The phone is answered. ‘Oui?’
~ * ~
The conversation is short and sweet, maybe fifteen seconds long. There’s no time for Claude to explain how speciale Billy’s plan is, even more than the last one, or recommend another course of action. The Frenchman realises there’s no other option in this situation.
Claude thrashes the police motorbike down the thin, twisty ribbon of bitumen that runs along the mountain. Lucky for the Australian, and his Swiss companion, Claude was heading back towards the principality when the phone vibrated in his pocket. He had seen the plane take off, then had quickly lost sight of it. He turned around and headed back towards Monaco, thinking he could lend a hand at the casino if required while he waited for word from Billy. Then the phone rang and he was relieved to learn the Aussie was alive and well, though now he’s heard the plan he’s not sure how long that’s going to last.
Claude’s eyes flick to the sky, search for the aircraft. He can’t see it. To make matters worse he won’t be able to hear it either as it is coming in with dead engines. And, to ice the cake, Billy couldn’t give him an accurate time of arrival, except to say ‘quite soon’.
The Frenchman sees the pyre of black smoke from the burning casino to the left so he’s not that far from where he needs to be, no more than half a kilometre along this roadway. He rounds a sharp corner.
‘Merde.’ A police roadblock has been set up just ahead. Claude pulls on the brakes and the bike skids to a halt. There’s no time to talk his way through as the plane will be arriving ‘quite soon’ so using the direct route is impossible. He searches for another way. There are wall-to-wall houses to the left and a tree-lined park to the right.
The choice is easy. He guns the bike, turns right, mounts the footpath and navigates his way through the trees and into the park. He quickly realises the park is not just tree-lined. It’s actually tree-packed. It’s like Mother Nature’s obstacle course.
Zip zip zip. The greenery whips past as Claude weaves between the obstructions and tries not to kill himself. If he hits one of these trees at fifty kilometres an hour it will end his trip real quick —
Whoosh. He hears a loud rush of air. He glances left and scans the sky through the trees that whip past.
There it is.
The plane is low and moves fast, trails black smoke from the spot where an engine should be.
‘I’m late.’ Claude realises he’s not yet travelling fast enough to make it in time. He needs to get his skates on. He revs the bike and knocks it up to seventy-five klicks.
He grins. He hasn’t felt this alive in years.
~ * ~
The C-123 swoops along the principality’s coastline, suburban buildup to the right, the glistening Mediterranean to the left, all of it just a thousand feet below.
‘We’re coming in too hot.’ Billy says it to himself as he works the controls, feathers the flaps to slow the aircraft. It’s a heavy thing to steer and reacts slowly to any input, either via stick or pedals. He watches the airspeed drop to two hundred knots, searches the ground below, looks for the spot where he plans to put it down.
There. His destination, five kilometres and change away. The Tunnel. The irony is not lost on him. A very short while ago he was doing everything in his power to get out of there and now he’s headed back —
‘Oh shit!’
With another fertiliser bomb!
He needs to get that bloody thing off the plane now. If the landing doesn’t go well it could detonate under the hotel and, well, didn’t he just risk his life making sure that didn’t happen? He needs to dump it into the ocean.
He has thirty seconds to get it done. He adjusts the aircraft’s heading minutely so that it’s aimed over the water, leans, flicks a switch to turn on the autopilot, pivots out of his seat, scales the ladder and drops down into the cargo hold.
Franka watches him run towards the bomb, stunned. ‘What are you doing?’
‘We’re landing in the tunnel. I gotta get this thing out.’
‘Oh Christ, okay.’
Billy gets behind the wooden pallet and pushes it towards the ramp five metres away. ‘Jeezus!’ It moves an inch, if that. It’s extremely heavy. ‘Come on!’ He puts his back into it, tries again. The pallet slides forward, but only three inches this time. ‘Bloody hell.’ He glances at his watch. He has twenty seconds and the pallet is still five metres from where it needs to be.
Frustrated she can’t help, Franka cheers him on: ‘You can do it!’
‘I can do it!’ Billy grits his teeth, drops his shoulder and pushes as hard as he can, uses everything he’s got. ‘Move-you-bastard.’ His boots slip on the slick floor but he keeps at it. The pallet slides forward another inch, and then another—then picks up speed. He drives his legs and capitalises on the momentum. It slides and slides and then all of a sudden it’s moving on its own as it slips out the rear hatch. They watch it tumble away.
Smash. It hits the water and shatters into a thousand pieces, but doesn’t explode.
Franka couldn’t be more delighted. ‘Yeah, baby!’
Billy grins, then glances at his watch. ‘Farrk!’ He did it with three seconds to spare. He pivots, scales the ladder, navigates the cockpit, drops into the pilot seat, disengages the autopilot, looks out the windscreen and adjusts the aircraft’s trajectory towards the tunnel.
