The Midas Legacy (Wilde/Chase 12) (50 page)

The rifle’s last shot punched through the aluminium hull just behind Kang. The colonel flinched. The loadmaster fled to the ladder, clambering up it for the safety of the upper deck.

Nina dropped the empty gun. ‘Okay, now what? We’re still not exactly in a great position!’

Eddie looked back at the plane as the straining winch drew them ever closer. With the cable shortening, the transporter’s sidelong swings were becoming faster and more forceful, carrying them almost behind the ramp before sweeping back out beneath the engine’s churning exhaust plume. ‘When we’re level with the ramp,’ he shouted, ‘stop the winch! I’ll jump on to it!’

‘You’ll
what
?’

‘Just do it! I can make it!’ He shifted towards the corner of the cab.

‘Okay, now you’re
trying
to get killed!’ said Nina, but she still slid back over to reach the winch controls. The transporter swung behind the plane, just a few metres from the foot of the ramp. She briefly glimpsed Kang, then the North Korean disappeared from view as she and Eddie were swept back in the other direction. The next pass brought them almost close enough to touch the ramp’s end. Back out towards the engine – and she pulled the lever to brake the winch.

Eddie braced himself, ready to jump.

Kang glanced out from behind the pillar. The woman in the swinging truck had put down her rifle. No more bullets were coming his way.

But he had some of his own to send back at them. He unholstered his pistol and stepped out of cover, raising the gun as he waited for his targets to come back into sight—

The transporter rushed at the ramp. Eddie leapt—

He crossed the terrifying void between the two vehicles in a split second, landing on metal with a bang. He had aimed to grab one of the sets of hydraulic jacks . . .

But missed.

He skidded across the ramp. Its surface was dotted with recessed hooks for attaching chains and cargo straps. He clawed at them as he slid past, catching one with curled fingertips and jerking to a painful stop—

A pounding impact knocked him loose again as the TEL slammed into the plane behind him.

He rolled diagonally down the ramp, snatching at the rearmost jack – and again missed. The black sky opened out hungrily below—

A hefty steel eyelet protruded from the ramp’s edge. Eddie thumped hard against it, a fierce pain cutting deep into his chest as a rib cracked – but he grabbed the obstruction to halt his fall just as his legs went over the side. The wind swirling around the Antonov’s stern tore at him. He battled to haul his legs back on to the ramp, then looked up.

The transporter was wedged under the An-124’s tail, its cab partly crushed between the lower edge of the fuselage and the ramp, and the starboard clamshell door buckled inwards. He couldn’t see Nina inside – but he spotted Kang sprawled halfway across the hold where he had been thrown by the collision.

The colonel shook his head dizzily, startled by the sight of the truck half buried in the aircraft’s side – then he saw Eddie hanging from the ramp.

His pistol had ended up near the hold’s port side. He scrambled up and ran for it.

Eddie realised what he was doing and dragged himself higher, lunging to grab the hydraulic jack. This time he caught it, pulling himself to his feet and swinging around it, using its hinge as a starting block to propel himself up the slope—

Kang snatched up his gun and spun to point it at the Englishman.

47

‘What the hell was that?’ cried the pilot as the aircraft lurched sideways. ‘Something hit us!’

One of the aircrew behind him spotted the cause. ‘Look!’ he said, pointing at one of the hold’s CCTV feeds. The image was of the open rear doors – into which was wedged the truck.

Petrov hurriedly turned back to his controls. ‘We’ve got to shake it loose,’ he said. ‘If we try to land with that thing stuck there, it’ll tear us in half! Everyone hold on!’

He threw the enormous aircraft into a hard bank to starboard.

Kang staggered as the deck tipped beneath him. He fired – but missed, the bullet whipping past Eddie’s head. The Antonov’s roll continued, its nose dropping as the wings lost lift.

What had foiled the Korean was helping the Yorkshireman. The change in the plane’s attitude both angled him away from the ramp’s treacherous edge and shallowed the gradient he had to climb. He pounded up it, charging at Kang—

The colonel realised he was losing his footing and hurled himself at the hold’s port wall. A dangling strap flapped madly in the wind; he seized it with his free hand and turned to face his foe – just as Eddie dived at him. Both men slammed against the fuselage ribs, grappling for the gun.

Nina fought through a blinding headache and opened her eyes, finding herself sprawled across the seats. Sitting up, she got two shocks: the first discovering the transporter jammed against the ramp; the second the fact that previously clear headroom was now filled with crumpled metal. The cab’s ceiling had been crushed by the clamshell door. If she had still been sitting upright, she would have been decapitated.

There was no time to reflect on her lucky escape. The Antonov was banking steeply to the right, and the weight of the transporter’s chassis hanging out over nothingness was causing its back end to swing outwards as overstressed steel gave way.

A squeal from the windscreen. Cracks spread down the wide pane as the unyielding fuselage ground down on it—

The window exploded.

