The Hunt For Atlantis

THIRTY

Chase staggered back, eyes watering from the resurgent pain in his broken nose. With the A380 still banking, he had to fight to keep his balance.

Another kick flew at him, Kari pivoting on one foot in a roundhouse move. Her boot heel crashed into his chest like a pickaxe blow. He gasped for breath.

Her foot snapped up again, smashing into his gun hand. Agony shot through him as his little finger broke. The Wildey spun away and hit the rear bulkhead.

He lashed out with his left fist, and Kari’s head snapped back as his punch caught her cheek. She yelled, as much in surprise as in pain, and dropped back a step with a poisonous expression.

Chase realized she had a gun tucked into the waistband of her leather jeans. Kari saw his eyes flick down to the gun. As she grabbed it, he plowed into her shoulder-first, smashing her against the door of the utility room and driving the breath from her lungs-

The gun went off.

Searing pain exploded in Chase’s left thigh. His leg immediately gave way, pitching him on to his side. He clutched the wound. The bullet had gone right through his thigh, missing the bone, but his clothing was wet with blood.

The A380 leveled off, the autopilot now on course for Ravnsfjord.

Kari gasped for breath. “Damn you, Eddie,” she choked out. The smoking gun came up, pointing at his face…

And held there.

A second passed, two, Kari’s finger tight on the trigger-

“Kari!”

Nina stood in the door to the hold, Chase’s Wildey held in both hands. Aimed at Kari.

“Drop it,” Nina said.

“Nina?” Kari looked at her in surprise, but didn’t move the gun away from Chase.

“Kari, put the gun down. Put it down!”

“Nina, there’s still time for you to change your mind.” Kari’s tone became almost pleading. “You can still come with me!”

Nina set her jaw. “I’m not going to let you kill Eddie.”

“I can’t let him threaten the plan.” Kari looked back down at Chase. Eyes narrowed in pain, he clutched his wounded leg, unable to respond. He turned his head towards Nina, willing her to shoot. Only amateurs talk, he wanted to tell her, but the words refused to emerge.

“The plan’s insane!” Nina snapped. “Your father’s insane!”

Kari’s face twisted with a flash of anger. “Don’t say that!”

“You know he is, Kari! You know what he’s doing is wrong! For God’s sake, you’ve been working for years to save lives all over the world! Think of all the people you’ve helped! Doesn’t any of that mean anything to you?”

“I have to do it,” said Kari, though her expression was conflicted. “I can’t disobey my father.”

“You already did!” Nina reminded her. “When you wouldn’t let him kill me! And I saw you in here just now: you could have killed Eddie, but you didn’t. Because you care about him too! He saved your life!”

“But he’s not one of us…”

“Kari, there’s no ‘us’ and ‘them,’” insisted Nina. “We’re all still people, human beings. So the world’s got some problems-big deal, it always has!”

Kari looked back at her, uncertain. “But we can solve them…”

“By killing billions of people? That’s your idea of solving problems?” Still keeping the heavy gun pointed at Kari, Nina stepped closer. “Kari, I know you. You’re not Hitler, or Stalin or anybody like that. And you can stop your father from becoming one of them. Just put the gun down.”

Kari’s gun didn’t move. “I… I can’t.”

“I won’t let you kill him. Or anyone else.”

Now the gun moved, Kari aiming it at Nina. “I don’t want to kill you,” said Kari. “Please don’t make me.”

“Nina, shoot her,” Chase managed to groan.

“I don’t want to kill you either, but I will if I have to,” Nina said. The huge gun wavered in her shaking hands.

“I’ll count to three, Nina. Please drop it.” Kari was almost pleading. “One…”

“Shoot her!” rasped Chase.

“Two…”

“Kari, put it down!”

“Three!”

Kari fired.

At such short range, it should have been impossible to miss, but she did, twisting her wrist at the last instant to fire wide. The bullet flew past Nina to smack harmlessly into the rear wall of the cabin.

