Retribution

FIFTY-FOUR

Harry turned to Captain Rekker, who was busy on his radio, his face taut with frustration at the disaster which had overtaken his team.

‘We need another helo,’ Harry shouted above the noise. ‘We have to follow him.’

Rekker nodded and held up two fingers. ‘Coming in now. . a Black Hawk. The Super Cougar’s being tracked by ground navigation.’ The Dutchman walked away, his jaw clenched, and Harry let him go. There was little he could say to assuage his feelings, and he guessed the captain was now facing the prospect of a foreshortened military career.

The Super Cougar was already a dot on the grey afternoon horizon by the time another engine noise heralded the approach of a second helicopter. They turned to see a Sikorsky Black Hawk thudding down towards them, a crew member leaning out of the door to assist the pursuers’ entry.

The Black Hawk was slower than the Super Cougar, but not by much. They were already far behind and the weather was closing in. Harry knew there was every possibility Kassim might complete his murderous mission by simply throwing Kleeman out of the door, then forcing the pilot to ditch somewhere in the hills where he would be impossible to find.

But why hadn’t he already done that?

They leapt aboard and fastened themselves in. Apart from Harry, Rik and Captain Rekker, there were two other members of the CP team and an army paramedic. Two journalists trying to get on the flight were dumped unceremoniously out of the door.

The Black Hawk rose in the air like an express lift and heeled over to follow the distant Super Cougar, throwing the passengers about in their seats. The pilot had been briefed on what was expected of him and was responding with relish.

The centre of Pristina rushed by through the open door. Within minutes they were out over open countryside, dotted with houses and farm buildings and lots of empty space in between.

‘He’s heading north towards the hills.’ It was Rekker, holding an intercom earpiece, from which he could hear the exchange of conversation between the pilot and the ground-control operator following the flight of the other craft. ‘Where the hell’s he going? There’s nothing up there but open country.’

Harry shook his head. He doubted Kassim himself knew which way to go, only that he had a mission to complete. Even sitting on his tail rotor, there would be precious little they could do to stop him without putting the lives of Kleeman and the crew at risk.

North? Harry pulled a map out of a bracket by the door and found Pristina. He stabbed his finger on it so Rekker and the others could see. North of here was Mitrovica.

Kassim was taking Kleeman back to the compound.

It meant he had no walk-out plan; this was the end of the line for both of them.

The Black Hawk began to buck around as it hit wind turbulence coming off the hills and funnelling down the jagged valleys. The CP team members looked unconcerned, accustomed to such uncomfortable transport and bleak conditions, intent only, as Harry knew they would be, on retrieving their man.

‘We’re catching up!’ Rekker shouted, and pointed through the open door as the Black Hawk swung round a tree-covered hill. Ahead of them, about two miles away, the Super Cougar was dropping down into a valley with a river running along the bottom, a sliver of white against the grey-green landscape. Slopes rose sharply on either side, seeming to close in deliberately on the two aircraft, the engine noise hammering back at them.

‘He’s losing speed deliberately,’ Rekker commented. ‘Bleeding off gradually so Kassim doesn’t notice.’

Harry was impressed by the pilot’s courage. If he did it carefully enough, there should be insufficient change in engine noise to alert their captor. As long as Kassim didn’t think to take a look at the air speed indicator.

They followed the craft down, skimming in low over the river. Below them, white water foamed over gleaming rocks and coursed swiftly down a series of rugged falls, fed by incessant rain high in the hills. It was a cold and brutal scene, but possessed a coarse, natural beauty at odds with the wretched villages and towns nearby.

‘He’s going in!’ the crew chief shouted. The Super Cougar had dropped abruptly as if a string holding it aloft had been cut. It seemed about to hit the trees. Something must have happened on board. The machine’s rear rotor seemed to brush over the top of a giant pine tree as it crested a ridge, and there was a collective intake of breath. Then, at the last moment it dipped, and the rotor exploded with a flash and a puff of smoke.

Inside the lead helicopter, Kleeman and the loadmaster were huddled together under Kassim’s gun, desperately hanging on as the pilot tried to regain control of his craft. A trickle of blood was running down from inside his flying helmet, after Kassim had noticed the decrease in speed and fired a shot close to his head. He’d intended it as a warning, but the movement in the helicopter’s flight had thrown his aim off, the bullet ripping through his helmet and grazing his skull.

Kassim locked his arm through a section of cargo webbing and stared through the open door at the wildly undulating picture below. In the distance he caught fleeting glimpses of the following Black Hawk, which had gradually drawn closer.

The floor dipped as they rounded a tree-lined slope, and Kassim felt his stomach heave. Abused by bad food, irregular sleep and severe stress, he was now in a death-ride across the Kosovan countryside. Yet he felt almost serene.

He had done what he set out to do, and reached the man who was responsible for the murder and violation of Aisha, his beloved sister. Now that man would pay for his crime. He spat out a mouthful of acid burning his throat and stared at Kleeman, who had not taken his eyes off him since leaving Pristina. The Special Envoy was looking deathly pale, but beyond an initial protest, had said nothing. Kassim had seen in his silence a confirmation that the man knew who he was. And why he was here.

He stared out at the blurred scenery below, the hills and valleys, the houses and farms and rolling woodlands, and considered the wider reasons he had been chosen to do this: to bring shame and disgrace on the organization that employed this man, which would be a giant fist against the Americans and their Coalition partners. He had been eager to be useful in the struggle, even if not in his own country, which was spinning by below. Now he was home, he realized that all of that seemed to matter very little. All the teaching, the training, the mantras about killing Americans, the special lessons in the way of the west, the constant drip-feed of hate, which he knew had been carefully tailored to influence him in his moments of doubt; just as the teachings of the Koran were used to wipe away doubts in those chosen to give their lives along the back streets and patrol routes used by the hated invaders. That all now seemed unreal — a vague and misty dream. In the minds of the ones who had schooled him and brought him this far, it had been their plan, their dream.

Now it was all his.

‘Brace!’ the pilot screamed as the machine’s tail dipped. There was a loud bang and the helicopter was wrenched violently to one side, as if swiped by a giant hand. Electronic alert signals began sounding and lights flashing, and he heard someone scream. He hoped it wasn’t him.

So be it, thought Kassim, and raised his gun. And as the great machine tilted sideways and hung for a moment above the trees, defying gravity, he looked across at Kleeman and murmured a brief prayer for Aisha recalled from his childhood in the valleys below.

He pulled the trigger.