The Midas Legacy (Wilde/Chase 12) (49 page)

The TEL came in behind the An-124’s starboard wing. Even with the giant freighter only at taxi speed, the jet blast from the two huge engines was fearsome. Searing air, reeking of fuel, scoured Eddie’s exposed skin. He waved for Nina to position the truck in line with the fuselage. She did so, the Antonov’s stern sliding into view ahead. The rear ramp was almost fully raised, folding to act as a bulkhead at the back of the hold. The two huge clamshell doors forming the tailcone’s underside started to close. The aircraft was almost ready for take-off.

The wing loomed above as Nina brought the transporter closer to the row of wheels. Eddie briefly considered using a rifle to strafe and puncture the fuel tanks, but dismissed the idea. Jet fuel was hard to ignite; even a red-hot bullet was unlikely to start a fire, never mind cause an explosion, and the pilots would know within seconds that they had a fuel leak and stop the plane.

If that happened, the warheads would leave North Korea by some other means – and by then he and Nina would be dead. Downing the Antonov was the only way to make their sacrifice count. ‘Okay,’ he said as he held on to the spotlight and hefted his metallic lasso, ‘let’s rope us some Russian dogies . . .’

Kang stood in the cockpit with Sek and one of his men, watching over the pilots’ shoulders as the runway’s lights drew closer. Faced with the threat of having their aircraft impounded and themselves ending up in a North Korean prison – or simply being shot – the Russian aircrew had unwillingly set the Antonov in motion before finishing their pre-flight checks, hurriedly running through as many of the items on their list as possible as the plane trundled towards take-off position.

The colonel’s radio crackled. ‘Yes?’ he said. ‘Have you killed the spies?’

‘Uh . . . no, sir,’ said the worried soldier down the channel. ‘We haven’t caught up with the missile transporter yet.’

‘Why not?’

‘It’s chasing you!’

Kang and Sek looked at each other in alarm. ‘Which side?’

‘The right, sir.’

Ignoring the co-pilot’s protests, Kang shoved him aside to lean over and peer back through a side window. ‘I can’t see them,’ he said, straightening.

‘They might try to crash into us,’ said Sek, worried.

Kang addressed the pilot, a man named Petrov, in English. ‘We are being chased by a truck! It might ram the plane, or block the runway. We have to go faster and take off.’

The Russian spoke better English than his comrades, the language being a requirement for international pilots. ‘No, if they could damage the plane, we have to stop! It is too dangerous to—’

‘
Take off!
’ roared Kang, drawing his gun for emphasis. The other cockpit crew behind him reacted with shock. ‘Go faster! Now!’

Petrov tried to cover his fear and maintain a professional calm, but the weapon pointed at his head – and the rage-crazed expression of the man holding it – made it clear who was now in command of the aircraft. He pushed the throttle levers forward. The engine note rose, the Antonov gaining speed. Kang gave him a contemptuous glare, then withdrew. ‘This is what we get for taking a contract from fucking North Korea,’ the pilot muttered in his own language to the co-pilot, who swallowed and nodded in agreement.

The TEL’s cab drew level with the middle set of undercarriage wheels. Eddie had hoped to reach the front to increase his chances of catching one with his lasso but the rising shriek of the engines meant that he had run out of time. ‘They’re speeding up! Go faster!’ he shouted to Nina.

She pushed down the accelerator, but the third set of the Antonov’s wheels slipped past, then the fourth. ‘It’s too slow!’ she cried.

‘Shit!’ The final landing leg rumbled past Eddie. Last chance. He pulled the steel loop wide and tossed it at the huge tyre—

One side fell behind the fat wheel, snagging against the hub as the other was caught by the whirling tread and snatched underneath. The hook slammed into the hydraulics with a bang as the loop snapped tight around the axle.

‘Let out the winch!’ Eddie yelled, twisting to point at a dash-mounted control box in front of one of the passenger seats; the winch could be operated from both inside the cab and out. ‘If there’s enough slack, we can slow down and jump off before the plane drags us!’

Nina looked at the box. There were two levers and several switches on it, but all the text was in Korean. She leaned across the cab, straining to reach it. The larger of the two levers was marked with arrows pointing up and down, which she guessed controlled the spool. She stretched out her hand and pushed it forward, to the up position. An electric whine came from outside.

‘No, the other one!’ Eddie called urgently. ‘The winch brake, you need to let it run free—’

Tyres screeched – and a wall of metal filled the windscreen.

The Antonov had turned on to the runway, the massive aircraft rocking on its undercarriage as it changed direction too quickly. Nina gasped and spun the wheel to avoid a collision – and save Eddie from being crushed against the fuselage.