Nina instinctively flinched.

And fired.

The Wildey kicked in her hands with such force that the recoil almost tore the weapon from her grip.

Kari slammed against the door. A bright rose of blood burst over the metal behind her as the.45-caliber bullet tore through her body. She slid down the door and slumped onto the deck next to Chase.

Nina stared at her in horror. The Wildey dropped to the floor. “Oh my God…” she breathed, unable to accept what she’d just done.

“Nina…” whispered Kari, a tear trickling down one cheek. Then her eyes closed.

“Oh my God!” Nina repeated. “I didn’t mean to…”

“She just tried to kill us,” Chase growled, clutching his injured leg again and trying to sit up. “Come on, I need your help.” After a moment of hesitation, unable to take her eyes off Kari, Nina raised him into a sitting position. “Thanks.”

She examined his leg, seeing his trousers were soaked with blood. “Jesus! We’ve got to find some bandages-”

“No time. Get me to the cockpit, I’ve got to switch off the autopilot.”

Nina hauled him upright. A groan escaped Chase’s lips as new pain shot through his leg. “And then what?” she demanded.

“We’ve got to stop the virus from being released, then contact the authorities, warn them what Frost’s doing.”

“But what about the virus at the biolab?” she asked as she helped him limp towards the cockpit. “By the time you convince anyone that he’s trying to kill billions of people, he could already have another plane in the air!”

Chase paused midstep. “The biolab…”

“What about it?”

“I blew up the buildings, but the containment area’s still intact. We’ve got to destroy it.”

“How?” Chase looked away from her, at the aircraft around them. “Oh no…” She remembered the horrors of 9/11 all too vividly. Ground Zero was less than two miles from her apartment.

“Five hundred tons of plane and a full load of jet fuel’ll blow that place right open and incinerate everything inside,” Chase said grimly.

“But we’ll die! Except if-Are there any parachutes aboard?”

He shook his head. “There’s no way off. Unless…” His expression changed, and he twisted around to look behind him. “Forget the cockpit-help me into the hold, quick!”

Frost stood at his office window, surveying the still-smoking ruins of the biolab below. Beyond it lay the fjord, and the broken stubs of the bridge. Chase and his companions had caused a massive amount of damage to his property. He had already had calls from the local authorities demanding to know what was going on.

But none of that mattered. The containment area was intact, and despite somehow managing to board the A380 as it took off, Chase had failed to destroy it.

“Sir, the control tower just informed us that the plane is on its way back to Ravnsfjord on automatic,” said a man through his speakerphone.

“Any word from my daughter?”

“Not yet. Sir, air traffic control wants to know what’s going on.”

“Just tell them there’s been a minor malfunction and the Airbus is returning as a precaution.” Frost looked across the fjord at the airport. “When will it land?”

“About six minutes.”

“Keep me informed.” He closed the line, gazing into the distance for the first sign of the massive freighter. The lack of communication was a concern, as was the aircraft’s use of its emergency automatic systems-but the fact that the A380 was returning home told him his people were still in control. Chase would have tried to fly it elsewhere and alert the Norwegian authorities.

Once it landed, the situation could be contained.

The plan was still viable.

“These three, undo all the straps holding them down,” Chase ordered, pointing at the rearmost containers on the port side of the main hold.

“But then they’ll come loose when the plane moves,” said Nina, confused.

“They’ll do more than that. Go on, quick.” As Nina pulled the release levers on the securing straps, Chase limped to the controls for the cargo door.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m going to blow the door.”

Nina froze. “You’re gonna do what?”

“We need to get these containers out of the way. See that bike?”

Nina looked back at the motorbike on its pallet. “Yes?” It suddenly struck her what Chase was thinking. “No! No way, you’re insane!”

“It’s the only way off! If we just jump out, we’ll still be doing over a hundred miles an hour-there’s no way we’d survive the impact!”

“As opposed to what’ll happen if we ride a motorbike out of the back of a flying plane?”

