Choke Point (22 page)

A confused frown creased the man’s forehead. “What?”

“It’s time to go,” Simon answered, being careful to keep his voice calm and matter-of-fact. “Can you stand?”

“Stand?” He looked down, his eyes growing wider as he stared at the smear of vomit covering the front of his shirt. “What happened?”

“We made an unscheduled stop. We’re going to exit through the cockpit.”

Atherton nodded, as if this made perfect sense. “Okay. Sure.” He tried to push himself up, the effort stymied by his seatbelt.

Simon snapped the buckle and pulled the man to his feet. “How do you feel?”

Atherton stared in bewilderment at his right arm and the cable that stretched downward to the security case lying half submerged on the floor. Simon grabbed the case with his good arm, placed it against Atherton’s chest, and gave the man a gentle shove toward the cockpit. “I need to help Kyra.”

Atherton turned back, the light in his eyes finally coming full beam. “Where is she? Is she okay?”

“I’m right here,” Kyra answered. “I’m fine. Just do what Simon says.”

Simon says: Let’s get the hell out of here!
The water, he noticed, had risen at least three inches in the last minute, and his broken arm had become more than an irritation—the throbbing pain echoing through his banged-up skull like a kettle drum. He reached out, dialed the numbers on the wrist cuff attached to Atherton’s arm, took the case, and gave the man another gentle push. “See if you can get yourself up in that window. We may not have a lot of time. I’ll be right back.” He tossed the case onto the pilot’s seat, then turned and began to slosh his way toward the rear, which was riding noticeably lower in the water. With every step the water became deeper, the ocean now slapping against the windows. Bending down, he could see the island off to one side. Not that far, maybe a quarter mile, but against the waves with a broken arm, he doubted if he could make the swim. “Any luck there, Rynerson?”

“Maybe.” Standing knee-deep in the narrowest part of the cabin, she was straining to extract a large yellow duffle from the bottom of a half-submerged cabinet attached to the opposite wall. “Jim okay?”

“A little disoriented. He’ll be fine.” Moving in close, Simon dropped to his knees, the water rising to his chest, and found a good grip on one of the duffle’s thick straps. “Okay, Rynerson, put your butt into it.”

Leaning back against the bulkhead, she brought her feet up, one at a time, planting a foot on each side of the cabinet door—until she was literally stretched out over his head—and began to pull. The bag moved an inch or two, then caught in the narrow opening and refused to budge. “It’s hopeless.”

Despite the circumstances, he couldn’t resist the opportunity. “Don’t panic, Rynerson. Wait five seconds, then give it everything you’ve got.”

“I’m not panicking,” she snapped back. “I’m just stating the—”

He didn’t wait to hear. Taking a deep breath, he dropped beneath the water, wedged his right hand under the duffle and began to push upward. For a few long seconds nothing happened, then when he was about to give up, his lungs ready to burst, it moved…slowly…reluctantly…then, like a stubborn wine cork, burst free. As it popped loose, Kyra collapsed onto his back, crushing his broken arm beneath him. He screamed, couldn’t help it, but the sound was lost in the water and his desperate scramble for air.

Kyra rolled into the water, and for a few moments they were both flailing around like inverted crabs, struggling to get their feet under them. When they finally managed to surface—both of them sputtering and spitting and gasping for air—the water was up to their waists, the plane tilting precariously toward the tail. Simon reached down, found the duffle, and pulled it to the surface. Stenciled in black across the yellow fabric was a string of unintelligible Chinese characters, the international symbol for first aid, and one encouraging word in English:
SURVIVAL
. “Gotta be it.”

Kyra nodded, grabbed a nylon strap, and turned toward the front. “Let’s get out of here.”

As they neared the cockpit, the plane leveled slightly, but the water was still rising, and Simon figured they didn’t have more than a minute, two at the most. “In case I forgot to mention it, Rynerson, that was one hell of a landing.”

Without turning, her right arm shot up, middle finger extended. “Screw you, Leonidovich.”

That, he had a feeling, would not be such a bad way to go. Better than drowning like a rat in a can. “I was serious.”

“Yeah, me too.”

Right,
nothing like a little flirtatious humor to obscure the thought of death.