The smell of burning rubber joined the stink of jet fuel. Its port wingtip drooping alarmingly close to the ground, the An-124 continued through its ninety-degree turn, finally coming into line with the runway lights and reeling back upright. Nina struggled to regain control of the transporter as it veered behind the inboard engine. Searing jet exhaust pummelled Eddie. ‘Get behind it, behind it!’ he shouted, hunching up to protect his face.

She swung the TEL back to the left. The Antonov had now pulled far enough ahead for the vehicle to get beneath its tail. She straightened out, then made another lunge for the winch control—

The four massive engines roared to full thrust.

A superheated hurricane whirled around the transporter. The colossal aircraft accelerated with alarming speed, racing away down the runway – with the cable lashing behind it.

It snapped taut. Eddie lost his footing and swung from the spotlight as the TEL leapt forward. Nina was thrown back in her seat. She stamped at the brake pedal, but to no avail.

The Antonov thundered towards take-off speed, dragging the transporter behind it.

46

The speedometer needle whipped around the dial as far as it would go, and stayed there. Nina gripped the squirming wheel fearfully, trying to hold the truck in a straight line as it snaked down the runway in the Antonov’s wake—

The winch! If she let it run freely, it would give the TEL a chance to slow down and let her and Eddie bail out.

Holding the wheel with one hand, she leaned across and clawed at the control box. The winch was still spooling out its cable, the motor shrilling under the strain. Her fingers closed around the second lever, and pushed it.

The winch brake released with a loud clunk. The effect was immediate, the transporter lurching as the acceleration suddenly ceased. Eddie swung back around to the front of the cab, clawing at the roof to find a more secure hold. ‘Jump out!’ he cried.

‘We’re going too fast!’ The speedometer was still pinned to the top of the dial. She tried the brakes again, but the transporter started to weave, threatening to flip over. All she could do was hold it steady until it slowed enough to risk a leap on to the runway—

The whine of the rapidly spinning winch reel became hollow as the last length of cable unspooled then it slammed to a stop.

The TEL lunged forward again. The sudden burst of speed pounded Eddie against the windscreen. The wind tore at his clothes as the aircraft neared take-off speed.

The transporter started to snake again. Its tyres screamed as they skidded across the concrete. Nina tried desperately to bring it back under control, but the truck was almost at the point of no return, about to overturn . . .

The Antonov’s long tailcone dipped towards the runway as its nose rose and it left the ground.

The missile transporter followed it into the sky.

‘Oh
God
!’ Nina screamed, terror and nausea filling her as the TEL keeled over on to its side. ‘Eddie!’

Her husband was pinned against the windshield, the force of the roaring slipstream holding him in place as he clung to the roof with one hand and groped for the bull bars with the other. His palm slapped on glass, flat metal – then clamped around the steel tube. Gasping for breath, he hung spread-eagled against the cab as the runway dropped away.

A squeal of overstressed machinery, audible even over the deafening thunder of the jet’s engines – and the unsecured erector arms swung out from the vehicle’s back as it rolled over. The wind caught them, yanking them backwards. Hydraulic rams tore apart, bolts shearing and welds cracking—

The arms slammed into their vertical position with such force that the transporter’s long chassis snapped in half. The entire launch assembly tore free, taking most of the vehicle’s bodywork and the rear eight wheels with it. Tons of metal plunged back down on to the runway, hitting hard enough to smash a crater into the concrete.

The TEL’s forward half was still attached to the plane, corkscrewing along in its wake for two full revolutions before levelling out. Nina fell back into the driver’s seat, seeing her husband flattened against the window before her. ‘Eddie, get in!’ she yelled, trying to open the door. The wind instantly slammed it shut again.

Eddie managed to turn his head. He squinted into the gale to see the Antonov banking sharply to starboard, hauling the remains of the transporter after it like a banner.

Alarms buzzed in the cockpit, warning lights flashing. ‘What is happening?’ Kang demanded, trying to cover his fear as the huge aircraft wallowed to one side. He clutched at the back of the pilot’s chair to stay upright, Sek and his subordinate backing down the aisle between the other crew stations to find support.

Captain Petrov had higher priorities than answering the Korean, taking several seconds to check readouts and adjust the controls before replying. ‘The landing gear is damaged,’ he announced, ‘and the whole plane is off balance! There’s too much extra weight on one side.’ He spoke to the co-pilot in Russian, the other man looking back out of his side window. A shocked cry told the others in the cockpit that he had seen something unexpected.

