Brooke said.
Scott shook his head again as he desperately scanned the instrument panel. “We have a vertical speed of five hundred feet per minute, Mr President. At this rate we’re on the floor in less than five minutes.”
“Can we do anything?”
“We’ve already deployed all countermeasures, sir, but they’re designed to deal with incoming missiles or fighter jets, not whatever the hell this is.”
Scott slammed his hand on the chunky throttle quadrant and pushed it forward again, this time to the max. The normal response would have been a mighty, bass roar as the engines spooled up to full power, but the blue lightning was interfering too much with not only the electrical systems but also the turbofans themselves. The response to the Colonel’s action was the sound of the engines continuing to lose power.
“RAF jets have been scrambled,” Jennings said.
“It’s too late,” Scott said. “We’re going down! Everyone into crash positions!”
*
“She’s coming down!” Kruger said. ‘We’re actually going to knock Air Force One right out of the sky!”
Hawke and Lea exchanged a look of horror before returning to the terrible sight of the President’s aircraft as its flight crew desperately struggled to keep the wounded bird in the air. Lea felt the sword’s power in her hands more acutely now, and it was starting to burn and sizzle.
“Bring that bastard down!” Vermaak yelled.
“I’ve never seen anything like this before,” Zito said. “It’s like we have the power of the gods!”
The intensity of blue light produced by the Sword of Fire was terrifying, and Hawke was forced look away.
“Jesus Christ!” Vermaak said. “The fucking thing’s going down in that field.”
Hawke watched helpless and consumed with rage as he watched the world-famous Boeing fighting against the ancient power of the sword. Its engines whined and moaned as the lethal blue lightning flashed and leaped all over the wings and onto the main fuselage. He had never seen anything like it in his entire life, and never wanted to again.
“This will kill them all, Kruger!” Lea shouted.
“That’s sort of the point,” Vermaak said.
Lea felt herself passing out, and as her head swam she heard another sound now: fighter jets screeching through the air to the north. Hawke saw them first – two typhoons, and they weren’t messing about. When they got closer he saw the RAF insignia, and then he saw they were armed to the hilt with Brimstone air-to-surface missiles.
“They’ve fucking found us, Dirk,” Vermaak said.
The typhoons banked hard either side of Air Force One to avoid the same fate, and then swooping around toward the house, Hawke saw them both fire.
“Incoming!” he yelled.
Hawke saw in Kruger’s eyes that he wanted more than anything in the world to be the man who blew up Air Force One and killed the President, but he knew the game was up.
Exhausted now, Lea dropped the sword and collapsed into the grass. With the sword on the ground, it had stopped drawing the energy from the air and the blue lightning was dissipating as fast as it had arrived.
Two Brimstone missile scorched a path of death across the sky before slamming into the upper storeys of Horak’s manor house and sending a colossal fireball shooting into the air. The shockwave blasted everyone to the ground.
Hawke rolled to a stop and watched as the neon fire finally released its grip on the presidential plane. The aircraft was seconds away from a devastating impact in a wheat field, but now they all heard the engines power up and pull the wounded bird up out of an imminent stall.
Lea started to come around again. “Thank God!” she mumbled.
With fire and smoke billowing from the mansion, and Air Force One racing away into the blue sky, Kruger cursed and passed a gnarled hand over his chin stubble. “Damn it all.”
“We’d better make tracks, Dirk,” Vermaak said. “This place will be crawling with anti-terror cops in minutes.”
“Get to the chopper!” Kruger said. “We have the sword, and that’s all that matters. And don’t forget the parachutes.”
With Reaper and Mack still unconscious in the house behind them, Vermaak marched Hawke and Lea toward the AgustaWestland.
“Parachutes, Kruger?” Hawke said. “Nervous flyer?”
“We have a boat waiting for us in the North Sea. Me, Vermaak and Gianni parachute onto it while the chopper drags your boys in blue on a wild goose chase all over France. We get safely away with the sword and your anti-terror idiots are being sent in the opposite direction.”
“And what about us?”
“You’re going to find out what it feels like to hit the ground at terminal velocity, and so is your girlfriend. Get on the chopper.”