“Come on!” Atherton shouted. He had managed to get himself through the narrow opening, and was straddling the nose and hanging on to the window strut like a bronc rider in fear of losing his mount. “This thing’s about to go down!”

Kyra pulled herself up onto the co-pilot’s seat and turned, but Simon ignored her outstretched hands and unzipped the duffle. “We need to get it out of the bag first. It’ll be too hard to open in the water. We could lose it.”

She nodded, bent down, and frantically began pulling at the polyurethane-coated fabric. As hoped, the duffle contained an inflatable raft and an emergency survival pack. Working together, they quickly stuffed half the material through the window. “Okay,” Simon said, “out you go. I’ll feed you the rest.” She opened her mouth, clearly intending to argue the point, but he cut her off. “I’m the pilot of record.” He gave her a hard, don’t-screw-with-me look. “And that’s an order.”

She hesitated, but only a second, then reached out, grabbed Atherton’s belt, and shimmied out through the window and onto the nose. Simon grabbed his security case and stepped onto the co-pilot’s seat. The plane immediately dipped forward, a huge wave of water surging from the cabin into the cockpit. For a moment he thought he was dead, then he relaxed—
Go with it! Go with it!
—and with surprisingly little effort floated out through the opening.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-SEVEN

South China Sea

Tuesday, 10 July 09:53:11 GMT +0800

Mawl glanced at his watch.
Sixteen minutes.
“How much longer?”

“Almost there,” Chricher answered, his eyes intense and feral, searching for their target.

“That’s what you said three minutes ago. We should be able to see it by now.”

“Doubt if there’s gonna be anything to—” He sat up straighter in his seat. “Right there! Twelve o’clock!”

Mawl tried to shield his eyes against the glare, but couldn’t see anything but blue water and a small island in the distance. “Where? I don’t see anything!”

“Saw it just for a second,” Chricher answered. “A nice white line. Then it disappeared.”

Mawl strained forward against his seatbelt, searching for some sign of the wreckage, but the waves were just high enough to create a froth—a thousand white lines in a sea of blue. “Are you sure? I don’t see it!”

“You will.” Chricher pulled back on the pitch lever and the helicopter darted upward, giving them a better overview. “See it now?”

Mawl nodded, though there wasn’t much to see: only the fuselage, and most of that was underwater. Although both wings and the tail assembly had broken off, there was no debris in the water. And no bodies. “Could anyone survive that?”

“Depends how they hit.” Chricher eased the pitch lever forward, the tail of the chopper came up, and a few seconds later they were hovering less than ten meters above the hollowed-out eyes of the cockpit. “See anything?”

“No,” Mawl answered, scanning the length of the fuselage with his binoculars. “Door’s still closed.”

“That’s why it hasn’t gone down. There must be a pocket of air trapped in the cabin.”

“Meaning someone could still be alive in there?”

“Anything’s possible.”

Mawl slammed one of the twenty-round clips into the Uzi, and jacked a round into the chamber. “I can take care of that.”

“Hey, be careful with that thing,” Chricher warned as he backed the chopper away from the target. “We don’t want a ricochet hitting the rotor.”

“You just keep this damn thing steady.”

Chricher frowned, clearly unhappy with the idea. “I thought this was supposed to look like an accident.”

“You pulled the transponder.” But even as he said it, Mawl knew Chricher was right, that it was possible they might still find the plane, but a part of him—that almost forgotten young warrior who liked to see blood in the water—wanted to do it. “They’re never gonna find the thing.” He lowered the top half of the plexi windscreen, steadied himself against the back of the seat, flipped the fire-selector to semi, stuck the Uzi through the narrow opening, and stitched a neat row of holes along the top of the fuselage. The chatter was deafening, but the gun felt good in his hands.
Really good.
Damn near orgasmic.

Not more than four hundred yards away, Simon was on his knees, frantically waving his good arm and trying to get the helicopter’s attention. Behind him, Kyra and Atherton struggled to get the cumbersome six-person raft turned and moving against the incoming waves. Despite the echoing thump of the rotors, the sudden staccato of the machine gun was both distinctive and incomprehensible, momentarily freezing their oars in mid-stroke.

Simon was already on the bottom of the raft, reaching for Kyra with his good arm when she found her voice. “Was that—”

“Get down! If they spot us, we’re dead.”