A gale blasted into the cab. Instinctual reflex saved her eyesight, but with a hundred-knot slipstream behind it, even laminated safety glass was enough to slash her face. She was thrown backwards, barely able to breathe.

The transporter jolted, twisting out from the tailcone as the An-124’s bank steepened . . .

A new alarm shrilled in the cockpit, accompanied by an incongruously calm synthesised female voice. ‘Stall warning. Level out. Stall warning. Level out . . .’

‘Shit!’ gasped Petrov, straining to stay upright in his chair as the artificial horizon banked past forty-five degrees. Increasing power would stop the plane from falling out of the sky, but going any faster with a huge truck jammed into the fuselage ran the risk of losing control. All he could do was obey the robotic instruction and hope the vehicle fell away of its own accord. The Antonov responded sluggishly, nausea rising in its occupants’ stomachs.

Sek, clinging to one of the rear seats, looked at the monitor. The transporter was still there, its battered nose slewing around. But his eyes snapped to something on the other side of the ramp – Colonel Kang, clinging to a strap as he fought with the bald spy.

He knew he had to help his commander, but his lack of either Russian or English meant that getting the aircrew to put him on the plane’s loudspeaker system would take too long. Instead he rushed from the cockpit to give orders to the other soldiers in person.

‘Lock that fucking door!’ Petrov shouted as the plane levelled out. One of the crew slammed the bulletproof hatch and bolted it. ‘Don’t let any of the little bastards back in!’

The stall warning shut off. He watched the airspeed indicator until it climbed back to its previous mark, then tipped the Antonov into another sharp bank.

Eddie grappled with Kang, one hand clamped around the Korean’s gun arm as he drove punches into his stomach with the other. As long as the squat officer was holding the strap, there was little he could do to fight back . . .

The deck rolled beneath him, one sole slipping on the metal. The moment it took to stabilise himself left him open to attack. Kang drove an elbow against his damaged rib.

He cried out in pain, almost falling. Kang jerked his wrist from Eddie’s grip and slammed the gun against his head. This time, the Yorkshireman went down. He slithered across the hold as the plane banked more steeply, one flailing hand catching Kang’s shin. He grabbed at it, but his fingers only closed around cloth.

It was all he had. He squeezed his fist into a ball, clutching the material like a lifeline.

Kang yelled as Eddie’s weight dragged his hand down the strap. He fired at his tormentor, but in his panic the shot went wide. The Antonov’s roll steepened, the floor dropping away from the two men.

Fabric slipped through Eddie’s fingers. He couldn’t hold on—

His free hand found another recessed hook in the deck as he lost his grip on Kang’s leg. He swung away, dangling from his new handhold.

With the other man’s weight gone, Kang was able to pull himself back up to the wall. His panting fear was quickly supplanted by murderous glee as he saw that his enemy was now at his mercy—

Metal screamed and tore – and the TEL fell away from the ramp.

Nina felt the cab swing around. The transporter was about to go—

She scrambled over the dashboard – and threw herself desperately out through the broken windshield on to the ramp.

Behind her, the roof sheared off as the truck finally broke free. It caught for an instant on the cable – then the winch brake gave way, the steel line unspooling madly as the vehicle tumbled into the empty sky.

Nina landed painfully beside the forward hydraulic jack. She tried to grab the steel column, but missed as the aircraft suddenly rolled upright, throwing her across the ramp.

Kang was flung back against the wall by the Antonov’s drunken reel. His shot went high. Eddie scrambled forward, driving himself shoulder-first into the colonel’s stomach. Kang folded double, the breath erupting from his lungs.

Eddie hauled him around, about to throw him off the ramp when he saw Nina skidding helplessly down it – and behind her, the transporter falling away—

The cable snapped taut.

Somehow it held, the truck pounding to a stop as if hitting an invisible wall. The aircraft was thrown off balance by a dozen tons of steel abruptly yanking at it like a dropped anchor. It pitched sharply nose-down, rolling back on to its right side. Both Eddie and Kang were catapulted across the hold.

The Korean landed on top of his opponent. Eddie stifled a scream as his ribs took another punishing impact. Kang slid off him, both men clawing for handholds as the floor tipped further forward.

They found them almost simultaneously, but Kang’s was more secure. He dragged himself upright as Eddie dangled below him, smiling malevolently as he raised his gun again . . .

A shriek from behind him as Nina flew over the top of the ramp into the hold and rolled down the sloping deck past the two men. Kang glanced at her in surprise—

Eddie swept one leg up to deliver a cartilage-cracking kick to his kneecap.

Kang screeched and tottered backwards – just as the Antonov’s pilot pulled back hard on the control yoke, putting it into a steep climb.

The Korean lost his balance and fell on to the ramp. He groped at the metal surface as he slid down it – finding no holds.