Hawke watched Vermaak as he loaded the bag on the plane and then threw the three parachutes in behind it. Lea was still too dazed to fight, but t
he former SBS operative decided it was now or never and made his move when the commando’s back was turned. With his hands still tied behind his back, he lashed out and headbutted Kruger in the face and then turned and delivered the same punishment to Zito.
Kruger cried out for Vermaak who pirouetted back out of the aircraft and scrambled to contain the situation. He raised his MP5 and screamed at Hawke to get back. He obeyed, but it was too late for Zito. Hawke’s hefty headbutt had knocked the Italian hard and now he was staggering backward toward the Agusta’s tail rotor propeller blades.
Even Kruger turned away as the speeding metal blades ripped into the Italian mobster and sprayed what was left of him all over the helicopter and tarmac.
“Jesus Christ!” Vermaak said, and raised his gun at Hawke. “Try that with me and see what happens, Englishman.”
Kruger looked up and saw the fighter jets had been joined by two more and all four were now flying toward Air Force One to escort it out of British airspace. “Get us in the air!” he snapped at the pilot.
Hawke’s last stand had failed, and now Vermaak forced them to get on the chopper at gunpoint.
*
Scott and Jennings shared a glance that spoke a thousand words as the blue fire streaked away from Air Force One and released its deadly grip on the aircraft. From the jumpseat just behind them, President Brooke shared their relief as the Colonel slammed the throttles forward. This time the engines responded correctly, and a deep, satisfying roar filled the cabin as Scott rammed them up to N1 and pushed the turbofans to full capacity.
“Good flying, Colonel,” Brooke said.
“I wish I could say it was, sir,” he said.
Brooke had no response. He knew things had gotten too close today, and a very dark chapter in American history had been narrowly avoided thanks to the RAF jets that had ripped the hell out of the terrorists’ ground position.
Now escorted by no less than four Eurofighter Typhoons, the VC-25 shredded its way into the western sky leaving a no-nonsense roar of power in its wake . It burned noisily away from the attack site and headed to cruising altitude.
With the danger behind them, Scott ordered an immediate check on all systems while Jennings got busy on the radio. Brooke rose to his feet, gave the Colonel a solid pat on his shoulder and headed back into the cabin.
“Dad?”
Alex was sitting down beside Agent McGee. Both looked pale.
“It’s fine, darling. We’re through it.”
“What the hell was it?”
“We don’t know, but I’ll tell you one thing – whatever sons of bitches just tried to bring me, my plane and my girl down are going wish they’d never been born.”
CHAPTER FORTY
Lea looked at Hawke and saw he was watching Vermaak closely as the aircraft’s Pratt & Whitney turboshaft engine pulled them up to altitude. Kruger was up front with the pilot, and the only trace of what was left of Giancarlo Zito was smeared over the tail boom at the rear of the chopper.
Hawke turned to her and smiled, but she didn’t return it.
“What’s the matter?” he asked.
“Kruger’s going to throw us out this frigging helo in about five minutes. That’s what’s wrong.”
“Don’t be silly,” he said, giving her shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “We’ve never been beaten yet and it’s not going to start now.”
Lea peered out at England, thousands of feet below. “If it starts now it’s going to bloody stop now too. Listen... about the letter I got in Dublin.”
“You said you weren’t ready, Lea.”
“I’m not, but I can’t die not knowing what it says, Joe!”
He was silent for a long time, then he said, “This is your decision.”
“I’ve made up my mind. I’m going to read it, but I want to be alone.”
“What about Smiler over there?” Hawke said, indicating Vermaak.
*“I mean it, Joe.”
Hawke understood. He kissed her on the cheek and moved to the next seat. Vermaak gave him a suspicious glance. “View’s better this side,” the Englishman said with a cheery grin.
Vermaak sniffed and slumped back down in his seat.
Lea reached inside her jacket pocket and pulled out the letter she had found in the box of Maggie Donovan’s things back at her brother’s house in Dublin. She stared at the handwriting on the front of the envelope, and whispered: Maggie, I’m so scared of what I might find inside...
With the chopper rumbling through some light turbulence, she ran her finger under the envelope seal and pulled the letter from the inside. She held in her hands a piece of small, neatly folded note paper and could see through the paper that it was written in the same shaky handwriting that was on the front of the envelope. Now, her hands started to shake as she gently opened the note and began to read Maggie’s words, scrawled in blue ink on the delicate white paper.
