Hugo waited until he heard the lock click, then opened the door and entered the cockpit. The pilot’s eyes stared at Hugo blankly. Hugo stepped closer to him and slapped him sharply on the cheek.
“Hey, wake up! Someone out there is trying to kill us. We need you right now.”
Slowly, the pilot touched his fingers to his cheek. He murmured, “Yes, you’re right. I’ll do my best.”
The gray-haired copilot turned in his seat. “Thanks for that. I’ve been trying for the last few minutes to get him to focus.”
“No problem. How do things look?”
The pilot, still slow but with clearer eyes, went over the situation. “The number two engine is out of play. The right wing is damaged, and oil pressure is dropping. It looks like our hydraulic systems are damaged too.”
“How much further to Vantaa?”
The pilot read an instrument display and replied, “Fifty kilometers.”
“Will we make it?”
“I don’t know. It depends.”
“On what?”
The pilot issued a shuddering sigh. “On whether or not you were born under a lucky star.”
Hugo chuckled. “Do your best,” he said. “Let’s get down to the ground in one piece. I’ll run back and tell the others to get ready.”
The pilot nodded, and Hugo exited the cockpit and headed back to the team.
“Everyone prepare yourselves for a crash landing,” he said when he had joined them. “It’s going to be a little bumpy.”
Freya helped Anna with her seat belt; once she’d heard the click, she hurried over to Hugo.
“What’s the news?”
“One engine is dead—damaged hydraulics. We will come down; the only question is if we’ll do it in one piece.”
Freya’s normally unruffled demeanor momentarily slipped as her eyes widened and her mouth fell open. The plane rolled again, and Hugo reached for her. Freya instinctively grabbed hold of his hand. A slight howl sounded from somewhere far away.
“I . . . understand,” she managed.
“Take care of Sussie, all right? She looks pretty stressed. And Anna, too, for that matter.”
Freya snapped out of it and returned to herself. “Obviously. Are you going to help the pilots?”
“Heading there now,” Hugo replied. He grabbed Freya’s shoulder. “We’ll make it. Trust me.”
He didn’t wait for an answer but spun around and sprinted back to the cockpit. There, both of the pilots were struggling with the controls. With one engine dead, they had to give full throttle to compensate. After a couple of turbulent areas, the damaged wing lost altitude and the pilots had to fight to get it back up. Hugo held on tightly to the door frame.
“How can I help, guys?”
The pilot pointed out the window. “Look for the airport—I need to keep track of the instruments.”
Hugo breathed a sigh of relief at the man’s focused tone. The smack he’d delivered had apparently gotten him back on the right track. Stepping forward, Hugo gripped the tops of both pilots’ backrests.
“Sure thing.”
The pilot carefully adjusted the course. “Thirty kilometers,” he said.
The copilot intoned, “Roger.”
They inched closer as the seconds ticked by.
Peering out the side window, Hugo pointed. “I see the airport! Slight right, just a few degrees.”
The pilots looked up and searched for the lights.
“Roger that. Three degrees right. Reduce throttle.”
“Speed: three hundred and fifty knots.”
The plane rolled a couple of times, but the skilled pilots managed to straighten it out. Sweat trickled down Hugo’s back as he stared at the now-brilliant runway lights. A feeling of confidence swept through him—they were going to make it.
A second later, that delusion vanished as another burst of gunfire pierced the other engine, tearing it to metal shards.
*
The light flickered in the cockpit as the power disappeared. A few seconds passed before the light blinked on again.
“What was that?” Hugo asked.
“The ramjet was activated. It generates power from the hull.”
“Okay. I just got a little nervous there for a minute.”
The pilot’s watery blue-gray eyes turned up at him, but he said nothing in reply. After a few minutes of silence, he reported, “Five kilometers. Height: three hundred. Hold her steady. We only get one try.”
The radio crackled. “Flight four-four-two. What’s happening? You disappeared there for a while.”
“We’re coming straight in. We’ve lost both engines. The ramjet is activated.”
“Roger. The rescue corps is ready.”
“Good. We’re going to need it.”
The runway lights loomed clear in front of them. Hugo strapped himself to the folding seat on the wall and watched the powerful lights get gradually closer.
The pilot yelled, “Hold on! Here we go!”
A fraction of a second later, Hugo descended into darkness as he struck the back of his head against the wall of the cockpit. A thundering train of cries, roars, and chaos rushed forward and swept over him.
When he woke up, he was greeted by a throbbing headache; the pain radiated from there, spreading down over his shoulders. He was on the floor. He tried to push himself up, but his wounded shoulder wouldn’t allow it.
Another minute passed as he squeezed the flickering stars from his field of view. Searing smoke singed his nose. He forced himself to crawl to the pilots’ seats. Both of them were dead—one stabbed through with a metal bar from the instrument panel, one lacerated from the face all the way to the torso and covered in blood. Hugo’s stomach turned, and he doubled over and vomited.
Wiping his mouth on the back of his hand, he lumbered out of the cockpit. The interior of the plane was unrecognizable, like a giant had picked up the entire planet and shaken it. Debris was everywhere. He staggered through the rubble.