It’s extremely close now, maybe a kilometre and a half away. He can see no sign of Claude.
Where is that bloody Frenchman?
He can only land this thing if Claude can do what was asked of him. If not, the Australian will need to ditch it in the ocean and, well, he doesn’t want to think about that option. He works the stick and pedals again, slows the aircraft, searches for Claude. ‘Where are you, man?’
~ * ~
Zip zip zip.
Engine screaming, the Frenchman’s bike whips past the last three trees, exits the park, jumps the gutter, catches big air and lands in the middle of the track and rounds both the Portier corners. He slides the back wheel because he’s carrying too much speed but manages to keep it upright. ‘Yee-ha!’
Man, I forgot how much I loved to ride these things.
He races into the mouth of the tunnel and it takes a moment for his eyes to adjust to the low light. He scans the track to see if there’s anything inside that could impede the aircraft’s landing. The tunnel curves slowly to the right but it’s clear for as far as he can see.
Good.
He brakes hard, spins the bike around, gives it full bananas and rockets back to the mouth of the tunnel.
‘Christalmighty.’ The plane is so close. Maybe three hundred metres away and dropping fast. He holds both arms straight up.
~ * ~
There!
Billy sees the Frenchman. He straddles the police bike in the middle of the track and holds both arms aloft, the signal they agreed on over the phone. It means the track is clear.
‘Okay then.’ Billy works the controls and tips the wings up and down.
~ * ~
Claude clocks the wing’s movement, knows the Aussie has seen him, spins the bike around again and thunders into the tunnel. He wants to make sure it’s clear the whole way along and that no one drives in from the other direction and gets a nasty surprise.
~ * ~
Billy shouts back to Franka. We’re seconds away.’
‘Good to know.’
The tunnel approaches quickly.
Billy plays the controls and the plane loses the correct amount of altitude and speed. Still something doesn’t feel right.
What have I missed?
‘Come on.’
Franka hears him. ‘What does “come on” mean?’
He stares out at the fast approaching tunnel. It’s ten seconds away. Nine.
‘It’s like I’ve forgotten something.’
‘Then let’s recap. What do you need to do before you land?’
Eigh
t seconds away. Seven.
‘I’ve done it all. Flaps are in position, airspeed is correct, altitude is correct, landing gear is—oh Christ! The bloody landing gear.’
I forgot it again.
Six seconds away. Five.
The plane drops lower.
He scans the instrument panel before him, searches for the lever to lower the landing gear. He can’t see it, doesn’t even know if he should be looking for a lever. ‘Where the hell is it?’ He reaches out, flicks a switch.
Every light in the aircraft is extinguished.
‘I don’t think that’s it.’ Franka pipes up.
Billy flicks them back on.
Four seconds away. Three.
The plane drops lower.
Billy has no idea where it is—there! Low and to the right he sees a small handle and yanks it down. A hydraulic thrum vibrates the floor beneath him.
‘Sounds promising!’ Franka again.
Billy looks out the windscreen.
The track is right there.
Two seconds, one.
He’s out of time.
‘Hold on!’
‘Is there another option?’
‘Not really!’
Crunch. The plane slams into the roadway. The airframe convulses as Billy pulls on the wheel brakes.
They don’t slow the aircraft. At all. He needs engines for that. He raises the flaps to push the plane into the ground, hopes that might help.
It does not. The C-123 plunges into the tunnel —
Crunch. The top half of the tail is sheared off and what’s left grinds along the ceiling in a shower of sparks. The plane vibrates wildly, the noise a horrendous combination of rending metal and scraping cement.
Billy works the controls, steers the aircraft to the right so the wing tip pushes into the tiled wall. They connect and fat orange sparks light up the right cockpit window. The vibrations intensify, as does that sound of scraping metal. He hopes it might act like a brake.
It does not. The C-123 careers onwards.
~ * ~
Claude rides hard.
He hears a godawful racket behind him and looks back. ‘Merde.’
The plane surges towards him, fills the tunnel like a fire-breathing demon, the grinding of aluminium on rock setting his teeth on edge. The top of the tail is missing and grinds along the roof, spewing great fans of orange sparks that fill the space around the aircraft. One wing rips into the tiled wall, also creating a spray of sparks, while the other skims the barrier fence.
The plane catches him fast, just fifty metres behind. He wrenches back on the throttle and surges onwards, scans the roadway to make sure no one is in the aircraft’s path. So far so good. He can’t see anyone —
Spoke too soon.
To the right, thirty metres ahead, a flash of orange. It’s a track worker, a woman who stands on the other side of the safety barrier and turns to the approaching aircraft, her expression a snapshot of disbelief.
