The Revelation Code (Wilde/Chase 11) (42 page)

Norvin glanced back through the rearmost window as the airship turned. ‘Prophet!’ he cried in sudden alarm. ‘There’s another chopper coming in behind us!’

Harvey’s helicopter was gaining fast on the airship. Eddie picked out the mooring lines hanging over its sides. ‘Get above it,’ he said. ‘I’ll jump down on its top!’

‘You’ll
what
?’ said the Bronxite in disbelief.

‘Those cables – I can climb down one and get to the cabin.’ The lines were affixed to the upper part of the hull; Eddie was sure he could reach one before the envelope’s curvature became too steep for him to keep his footing.

‘The hell you can! There must be an eighty-foot overhang between the side of the blimp and the cabin.’

‘I can swing that far. I’ve done it from bridges—’

‘That ain’t a bridge! It’s a floating bag of gas doin’ sixty knots! Eddie, I know you’ve done some wild shit – I’ve
seen
you do some of it – but there’s no way you can swing from the side of that thing like Spider-Man and jump into the cockpit. You try it, you’ll be killed. Hell, even just
thinking
about trying it’ll probably tempt fate!’ Harvey briefly took his left hand off the collective control to finger the gold cross around his neck.

‘I’ve got to do something,’ Eddie protested. ‘How about slicing it open with the rotors?’ Harvey’s expression told him that was a very bad idea. ‘Okay, maybe not—
Shit!
’

He saw movement in the cabin’s open door: Cross aiming his rifle—

A hole exploded in the windscreen – and Harvey jerked back with an agonised shriek as a bullet tore through his upper left arm. ‘Jesus!’ Eddie cried, feeling hot blood on his face and neck.

The pilot’s wounded limb flopped nervelessly to his side. He clapped his other hand over the torn flesh, trying to contain the gush of blood . . . and the LongRanger pitched sharply towards the river.

Eddie grabbed the co-pilot’s controls. ‘What do I do, what do I
do
?’ he yelled. But Harvey’s only response was a keening moan. ‘Shit! Two fucking lessons! That’s all I’ve had!’ he shouted at the universe in general. ‘Two fucking lessons and I have to fly a fucking helicopter that’s – that’s about to crash into the United fucking Nations!’

The LongRanger had overtaken the airship, heading straight for the Secretariat Building. Eddie increased power and tried to gain height, pushing hard on the rudder pedals – but they refused to move, Harvey’s feet wedged against his own set in his pained paralysis. The green glass tower loomed ahead; even at its maximum rate of climb, the chopper would still hit its upper floors. ‘Harvey! Move your feet! Move your fucking—’

He changed tack, leaning over to deliver a solid punch to Harvey’s jaw. The pilot fell limp. ‘Sorry,’ Eddie told him, cringing, but the duplicate pedals were now free to move as the other man’s feet slid off the main set. The LongRanger’s tail swung around – and the helicopter veered away from the skyscraper, the rotor tips slicing within mere feet of the windows.

Cross watched the LongRanger begin its uncontrolled descent, then put his rifle on a seat near the door and reclaimed the statue as the Airlander approached the United Nations. ‘“And the earth was reaped”,’ he said, returning to the opening ready to throw the angel out at the crowds below – then he froze as the chopper swung crazily back towards the airship.

Eddie gasped in relief at having avoided the crash, only to realise he still had no idea what he was doing. ‘Okay, okay,’ he said, desperately trying to remember what Harvey had taught him. ‘Centre the stick, level out, keep the throttle at . . . at something, fuck knows what.’ The East River and Brooklyn beyond blurred across his view as the helicopter continued its sharp turn. ‘Stop spinning, that’d be a good start! Okay, level the rudder pedals, and—
Fuuuuuuck!
’

The Airlander’s swollen hulls loomed in front of him.

He jammed the chopper into a dive. Nausea rose in his stomach as it plunged, the rotors whisking just below the port lobe—

A sound like a concrete block being thrown into a wood-chipper – and he was flung hard against the door as the helicopter whirled like a top.

The LongRanger had hit one of the airship’s mooring cables.

