“Let’s see, shall we?” Dillon moved forward with Tatiana trailing behind him. They moved up through each level with a remarkable lack of confrontation, Dillon was amazed that there appeared to be no other Assassins on the stealth ship.
The corridor was wide with glass running along one side, and looking down Dillon could see a mass of activity; this was definitely the catamaran’s bridge and command centre. Dillon could see Ramus and Kirill, the massive screen at one end showing the world laid out with live streams of information informing them as they directed their master plan for a New World Order. Tatiana looked down with disbelief.
“They really are arrogant fuckers,” he said vehemently and slid the Glock’s safety catch off. He checked the magazines stowed in various pockets of his armoured vest.
He had bullets. Lots of them.
Dillon smiled at Tatiana. “Now don’t argue, But I want you to get to the Apache and wait there with Vince.” He put his hand on her shoulder, leaned forward and gently kissed her on the cheek. He watched her go through the hatch that led directly out onto the deck, and then turned.
“Let’s finish this Kirill,” he said. And stepped warily along the corridor.
* * * Further along the corridor, Dillon could hear heavy machine gun fire. There was also the incredibly loud whining of the laser-guided gatlin guns. Distantly, he could hear other explosions and the scream of engines.
“You’re doing your work well, Alix.” Dillon touched the comm-link in his right ear and said. “Vince, are you there?”
“I’m here, chap. I’ve got the rotors spinning, but time is running out. Where the hell are you?”
“Corridor outside the main command bridge. Talk to me about the ship’s damage.”
“The JetRangers have knocked out the navigation systems; the ship cannot steer without the help of the Chimera Programme. The same goes for the stealth mode and weapon’s systems. Chimera is controlling all of them.”
“Thanks. I’ll be along to you both shortly.”
“You have exactly two minutes and thirty seconds before the big one goes off.”
Dillon moved along the corridor, which was sloping down. He came to steps and carefully picked his way down their metal surfaces. He heard something behind him. Ducking into a service hatchway, he watched an Assassin rush past. The main doors to the bridge opened: Kirill stood there, a true blood Assassin to either side of him, and a look of anger and frustration on his face. Behind, a massive wall mounted monitor running streams of data created by Chimera as it went about its business of entering every computer connected to the Internet and taking electronic control of them - taking control of the digital planet...
Ramus was dictating a message to the heads of state and leaders of the world; Dillon caught phrases such as “ultimate destructive technology” and “total digital shutdown”. He wiped the sweat from his browwith the back of his hand and gripped the Glock even tighter.
“Well?”
“The surviving intelligence service JetRanger helicopters, is as we speak, fleeing into the rain and gloom - but the Apache helicopter is still standing ready on the rear starboard deck. I would assume that they are waiting for Dillon. Why has it not been destroyed?”
“Ramus, believe me when I tell you that attempts have been made, but this helicopter is equipped with a sophisticated weapons system programme - that is definitely not standard.” Kirill spoke softly.
“It is of no importance at this time. Ramus raised his right hand in a gesture of dismissal, a gesture of arrogance...
The sound of footsteps came from the corridor, and another four Assassins came into view. They came to a silent halt in front of Kirill. But Kirill could tell that something was wrong... Something was seriously amiss...
“What is it?”
“A bomb has been attached to the hull on the port side,” said the Assassin calmly, eyes sparkling.
“What type of bomb is it?” Snapped Kirill. “Tell me, what kind of fucking device is it?”
“Our scanners have determined that it is a sophisticated dirtybomb of unspecified yield, magnetically attached to the underside of the ship.” The voice was soft and very calm.
Kirill’s eyes widened. “We need to get a diver down there. Now! You hear me?”
The Assassin ignored him. “We must evacuate this vessel immediately.”
“Won’t the armour plating protect us against this?”
“No. This type of device creates extreme pressure at the point of detonation. The hull is extremely strong, but it will be ripped open by the explosion. Our armour is thick, designed for attack by torpedoes and mines. This device is different; when it detonates there will be no water to support the catamaran’s weight. The ship will simply break itself in half.”
