Land of the Gods

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

“Silence, traitor!”

“I said let her go!”

Stefanus and Boaz watched their boss for his response. Above them all, a giant plasma screen now played live footage of an anti-terror team arriving at the airport. The ticker racing along the bottom the screen read: ONE CHILD TAKEN HOSTAGE AT AIRPORT TERROR ATTACK.

“You will die for this treachery, Kolya…”

Flanked by Stefanus and Boaz, Benedict now made his bid for escape. He walked backwards, still gripping the frightened, sobbing child. The gun pushed into her young temple. Everyone felt the same mix of abject disgust and fear. Push this man too far and he might just do it, they all thought.

There was no might in Nikolai’s mind. He knew Benedict better than anyone and he knew not only would he do it but the act would be committed with zero guilt or conscience. He would simply perform his rituals before sleep tonight and then the murderous matter would be settled in his mind forever.

He also knew he would almost certainly kill the child as soon as he no longer had a use for her but that use would involve taking her on board the aircraft as insurance. No fighter jet would shoot them down while they had her on board. He guessed that when the cultists were safely at their destination, they would kill her and dump her body.

He had to act now. If they got her onto the plane she was a dead girl walking.

“I’m going after her, Hawke.”

“We all are,” Hawke said.

“Form an orderly line, gents,” said Lea.

Guns now drawn, they followed the acolytes outside. The sun was higher now, but still low on the horizon. A 777 roared in from the east, probably Los Angeles International, and screeched down on the asphalt. Puffs of white smoke burst up from the undercarriage and the reverse thrusters growled in the dawn.

To their left, the three cultists and the sobbing child were almost at the private plane.

As expected, Benedict was dragging the girl up the airstair. He pushed her roughly inside the plane as Stefanus and Boaz darted in behind them and closed the door. The engines were already spooling and the plane turned to the taxiway.

“If we try and stop the plane, they’ll kill her,” Nikolai said. “I just know it.”

“And they have the goddam ring too,” said Lea.

“Call off your attack or we kill the girl!”

Reaper’s gun was raised. “I’ve got the shot, Hawke.”

“No! She’s too close.”

“What then?”

Hawke glanced over his shoulder at the FedEx car park. “I’m going after the girl.”

He made an instant calculation that he could make it, and burst into a full-speed sprint in the direction of the FedEx building.

“Are you crazy?” Nikolai said.

“You be the judge,” Lea said. “Watch.”

Hawke’s boots pounded on the tarmac as he drew closer to FedEx building and straddled the motorcycle. Turning the key, he revved the machine before steering it in a tight arc and heading out of the car park.

He twisted the throttle and quickly shifted up to full speed, fast approaching nearly one hundred miles per hour. Looking ahead he saw the Gulfstream. The sleek white aircraft was turning from the final taxiway to the runway now, the early sun glinting on the metal of its smooth rounded hull.

The engines spooled up and created a mirage behind the aircraft as the heat from the twin turbofans blasted out into the atmosphere. The pilot increased power again, building thrust ready for the take off, and the jet responded instantly, speeding even faster along the runway.

Hawke knew his only hope was to cut across the large grass area in between the two runways and meet it before it gained too much speed. Turning the bike, he scrambled across the dusty grass.

Looks like you’re going to make it, but what are you going to do when you get there, idiot?

More power to the aircraft as he pulled alongside it, just keeping up as it raced along the runway. He steered closer to the wing, so near now he could see the shocked faces of the Athanatoi on board the plane.

No time for niceties, he said, forgoing a cheery wave, and leaped from the bike onto the aircraft’s port wing.

Harder than he thought.

The speed of the jet was faster now, and the air resistance immediately knocked him backwards and blew him down to the trailing edge of the wing where his boots crunched down into the slit created by the extended flaps.

Behind him at the rear of the jet, the engines roared like hell itself but there was no going back now. Falling off an aircraft going at this speed and hitting solid asphalt would mean death, and if not death then a year in traction.

No thanks.

Gripping onto the leading edge of the wing, he watched the end of the runway as it rapidly approached. No more than twenty seconds before this thing was at V1 and lifting off into the great blue yonder.

Maybe this was a mistake?

No time for regrets. He pulled himself along the short wing and reached the fuselage just beside the external door release. With one hand gripping onto the leading edge of the wing, he reached his other hand out to the door release and pulled it down like a fruit machine lever with all his might.

Snapping his hand back to his body, he grabbed for his gun as the door rolled back into the jet’s fuselage. He fired on the men who had raced to the door to shoot him.

He struck one in the chest and blasted him back inside the cabin just as the plane hit V2 and the pilot started to rotate the aircraft ready for the climb. The nose pitched up and knocked him off his balance. As he tumbled to the trailing edge of the wing, he threw his hands out and grabbed onto a hydraulics line in the gap between the main body of the wing and the flaps.

Another cultist appeared in the door but knew better than to fire a gun at a wing full of kerosene. The Englishman clung on nervously as the aircraft roared into the sky, the twenty degree pitch flinging his legs off the back of the wing from which he now dangled like a dying man.

A loud whine of hydraulics and the flaps started to retract. Hawke knew they would crush his hands if he didn’t get out and back onto the wing in time, and managed to pull his right leg up and use the moving flap as purchase to push himself up out of the cavity and back onto the wing.

The wind whipped at his hair as he crawled closer to the door, which was now closing again. Hawke fired on the man and killed him, just managing to reach the external lever and open the door a second time before the plane banked to the left.

Grabbing the seal running around the door he pulled himself inside just before the plane banked hard to the left. No time to think about how he would have tumbled to his death during the turn had he not been inside the jet, he raised his gun and fired on another man who was running toward the girl.

He took him out before he reached her, leaving him and the terrified child alone in the cabin. He closed the door and ran to her. “Listen, I’m here to save you.” As he spoke, he lifted her into one of the luxury white leather seats and buckled her in. “You’re going to be okay. I can fly this thing, but I just need a word with the pilot first, all right?”

She nodded but said nothing. She was frightened out of her wits, but he knew what he had to do.

Padding up the cabin, he slid a round into the chamber and fired on the cockpit door’s lock five times before blasting it to pieces. Booting the door open he slammed his body against the side of the cabin just before bullets raked up the jet’s ceiling.

“Okay,” he muttered. “So that’s how you feel.”

He spun around and emptied his magazine into the two pilots, instantly killing both men who now slumped forward in their harnesses.

He stuffed his gun into his holster and released the pilot from his harness. Dragging him out of the way, he jumped down into the seat and checked the gauges. None damaged thanks to his accurate shooting, and he quickly gained control of the aircraft and radioed into the airport to tell them he was bringing it back in.

“How’s the girl?” the woman on the ATC said.

Twisting his head, he craned his neck around and saw the kid still buckled into the seat back in the main cabin. “In shock, but safe.”

“Understood. You have first priority on Runway 8.”

He reduced power and levelled the aircraft, turning to port as he prepared to make the landing. “First priority on Runway 8, over.”

The Ring of Akhenaten was theirs, and he had saved the child’s life.