Claude swerves across the road towards her, shouts over the deafening noise as he skids to a halt: ‘Get on!’
The woman looks at him for a stunned moment, then vaults the barrier and jumps onto the seat behind him. He gives the bike full throttle and zips away. The noise of the aircraft is so loud Claude can barely hear the motorcycle’s engine.
He looks over his shoulder—and immediately wishes he hadn’t.
The C-123 is right behind him.
And closing fast.
Fifteen metres, ten metres, five.
The damn thing is too quick.
Thwump. The plane’s nose slams into the bike’s rear wheel and jolts it forward.
~ * ~
Through the windscreen Billy watches in horror as the Frenchman’s bike wobbles into a violent tank-slapper. It’s going over and both he and his passenger will be crushed beneath the fuselage.
~ * ~
Woh! Claude works the handlebars—remembers his skills from all those years of riding—and keeps the bike on two wheels. He grins in spite of the abject terror he’s experiencing and jams the throttle wide open. The bike reaches the downward slope of the tunnel and pulls away from the aircraft.
~ * ~
Billy watches Claude and his passenger race away, thrilled that he’s okay, then realises the plane is now on the drop towards the Nouvelle Chicane. It picks up speed and races directly towards a large tow truck in the middle of the track.
The truck is in the process of winching the black Lamborghini they used earlier onto its flat bed. The driver operates the winch as he watches the car slide up the ramp.
The C-123 blasts out of the tunnel. Again, Billy pulls on the wheel brakes and works the flaps but this plane isn’t slowing down. In fact it picks up speed on the slope. ‘Get out of the bloody way!’ He watches Claude race past the driver and shout at him. The guy looks up and sees the plane approach—then runs away.
‘Oh no no no! Don’t do that! Don’t do that —’
He did that. He left the truck and the half-loaded Lamborghini in the middle of the track. The C-123 is now on a collision course with that duo and there’s absolutely nothing Billy can do about it.
There’s maybe twenty seconds until impact.
Billy swivels out of the pilot’s seat, exits the cockpit, descends the metal ladder and lands beside Franka.
She reads his expression and realises the situation is grave. ‘That bad, huh?’
‘We’re about to hit a tow truck that’s parked in the middle of the track.’
‘Thank you for trying. If we’d landed in the ocean I would have drowned in a minute.’ She nods at the open rear hatch. ‘You should go-’
He sweeps back a wisp of hair that has fallen across her face. ‘I’m not leaving you.’
She takes a breath. ‘But what if we get out of this?’ It’s clearly difficult to say: ‘What will you do then?’
Time slows.
What will I do?
Will he leave this life and go on the run with a felon he thinks might be his soul mate?
Will he help her escape, knowing he may never see her again?
Will he arrest her for the Three Champions’ crimes?
Her laser-blues eyes stare up at him. ‘What will you do?’
He studies her jolie laide face and opens his mouth to answer —
Time speeds up.
~ * ~
29
Smaassh.
The Fairchild C-123 slams into the tow truck and the cockpit disintegrates.
The vehicle is jammed backwards as the aircraft rides up and over its cabin, becomes airborne one last time. The left wing slams into the Lamborghini and shears off in an explosion of flame and carbon fibre, launches the wrecked hypercar over the safety fence and into the harbour like the world’s most expensive frisbee.
~ * ~
Claude holds the motorcycle at full throttle. He hears the destruction behind him and glances back, sees the now mono-winged aircraft drop back to the track and slide towards him, surrounded by a cloud of sparks and smoke, moving faster than ever before. It’s coming straight for him, fifty metres away and closing fast —
It clips a track divider and tips over onto its left side, veers left across the track, its remaining wing pointing straight up, and careers towards the safety fence.
Crunch. What’s left of the cockpit ploughs through it. It’s headed straight into the Mediterranean —
Whump. The rear landing gear catches hold of the safety fence and the plane shudders to a stop, balanced half over the track, half over the harbour.
Claude throws out the anchors and the bike skids to a shuddering halt. He whips it into a one-eighty-degree turn and speeds back towards the aircraft.
Creeaak. The C-123 is balanced precariously, smoke rising from a tear in the fuselage, liquid trickling from another. Claude scans the plane, searches for a way in. The rear hatch is a no go, jammed shut during the accident, and the
plane is on its side so there’s no access through the side hatch.
~ * ~
‘Billy! You okay?’
Concerned, Franka kneels beside the Australian, clears debris off his chest and gently shakes his shoulder. The handcuffs are still attached to both her wrists but the metal chain between them has been severed during the crash. She has a graze across her right cheek and a bruise on her forehead but seems to be all right.
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