The Secret of Atlantis

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

Kim Taylor unleashed a ruthless salvo of bullets from the submachine gun as she fought with everything she had to safeguard the island’s last line of defense. She pushed them back and Eden shut the electric door again. The men who landed in the Black Hawk had made their way to the bunker with terrifying speed.

“We can’t keep them out of here forever,” Kim said. “Any chance your Dad never got your phone call, Alex?”

“He got it… I hope.”

Eden checked the CCTV and frowned. “And now our friends are coming back with explosives. They’re going to blow the door open.”

“Let’s see them try,” Kim said, bringing the submachine gun to her hip once again. “Open the door!”

Eden hit the button and Kim fired more rounds into the corridor, taking out one of the men and causing the others to retreat once again.

“Keep it up, Kim!” Alex shouted. “The cavalry’s here.”

Kim turned and looked on the one remaining plasma screen to see several fighter jets screeching across the sky. On their tails were the instantly recognizable skull-and-crossbones of the VFA-103 Strike Fighter Squadron, better known to the world as the Jolly Rogers, assigned to Carrier Air Wing Seven. “When most people ask their Dads for help, Alex, they don’t usually get an aircraft carrier strike group.”

Alex shrugged her shoulders. “What can I say? The USS Harry Truman is two hundred miles north so Dad sent these guys down to help, I guess.”

“We owe him,” Eden said, the relief obvious on his face as he closed the door one more time. “Let’s hope they’re not too late.”

Captain Jonathan “Poker” White pulled on the stick and raised the nose of his F/A-18F Super Hornet. Instantly he was pulling three Gs as the fighter jet tipped on her starboard side and turned around the small island below. From up here it looked barely inhabitable except for the small complex set in between the two mountains either side of it.

Behind him, Lieutenant Commander Ben “Sleuth” Holmes, the crew commander, was scanning above his head for the Apache. One was still down at sea level but one had climbed higher to evade them.

“Bandit at three o’clock,” Sleuth said. “Angels Two.”

Poker pulled harder and brought the Super Hornet around another forty-five degrees, ascending to two thousand feet. The rogue Apache was in visual range now and Sleuth went to launch one of the missiles.

“Wait a minute,” said Poker. “They got US markings! They’re friendly.”

“Orders are to take them out, Captain,” Commander Holmes said coolly.

“They’re American choppers!”

“We don’t know who’s in ’em or why they’re doing what they’re doing. Our orders are to take them out so they’re out.”

“All right — we’re on the bug,” Poker replied.

In his capacity as the Weapon Systems Officer, or Wizzo, Holmes activated a Skyflash air-to-air missile and fired. It ripped away from the Super Hornet and closed in on the Apache at a terrifying velocity.

The chopper executed an evasive manoeuvre and the missile tore past it with a foot to spare. The helicopter exploited the F18’s faster speed and slowed to a hover forcing the jet to pass over it. Then they fired.

“We have a spike at six o’clock,” Sleuth said, watching the radar.

Poker banked hard to port and the missile missed.

“We’re vaping like a freight train, Sleuth. They’ll be able to see us for miles.”

“Go around.”

Poker flew the F18 in a circuit and the other Apache came into view. It was hovering over the island preparing to fire another missile at the main compound.

Sleuth fired another Skyflash and this time they were luckier. A second later the chopper was a fireball.

They went around once more and now the last surviving Apache was trying to retreat. One Skyflash later it was a shower of burning metal.

“What about the Black Hawk on the beach?”

“Take her out.”

This time the Wizzo selected an AGM-65 Maverick air-to-ground missile and three seconds later the Black Hawk on the ground was blasted to pieces. Stinking black smoke bloomed up from the paradise below.

“We’re all done here,” Sleuth said. “That’s an RTB. I repeat an RTB.”

“That was no USAF flying that Apache,” Poker said. “He was a total grape.”

“All right, let’s firewall this baby and go home.”

Kim Taylor and Richard Eden fought the last of the men back along the corridor and pursued them out of the complex, using their order to retreat to their advantage. On the beach, the men scrambled desperately to get into the Black Hawk, but Eden pushed forward with his machine pistol.

Driven by the instinct to protect the island and everyone on it, he fought fiercer than ever. Using the palms along the backshore for cover, he poured fire on the men as they climbed into the chopper. His bullets struck one man in the back and he tumbled out of the chopper and crashed dead into the sand, but the others were on board and the rotors were powering up to raise the helicopter off the beach and get to safety.

“They’re pretty damn desperate to get out of here!” Kim said.

“Something tells me they don’t want us to know who they are,” Eden replied, firing again and striking the side of the chopper. He ran forward another twenty yards and aimed at the underside of the machine when it happened.

From her elevated position on the dunes, Kim saw it first. “Rich! Take cover!”

He looked up to see an AGM-65 Maverick air-to-ground missile racing from one of the Super Hornets toward the fleeing chopper. He turned on his heel and sprinted away from the doomed helicopter as fast as he could, but in his heart he knew no one outruns a missile travelling at over a thousand kilometres per hour.

The chopper spun around and pulled up in a vain attempt to dodge the Maverick but it was like a dairy cow trying to outrun a hyena.

The gigantic explosion blasted the chopper into a fireball and propelled Eden through the air in the terrific heat and flames of its shockwave. Kim gasped as she watched the ECHO leader spinning through the burning chaos and crash down hard on the rocks dividing the berm from the backshore.

In the sky, the three Super Hornets turned in perfect unison to the north, their afterburners roaring as they accelerated and gained altitude for the ride back to the strike group. Far below, Kim Taylor ran through the smoke pouring from the Black Hawk’s wreckage to reach Eden as fast as she could.

When she got to him she thought the worst. He was unconscious and his head was smashed into the rocks. Blood was dripping down over his face from the terrible gash on his temple as she dropped to her knees beside him and cradled his head in her hand.

“What happened?”

She looked over her shoulder and saw Alex pushing her wheelchair as far as it would go.

“It’s Rich,” Kim said. “I’m not sure… he got blasted pretty bad when they blew up the chopper.”

“Oh Jesus…” Alex ran her hands over her face. How much more of this could they endure, she thought.

“We need help, Alex.”

“It’s on the way,” Alex said. “The Captain of the Harry Truman just radioed and said he’s sending a Sea Hawk from the ship to get us.”

“How long?”

“Any minute,” she replied, straining to see Eden’s condition. “It left the same time he dispatched the fighters.”

Kim Taylor stared down at the blood on the rocks and then up through the smoke and heat to see Alex Reeve’s anxious face looking back at her. She hastily rubbed sand from her eyes and shook her head in disbelief at the horror that had unfolded around her. She wasn’t sure any minute was going to be fast enough to save Sir Richard Eden.