Chimera Code (Jake Dillon Adventure Thriller Series)

by Andrew Towning

  himself into the pilot’s seat.

  Dillon wasted no time in bringing the A-25M on-line, the

  single prop spun-up, soon reaching idling speed. Dillon flicked a

  switch; his HIDSS helmet sprang to life and he went through a quick

  familiarisation routine, before releasing the mooring line and powering

  the amphibian craft out into deep water. He turned the nose around

  into the light breeze, pushed the throttle forward; and a moment

  later they were skimming over the water at one-hundred miles per

  hour. The engine roared as the aircraft leaped up into the air and sped

  across the clear blue sky, sun glinting off of the single variable pitch

  propeller. The virtual screen on Dillon’s visor lit-up with proximity

  missile warnings, as they circled Ezra’s villa and the secret facility onethousand feet below. The engine howled with power as the A-25M

  skirted the villa and olive groves where Dillon could clearly see the

  damage caused by the Assassins’ attack.

  Dillon told Tatiana to watch the camera monitor screen for any

  unwelcome guests.

  “Doesn’t appear to be much going on down there now,” said

  Dillon. “The defence systems are still armed; even though it looks

  quiet enough; I’m not getting any closer, just in case there are Assassins

  inside the control room and they’ve re-booted the mainframe.” “What if they are in the control room?” Vince said, dabbing the

  sweat from his brow with a dubious looking handkerchief. “Ground-to-air missiles. Ezra had them all over the place, and

  they’re all showing a status of being armed and dangerous.” He took the aircraft lower; they swept wide around the olive

  groves. A lone Assassin glanced up as they flew over. A stream of

  bullets from its Uzi SMG followed but the A-25M was moving far too

  swiftly. The aircraft banked over hard to the right, and levelled out at

  three hundred feet as it raced towards the cliffs, disappearing over the

  brow towards the water below. Dillon headed out towards the Sea of

  Crete, before lifting his visor and turning to Tatiana, said. “So what

  do you want to do?”

  “Make another pass, but come in from the north side of the

  island; Ezra must be down there somewhere. If anyone can get out

  alive, it’s Ezra.” They flew over the deep blue water of the Aegean

  Sea, keeping low and close to the island’s eastern coast-line. Returning

  low over the arid land from the north, sweeping as low as Dillon

  dared with ground-to-air missiles in the vicinity. The A-25M circled

  the villa grounds and olive groves several more times. There was no

  sign of Ezra, nor any other members of his staff for that matter. “I’m

  switching the cameras to heat seeking mode. Keep a close eye on your

  monitor screen.”

  “What am I looking for?”

  “If there’s anything alive down there, it will show up red on the

  screen.”

  The next moment, Tatiana shouted from the rear of the cramped

  cabin. “Dillon, you’d better drop your visor and take a look this.” Dillon gazed at his virtual screen inside the HIDSS helmet. “Hell

  streuth. Why do they not give up.”

  “I think we can assume that Assassins are in control down there.”

  Vince said, and then added. “If they are, then those missiles could be

  extremely hazardous to our health.”

  “I agree. So what do we do now?” Said Tatiana. “I know Ezra is

  my uncle, but he’s very adept at looking after himself.”

  “I’ve got something on the forward camera.” Dillon swept round

  in a wide arc once more.

  “What is it?”

  “Three figures. Running away from one of the olive groves...” “Try and get closer next time, Dillon. Let’s see who it is.” The A-25M banked, flying straight towards the glinting sunlight.

  Like a bullet it hurtled across the sky and then suddenly dropped,

  gliding in a descending arc towards a dirt track ran parallel to the cliff top, the deep red colour of the volcanic rock stood out against the

  deep blue of the sea far below.

  Tatiana could see distant figures, sprinting over the parched dirt. And then she recognised Ezra.

  “He’s on his own,” said Dillon.

  “Can you shoot his pursuers?”

  “At this altitude and height? I’ll cut all three of them in half!