He hurtled into open space, screaming in terror—

The last thing he saw was the glare of the transporter’s headlights – then he hit the truck’s flat front with a gory splat, his innards bursting across it like a bug on a windscreen.

Shrill metallic cracks came from the cable as it started to shear apart, the steel strands snapping one by one . . .

Sek and his men had been hurrying aft through the upper deck when the Antonov began its crazy roller-coaster ride, hurling them all to the floor. After a stomach-churning age, it finally levelled out. ‘Get up!’ he shouted, struggling to his feet. ‘Get down to the hold! We’ve got to protect the missile, and kill the spies!’

The bruised soldiers doubled their pace towards the plane’s rear.

‘Enjoy your flight!’ Eddie yelled after the departed Kang. He crawled to Nina. ‘How was yours?’

‘It sucked,’ she said dizzily, surprised not just at being aboard the huge aircraft, but simply at being alive. ‘I didn’t even get a bag of peanuts— Oh, you are
kidding
me!’ she cried as someone shouted in Korean. They both looked up to see a soldier at the top of the ladder on the hold’s starboard side. ‘Why can’t these assholes just leave us alone?’

‘It’d ruin their military Koreas,’ said Eddie. The couple ran forward as Sek and his team clattered down the ladder. ‘Get on the other side of the missile. They won’t dare shoot at it. The whole fucking plane’d blow up!’

The rocket was in a long cradle, empty ones beside it. Stacked beyond the missile at the front of the hold were numerous crates and containers. They would provide cover, but it would not take long for the soldiers to round them. ‘There’s nowhere to go!’ Nina protested.

‘There might be guns in those cases,’ Eddie said, with little confidence.

They ducked behind the missile and scurried up the hold’s port side. Behind them, the soldiers jumped from the ladder. One man brought up his rifle, only for a shrieked order from Sek to stay his trigger finger. By the time some of the others had crossed the hold to get a clear line of sight on their targets, Eddie and Nina had taken cover behind a pair of wooden crates. Like the rest of the boxed cargo, they were held in place by quick-release straps attached to rings set into the deck.

‘Uh-oh,’ said Nina in alarm, recognising something behind them: the metal case containing one of the plutonium spheres. Two identical containers were secured nearby.

‘Those must be the warheads,’ Eddie said, seeing three larger crates accompanying them.

‘Great, so we’re five feet from a nuclear bomb.’

‘Not the first time.’

‘That’s hardly something to be proud of!’

‘At least this one’s not about to explode. Here, give me the—’

He hunched lower as gunfire echoed down the hold. Bullets cracked against the crate shielding them, the wood splintering. Flat metallic clunks came from inside as the rounds hit its contents. One side of the damaged box broke open, spilling gold bars on to the deck with heavy, ringing clunks.

‘At least we’ll die rich,’ said Nina, cringing as another bullet struck the plutonium case – then the shooting stopped.

‘Cease fire,
cease fire
!’ Sek screamed. ‘You’ll hit the warheads!’

His men hurriedly broke off the assault. ‘What do we do, sir?’ asked one.

The captain glared down the hold. ‘There are only two of them. You three, advance and take them from the front. The rest of us will go around the other side of the missile and attack from their flank.’

The soldiers who had been assigned to the first group were not happy. ‘If we can’t shoot at them, sir,’ said one, ‘what do we do if they shoot at
us
?’

‘Don’t question my orders, just do it! Go!’ He jabbed a finger at the crates, then led the other troops back around the missile to head down its starboard side. The remaining trio exchanged worried looks, then began their advance. When there was no immediate reaction from behind the gold crate, one man took a gamble and charged at it.

Nina heard his rapid approach. ‘Here they come!’

Eddie sprang upright and hurled a gold bar at the running man.

It was just as effective a blunt instrument as the one in the cellar of Detsen monastery. The twelve-kilogram brick hit the soldier in the face with a dull smack of flattening bone and gristle. He instantly flopped unconscious to the floor.

One of his comrades darted for the cover of a fuselage rib – then hesitated. Eddie knew what he was thinking: if the Englishman had been reduced to hurling lumps of metal, he was unarmed. And if he believed North Korea’s endless propaganda, he would think that all Westerners were cowards who would crumble when faced with the might of his nation’s military forces . . .

The man drew a combat knife and ran at them.

Eddie rushed out into the open to intercept him, not wanting to be cornered. The soldier stabbed the knife at him. He twisted to dodge it, his battered ribcage protesting with another burst of pain. The North Korean caught his involuntary grimace and realised he was hurt. He slashed at Eddie’s chest to force him back before driving the knife’s point at him once more.

This time it found its target, tearing through the flap of Eddie’s leather jacket. The Yorkshireman jinked aside just enough to keep it from plunging into his heart, but it still cut into his pectoral muscle. He screamed, lurching backwards as blood seeped from the tear in his clothing. The soldier drew back the knife to make a final, fatal strike—

The TEL’s cable snapped.