Nighthawk

61

Kurt ran forward and banged against the bomber’s cockpit door while Joe prevented the flight engineer from interfering. “Listen to me,” he shouted. “We’re not here to fight you. We’re all in danger.”

From its thickness and the small size of its circular peephole in the middle, Kurt could tell he was leaning against a pressure door. He hoped the men on the other side could hear him through it and over the sound of the engines.

“You are most certainly in danger,” a voice shouted back.

“I know what you think. You’ve won,” Kurt said. “You’ve got the Nighthawk and the mixed-state matter, but trust me, you’re getting more than you bargained for. It’s a sucker’s prize. A Trojan horse. The Falconer lied to you. He lied to all of us.”

The next words came over an intercom. “What do you know about the Falconer?”

Kurt turned, located the intercom and pressed the white button next to it. “That he’s a liar and a master manipulator. That he played you, us and the Chinese against one another.”

“Of course he is,” the voice replied nonchalantly. “That’s the business. In the end, he gave us what we wanted.”

“No, he gave you what he wanted,” Kurt replied. “Enough rope to hang yourself and a billion others. The Nighthawk is nothing more than a giant bomb now. A mixed-state matter bomb powerful enough to obliterate half of Europe and set the rest of it back to the Stone Age. It’s rigged to blow once you exceed a certain altitude and then descend back below it.”

“How would you know this?”

“He told me as he was dying.”

“A deathbed confession? Do you really expect me to believe that?”

“Not a confession,” Kurt said. “A boast. He said we couldn’t stop it. That what went up would never come down.”

Silence followed. Kurt glanced back at Joe and the flight engineer.

Joe shook his head softly. “We’re still not winning.”

Kurt turned back to the intercom. “Who am I speaking with?”

“My name is Constantin Davidov,” the voice replied. “I’m head of the Directorate for Technical Resources Acquisition.”

A spy, Kurt thought. A thief. “Listen to me, Comrade Davidov,” Kurt said. “If the Falconer wanted you to have the Nighthawk, why not just call you when he found out where it went down. He knew the location from day one.”

“Because he needed you to raise it for him,” Davidov replied.

“Why would he need that? Is raising a small aircraft from the bottom of a shallow lake beyond the capabilities of the Russian salvage fleet?”

“The difficulty came with the location,” Davidov replied. “Our ships are not equipped to scale mountains.”

“We did it with four people and one helicopter.”

“Congratulations,” Davidov replied. “That proves nothing.”

“He imprisoned your pilot and flight engineer. What possible reason could he have had for that?”

Silence.

Kurt turned to look at Joe. He had the flight engineer subdued and the man wasn’t fighting. If anything, he looked like he might be on their side.

“Tell him,” Kurt urged.

“It’s true,” the engineer shouted. “The Falconer lied about everything. Every step of the way.”

“I will not take advice from a hostage,” Davidov said.

“At least stop climbing while we talk,” Kurt urged.

“I’m sorry,” Davidov said, “but your reputation for perseverance and deception precedes you. Save your breath. There is nothing you can possibly say that will cause me to release the Nighthawk into your custody.”

“Looks like the reasoning portion of the evening has ended,” Joe said.

Kurt agreed. He reached into a pocket and brought out the brick of Semtex he’d taken from Urco’s cave. He held it up in front of the peephole for Davidov to see.

“You know what this is,” Kurt said. “Either you open that door or I’ll blow it off its hinges.”

“You’ll blow the plane apart.”

“That’s going to happen anyway.”

Inside the cockpit, Davidov stared at the explosives in the American’s hand. The fish-eye effect made it seem larger than it was, but the amount would be more than enough. There was only one alternative.

“Prepare for rapid decompression,” he said to Timonovski. “And then open the bomb bay doors.”

“They’ll be sucked out of the aircraft,” Major Timonovski said. “The engineer will go with them.”

“Yes,” Davidov replied. “That’s the idea.”

“What if the American is right?” the pilot said. “Falconer murdered my copilot, he did nothing when the Nighthawk was breaking Blackjack 1’s spine. Nothing.”

“Do as I order!” Davidov commanded.

Timonovski stared back at him and then shook his head.

“Then I’ll do it myself.” He stepped away from the pressure door and lunged for the bomb bay controls.