  Ezra’s far too close to them... It’s impossible to distinguish the targets

  with these type of machine guns anyway...”

  The amphibian aircraft roared over the cliff top and banked

  at distance, single propeller flashing silver against the sun; and then

  they returned for another pass. Ezra, surprisingly for his bulk, was

  sprinting ahead of his two pursuing Assassins. He was unarmed... and

  carrying something in his clenched fist that glinted a multitude of

  candy colours and then, in a flash they were over and gone. Dillon banked the aircraft once more - a distant droning insect

  to those on the ground.

  “If I land, we’d be sitting ducks,” shouted Dillon. “Vince, what

  do you think?”

  Vince was sat in the rear of the cockpit with his net-book on his

  lap. “They’re armed, both carrying SMGs and they’re closing on Ezra

  fast. They obviously want him alive, or they would have shot him by

  now. But he hasn’t got much longer.”

  “Dillon, we’ve got to help him!” screamed Tatiana. “We’ve got

  to help him now!”

  * * * Ezra, sweat pouring down his body, glanced up as the A-25M roared low overhead. He was as good as dead, he knew, but the small circular optical disc he was carrying in his right hand could not fall into the wrong hands...

  Under any circumstances - could not.

  The missing blueprints were now hindering the progress of the Chimera Programme - availing Ferran & Cardini and the Government valuable time. And as Ezra had said before, those individuals involved were enemies of every Western democracy, and Ezra was their Achilles Heel. Their weakness.

  How could Kirill and Ramus hope to hold every government around the planet to ransom with the Chimera virus programme if there was an identical programme to counter all the commands? There to throw a spanner in their plans for a worldwide computer meltdown? There to piss on their firebefore the fire is even lit? No, they needed the blueprints.

  Ezra did not dare to glance over his shoulder. But he could hear them, hear their rubber soled running shoes on the dirt of the track. Ezra considered himself a fit man, but these two bastards had chased him for miles; virtually all of it across uneven cross-country terrain. The Assassins had known the exact layout of his facility, and from the very start, had played out the entire attack with the sole intention of drawing him out and to send him fleeing across the countryside with bullets at his tail. It hadn’t taken them long to separate him from his group. They had known. Known what he carried.

  A grim smile twisted his lips. He kept going, finding that extra reserve of energy, stored for such occasions. Ezra’s endurance had been pushed to its limit and he could feel his body using every last drop of adrenalin, using reserves that he never dreamed he had - the large man did not know how he still managed to put one foot in front of the other.

  For the past half a mile the two Assassins had slowly wound him in, like a big fish on the end of a line. Now they were just thirty paces behind him and panic settled like a dark demon across his soul. With his heart pounding, all that he could think of - was what to do? What in God’s name was he going to do? />
  Why hadn’t they just simply gunned him down as soon as he’d started to run?

  They knew; knew that he held the key to the final piece of encryption that would fully complete the Chimera Programme - the key to unlocking everything stored on the small disc. With him dead, it would take them a lifetime to crack - but with him alive, and drugged to do whatever they wanted?

  Mere minutes. He’d seen, first hand, what they could do.

  He shivered. He did not want to be caught.

  Better to die, he thought.

  He strode on keeping up the pace with every ounce of strength left in his body.

  And then he was there...

  There was a shout from behind him as one of the Assassins realised what was about to happen.

  Ezra pounded up to the ridge and in silence, without looking down, leaped with all his might. Hands lightly brushed against his back. An Assassin had followed him, not from choice but from momentum and speed.

  Ezra had launched himself over the cliff and into - nothing...

  He kept the disc tightly gripped in his hand.

  There were no final words. No shouts of Geronimo. Ezra merely kept his mouth shut, even though the world had opened up before him... So large... So colourful...

  And he knew; this was the first time he had truly seen.

  The first time he had felt.

  And the first time he had felt so light and carefree.

  Fresh Santorian air raced past his tear-blurred vision.