Kirill stared, dumbfounded.
A million thoughts rushing through his brain.
Out of the corner of his eye, he could hear Ramus talking rapidly into the microphone of the comm link. A look of utter triumph at his defiance of the world, in celebration at bringing the world’s most powerful administrations to their knees...
And all this through a virus programme.
Kirill lifted his gun; a single shot through the centre of the forehead ended the Assassin’s report. He turned towards the other Assassins and smiled a thin cruel smile. “It would seem that Dillon and his friends had an ace up their collective sleeve. They’re not running away like girls, they’re getting free of this ship and the immediate blast zone.” Kirill walked towards the main doors, and stepped off of the bridge.
Dillon stepped out from his hiding place behind him.
“Stop right there, Kirill.”
Kirill turned, raised his gun and started firing, a mad smile creasing his lips, his brow furrowed in bewilderment. As Dillon had spoken, he had also stepped back into the shadows and concealment of the door recess. Sparks kicked up all around him, bullets ricocheting from the wall, one scorching a furrow across his right forearm - there was a moment when the wound was nothing but a narrow strip of red, and then blood started to gush out. Dillon clamped the wound with a silent curse and pressed himself tight up against the doorway. He tore off a sleeve of his shirt and bound it tightly about his forearm, instantly blood soaked through. Gripping the Glock 9mm, he stood shakily, his mind swam: loss of blood, constant pain, and a severe pounding at the hands and boots of Ramus’ bodyguard had left him weak.
It’s also left you slow, Dillon thought. He licked his lips, and stepped forward to peer along the corridor; he could hear a commotion on the bridge. His jaw became taught with the tension he felt, as he caught the fleeing form of Kirill who was once again cheating death.
And then he averted his attention back to the bridge and the processor containing the master copy of the Chimera Programme. Hell-bent on destroying the digital world as we know it.
“Damn it.”
He strode onto the bridge, past two Assassins standing to one side of the doorway; each got a bullet in the head. He broke into a sprint as he heard Ramus saying arrogantly, “...we will spare the lives of millions of Americans...”
The Glock touched the back of Ramus’ head.
Dillon could feel the bony skull through the muzzle of the automatic.
Ramus froze.
“But I won’t spare your life,” Dillon hissed as he squeezed the trigger.
The bullet smashed through Ramus’ brain and exploded out of his right eye along with blood and gore.
Ramus collapsed.
The bridge became silent, except for the humming and whirring of the processors. Four Assassins turned their attention towards Dillon. He took a single step forward, glanced down at the processor unit with the Chimera optical disc and levelled the Glock directly at it.
“This is for everyone who has been murdered,” he muttered. “Now it’s pay-back time...”
He put six bullets into the processor as one of the Assassins behind him screamed a single word - “No!”
Bullets smashe
d the cold black casing into a billion tiny harmless fragments that blew violently outwards in a black mist.
All of the monitors around the bridge went blank. The master screen turned blue and all of the Chimera script disappeared.
“Now that’s what I call terminal hacking!”
Uzi mini sub-machine pistols blasted.
Dillon sprinted, head low, as the Assassin, who had screamed
- no, emptied a full magazine in his direction. Dillon raced into the corridor with bullets kicking up sparks behind him and bounced from the wall, groaning long and low to himself as his battered body seemed to gather up energy from somewhere deep within him. Spurred on by the thought of Alix’s dirty-bomb, Dillon sprinted as if his life depended on it.
Which it did.
* * * Dillon stumbledmadly down the corridor in pursuit of a way out onto the deck. His alter-personality rose up through his sub-conscious to taunt him... “You really are slow and weak, old man. You’ll never get off this tub in time, you know. But I can get you off, Dillon. I have the strength you could never dream of - come on, Dillon, you’ll never do this without me...”