She dropped to her knees, but Atherton just sat there—high and dry on the side of the buoyancy chamber, his oar frozen in suspended animation—as if he couldn’t decide what to do. Not about to draw the man a picture, Simon reached up and pushed him over the side. “Come on, Rynerson, into the water! We’re sitting ducks in this thing!”

“What about your arm? Can you swim?”

“My security case is waterproof. I’ll hang on to it.”

“Waterproof doesn’t mean it will float! Not with you hanging on to it!”

“It’s less than a hundred yards to shore. I’ll make it.” He shoved the survival pack into her arms. “Go!”

For once, she didn’t argue, slithering over the side as he grabbed the case and followed her in. The unexpected dip had apparently shocked Atherton back to reality, his expression appropriately fearful. “They’re going to see us,” he whispered, as if his voice might penetrate the thumping echo of the rotors.

“Maybe not,” Simon shouted, struggling to keep his head above water and hang on to the case, which didn’t provide much buoyancy. “Not if we sink the raft. There should be a knife in that survival bag.”

As the top of the fuselage slipped beneath the surface, Mawl emptied another twenty-round clip into the fading shadow. “Bye-bye, courier man.”

Chricher grinned, baring his stained teeth. “I think you killed it, Brick.”

Mawl smiled to himself, feeling better than he had in weeks, and closed the windscreen. “Let’s get out of here.”

Chricher eased back on the pitch lever and the helicopter leaped upward as he swung around toward the coast. “Uh-oh.”

“What?”

He pointed at something floating just beneath the surface of the water. “Look at that.”

“What the bleedin’ hell…?” But he knew—could feel it in his gut.

Chricher nudged the chopper forward and down, until they were hovering only a few meters above the yellow splotch twisting in the bluish-green water. “Could be debris,” Mawl said, but even as he said it, he realized nothing could float that far in such a short time.

Chricher shook his head, his hawk-like eyes already scanning the shoreline, a narrow strip of rocks and sand between the water and a dense jungle of trees. “There!” He pointed to three figures struggling in the choppy surf, the woman and one of the men not more than a few meters from a high outcropping of rocks and boulders, the other man a few meters behind.

“Get on them!” Mawl shouted. “Don’t let them get into those rocks.” As the chopper leaped forward, Mawl yanked open the windscreen, levered himself up against the back of the seat, snapped the fire-selector to full-auto, and pushed the Uzi out through the narrow opening. “Hold it steady!” He leveled the short barrel on the backs of the two people nearest the rocks and pulled the trigger. He could feel the vibration as the firing pin dropped—a dull snap. “What the…?” He squeezed the trigger a second time, then realized he had emptied the clip on the plane’s fuselage. “Sonofafuck!” He yanked the gun inside, pulled the empty clip and jammed his hand into his flight bag, searching for a fresh magazine. “Cut them off!”

Chricher nosed the helicopter toward the water, the rotor only inches from the outcropping of rock…the blades whipping the surf into a mini tornado…the air swirling with spray…the sound ricocheting off the surface:
WHUMP-WHUMP-WHUMP.
From the corner of his eye, Mawl could see the struggle taking place beneath him: the first two figures rising out of the water…trying to plow their way through the waist-deep surf…falling…then rising again, only a few steps from the protection of the rocks. The woman suddenly stopped…turned…hesitated…then started back to help the other man—
Leonidovich!
—who was struggling with a large briefcase and trying to stand. He motioned the woman away, finally managed to get his feet under him, and stood up, the water streaming off the black case as he pulled it into his arms.

“Either that bugger’s a bleedin’ idiot,” Chricher shouted, “or he’s got the crown jewels in that thing.”

Mawl nodded, more to himself and what he had just decided. Whatever it was, he intended to have it. He slammed a fresh clip into the Uzi, jacked a round into the chamber, flipped the fire-selector to single-shot, steadied the gun on the edge of the windscreen, zeroed in on the back of the courier’s head, and took a deep breath.
Slow squeeze.
Everything seemed to happen in slow motion, a slide show of images, the frames clicking off one by one: the woman now hunched in the rocks…her soundless scream…her finger pointing toward the helicopter…Leonidovich turning…looking up…his expression frozen in a painful grimace…his arms coming up, as if to throw the case. Mawl smiled to himself, the bastard had almost made it. Two more steps. Two steps too far.