Ghost Flight

83

For a third time the Black Hawk’s GAU-19 spat fire.

A vicious burst tore into the Airlander’s rear port propulsor. Jaeger and Narov were back in the cockpit by now, and they felt the Ju 390 give a sickening jolt to the left as a second set of rotors was put out of action.

For a few frantic seconds the giant airship fought to right herself, the two surviving propulsors set at opposite ends and sides of the craft struggling to even out the impossible load. But when the Airlander finally reached some kind of new equilibrium, it was clear that she no longer had the grunt to manage the weight she was carrying.

Almost instantly, the airship’s speed started dropping dramatically, deprived as she was of half her forward propulsion. Added to that, she was losing altitude. With the Ju 390 slung beneath her, she was slipping towards disaster.

The Black Hawk shifted position, dropping behind and moving out of sight of those in the Ju 390’s cockpit. Jaeger didn’t think for one moment that the commander had called off the attack: what the hell was he up to now?

A message pinged through on the Thuraya. BH moving around to your rear. Closing in towards your port wingtip. About to board your aircraft???

Jaeger stared at the message for an instant: the Black Hawk was doing what?

He glanced out of the port window.

Sure enough, the helicopter pilot was inching his aircraft’s side door towards the Ju 390’s port wingtip. Jaeger could see a dozen heavily armed operators clustered at the doorway, clad in black NBC suits and respirators.

He felt Narov appear beside him. ‘Just let them try!’ she snarled, as she caught sight of the black-clad figures.

A split second later, she’d grabbed her Dragunov sniper rifle, ready to nail anyone who tried to board the Ju 390.

‘Don’t!’ Jaeger forced the barrel of her weapon down. ‘Right now, they don’t have a clue where we are. You open fire, they’ll mallet the cockpit. They’ll chew us to pieces.’

‘Then let me take out the Black Hawk’s pilot!’ Narov protested. ‘At least that!’

‘You take out the pilot, the co-pilot takes control, and they still mallet us with fire. Plus Santos – she’s aboard that aircraft.’

‘Sometimes you have to take a life to save a life,’ Narov responded coldly. ‘Or as in this case, you take a life to save many lives.’

‘No!’ Jaeger shook his head violently. ‘No! There has to be a better way.’

He cast his eyes around the warplane’s cockpit in desperation. They came to rest upon a heap of dusty bundles stowed below the navigator’s seat. Each was labeled Fallschirm. While he didn’t understand the German, he figured he knew what they had to be. He reached across and grabbed one.

Do the unexpected.

He waved it at Narov. ‘Parachute, right?’

‘Parachute,’ Narov confirmed. ‘But… ?’

Jaeger glanced out of the window. The Ju 390’s speed had dropped dramatically, and he saw the first black-clad figure leap from the Black Hawk’s open doorway and spring on to the plane’s giant wingtip, landing in a crouch. Moments later, a second figure joined him, and they started moving along in a steady crouching shuffle.

Jaeger thrust the parachute bundle into Narov’s arms and threw a second at Dale, grabbing a third for himself.

‘Get ’em on,’ he yelled. ‘And let’s hope that like most things German they’re bloody built to last!’

As they struggled into the parachute rigs, a message pinged in on the Thuraya. Enemy gathered at your fuselage. Setting explosive charges.

The black-clad operators were poised to blast a hole through the Ju 390’s central fuselage to gain entry to the hold.

Jaeger messaged back: When all bad guys are aboard, cut us loose. Let us fall. And Raff, don’t bloody argue. I know what I’m doing.

A message bleeped back. Affirmative. See you in Paradise.

Thank God Jaeger had Raff aboard the Airlander. No one else would have complied with such an order so unquestioningly. That was the unique bond the two men shared, one forged over many years at the extreme end of soldiering.

From the rear of the warplane Jaeger detected a muffled explosion. The Ju 390 shuddered for an instant, as the cutting charge blasted a man-sized hole in her skin. In his mind’s eye he could see the black-clad operators piling into the dark, smoke-filled hold, their weapons at the ready.

It would take them several seconds to orientate themselves, and to search the aircraft’s rear for Jaeger and his fellows. That done, they’d advance towards the bulkhead and set a second set of charges. The bulkhead door, once locked, could only be opened from the inside – the cockpit side – so they’d have to blast a way through that too.