“So it’s not a perfect plan! But it’s better than being shot when we land!”

“I think the blood you’ve lost came straight from your brain,” Nina complained unhappily, but she continued to release the containers from the lugs in the deck.

Chase read the warning sign. “Okay,” he yelled when Nina had unfastened the last strap, “get back to the bike and hold tight!” She hurried up the hold as Chase let go of his injured leg to grip a fuselage spar with one hand. With the other, he turned the first of the two red-painted levers that fired the explosive bolts.

Then the second…

The cracks as the bolts detonated, severing the heavy hinges of the cargo door, were nothing compared to the ferocious roar of wind and engine noise as the door blew out. A hurricane-force gale screamed into the hold. The A380 was descending, so the aircraft didn’t depressurize, but it was still traveling at over three hundred knots.

The plane lurched. The computers were already trying to counteract the unexpected movement, but the first container shifted, moving backwards over the rollers set into the deck with a banshee shriek of metal against metal. It crashed against the container holding the virus, then plunged through the gaping hatch to be whipped away by the slipstream.

Chase watched it fall. They were still over the sea, but it would only be a few minutes before they made landfall.

The A380 swayed again as the autopilot compensated for the shift in its balance caused by the loss of the container. Another metal crate screeched over the rollers, slewing sideways-coming right for him!

He had nowhere to go, no way to dodge the container-

He let go of the spar and flung himself backwards. The blasting wind caught him, snatching him off his feet.

The rear frame of the cargo door bisected his vision like a knife blade. To its left was the narrow gap between the side of the virus container and the hold wall; to the right, open sky and certain death.

He hit the frame, pinned for a moment by the wind…

And was blown left.

He grabbed a strap and clung on as the loose container juddered over the rollers and fell through the door. The third container was right behind it like a train carriage, the A380’s sudden upwards lurch as it shed more weight sending it hurtling at him. It smashed into the container holding the virus and jolted to a stop less than an inch from Chase’s face. Then the wind hammering against its flat front flung it out of the hold into empty space.

The freezing gale hit him again. Eyes forced almost shut, he squinted up the hold. Nina clung to the container next to the bike. Through the door, he could see a dark line on the horizon ahead. The Norwegian coast.

Chase pulled himself around the mangled corner of the virus container. Each step on his wounded leg was like a spike being driven through his flesh. He continued forwards, using the straps on the starboard line of containers to drag himself towards Nina.

Once past the door, the wind lessened slightly. He reached Nina and the Suzuki, yelling over the roar, “Unfasten the bike and start it up!”

“What if there’s no gas in it?” she shouted back.

“Then we’re fucked! Get it ready-I’ve got to get back to the cockpit!”

“What for?”

“To switch off the autopilot!” Using the containers for support, Chase hobbled up the hold, emerging in the crew area. The bodies of the two guards had been thrown to the side of the cabin by the plane’s maneuvers, and Kari was now lying facedown at the foot of the stairs. He spotted his Wildey and tried to bend down to pick it up, but a fireball of pain in his leg deterred him. Get it on the way back, he decided.

He entered the cockpit and checked the autopilot display. As he’d thought, Kari had engaged all the plane’s automatic emergency systems. The A380 was following a course back to Ravnsfjord’s main runway, using signals from the ground to guide it in for a landing.

Even from several miles away, he could see the runway lights through the cockpit windows. The Airbus was still over the North Sea, but the coastline was only a few miles distant, the airport three miles inland. He checked the other controls. The plane was losing speed, the engines slowing as the computers brought it down in a shallow descent, trying to make the landing as simple as possible.

Chase looked back through the windows. There was the fjord, a dark indentation in the coastline. A line of black smoke marked the location of the biolab…

His target.

The central pillar of the windscreen acted as his guide to the A380’s course. Right now it was aimed directly at the runway lights. He had to bring the plane around a few degrees to the right…

He checked the altimeter. Eight thousand feet and descending. He needed to be lower. A lot lower.