“Mikko!” he called out. “Freya!”
No answer.
“Sussie!”
A woman shouted, “Hugo! We’re back here!”
He climbed over broken seats, the strong odor of smoke stinging his nose and eyes. “I’m coming! Stay where you are.”
When Hugo reached the small group of people he’d spent the last few tumultuous hours with, Sussie stood up on unsteady legs and stumbled to him.
“You’re alive. Thank the good God.”
Hugo hugged her. “How’re you guys doing?”
“Markov is unconscious. Freya and Mikko are both a little bruised, but Anna—” her voice fell silent, “she’s injured.”
“How serious is it?”
Mikko got up and stood next to them. “If she doesn’t see a doctor within an hour or so,” he said gravely, “she’ll die.”
The rescue sirens came closer. Hugo lifted his eyes to Mikko and said, “Sounds like your prayers have been heard.”
“What should we say to them?” Mikko asked.
“To who?”
“The rescue team, of course. We were shot down. We’ve got this kidnapped scientist on board. We’ll be arrested!”
Hugo shook his head. “Don’t worry. Think about what this will look like to them. They’re only coming to save us. We’ll play the role of the ignorant, panicked, rich tourists who just survived a near-death incident.”
Mikko blinked. Sussie stared at Hugo.
“You’re kidding, right?” she said. “Shouldn’t we tell the truth?”
“Sit down. I’ve got a plan,” Hugo replied. He talked them through his idea, and two minutes later, emergency personnel rushed into what was left of the plane. One by one, they helped each of the injured passengers, loading them into the waiting ambulances.
Once inside his ambulance, Hugo sat down on the gurney for the ride to the airport hospital.
17
Klaus smiled stiffly when two of the board members’ assistants passed in front of
him and stopped a few feet away. They were in the hallway outside the room where the board meeting would soon take place. Klaus shook their hands.
A young man named Jack, with a hook nose and thick, square glasses, was the assistant to Donald Gold, a wealthy industrialist from Central America. Klaus had only met Jack once and remembered the weasel as a small, slippery type.
“Good to see you, Klaus. All is well, I hope?”
“Yes, thank you. So, anything new in the mining world?”
Jack snorted a laugh and slapped Klaus on the shoulder as if they were long-time pals. “Not that I can think of. Just the same endless struggle of fighting all the idiot environmentalists who are trying to shut us down. Those bastards are getting bolder and bolder by the day, I’m telling you.” Jack pushed the glasses up on the bridge of his nose and went on, “The other day, they tried to storm one of our facilities. We just barely managed to chase them away.”
Klaus scratched his cheek. “Yeah. I think I read about that. It was the mine that they stormed, wasn’t it?”
“That’s right,” Jack said. Then his phone rang, and he held up a bony finger as he answered it. “Yes?”
He listened intently while Klaus watched.
“Okay, I’m on my way.”
Jack grinned crookedly and slapped Klaus on the shoulder again. Klaus responded only with a stiff smile.
“Got to go,” said Jack with a suddenly somber expression. “Donald needs me.”
“All right. See you in there.”
With that, Jack power-walked away, and Klaus pondered what this could mean. With Jack’s reaction, it was probably serious. Donald Gold was one of the most powerful men in the world of mining. For the past twenty years, he had built up an empire that controlled huge wealth and had made Donald a very rich man.
But he, too, had been contacted by QuantumCorp to take a seat on its board. He’d accepted, and just like that, QuantumCorp had added another powerful member to its ranks.
Another man came barreling around the corner. When he reached Klaus, he handed him a cell phone.
“Here. There’s an urgent call for you.”
Klaus pulled his sizeable head back in surprise. “What? From whom?”
“I don’t know. I was just told to give the phone to you as soon as possible.”
A jolt of dread passed through Klaus as he took the device and held it up to his ear. “Yes?”
A raspy voice said, “This is Major Loush.”
Klaus straightened up in an instant. This could not be good news. “Major Loush, what can I do for you?”
“We have a situation here that’s going south real fast. Your name came up, which is why I’m contacting you.”
A bead of sweat trickled down Klaus’ temple. “Is that right?”
“About an hour ago,” Loush continued, “one of my men in the drone department received a call from an external resource. The caller needed help taking an airplane down and communicated a level-seven code.”
A cold lump spread in Klaus’ stomach. No, no, no.
“Code name: red aluminum adder.”
No!
Loush kept talking. “That code gave the green light for my man to activate all available resources to bring down the target. So he did.” The major paused, then said, “But things went a little too fast. He activated a drone to shoot the plane, which crashed near an airport in Finland.”
Klaus cleared his throat and tried to sound concerned, yet innocent. “Sounds very dramatic.”
Loush’s voice stayed even. “Yes. But when we checked the code, we learned that it belonged to the board member Heidi Leibowitz. As you are her assistant, I’m calling you to confirm that this was a sanctioned attack.”
Klaus licked his lips and said, “Well, Mrs. Leibowitz is very busy at the moment preparing for a board meeting. I can ask her to—”
Major Loush interrupted; the calm had disappeared. “Listen up, pencil pusher. The plane crashed in Finland, and hundreds of people are on the way to the crash site. They will find out that the plane was shot down, so I need to confirm that the mission was sanctioned. Do you understand? I won’t hang up until I’ve talked to Heidi. Is that clear?”