  Ezra fell.

  * * *

  “No!” screamed Tatiana from the cockpit of the aircraft. The A-25M banked once more; the forward machine guns rattled off hundreds of rounds and the Assassin on the cliff top was cut to pieces - it all happened so quickly that it didn’t even know anything about it.

  “Get down there, down to the base of the cliffs,” she commanded. “What good will it do? Ezra’s gone, Tats.” Dillon said softly. “Just do it, Dillon.”

  Dillon stared at her for a moment, but altered course and flew

  along the cliff top and then dropped down towards the sea far below. He flew a wide circle and came in low over the water, waves rolled onto the shore, but showed no signs of life. For a while Dillon cruised up and down the stretch where Ezra would have dropped, searching; but Ezra had gone.

  “Tatiana, we can’t search forever,” Vince said gently. “I know. Just a few more minutes.”

  Propeller whining, the A-25M circled and searched. Finally, it

  veered off, climbing steeply, and then headed north, away from the shoreline, away from the cliffs, away from the island of Santorini. To the west the sun was starting its journey over the horizon, and behind them in the distance the red cliffs of Thira. Dillon was drained and exhausted, had levelled out at five thousand feet and the A-25M had reached its cruising speed on a northerly heading.

  “Take me away from this place,” whispered Tatiana.

  * * * The two Assassins walked slowly into the control room, stopped just inside the doorway, looking down at the congealing blood they were standing in. Then looked around at the blood soaked prostrate figures sprawled over workstations and on the floor, their blood sprayed up the walls and across the ceiling of the chamber.

  “Ezra is not here,” came the soft female voice. “And now they are all dead.” The Assassin pulled off its black hood, and in the process revealed feminine blond hair, soft blemish free skin and, the most piercingly blue eyes. She went to one of the security camera monitors, typed in the start run time, and watched the footage for a few moments. “He ran towards the cliff top. Ezra jumped - is dead, his body lost to the ocean, and the disc with him.”

  “What shall we do now?” The second Assassin looked searchingly at the first.

  The soft voice was calm, she shook her head and turned away, stepping towards the escape tunnel hewn through the stone and the welcoming calming coolness beyond.

  The Assassin abhorred the heat. She hated this place.

  Her words echoed back, hollow and empty.

  “We bury our dead and then we leave this place.”

  * * *

  It was night.

  Small waves slapped rhythmically against the steps of the Venetian boat house.

  The A-25M amphibian aircraft swayed gently on its mooring

  ropes with the swell of the lagoon, clicking, its metal cooling slowly. The fire was a small one, the dry wood burning without smoke.

  Vince brewed tea in a little tin pot and Tatiana sat, chin on her knees,

  arms around herself, staring into the flickering flames, lost; lost in a

  world of her own creation. Dillon was sprawled out asleep on a pile of

  old tarpaulins in the corner of the boat house, this was the first time he’d actually been out for the count, allowing his brain to re-charge. He was grey with exhaustion, but had kept them going, and safe, until they were securely inside the enormous boat-house belonging to an old friend of Dillons. They’d landed on the lagoon, heading straight

  for one of the private islands and relative safety.

  “You any closer to knowing what the hell is going on?” Vince

  asked, over the rim of his mug.

  Tatiana nodded. “I think so. Things are starting to become

  clearer.”

  “You still want me tagging along?”

  “We’re going to need your hacking skills, mate,” Dillon stretched

  his arms above his head as he walked over to where Vince and Tatiana

  were sitting around the fire.

  Tatiana looked up. “We will?”

  “We will.” Dillon nodded, sipping at the sweet hot tea as one

  hand probed tenderly at his various wounds. “We’re heading back to

  Scotland, back to the Highlands,” said Dillon. “I think it’s time we

  paid Professor Kirill a visit regarding this Chimera project of his.”