Leaning painfully over the dead pilot, Chase took hold of the joystick with one hand as he deactivated the autopilot with the other.

A warning buzzer shrilled, but he ignored it. Instead, he gently tipped the stick to the right, banking the plane. Slowly the runway lights drifted to the left of the pillar. He held the stick in position until the column of smoke was dead ahead, then pushed it upright. The A380 swayed queasily before leveling.

So far, so good. Now for the tricky part…

He pushed the stick forward. The nose dipped, the altimeter’s countdown suddenly accelerating. He would have to judge everything entirely by eye: too high and the A380 would fly right over his target; too low and it would plow into the rocky side of the fjord…

The plane dropped below four thousand feet. The coastline loomed ahead. They were running out of time.

He pushed the stick farther forward, steepening the descent. Another alert sounded. “I know, I know,” he snarled at the instrument panel. Three thousand feet. He checked the airspeed indicator. Just under a hundred knots.

Too fast, but there was nothing he could do about that now. If he slowed the plane too much, it might stall.

Two thousand feet. The coastline was coming up fast. The plane was still aimed right at the smoking ruins of the biolab. He reached over to the autopilot panel and hammered repeatedly at the “cancel” button, praying he was wiping all the commands Kari had entered. If the plane tried to follow its previous programming and make an emergency landing at Ravnsfjord, it was all over.

One thousand feet. A honking klaxon filled the cockpit, the synthetic female voice speaking beneath it. “Warning. Ground proximity alert. Warning. Ground proximity-”

“I know!” Six hundred feet, five hundred…

He leveled off. The artificial horizon tipped sluggishly back to the central position. Four hundred, 370…

Three-fifty. Level. The terrain on the southern side of the fjord was roughly three hundred feet above sea level. He looked ahead. If the A380 held its course and altitude, it would pass right over the fjord and fly just above the remains of the biolab to plow into the mountainside behind it.

If he’d guessed the correct altitude. If not…

He activated the autopilot, hand hovering over the control stick in case the computers tried to ascend or turn back towards the runway. They didn’t. All other instructions deleted, the autopilot held the Airbus on a steady course and speed.

He turned and clamped one hand around his leg, ignoring the pain. He could already feel the telltale sensation of blood loss swirling at the fringes of his consciousness, dizzying weakness circling him like a pack of jackals, waiting to strike. There wasn’t much time. Limping, he traversed the stairs from the cockpit into the crew area-

And stopped in horror.

Kari was gone!

A spattered trail of blood led to the door of the hold.

Painfully he snatched up his gun and staggered to the door. “Nina!”

The Suzuki was freed of its restraints, supported by its stand. The keys were in a plastic bag taped to the fuel tank; Nina ripped it open and took them out, the documents with them immediately scattered by the blasting wind.

Her experience with motorbikes was limited, but she managed to get the Suzuki running with little trouble. The fuel gauge was flat against “empty,” however, all but the last dregs having been drained for transport. She looked around to see if Chase had finished in the cockpit-

And saw Kari leaping at her!

She tackled Nina from the bike. Both women landed heavily. Nina tried to push Kari off her-only to have Kari’s elbow smash into the side of her head. Stunned, she looked up.

Kari’s hands clamped around her throat. The Norwegian’s face was twisted with pain and fury, framed by a windblown mane of blond hair. “Bitch!” she shrieked, teeth speckled with blood. “I gave you everything, and you betrayed me!”

Nina couldn’t breathe. She pulled at Kari’s hands, but they were like steel, unmovable. Her fingers tightened, thumbs pressing deep into Nina’s windpipe. Blackness swirled in, a hissing noise rising in Nina’s ears that overpowered even the thunder of the wind.

Farther up the hold, Chase saw Kari on top of Nina, strangling her, but the two women were too close together for him to risk a shot-

Unconsciousness loomed, death close behind it. All Nina could see now was Kari’s enraged face above her. She made a last feeble attempt to pull her hands from her neck…

Her fingers brushed against something cold and hard.