*
Halfway to the main house, Ryan could hardly believe what they had all just witnessed in the sky above their heads. Air Force One had narrowly escaped total destruction and a good part of the mansion was nothing more than burning ruins. Before flying away to escort the President’s plane, the typhoons had blasted the top half of the mansion with SAMs, and now they helplessly watched as an AgustaWestland chopper powered up into the air and turned to the east.
They saw two men moving toward them across the airfield.
“Holy shit!” Kim cried out. “That’s Vincent and Mack!”
They sprinted over to them.
“Holy crap,” Ryan said. “What happened to you two?”
“I’m not sure...” Mack rubbed his head. “I was standing there listening to this proper tadger going on about the end of the world and then Lea did the whole ‘hold-aloft-your-magic-sword’ thing and then the next minute it felt like I was shagging a toaster.”
Reaper looked confused. “We got electrocuted.”
“Ah,” Kim said. “Now I understand.”
“What about Joe and Lea?” Scarlet said, staring over Reaper’s shoulder for any sign of them.
The Frenchman shook his head. “I regained conciousness just in time to see Kruger piling them both into the Agusta.”
“Aye,” Mack said. “Fuckers were airborne before either of us could do a thing.”
“Bastards!” Devlin said.
Sheer desperation forced Ryan to run his hand over his face. Everything had gone wrong. They had failed to stop Kruger and Zito from leaving the country and now it looked like Hawke and Lea were hostages.
“So what do we do now?” Kim said.
“We go after our fuckin’ mates, is what,” Mack said. The Scot gave the young Londoner a stern look. “Right, Ryan?”
Ryan took a deep breath, unable to keep his eyes away from the hangar where he had killed the man. “You got it,” he said at last. “Let’s end this.”
*
Reaper led the others to a carpark at the side of the hangar where a man was pulling into a space marked AVIONIC TECHNICIAN. The Frenchman padded over to him and tapped him on the shoulder.
“Excusez-moi, Monsieur.”
“Eh?”
Reaper’s shovel-fist smashed into the man’s face and knocked him to the ground. “Where are the keys to that shiny helicopter over there?” He pointed to the blue and white Eurocopter EC130 parked outside.
“Oh, God no,” Ryan said.
Kim looked worried. “What’s the problem?”
“The last time Reap flew us in a chopper was in Peru and we all vowed never again.”
“Keys,” Reaper repeated, ignoring Ryan’s comment. “Where?”
“In the office,” the technician said, his voice quivering.
“Take us there.”
The man led them to the office and handed the keys over. He started to speak but Reaper punched him again, and this time hard enough to end the debate.
“Bon... let’s get after them!”
“You can’t be serious?” Kim said.
/> “He’s always serious,” said Ryan.
“True story,” Scarlet said.
Reaper fired the chopper up and raised the collective, slowly lifting the machine off the ground and pushing up into the sky. “What was the AgustaWestland’s registration number, Ryan?”
Ryan gave the number, burned into his eidetic memory during the fight with Bruno.
“Scarlet, start tracing the number and see if the flight path is on a live tracker website,” Reaper said.
“All over it like a donkey on a waffle, Reap.”
“Bon.” He swooped the chopper over the top of Horak’s burning mansion and turned it to the east in pursuit of the fleeing AgustaWestland.
“They would never let themselves be tracked that way!” Kim protested.
“No, he’s right,” Devlin said. “They have to have the transponder switched on for safety reasons. If they turn it off they’re inviting a mid-air collision.”
Reaper spoke through the headset, “In the meantime, everyone else try and keep an eye on it, non? If Hawke gets control of that chopper he’s going to need back-up when he brings it down.”
Reaper looked into the sky and saw the AgustaWestland slowly vanishing in the sky to the east. Things had looked better for the ECHO team, but he took a deep breath and raised the collective.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
With the letter held tightly in her hands, Lea closed her eyes and tried to work up enough courage to read it. She had kept it in the pocket next to her heart since Dublin but now it was time. When she opened her eyes again, she saw her hands were trembling. She fought against it and started to read the letter.
My Dearest Lea,
I’m writing this letter to you because I’m feeling tired and I’m not sure how much longer I have. There is no easy way to say what I must say, so I’ll just write it down – I know you’ll be strong enough to handle it. You’re a Donovan.