“Fuck off,” snarled Dillon. He stumbled forward, rebounding from wall to wall. His aching muscles felt like they were tearing with every jolt, making him want to cry out with each step forward. He halted; fell to his knees, his breathing laboured, the broken ribs, causing severe pain down his right side.
“ You’re dying Dillon, and the clock is tick-tocking. Alix has done his job well, Vince is up there waiting for you with Tatiana, the blades of the Apache spinning. You have, roughly one minute and thirty-five seconds to get off this fucking death-ship.”
Dillon steadied his breathing and stood up again.
Bullets kicked up sparks from the floor behind him. He pushed on at a weary pace, stumbling, as the large catamaran
was assaulted in succession by Alix’s smaller explosive devices, shaking the very structure of the vessel as it made for deeper water outside of the harbour.
His boots thudded dully on the metal walkways, upstairs, and to the door that had allowed him entry. He wrenched the lever over and heaved it open.
More bullets came at him, striking sparks from the door’s metal surround; Dillon dropped to one knee, the Glock kicking in his hand. Ramus was dead and Kirill was jumping ship like a rat, into a waiting black helicopter as rain pounded all around him.
Dillon stepped up and out into the wind and lashing rain. And looked around, dazed.
The skies were filled with thick black smoke billowing up
from the ravaged decks of the catamaran. The surviving JetRanger helicopter was fleeing and Dillon could just make out the Apache, blades spinning, and hovering twenty feet above the deck. Vince’s outline was visible inside the cockpit, with Tatiana sitting next to him. The helicopter’s forward machine cannons flashed as they spat out their lethal payload at each and every Assassin that came through the hatchway leading out onto the starboard side deck. As Dillon stood, mouth agape, an Assassin cut in half not more than ten feet away from him - closely followed by another who met with a similar end.
Dillon started to sprint towards the Apache, all pain suddenly forgotten. Vince spotted him and opened fire on a small group of Assassins who were trying to cut him off, but who were mowed down instantly by the large calibre rounds. More bullets whizzed around him. Dillon growled, glaring at the helicopter up ahead. It jumped around in the sky and Dillon could see Tatiana’s face looking down at him.
Dillon stayed low and sprinted for the Apache.
Two Assassins ran at him. The Glock’s bullets knocked both of them from their feet, smashing through skin, bone and matter as their faces were pulverised. Dillon did not even break stride. As he reached the hovering helicopter, it was with despair that he saw the bullet riddled fuselage.
Vince brought the Apache down until he was hovering no more than twelve inches above the deck. Dillon clambered up and dropped into the cockpit. As he slipped into the co-pilot’s seat next to Vince he noticed alarms were sounding and lights were flashing, .
The Apache’s engines faltered under the increase of power required to lift the attack helicopter up into the air.
“I don’t believe it!” Dillon growled.
Dillon took the controls, flicked a number of override switches and the twin engines burst into life again and the helicopter lifted quickly into a thunderous sky. It vibrated alarmingly, its engines howling. All around was a chaos of gunfire, flames and explosions; wind and rain streamed in through the cockpits shattered side-screen.
As the Apache veered to the right, Dillon spotted Kirill’s small black helicopter in the distance. His stare locked on to the small black dot that was heading out low over the waves and he then circled a broad arc and gaining height momentarily to observe the stealth ship’s demise.
Dillon powered the Apache forward.
The attack helicopter dived, howling towards Kirill’s small black machine. Dillon armed the machine cannons, Vince and Tatiana tightened their seat harnesses, and then fired a short burst to make sure the guns were operating properly. Kirill had to die...
Lights flashed and a warning siren sounded on the console in front of him.
They had a fuel leak; he glanced at the levels and noted with despair that avgas was streaming from the Apache’s fuselage. Dillon forced the helicopter on regardless.
Kirill saw him coming and banked his own machine aggressively, on-board machine guns opening fire. Bullets whizzed past to left and right, and scored a line up one flank of the Apache. Still Dillon urged the aircraft forward and something, some inner sense made him veer hard to the left as Kirill came at them head-on. Dillon fired the forward guns, as the small black machine went into a high wide sweep, sparks clearly visible as bullets struck the metal landing skids.