Something sharp.

Her pendant-

With the last of her strength, she gripped the piece of orichalcum and slashed it across the inside of Kari’s right wrist.

Kari shrieked. She jerked back, blood spurting from the cut as she released Nina, and looked down in disbelieving shock-

Nina punched her in the face. Kari fell backwards, rolling off Nina to slump dazed on the deck.

“Nice punch!” Chase shouted as he staggered to Nina.

“Thought I’d try things your way,” she gasped.

“Get on the bike!” Through the cargo door, he saw the coastline receding into the distance behind them. The plane was now less than two miles from the biolab, and the A380 would cover that distance in under a minute.

He straddled the Suzuki, gasping in pain from his wound. Nina clambered on behind him. The insanity of what they were about to do hit home. There was almost no chance of survival…

But even a tiny chance was better than none. She wrapped her arms around him. “Go!”

Kari sat up, saw what they were about to do.

Chase twisted the throttle. The rear wheel whirled, the noise of the high-performance engine becoming a buzzing screech as the bike shot from the pallet and raced down the hold towards the open door.

Kari grabbed at Nina, but it was too late.

By the time the Suzuki reached the cargo door, it was already doing seventy miles per hour, and still accelerating.

Chase turned the handlebars, and the bike flew out into open space.

Riding out from the back of the plane had canceled out some of their forward airspeed-but not enough. And they were over solid ground, falling fast!

He’d mistimed it, and now they were dead.

“Close your eyes!” he yelled, as the clifftop on the northern side of Ravnsfjord shot past just beneath them.

They were falling into the fjord!

Chase looked down. Water rushed towards them at terrifying speed-

“Jump!”

Kari staggered back to the cockpit, blood running from her wounds. If she could reactivate the autopilot, the computers could still bring the A380 back to an emergency landing.

But as she entered, she realized she was too late.

Her home flashed past to the right. Coming up below were the ruins of the biolab, and directly ahead were the mountainside and the expansive windows of her father’s office-

She screamed.

Frost was paralyzed with shock by the sight of the airliner as it flew over the fjord, charging right at him. Now movement returned, the primal urge to flee overpowering all other thought, but there was nowhere to go, and no time…

Chase kicked with his good leg, throwing himself clear of the tumbling bike. Nina did the same. Together they plunged towards the water-

The Airbus plowed into the mountainside at over a hundred miles per hour.

Five hundred tons of metal and composites and jet fuel was more force than even the reinforced containment area could withstand. The four massive engines ripped free on impact, tearing through the walls of concrete and steel like bombs. Behind them, fuel ignited as the wings disintegrated. A wave of liquid fire swept through the complex and incinerated everything it touched.

The inferno reached every corner of the containment area. The lab in which the virus had been developed and stored was blown open, searing flames consuming everything within and finally ending the tortured life of Jonathan Philby. Then the mountain itself collapsed, reclaiming the space carved out of it and sealing the virus beneath millions of tons of rock forever.

Chase knew that falling onto it from a height, water becomes as hard as concrete.

Unless something breaks the surface first.

The heavy motorbike hit the water, kicking up a huge plume of spray. A fraction of a second later, he and Nina plunged in after it.

Broken surface or not, it felt like he’d just thrown himself from a building. Agony speared through him as his wounded leg buckled. And the water was cold, almost freezing.

More pain as he hit something else. Not water, something solid.

The bike-

It had landed on its side, water resistance slowing its descent. And now he’d smashed down right on top of it!

More pain, so intense that he almost blacked out.

Almost. Through his agony he just about managed to keep focus on his goal-staying alive. He was under the water. He had to swim, break the surface, breathe.

More pain from his injured leg, now completely useless-and his other leg was caught on the bike.

