“Eddie…” she whispered, barely daring to believe the possibility. Had he somehow managed to get on board?
The plane shook again.
If he
Chase struggled to squeeze between the seats of the two dead men. The A380’s ultramodern systems had replaced the traditional heavy yoke of an airliner with a small joystick. Which was less physical for the pilot-but also harder for Chase to reach. “What the hell did you have to do that for, you stupid twat?” he growled rhetorically at the pilot.
He managed to grab the stick and nudged it to one side. To his enormous relief, the plane’s tilt began to level out.
Then it struck him-he had no clue what to do next. He’d jumped out of plenty of planes, but he didn’t know how to fly
“Shit!” He looked desperately at the control panels. The only thing he could identify at a glance was the artificial horizon, which showed the plane still in a climb, and banking more steeply than he liked.
Where the hell was the autopilot?
He hoped that whatever system was being used to release the virus wasn’t activated by a timer.
Kari pulled herself upright as the A380 leveled out. The two booming shots from the direction of the cockpit suggested that both pilots were dead-and that Chase was responsible.
Not that it mattered. He was here, and he posed a threat.
More so than Nina? She weighed the dangers. The virus canisters were inside a container at the very rear of the middle deck, plumbed into pipes that would disperse the deadly solution into the jetstream from the A380’s tail. If Nina could get the container open, she might be able to interfere with the release mechanism.
But she had to find the container first, and then break into it.
Chase, on the other hand, was in the cockpit. He was the greater danger.
With one last look after the retreating Nina, Kari turned back.
Nina reached the rear of the upper hold. None of the containers showed any signs of being connected to the plane’s exterior.
Which meant the virus was on one of the other decks.
She feared she would have to return to the front of the hold and somehow make it past her pursuers, but then spotted a hatch in the rear bulkhead. It opened into a small compartment. She poked her head into the low- ceilinged space. It was an access area, with what looked like large fuseboxes connected to fat skeins of wires on the walls.
And another hatch set into the floor.
She clambered into the cabin and turned the catches on the hatch, pulling it open. Below she saw another metal container, in front of it a pallet onto which was strapped a large, sleek blue-and-silver motorbike. She recognized it as Kari’s, the racing bike she was so proud of.
She dropped down into the middle hold.
The plane now on autopilot, Chase stepped back from the controls. He hoped that would buy some time. How exactly he would get back down to the ground with both pilots dead was another matter…
Running footsteps sounded behind him, and he threw himself against the port wall as shots cracked past him, slamming into the instrument panel. Through the cockpit door he saw a man duck behind the bulkhead, waiting for his companion to give him cover so he could whip around and shoot.
Chase fired first. A single Magnum bullet from his Wildey blew a hole through the bulkhead, and the man standing behind it. Blood sprayed over the cabin, the guard slumping face-first to the floor.
One down. But there was still another man outside.
More bullets slammed into the cockpit, splinters of plastic and fiberboard flying everywhere. The other guard was using the same trick, shooting
He could see the dead man’s pistol on the cabin floor, a SIG-Sauer P226. Presumably the other guard had the same weapon, which meant he had fifteen bullets in his clip, thirteen of which had now been fired, fourteen-
Fifteen!
If his count was wrong, it would get him killed.
Chase rolled, arms stretched out in front of him as he threw himself at the open cockpit door. He saw the second of Frost’s guards frantically loading a new clip into his pistol-
The Wildey boomed. The guard flew off his feet, collapsing at the rear of the compartment.
Chase jumped up and hurried aft, kicking the guns away from the two men in case they weren’t dead. A moment’s experienced examination told him that they were.
Unless there were other crew members he didn’t know about, that just left Kari aboard.
And Nina.
Nina heard the gunshots and ducked down next to the motorbike in case any of them found their way into the hold.
The last shot was from Chase’s Wildey. Which she hoped meant he was the last man standing…
“Eddie?” she called. “Eddie!”
Chase heard the female voice coming from the hold.
Was it Nina-or Kari? It was hard to tell over the engine noise. He went to the door, seeing nothing but metal containers under the cold lights. “Nina! Is that you?”
A head popped up towards the rear of the hold. Chase recognized the auburn hair instantly.
He ran into the hold.
Kari heard Chase shout from below as she went back into the executive cabin. She paused, peering down the stairs to make sure he wasn’t lurking in ambush, then descended silently.
Gun at the ready, she entered the crew room. No sign of Chase, but her two men were dead on the floor. The cockpit door was open. One look told her that both pilots were also dead.
She could lock herself in the cockpit and regain control of the plane. However, the holes in the bulkhead told her that would be a risky option. Chase could shoot her right through the door.
And if she were locked in the cockpit, that would leave Chase and Nina free to locate and sabotage the virus canisters…
She hurried into the cockpit anyway, to check the plane’s status. Several panels had been damaged by bullets, but she was able to find the information she most urgently needed. The autopilot was engaged, the A380 at 12,000 feet and 320 knots. The fact that it was off-course and hadn’t reached its cruising