Machine guns hammered again.
Dillon suddenly realised there were two small black helicopters on his tail; he realised they must have been flanking Kirill, protecting this man who was their master.
The Apache took more hits.
“The fuel...” Dillon muttered, as avgas spray streamed away behind the battered helicopter.
The Apache lifted rapidly, gaining on Kirill’s fast black machine as it made its way back towards the catamaran. And then everything happened at once.
There was a low, deep sound. And then the world seemed to shake.
The catamaran staggered, as if tripped, as the dirty-bomb that Alix had planted detonated. There was a weird underwater roar; a foaming cauldron erupted and light and fire danced beneath the sea, spreading out like tentacles of some giant octopus. The catamaran lifted and a rending, tearing and screaming sound of stressed steel ripped the airwaves - huge cracks appeared down both flanks of the stealth ship, the amidships of both hulls dipping and the prows rearing up into the sky on a gush of suddenly boiling water. The massive groaning structure thrashing around in the last throws of its life.
Foam and flames burst into the sky, like a geyser spraying skywards.
Bullets zipped past Dillon, and he launched the Apache down and under Kirill’s machine. He rolled to the left and then right, before lifting the nose, reducing power, and firing the forward machine cannons.
Kirill’s face held an expression of disbelief as the bullets ripped up through the fuselage and into his body. One of the bullets drove itself up into the Professor’s groin and erupted through the back of his neck in a shower, spattering against the headlining of the cockpit. With the second burst of gun fire, Dillon hit the fuel tanks and Kirill’s helicopter exploded into a spinning fireball, free-falling towards the nearby stricken catamaran, which was sliding beneath the water, settling below the waves like a dying dinosaur.
* * * Tatiana tapped Dillon on the shoulder, making him aware of their unwanted aerial entourage and banked the helicopter in a wide circle, the two marauders following suit. Then he suddenly spun the aircraft and opened fire with the machine cannons.
The two
Assassin helicopters attempted to evade the heavycalibre bullets... And in doing so, collided in a sudden tangle of twisting metal and razor sharp rotor blades cutting through canopies and then came fire and explosions. They plummeted towards the sea in a ball of fury.
Tatiana smiled; she tried to calm her pounding heart but failed. Vince looked round and smiled, “You okay, luv? You look awfully pale.”
“I’m fine, Vince. Really, I’m fine.” Dillon flew the Apache low over the sea. The helicopters that he had destroyed had sunk slowly beneath the cold waves of the English Channel.
Bringing the helicopter round in one last sweep of the area, Dillon’s mood was lifted by the sight of the catamaran - sunk...
The rain and wind continued to lash down.
Before very long, it was all over and the damaged Apache helicopter limped back to the hanger.
Chapter 26
A bitterly cold north-easterly wind blew in off the water, rain lashed down, beating the smooth surface of the tarmac. The new BMW-7 Series saloon sped through the torrent of surface water, along roads that were as quiet as a graveyard; towards Baiter Park near to Poole Quay. Turned left at the bottom of the road and headed out towards the deserted car park by the slip-way
It was early. Four-thirty a.m. and not yet light.
The BMW stopped, engine ticking over, headlights beaming out over the water; one of the back doors opened and a bruised and battered Dillon, yet cleaned up and bandaged, feeling very nearly whole again - stepped out onto the gravel and breathed deeply of the salt laden morning air. The rain had stopped, he limped slowly across to the water’s edge, wincing with every step, and halted, staring out at the black water lapping at the shore. He pulled free a packet of cigarettes, took one and lit the weed with his gold lighter.
Smoke plumed and danced on the cold damp air and Dillon sighed.
He turned at the sound of another car; the Porsche Cayenne cruised slowly past the luxury BMW and approached Dillon where he stood beside the water.
A cold wind whipped across the open space as the Porsche Cayenne cut its engine.
Chimera Code (Jake Dillon Adventure Thriller Series) Page 50