Squeals of rending metal sounded behind Eddie as parts of the overstressed rotor assembly disintegrated. The steel-reinforced line had tangled and jammed the rotor head – and the engine’s torque was instantly transferred back to the fuselage. The dangling aircraft spun around, its forward momentum swinging it upwards behind the Airlander’s stern before gravity pulled it back down like a pendulum.

But the airship was also affected. Even with its huge lift capacity, it still had to be properly stabilised in flight, and the sudden addition to one side of almost a ton of corkscrewing metal threw it wildly off balance.

The savage lurch as the helicopter snagged the mooring line sent the airship’s occupants flying. Paxton was hurled over the instrument panel, his flailing foot kicking the throttles to full power, while Norvin crashed to the floor in the central aisle. Nina ended up on her side in the bodyguard’s seat, clutching the now-detached seat back.

Cross came off worst. The impact flung him against the thin Plexiglas window in front of the door, smashing it. He dropped the statue, which skittered under the seats. The cult leader lunged after it – only to reel as the swinging helicopter jerked the dirigible sideways.

He fell backwards through the open door, barely catching the sides of the frame with his fingertips. The Secretariat Building rolled past behind him as the craft overflew the United Nations complex. ‘Norvin!’ he screamed. ‘Help me!’

‘Prophet!’ Norvin yelled, scrambling to the door. ‘I’m coming, hold on!’ He gripped his leader’s arms and hauled him back inside.

Cross collapsed on the seats behind the door, eyes wide with shock – then his expression became one of alarm as he saw something behind his bodyguard. Norvin turned—

Nina smashed the seat back into the big man’s face. He stumbled over Cross’s sprawled legs – and fell through the open doorway, plummeting over seven hundred feet with a terrible scream.

Cross jumped up at Nina – only to crash back into the chair as her makeshift club swung again and hit with a bang. ‘Fasten your seat belt, asshole!’ she yelled, snatching up his rifle.

He froze as she pointed it at his chest. ‘Put it down, Dr Wilde.’

‘The hell I will,’ she replied, glancing over her shoulder to see Paxton pushing himself off the console. ‘Tell your man to land this thing, or I’ll shoot you.’

‘You’re not a murderer.’

‘No, but you are. And you’re a direct threat to the world’s security.’ The United Nations complex dropped out of sight beyond the open door as the airship continued into the city. ‘I’ll do whatever I have to in order to protect it.’

‘
Protect
it?’ he spat. ‘Corruption, decadence, blasphemy – evil and ungodliness everywhere? This is the world you want to protect?’

‘It’s the only one we have!’

‘It needs to be cleansed! Babylon must be destroyed to bring about God’s kingdom on earth! The prophecy will come true – I’ll
make
it come true!’

‘You’re not God’s prophet,’ Nina shouted back. ‘You’re a delusional lunatic!’

Hatred glinted in Cross’s eyes. ‘“The fearful, and unbelieving, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone . . .”’

‘Shutteth the hell up,’ she snapped. Paxton finally dropped into his seat; she looked back at him. ‘Hey, pilot guy! Take this thing down right now, or I’ll shoot your boss—’

Paxton gasped in fear, but not at her threat. Nina looked back – to see the black glass monolith of the Trump World Tower looming directly in the airship’s path. ‘Shit!’ she gasped, grabbing the nearest seat.

The pilot yanked back the joystick. The Airlander pitched upwards, the forward engine nacelles pivoting to speed its ascent. It swept over the corner of the seventy-two-storey tower’s roof, narrowly clearing it – but still demolishing a couple of communications masts as it climbed. Nina gripped the chair more tightly, holding her breath as the building’s edge passed barely a foot beneath the gondola . . . then they were clear.

Paxton reduced power and put the airship into a hard turn back towards the river. ‘Hey!’ she yelled at him. ‘I told you to set us down! If you don’t, I’m gonna—’

She was thrown to the floor as the vessel slammed to an abrupt stop.