  Chapter 16

  The A-25M amphibious aircraft, piloted by Dillon with Vince snoring loudly in the back and Tatiana dozing next to him, soared through the pouring rain, refuelling at a small provincial airfield in southern France before heading north to the borders of Belgium, the Netherlands and beyond. Dillon cruised the A-25M, its single prop engine humming behind the cockpit, their heading due north into the howling wind and rain that was rapidly turning to sleet.

  They cruised over large areas of open French countryside, small towns and large cities. Dillon glanced down at the fuel gauge, he had pre-determined that they would have to re-fuel again by the time they reached the Netherlands, and touched down at a private airstrip just south of Amsterdam. Dillon flew the aircraft in silence, with only the engine noise for company, and half an hour later was leaving the Dutch coastline behind them and only the North Sea ahead. All the way to their destination - Scotland...

  * * * Alix had altered his course to avoid the severe weather coming off of the North Sea, and was now heading for the Scottish Highlands up the west coast. The Westland WAH-64 Apache Longbow attack helicopter cut effortlessly through the rain, its rotors thumping overhead as they cruised over the Isle of Man, and across the Mull of Galloway. Twenty minutes later they were flying over the Grampian mountain range, rising to an incredible altitude until the mountains snaked away like giant dragon’s teeth behind them. Alix dropped back down to a few hundred feet above the ground and changed course again. This time the Apache headed straight for the Sea of the Hebrides, passed over the Isle of Skye, and ten minutes later as they entered the Northwest Highland mountain range.

  “Down there.” Said the Priest softly, peering forward a little and looking out of the side window and pointing at the bleak, rugged and snowbound, yet beautiful, landscape below.

  The Longbow helicopter cruised for a few minutes until Lola, Alix and the Priest saw it; it was a giant of a mountain rising up from the earth, jagged and fearsome, capped with white sparkling crystal ice.

  “Eagle Point,” said Alix, his voice filled with awe, as
it had been the very first time he had arrived at this place. “Awesome, isn’t it?”

  “And the Stage School,” whispered the Priest. The Stage School. The nickname for an old disused SAS training complex built into the north side of the mountain, well above the timber line and far away from roads of all description. One could only reach the facility by two routes - one was by air, the other by an electrical winch, that most likely had not been in commission for well over four or five years, used to haul up a huge wicker basket large enough to hold up to eight men wearing full kit. The winch worked on a steel line from the wheelhouse located half way up the mountain side, at about seven hundred feet above the valley floor.

  Alix brought thehelicopter in high, then swooped steeply towards the opposite mountain slope, hugging the ground before climbing past snow covered black runs, and higher still, speed decreasing with the changing pitch of the rotors.

  “You see anything down there?”

  “It’s too distant and the light is failing,” said the Priest. “Head for that clearing down in the valley, there in amongst the trees. We can reach the base of the mountain on foot. That will be the only sure way to avoid detection. They won’t expect anyone to be stupid enough to attempt to climb the north face.”

  Alix brought the Apache helicopter to a hover twenty feet above the clearing, did a quick visual scan of the area, and then landed gently. The rotors slowed, engines dying and clicking, and the three travellers stepped out from the warmth of the cabin onto a forest bed of pine needles and dead branches that crackled softly under foot. Melting ice dripped from the trees around the clearing and Alix and Lola found themselves looking around, deeply concerned.

  “Which way now?” Alix said looking around at the cold wet landscape, adding a moment later. “This place has the smell of trouble about it.”

  “That’s because ultimately, Alix. This is a horrifying place.” The Priest’s words were true and both Alix and Lola knew it...

  Lola approached the Priest, who was kneeling, one hand holding his Bible, the other touching the frozen earth, head tilted up and eyes closed as he prayed. “We heading for the basket?” she asked.

  “Yes. I have been given divine guidance. We must go now, darkness will soon be upon us and it would be helpful if we could get to the base of the mountain before then.” He stood up. Shouldering their back-packs the small group moved off between the trees, heading out along the valley made slippery by mud and fern.