‘Well?’ snapped Kang after the co-pilot had gabbled a report.

Petrov gave him a disbelieving look. ‘We are . . . pulling it behind us.’

‘Pulling
what
?’

‘The truck, the truck that was chasing us! They must have got a cable around the landing gear.’

‘Then close it, cut the cable!’

‘
The landing gear is damaged
,’ the Russian repeated with impatient contempt. ‘It won’t close. We have to turn back and land again – it is too dangerous to fly like this.’

‘No!’ said Kang. ‘We do not go back, we must—’

‘Are you a pilot? Can you fly a plane? No? Then shut up and let me fly this one!’ The pilot turned back angrily to the controls, leaving the colonel fuming impotently.

A voice came through the crew’s headsets: the control tower at the airbase. Even without being able to hear the exchange, Kang could tell from its urgency that the situation was about to get worse. Both men in the front seats peered down at the ground, regarding the runway with growing concern as the Antonov made a wide circle over the airfield. ‘We . . . we can’t land,’ Petrov told the Korean. ‘The runway is blocked, there is wreckage on it. But we can’t reach another airfield if we are pulling the truck; it will make the plane too hard to fly.’

‘Then we stop pulling it,’ Kang snapped. He glanced at a monitor screen at one of the crew stations, which showed CCTV images of the huge hold below them. The lone missile rocked uneasily in its cradle, only a few of the straps meant to secure it actually in place. But it was the other items of cargo that caught his interest. ‘Can the plane fly with the rear ramp down?’

‘Yes, it was designed so paratroopers could jump from it. But—’

‘Then open it. Now!’ He reverted to his native language as he addressed Sek. ‘The weapons you were assigned – they’re all in the hold, yes?’

‘Yes, sir,’ Sek replied.

‘Good. Then we’ll break out a rocket launcher – and blow up the transporter!’

Nina braced herself in the footwell, holding on to the now-useless steering wheel and one of the door handles as the transporter swayed through the sky behind the Antonov. The freighter still had its landing gear extended as it circled the military base. Was it going to land again? If the plane returned to the ground, she and Eddie would be killed. There was no way the broken-backed TEL would touch down neatly on its remaining wheels . . .

Movement on the plane – the clamshell doors cracking apart. Light flooded through the widening gap, spotlights inside illuminating the bare ribbed framework of the fuselage and the giant loading ramp blocking the rear of the hold. What were they doing?

She shouted to Eddie, pointing to alert him of the new development. He twisted painfully to look. ‘Shit!’ he shouted, the glass muffling his voice. ‘The winch – wind it in!’

‘Why?’

‘The only reason they’d open the back door in flight is to jump out from it – or shoot at us!’

She hurriedly shifted position to push the larger lever forward. She was almost surprised when the winch started, convinced that the punishment it had endured would have destroyed the mechanism. But it began to take up the steel cable again, albeit with a protesting whine.

Eddie looked back at the Antonov. The clamshell doors opened fully. A moment later, the ramp laboriously began to lower. He knew what – or rather who – would be waiting behind it. ‘Get a gun!’ he called to Nina. ‘Soon as that ramp comes down, they’ll start shooting – you need to get ’em first!’

‘I can’t open the door!’ she protested as she retrieved a rifle from the footwell, where it had ended up during the truck’s wild ride.

‘Then shoot out the window!’

Nina reluctantly pointed the Type 58 at the driver’s door, turning the fire selector to what she hoped was single-shot mode. ‘I’d normally say this is a terrible idea,’ she muttered, ‘but compared to every other one we’ve had today, it barely moves the needle . . .’

She cringed – and pulled the trigger.

The noise of the gunshot was excruciating in the cab’s confines – but it was nothing against the sudden roar from outside. The bullet itself had only made a coin-sized hole in the glass, but a fraction of a second later the entire pane disintegrated, to be sucked out into the void. The cabin turned into a whirlwind as loose items were snatched up by the vortex.

Eddie stared at her with a
what the hell?
expression. ‘I meant shoot out
of
the window – after you wind it down!’

‘No, you said— Oh God
damn
it!’ Nina shielded her eyes as grit and papers and even the spent bullet cartridge swatted at her face, then squinted past her husband. The Antonov was drawing closer, running lights illuminating its operator’s logo on the towering tailfin. Beneath it were the gaping rear doors, the ramp slowly unfolding to reveal the hold beyond.

Kang left Sek in the cockpit to watch the pilots, not trusting the Russians not to lock him and his men out should they be left unattended, while he went with the other soldier and the aircraft’s loadmaster to deal with the transporter.

