acclimate. Hypoxia, altitude sickness, was now a serious danger.
The Thanatos drone was much closer now, but it was still above them and climbing steadily. Its single enormous wing tilted occasionally as the onboard flight controls adjusted for small changes in wind speed, direction, and barometric pressure. Otherwise the aircraft held its course, flying doggedly on toward its preordained target — the capital city of the United States.
Peter pushed the Black Hawk higher. His head and lungs ached, and he was finding it increasingly difficult to concentrate on what he was doing. His vision blurred slightly around the edges. He blinked hard, trying to get a clearer view.
The altimeter crawled slowly through fourteen thousand feet. This far above the Earth's surface, the helicopter's rotors provided far less lift. Their rate of climb and airspeed were both rapidly diminishing. Fifteen thousand feet. And still the giant aircraft hung above them, tantalizingly close, but well out of reach.
Another minute passed, a minute of increasing cold and exhaustion.
Again Peter glanced up through the forward windshield. Nothing. The
Thanatos drone was gone. “Come on, you devil,” he growled. “Stop playing silly buggers with me! Where have you got to now?”
And suddenly sunlight blazed on a huge wing surface below him, reflected back by tens of thousands of mirror-bright solar cells.
“We've done it! We're above the beast!” Peter crowed. He coughed, trying to draw more air into his straining lungs without hyperventilating. “But you'll have to be quick, Jon. Very quick. I can't hold us up here much longer!”
Nodding, Smith unbuckled his seat belt and again dropped onto his stomach by the open door. Every piece of metal he touched was chilled so far below the freezing point that it burned like fire. The outside air temperature was now well below zero.
Frantically Jon blew on his hands, knowing that they were all in real danger of losing fingers and other exposed patches of skin to frostbite. Then, cradling the M4, he leaned out into the slipstream, feeling the wind tearing at his hair and clothes.
He could make out the drone now. It was roughly two hundred feet below them. The Black Hawk slowed, matching its speed to that of its prey.
Smith's eyes teared up in the frigid wind. He squeezed them shut and roughly brushed away the tears before they froze. He peered through his sights. The upper surface of the flying wing wavered slightly and then steadied up.
He squeezed the trigger.
Rounds slammed into the Thanatos drone, shattering hundreds of solar cells. Fragments of glass and plastic swirled away and vanished astern. For a moment the wing flexed alarmingly. It slid lower.
Jon held his breath. But then the giant machine's onboard flight computers corrected for the sudden loss of power, revving its propellers higher. The drone steadied up and began climbing again.
Smith swore quietly, already fumbling for a new magazine.
Amid the noise and cold and thin, scarcely breathable air, Randi fought to remain conscious. The sharp, stabbing pain from her broken arm was merging now with a terrible throbbing ache behind her temples. She gritted her teeth, feeling nauseated. The pain in her head was now so intense that it seemed to send little pulses of red light flashing into her eyes with every beat of her heart.
Her head fell forward.
And in that brief moment, Hideo Nomura attacked.
One hand batted aside her carbine. The other chopped down hard on Randi's collarbone. It snapped like a dry twig.
With a muffled groan, she fell back against the seat and then flopped forward again. Only the safety belt buckled at her waist kept her from sliding onto the floor of the troop compartment.
Nomura snatched the M4 and held it to her head.
Smith glanced over his shoulder in surprise. He rolled over and sat up — and then froze, taking in the changed situation in one appalled glance.
“Throw your weapon out the door,” Nomura ordered. His eyes glittered, as hard as ice and just as cold. “Or I will blow this woman's brains across this compartment.”
Jon swallowed hard, staring at Randi. He could not see her face. “She's dead already,” he said, desperately trying to buy time.
Nomura laughed. “Not yet,” he said. “Observe.” He wrapped one hand in Randi's short blond hair and yanked her head back. She moaned softly. Her eyes fluttered open briefly and then closed. The man who was Lazarus released his grip contemptuously, allowing her head to flop forward again. “You see?” he said. “Now do as I say!”
Defeated, Smith let the carbine fall out of his hands. The weapon whirled away and disappeared.
“Very good,” Nomura told him cheerfully. 'You learn obedience quickly.“ He moved back, keeping Randi's weapon carefully aimed at Jon's chest. His face grew harder. ”Now order your pilot to fly away from my Thanatos drone.'
Smith raised his voice. “Did you hear what the man wants you to do, Peter?”
The Englishman looked back over his shoulder. His pale blue eyes were expressionless. “I heard him,” he replied coolly. “It seems we have no choice, Jon. At least not with the situation as it stands.”
“No,” Smith agreed. “Not as it stands,” he said, putting the emphasis on the last word. He tilted his head slightly.
An almost imperceptible wink fluttered in Peter's left eye. He turned back to the Black Hawk's controls.
Nomura laughed again. “You see, Father,” he said to Jinjiro. “These Westerners are soft. They value their own lives above all else.”
The old man said nothing. He sat stone-faced, cast again into despair by the sudden reversal of fortune.
Smith sat near the helicopter's open door, waiting tensely for Peter to make his move.
Abruptly the Englishman banked the helicopter hard right — almost tipping the Black Hawk over on its side. Nomura toppled backward, thrown completely off his feet. He crashed into the back wall of the troop compartment and then slid to the floor. His finger, curled around the trigger of Randi's M4, tightened involuntarily. Three rounds tore through the roof and ricocheted off the spinning rotors.
As soon as the helicopter tilted, Smith threw himself forward, away from the open door. He dived across the floor and slammed headlong into Nomura. He tore the carbine out of Nomura's hands and tossed it away across the cabin. It clattered somewhere among the seats, well out of reach.
The Black Hawk leveled out and began climbing again.
Snarling, Nomura kicked out at Jon, shoving him back. Both men scrambled to their feet. Hideo attacked first — striking out with his hands and feet in a maddened frenzy.
Jon parried two blows with his forearms, shrugged a kick off his hip, ducked under a third strike, and then closed in. He grabbed Nomura by one arm, punched him hard in the face, and then hurled him across the row of seats.
The other man landed in a heap — right next to the open door. Though dazed, with blood streaming from a broken nose, he struggled to get back up.
Smith grabbed hold of a seat and roared, “Peter! Now! Reverse! Reverse!”
The Englishman complied, again throwing the Black Hawk into a steep bank, but this time sharply left. The helicopter tilted on its side, for a moment seeming to hang in space, high above the Atlantic Ocean, as it spun through a tight turn. The Thanatos drone came into view not more than fifty feet below them, still heading west on its programmed mission of mass murder.
Hideo Nomura made a desperate lunge and grabbed a seat strut. His legs dangled in mid-air, flailing, trying to find a foothold that did not exist.
Arms straining, he began to pull himself back inside the helicopter. With his teeth bared in a rictus grin, he looked up and saw his father staring down at him.
Jinjiro Nomura looked deep into the maddened eyes of the man who had once been his beloved son. “You
