The Sanctuary

Chapter 69

Kirkwood ran through the silent, darkening forest, the ragged bursts of his breathing pumping deafeningly in his ears, the pain in his shoulder blazing with every heavy step, his eyes scouring the trees for any sign of the hakeem. The urgent, determined footfalls of Abu Barzan’s men chased after him.

His head was feeling cloudier, his eyes heavier, as the blood loss was starting to undermine the basic functions of his body. He clenched his jaw and drew deeper, plundering his last reserves of energy, allowing his anger and his revulsion to push him on.

At the very edge of his consciousness, he heard a slow whine, an engine coming to life. It grew louder and more frenzied with each step he took, the blades of a rotor cleaving the air with increased ferocity.

The realization summoned a desperate jolt of adrenaline that carried him farther down the slope. He pictured the chopper before he saw it, imagined the hakeem waving, leering down at him as it took off and ferried him to safety, and the thought propelled him even faster.

He couldn’t let him escape.

He couldn’t even let him live.

Through the confusing interplay of light and shadow of the poplars, he caught a glimpse of the hakeem climbing into the monstrous machine. He burst out of the cover of the trees, and the full ferocity of the rotor wash and the turbine’s ear-piercing scream hit him head-on as the chopper lifted off.

The chopper, a Mi-25, was facing him. It looked like a horrific mutant wasp, its fuselage disfigured by a rash of glass cockpit bubbles and gun turrets, two small wings sticking out of its side and laden with rocket launchers and other pods. Two pilots, sitting in tandem, were at their controls, facing him through the glass, urging the chopper into a quick ascent.

Kirkwood raised his gun and started firing.

Full auto.

One full magazine, then another.

Everything he had.

Each round found a searing echo in his shoulder, but he kept a firm grip on the machine gun, emptying its load mercilessly, showering the lumbering vulture rising before him with a torrent of bullets. He watched as they sparked off the chopper’s metal skin like darts bouncing off a tank, but he kept adjusting his aim, and a few of them managed to find the forward pilot’s bubble, the first of them drilling into it and splintering it, the next few evidently cutting into flesh and bone as a red puff gruesomely splattered the inside of the cracked windshield.

The huge chopper lurched to one side, its engine groaning into a sudden frenzy just as Abu Barzan’s men reached him and joined in. It titled at a severe angle as it sideslipped through the air, and its rotor clipped the edge of the grove of poplars. The massive blades hacked into the tips of the tall trees, and for a moment, the forest seemed like a giant web that had snared a prize catch. Kirkwood watched, grim-faced, his feet edging instinctively backwards, his mind fast-forwarding to the explosion that would consume the hillside and obliterate him, and he thought of Evelyn and of Mia as the Mil teetered precariously. It looked as if it were about to tilt sideways and plow into the trees, but just when it seemed terminal, the copilot seemed to regain control. The machine pitched back violently and rolled the other way, extricating its blades from the trap of the trees before rising into clear air.

It rotated as it rose, snubbing its attackers with its tail as it banked around before heading away from the mountain. Kirkwood watched it recede with a reeling horror, the rage and utter frustration flooding through him, then he heard something from behind, coming from higher up, from the village. It sounded like a loud snap, something he hadn’t heard before, and was quickly followed by a whooshing sound that sliced through the air above him. He looked up to see the thin contrail of a narrow, white tube that was streaking across the patchy sky, arcing its way towards the chopper, rushing forward and catching up to it. The contact triggered a small explosion that was almost immediately followed by a massive fireball, the blades of the big rotor detaching themselves and spinning off wildly in all directions, the hulking fuselage somersaulting over itself before plummeting to the ground and erupting in a gargantuan cloud of fire.

Evelyn and Mia raced down the hill and found Kirkwood resting against a tree. His face was beaded with sweat, his skin pale and sallow, his eyes barely able to stay open, but he perked up somewhat at their sight. Two other men were with them, one of them still clutching his SA-14 shoulder-held missile launcher. The men — Abu Barzan’s Kurdish friends, as Mia explained — whooped with delight and exchanged hearty backslapping hugs with their two buddies. In the distance, the black smoke still billowed upwards into the dying light.

Evelyn watched over Kirkwood as Mia quickly went to work on stemming the blood loss from his wound.

He didn’t know where to start.

“Evelyn,” he told her faintly, the last vestiges of strength abandoning him, “I never…” He broke off, the sheer weight of his regret catching in his breath.

She met his gaze straight on. “Later,” she told him.

He nodded gratefully, but there was one thing he couldn’t wait for. He glanced at Mia, who read through his look. He turned to Evelyn.

“Is she…?” he asked, knowing, hoping for the answer, but his breath caught nevertheless.

“Yes.” Evelyn nodded. “She’s yours.”

“So what do we call you?” Mia asked. “Bill? Tom? Something else maybe?”

“It’s Tom,” he confessed with a contrite half-smile, turning to Evelyn. “Tom Webster.”

A confused rush of conflicting emotions swamped him, a heady cocktail of guilt and euphoria. He couldn’t help beaming at the sight of his daughter, up here, with him, with her mother, having somehow managed to get there and save them, and now patching him up. He suddenly felt very old, but for the first time in his life, he took pleasure in it.

His pensiveness was interrupted by the sight of a figure rushing down the incline from the village. It was the mokhtar’s teenage son. His face was gripped by dread.

The words tumbled incoherently out of his mouth, but Kirkwood quickly made sense of what he was saying.

Corben was gone.

And he’d taken the mokhtar with him.