39

T
he crippled LongRanger’s engine cut out: whether through some safety mechanism or simply because it had been destroyed, Eddie neither knew nor cared. But the helicopter’s insane whirl was slowing, the blur through the windows resolving itself into the skyscrapers of New York.

A tall black one whipped past, and again, and again, closer each time—

‘Shit!’ he yelped, seeing the helicopter’s reflection in the dark glass growing ever larger. He grabbed Harvey – as the aircraft smashed into a penthouse apartment like a wrecking ball.

Its tail was ripped off and fell away, but the main fuselage ploughed through the condo’s windows, scattering ultra-expensive furniture as it bowled across the living room. The mooring line snapped taut as the airship pulled away from the tower, dragging it backwards – but the remains of the rotors wedged against a freshly exposed steel girder above the demolished windows. The cable strained, but held, the makeshift anchor yanking the Airlander to a sudden halt.

Eddie opened his eyes . . . to find himself looking straight down at a sheer drop through the broken windscreen. Only his seat belt kept him from plunging to the sidewalk over eight hundred feet below.

And his position was far from secure. The mooring line rasped against the girder as the airship tried to pull free, rocking the cockpit. ‘Oh,
arse
,’ he gasped, securing one foot against the column supporting the instrument console. ‘Harvey, are you okay? Harvey!’

The pilot stirred weakly. ‘Oh man, what . . . what happened?’

‘My third flying lesson didn’t go too well. Harvey, we’ve got to move – this thing’s going to fall any second.’

‘Fall? Whaddya— Whoa,
shit
!’ Harvey cried as he opened his eyes. ‘Jesus Christ!’

‘Yeah, you’ll meet him in a minute if you don’t get out! Go!’ Eddie unbuckled his seat belt, balancing precariously on the support column as the other man frantically released his own restraints and barged the door open. Harvey piled out – and the helicopter lurched with the shift of weight.

The Englishman scrambled across the cockpit, batting aside dangling headset cords and diving after the American—

A shrill of buckling metal – and the fuselage toppled over the edge behind him as he hit the carpet.

Heart racing, Eddie looked up to see a stylishly dressed woman in her fifties staring at him in stunned amazement. ‘Hi,’ he said. ‘Sorry about the mess. There’s a bloke called Oswald Seretse at the UN, he’ll pay for the damage . . .’

Her gaze went back to the gaping hole in the wall as a shadow fell over the room. Eddie turned to see the airship drawing closer. Without the lift from the engines at full power, the craft was being pulled downwards – and back towards the building – by the helicopter wreckage.

Nina grabbed a seat just in time to arrest her slide as the cabin pitched backwards. But she had dropped the rifle, and it was now slithering down the aisle.

Towards Cross.

She caught it with one hand – as Cross lunged at her. He landed on her legs, catching her shrapnel wound. She cried out in pain as he clutched at the gun. ‘Give it to me!’ he roared.

‘Go to hell!’ she snarled, pulling one leg free and thrashing at his chest. He grunted in pain, but still managed to grip the rifle. He forced the barrel towards her head and clawed at the trigger—

She let go of the seat.

They both skidded down the central aisle, slamming against the seats behind the open door as the swinging helicopter made the airship roll sideways. Nina grabbed the rifle with her free hand, pushing it away from her – as Cross found the trigger.

The boom of the rifle at close range was agonisingly loud. Nina felt the muzzle flash scorch her hair as she screamed – but it was Paxton who was hit, the bullet striking him squarely in the back of the skull and exploding his face across the windshield.

Eddie watched in horror as the airship reeled towards the tower. If it hit the roof’s edge side-on, multiple buoyancy cells would be slashed open at once and it would fall out of the sky like an airborne
Titanic
as the helium escaped, taking Nina with it—

The behemoth rolled, a whale turning on to its other side. The wreck of the LongRanger had swung away from the tower as it fell, but it was now coming back, changing the airship’s centre of gravity.

The helicopter would smash into the building several floors directly below him. And the Airlander was still approaching, blotting out the sky . . .