Even though only one missile had been loaded aboard, cradles were in place for all three, so the forward ladder to the hold couldn’t be lowered. Instead, the men had to go back down the length of the upper deck, past the little crew cabins and galley and through a small passenger section where the other soldiers anxiously awaited news of what was happening. Their commander didn’t deign to inform them, instead continuing onwards until they reached the steep rear ladder. A cold wind gusted up from below.

‘Get an RPG, quick,’ Kang ordered the soldier. ‘Meet me at the ramp.’ The young man saluted and scurried down the ladder. The colonel turned to the loadmaster. ‘You, come down with me. I want to see what is happening.’

‘This very bad idea, you know?’ protested the Russian as he descended into the hold. ‘Rocket not secure, plane not steady – many bad things can happen! If ramp open, then if plane go up, we all fall out!’

‘Then hold on,’ Kang growled as he followed him down. By the time he reached the bottom, the soldier had run to the front of the hold and was opening a case containing an RPG-7 rocket launcher. Looking the other way, he saw that the ramp was still only about halfway down. He glared at the loadmaster. ‘Make it go faster!’

‘I . . . I can’t,’ the startled man replied.

‘Idiot,’ Kang snarled. He stalked to the rear of the hold, pausing to maintain his footing as the plane swayed. It had its flaps fully extended for maximum lift at the low speed that was all Petrov dared risk, but even an aircraft as large as the An-124 was susceptible to turbulence, and the pendulous weight of the truck swinging behind it only made the movement more unpredictable. He took hold of one of the ribs running up the hold’s wall and peered out through the slowly widening gap.

At first he saw nothing but darkness, but then a flash from one of the Antonov’s navigation lights picked out something nearby. He waited a few seconds until it came again. A line in the sky, running back from the plane’s starboard underside . . .

He tilted his head, looking around the obstructive ramp – and was startled to see headlights shining back at him. The missile transporter was indeed being hauled behind the An-124, bobbing and weaving like a kite.

Wait – it was getting closer! It took him a moment to realise how: the TELs were fitted with a winch in case they became stuck in muddy ground. But it couldn’t be operated remotely, which meant . . .

Astonishment was followed by a sadistic smile as he saw that the man and woman who had destroyed Facility 17 – and almost certainly his career with it – were still in the vehicle. No, not in:
on
! The bald man, Chase, was clinging to the front of the cab, his clothing flapping madly in the wind. Behind him, interior lights picked out the red hair of his wife.

He shouted down the hold to the soldier. ‘The spies, they’re on the truck! Get over here, quick – we can blow the bastards apart!’

The transporter shook and rolled sickeningly as it drew ever closer to the Antonov’s tail, caught in its wake turbulence. The ramp was now three quarters lowered, and Nina saw movement behind it, someone wearing a peaked military cap. The figure looked back out through the widening gap, the spotlights inside the doors illuminating his face.

Kang.

Eddie saw him too. ‘Shoot him!’

‘I can’t!’ she protested. The Type 58 was almost a yard long, and there wasn’t enough room between the seat back and the window frame for her to look down the ungainly weapon’s sights at the hold without pushing the barrel out into the hurricane-force wind – which would make it almost impossible to aim.

The ramp kept dropping, the whale-belly hold and the missile inside coming into full view. Another soldier ran past it towards the open doors, carrying a tubular object.

‘
RPG!
’ Eddie shouted. ‘He’s got a fucking rocket launcher! Nina, shoot him!’

She had already identified the weapon from unwelcome past experience. But even squeezing as far over as she could, she still couldn’t line up the gun on the hold.

The soldier reached Kang. The ramp finally drew level with the floor, then tipped downwards past it. The second Korean gawped at the flying truck, then at a bellowed order from his commander knelt and inserted the warhead’s cylindrical rocket motor into the launch tube.

‘Nina!’ Eddie shouted again, almost pleading. The TEL started to sweep from side to side, pinballing between the fuselage’s slipstream and the jet blast from the inboard engine. Each outward swing gave Nina just enough of an angle to aim at the hold. She turned the selector to full-auto, waiting for the North Koreans to slide back through her sights . . .

The soldier stood and raised his own launcher. He flipped up the sights, fixing them on the transporter—

Nina fired first. A spray of bullets scythed through the gaping doorway. Most clanged against the hold’s far wall – but a couple found their target.

Kang jerked behind a fuselage rib as two rounds thudded into the soldier’s upper body. The man crumpled and fell forwards, sliding down the ramp. He and his weapon slithered off its end and were snatched away by the thunderous wind to vanish into the night.