But even so, Jaeger, Narov and Dale had only a matter of seconds remaining to them.

‘Okay, here’s the plan,’ Jaeger yelled. ‘Any moment now, the Airlander’s cutting us free. Like any fine aircraft released with a little forward momentum, she’ll pick up speed as she falls, then start to glide. As soon as we’re cut loose, we hurl out the rest of those,’ he jabbed a hand at the remaining parachutes, ‘and then we jump.

‘Do not pull your chute until you’re well into the clouds,’ he continued, ‘or the Black Hawk will be able to follow. Try to stick together and link up in the fall. Order of jump: Dale, Narov, myself. Ready?’

Narov nodded. There was a glow of battle lust and adrenalin burning in her eyes.

As for Dale, he looked as white as a sheet, and as if he were about to vomit his guts up for a second time. But still he gave a half-hearted thumbs-up. Jaeger was amazed at the guy: he’d been through enough to faze the most battle-hardened of soldiers, and yet he’d stood the test pretty damn well.

‘Don’t forget your camera, or at least the memory cards,’ Jaeger yelled at him. ‘Whatever happens now, we’re not losing the film!’

He pulled out the remaining parachutes and stacked them by the cockpit’s side, then threw open both windows so they had maximum room to make their exits.

He turned to Narov. ‘Don’t forget your documents, whatever they are. Get that satchel strapped on tight, and don’t let it out of your…’

He was forced to swallow the rest of his words as the Ju 390 gave a sudden sickening lurch and plunged into the fall. The Airlander had released her, and for a few horrible seconds the Ju 390 seemed to shoot vertically downwards plummeting like a stone, before her wings caught the air and the drop bottomed out into a steep but breathtaking glide.

‘Go! Go! Go!’ Jaeger yelled, as he started stuffing the parachutes out of the window.

One after another he hurled the spare Fallschirms into the howling void.

Dale reached for the window, thrust the top half of his body through, and then promptly froze. The slipstream was tearing at his torso, but his feet seemed glued to the aircraft’s metal floor.

Unmoving.

Jaeger didn’t hesitate. He dropped his powerful shoulders, grabbed Dale’s legs, and lifted him with all his might, forcing him – screaming – into thin air.

He could hear voices yelling from the far side of the bulkhead now. The black-clad operators were preparing to blast their way through. Narov jumped on to the pilot’s chair, grabbed the cockpit roof, and swung her legs through the window.

She glanced back at him. ‘You are coming, yes?’

She must have read the indecision that flashed through Jaeger’s eyes. For an instant his mind was back on that dark mountain side as his wife and child were stolen away from him. He hadn’t done all he could – hell, he hadn’t done anything – to search the warplane for clues as to who had taken them, and why.

For an agonising second that voice from behind the gas mask – the voice that Jaeger had half recognised – seared through his mind: ‘Don’t ever forget – you failed to protect your wife and child. Wir sind die Zukunft!’

Jaeger felt riveted to the spot; unable to move.

Deep in his heart, he was desperate for answers.

And if he abandoned the warplane, he’d maybe lost them for ever.

‘Get to the window!’ Narov screamed. ‘NOW!’

Jaeger found himself staring down the barrel of a gun. Narov had whipped out a short-barrelled, compact Beretta pistol and had it levelled at his head.

‘I know all about it!’ she yelled. ‘They killed your grandfather. They came for you and your family. Something you did triggered them to do that. That’s how we’ll find the answers. But if you go down now, with this plane, they’ve won!’

Jaeger tried to force his limbs to move.

‘JUMP!’ Narov screamed at him, her finger bone-white on the trigger. ‘I AM NOT HAVING YOUR LIFE WASTED!’

Suddenly there was an ear-splitting roar from behind. The bulkhead blew, the cockpit filling with a blinding cloud of choking smoke. The force of the blast threw Jaeger against the side window, and it served to bring him to his senses. As he reached for the exit, Narov opened fire with the Beretta, pumping shots into the mass of black-clad figures that were surging through the opening.

Moments later, Jaeger hurled himself out, plunging into the thin and howling blue.