‘Get back!’ he told Harvey and the penthouse’s occupant as he judged the movement of the mooring cable, waiting for the impact—

What was left of the chopper pounded against the featureless black glass face of the Trump World Tower. The fuselage was flattened by the blow – and the rotor assembly disintegrated, the central shaft tearing loose. The cable whipped free as the heavy debris fell away.

Eddie burst into a run – and leapt out of the window at the quivering line.

He seized it with both hands, swinging away from the building as the airship, shorn of the helicopter’s weight, shot upwards. Pulling the cable to his chest, he used his feet to secure himself in place, passing it under one foot and back over the other.

First Avenue rolled past far beneath him as the Airlander angled back towards the United Nations. ‘Okay, maybe Harvey was right about this being a fucking stupid idea . . .’ muttered Eddie as he started to climb.

Cross pulled himself over Nina, using his weight and greater strength to shove the rifle down to the deck with one arm, then clamped the other hand around her throat. ‘“True and righteous are his judgments, for he hath judged the great whore!”’ he snarled.

‘Don’t you . . . call me a . . . whore!’ she gasped as he squeezed, clawing at his arm with her fingernails. ‘You Bible-thumping prick!’ She drew blood, making him flinch. He leaned away from her, trying to force the rifle out of her grip.

Realising there was no way she could keep hold of the weapon, she instead let go of it, lashing her now-free hand at his eyes. Cross gasped, reflexively jerking back to save his sight.

But his hand was still wrapped around her throat. He pulled her upwards – then slammed her head back down against the deck, once, twice. Nina’s vision blurred, pain overwhelming her. Cross squeezed harder, forcing a choked rasp from her mouth . . . then he let go.

A thin line of blood running from the corner of his eye, he collected the rifle and stood. Terror surged through the breathless Nina as she thought he was going to shoot her, but instead he hurried past her to the controls. The engines’ roar grew louder as he increased power, aiming the craft back towards the United Nations.

Eddie was still climbing the mooring line when he heard the propellers speed up. He looked ahead. The airship was heading for the plaza outside the General Assembly. The crowd was spreading, people running for the exits to First Avenue, but it seemed that for every person who had fled, at least two more had replaced them as politicians and diplomats and officials spilled from the complex’s buildings. Several helicopters were hovering nearby, one a heavily modified Black Hawk in green-and-white livery: Marine One, the transport of the President of the United States. But despite the efforts of the Secret Service and UN security to clear a landing space, the panic at ground level was making it impossible.

Aware that he was rapidly running out of time, he brought himself a few last feet higher and secured himself. He was not far below the gondola; from this low angle, he had a partial view of its interior through the large windows and open door. No sign of Nina, but he saw movement at the front—

Cross! He was at the controls, looking down through a gruesome film of blood on the windscreen as he lined up the airship with the plaza. Then he stood and moved down the cabin. The Englishman felt a brief fear that he was going to throw the statue from the doorway, but instead he went past the opening, turning from side to side as if searching for something.

There was only one thing it could be. The last angel.

Time was up.

Eddie kicked his legs back, then thrust them forward, building up momentum as he started to swing from the line. His original plan had been to reach the gondola’s door, but Cross was armed, and would shoot him before he could recover from the landing. Instead he aimed at the cult leader himself. One of the windows was broken, revealing it as flimsy Plexiglas; if he had built up enough of a swing to reach the cabin, he would be moving fast enough to smash straight through another thin acrylic panel and hit the man behind it.

He hoped.

Another sweep brought him closer to his target. Two more would do it. He fell back, the wind whistling in his ears as he swept backwards, then in again towards the airship’s underside. The boundary of United Nations territory passed below. One more swing to go, the gondola just feet away as he reached the top of his arc . . .

Nina clutched at Cross’s leg as he moved back down the aisle, but he pulled away without even seeming to notice. She struggled to roll on to her side, feeling a new wave of pain as she raised her head.

The cult leader was looking for the fallen angel. She could see under the seats from her position on the floor, spotting the statue a few rows back from the open hatch. Breathing heavily, she started to pull herself up, feeling dizzy as her head throbbed again . . .

A dark shape moved past the doorway, just for a moment, before falling away. Nina blinked, not sure what she had seen. It hadn’t been another helicopter – it was much too close, only a few feet from the gondola.