At that moment, a large woman entered the hallway from the bathroom. It was Heidi. Her painted lips pouted at him, and she blinked. Klaus smiled stiffly and cleared his throat again.
“Yes, well, thank you for calling. I’ll let you know as soon as possible,” he said and hung up.
Heidi came up to him. “Who was that? You don’t look well.”
“Ah, it was nothing important,” Klaus said with a shrug. “Just one of the inspectors we worked with down in the mission in Cuba. Nothing serious.”
Heidi took another step toward him, and he inhaled her powerful perfume. She leaned forward and whispered in his ear.
“It’ll be cozy tonight. Just you and me.”
Klaus forced a smile. “I can’t wait.”
Heidi moved her hand along his inner thigh, and he froze.
“But first,” he said, “there’s a board meeting. Work first. Then play.”
Heidi spun around dramatically and entered the ornate meeting room, and Klaus followed behind her.
*
The silence was deafening. They stood still for several minutes while sweat ran down Klaus’ back, soaking his tailored shirt. The clicking of a pair of heels echoed through the room.
The thin, white-haired woman was hunched forward as she walked, and her sharp eyes darted back and forth like a snake looking for prey.
A well-built man pulled out a chair, and the elderly woman sat down. Ten other people were seated around the oval-shaped marble table. Behind each seated board member stood his or her assistant. The hunched woman glanced over the congregation like a queen surveying her subjects.
“Good of you all to come. We have a lot to discuss tonight.”
The assembled people nodded.
“But first, let’s watch a video.” She looked to her assistant and said, “Robbie, if you would be so kind.”
The muscular man—every part of him thick and intimidating—walked to a panel on the wall and pressed a button. Hologram transmitters slid up from the table in front of each participant. Some of the members shifted uneasily, but none rose.
“There’s no danger here, my friends. It’s simply that a video is worth more than a thousand words. Robbie, you can start the show.”
The holograms flickered. The scene showed two men in white coats working at a drill hole. A mining machine was hoisting something from under the ground, and the researchers were collecting it. They packed each item meticulously and made careful notes.
“This is from a rural area in Siberia,” the old woman told them, “near our gold mines there. These researchers are environmental inspectors from Russia, and they document the levels of exhaust and pollution.”
The hologram’s display morphed to show a group of scientists going down into a deep hole below a mountain. The camera followed the researchers as they went further and further down, scraping soil samples from the walls of the hole.
“And this is from Chile, near our molybdenum mines. It’s the same thing there—a group of researchers analyzes everything we do in the smallest detail. Not only that, but over the last two weeks, this kind of activity has increased daily. And it’s not a coincidence. No, mark my words. We are being attacked!”
A thin-haired man from Canada cleared his throat. “But Madame Dinkel, can we be sure of that? Who would be so stupid as to attack us?”
Nova Dinkel spat, “Who do you think? Techyx, of course! They’re the only ones who have the resources for something like this. This is a collective attack that they have launched to weaken us. They know they can’t beat us directly, so they’re trying to attack our resources, to hit us where it hurts the most.”
Klaus’ heart pounded. This was going exactly as he’d hoped. His instinct ten days ago had been right. He’d received a collection of reports describing the exac
t results Nova was showing them now—local environmental inspectors were suddenly acting much more aggressively, initiating raids to obtain evidence. Klaus had read reports like this before, and although each one was centered on a different localized problem, he knew they were symptoms of the same disease: Techyx.
This multinational company with huge resources at their disposal fought QuantumCorp in several arenas; the ceasefire last year between the two companies had been fragile at best. Techyx had also changed leadership a few months ago, and the new guy seemed intent on making his name known.
Nova pounded the table with her aged fist so hard that the people closest to her recoiled.
“And what should we do about it?” she asked. “Should we let those bastards do as they please without defending ourselves?”
Another drop of sweat ran down the center of Klaus’ forehead. It was now or never. He swallowed hard and approached Heidi’s chair. She twisted around in surprise.
“What are you doing?” she whispered. “Go back to your place.”
Klaus pulled his lips back in a shark-like smile and replied, “Shut up.”
Heidi’s lips parted in shock.
Nova raised an eyebrow. “Mr. Horst, is there something you want to share with us?”
Klaus straightened and took a deep breath. This was his moment. “Yes, Madame Dinkel, I would like to offer my services. Let me explain.”
Everyone’s eyes were locked on Klaus.
18
The flashing lights were easy to spot even so far away. Hugo walked to the window and surveyed his surroundings.
The hospital building, tall and modern in its construction, extended to the right. Thick snowflakes fell, creating a thin blanket on the ground. Hugo’s body, bruised in multiple places from the crash, ached dully.
A voice spoke from behind him, and he turned, clasping his hands together to conceal how much they trembled. He looked at the group. Mikko, seated on the hospital bed, took hold of the frame for support and stood up. He stretched and groaned.
“I’m getting too old for this.”
Hugo put a hand on his shoulder. “You’re a tough one, I’ll give you that.”
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