His clothes were snagged on part of the machinery. He kicked, trying to tear himself free. No good. He couldn’t get enough leverage. The bike was sinking, an anchor dragging him to the bottom of the fjord.

Panic rose despite his training. He thrashed frantically, ignoring the pain, but still couldn’t break loose.

He was going to drown!

After everything he’d been through, everything he’d survived, this was it-

Someone grabbed him.

Nina!

Chase felt her hands on his leg, tugging at the material of his jeans. It ripped. The bike plunged into the cold darkness below as Nina swam with all her strength, hauling him upwards.

He breached the surface and drew in a long, anguished breath of cold air. “Oh God!” he gasped. “I thought I was dead there!”

“Just returning a favor,” said Nina. She supported him from beneath as she swam for the nearest bank of the fjord. “Jesus, I can’t believe we made it!”

“Are you okay?”

“I hurt like hell all over, but I don’t think I’ve broken anything. What happened to the plane?”

Chase tried to raise a hand to point, but was too weak. Instead, he tipped his head down the fjord to the east. A thick, oily column of black smoke roiled into the sky. “Hard landing.”

“The virus?”

“Fried. Along with everything else.”

Nina looked sadly at the dark cloud. “Kari…”

They reached the rocky shore, Nina dragging Chase from the water. “Oh my God,” she exclaimed when she saw his leg. She pressed her hand against the wound, trying to stop the bleeding. “We’ve got to get you to a doctor.”

“Right,” said Chase, through gritted teeth. “There’s a clinic at the top of this cliff, in the company headquarters. Too bad it belongs to the bloke we just blew up. I don’t think they’ll be happy to see us-”

Almost as if in reply, a rock beside Chase suddenly shattered. The crack of a rifle shot echoed around the fjord.

“No kidding!” Nina yelped. She looked for the shooter. On the opposite bank, she saw several men silhouetted against the sky, pointing down at them.

Another bullet smacked into the ground close by, chipped fragments of rock spitting into their faces. “Get into cover!” Chase ordered.

“I’m not leaving you!” Nina protested. She bent down to drag him with her.

“Nina, don’t!”

“I’m not leaving you!” she repeated, holding him under his arms and pulling him over the rocks.

Something shot past her, whipping up her hair. Another stone burst apart right behind her. “They’ve got us,” Chase groaned. They looked up at the figures on the cliff top, catching a glint of light reflected from a telescopic sight.

Nina crouched, squeezing Chase more tightly and pressing her cheek against his face. “Eddie…”

Gunfire-but not from the rifles across the fjord.

Machine-gun fire, somewhere above. Dust and dirt kicked up from the top of the far cliff. One of the men fell over the edge, screaming all the way down until he smacked sickeningly onto a rocky outcrop.

“What the fuck?” Chase said in wonder.

The answer came a second later as three helicopters in the colors of the Norwegian army swept over the top of the cliff, gunners visible in their cabins. Two of the choppers continued across the fjord, moving to circle the gunmen, while the third dropped towards the water, turning to face Nina and Chase.

“Where did they come from?” Nina gasped.

“Somebody must have called the fire brigade. The Norwegians probably wanted to know why so much of Kristian Frost’s property was getting blown to buggery.” A voice boomed from a loudspeaker aboard the helicopter. “You speak Norwegian?” Chase asked.

“Not a word.”

“Me neither.” Chase painfully raised his hands as high as he could. “You’d better put your hands up too. You don’t want to have gone through all this only to get shot by some trigger-happy Norseman.”

“Not really.” She lifted one hand, keeping the other in place to support him. Her cheek was still against his. “Oh, and Eddie?”

“What?”

She kissed him. “Thank you for saving my life. Again.”

He returned the kiss. “Thank you for saving mine. Even if…” he grinned his gap-toothed grin, “we’re not exactly level in the whole lifesaving stakes.”

Nina smiled. “Tchah. That’s bloody gratitude for you.”

They kissed again as the helicopter moved into a hover, men rappelling down.