But the mystery object vanished from her mind as Cross finally found the object of his search. He bent down – and grabbed the angel.

Eddie kept his eyes fixed upon the American as he dropped away. Out as far as he could go, the Airlander’s bloated flank hanging above him like a solid cloud . . . then he whooshed back at the gondola, bringing up both legs as he hurtled towards the window.

The cult leader stood, holding the angel in one hand. He turned – and saw the Englishman rushing at him like a cannon shell—

Eddie hit the window – but it didn’t break.

The entire panel popped out of the frame with a crack of ripping rivets, the impact propelling it across the cabin to hit Cross like a transparent bulldozer blade. He flew backwards, the rifle spinning from his hand.

But Eddie’s swing came to a premature halt when he slammed against the window. The cable jerked from his grip. He dropped, the backs of his thighs hitting the edge of the opening – and pitching him backwards out of the cabin.

Pure instinct saved him from a long and fatal fall as he bent his knees to slam his heels back against the inside of the wall, hooking his legs over the sill. He jolted to a stop, hanging upside-down from the gondola’s side.

He was anything but secure, however. Pain burned through his hamstring tendons as the angular metal edge ground against them. He flailed his arms, searching desperately for a handhold, but found only smooth aluminium and empty air – and he could no longer hold his position, his own weight pulling him downwards—

Someone grabbed his ankles. He squinted up at the window – seeing a familiar face with a halo of wind-blown red hair looking back.

‘Eddie!’ Nina cried. She pressed herself against his legs to hold them in place and stretched an arm out to him. ‘Eddie, grab my hand!’

‘No, get back!’ he shouted. ‘It’s too dangerous, you’ll fall out!’

She took a firm hold of the window frame with her other hand and leaned out further, determination clear in her voice. ‘I’m not letting you go. You’ve got diapers to change, mister!’

Somehow Eddie managed a crooked smile. He strained to bend at the waist, raising his arms towards her waiting hand. ‘Come on, come on!’ Nina cried, stretching out further. Their fingertips brushed . . . then hooked together, husband and wife gripping each other as hard as they could.

She leaned back, pulling him upwards. He managed to get hold of the window’s sill with his free hand and hauled himself upright, his legs finally sliding down into the cabin. There was a red-painted handle set into a recess above the window where the gondola was attached to the envelope. He reached for it, wanting a firmer handhold as he lowered himself inside, but then made out some warning text above it:
PORT SIDE ENVELOPE RIP
–
DO NOT PULL EXCEPT IN EMERGENCY
. He hurriedly reconsidered and gripped the top side of the window frame instead.

With both hands now secured, he worked his lower body through the opening. ‘Are you okay?’ Nina asked as his feet touched down.

‘Yeah,’ he gasped. ‘Thanks.’

‘If I’m going to be a good mom, I want support from a good dad!’

They both smiled, then Eddie looked back outside. They were now directly over the crowded plaza, the Secretariat Building looming ahead. ‘We’ll turn this thing out over the river—’

‘No!’

They both looked around at the shout to see Cross back on his feet. He was clutching the angel – and had retrieved the rifle, pointing it at them. He sidestepped to the door, raising the statue ready to hurl it to the ground. ‘“There will be no more delay!”’

His finger tightened around the trigger—

Eddie’s hand snapped up – and pulled the emergency handle.

The results were literally explosive.

On a smaller airship, the envelope would have been ripped by physically tearing away a cable embedded in the material; a craft the size of the Airlander, however, required something more powerful. A line of detonation cord ran the length of the port lobe – and it took only a split second for the controlled explosion to slice open a gash in all the helium compartments.

A hurricane of escaping gas blasted out, the airship rolling as it lost buoyancy on one side. Eddie was flung back through the window, swinging from the handle with only the grip of his fingers keeping him from falling. Nina shrieked as she was thrown against the wall, one hand snatching a ceiling strap as her other stretched out to grab her husband’s legs.

Cross staggered as the floor tilted beneath him. He dropped the rifle and tried to catch a seat, but too late—