sputtered and cut out. It was out of fuel – the result of a slow leak caused by one of Etan's rapidly fired broom handle Mauser bullets during the flying machine's previous attack.
Terror and rage suffused Kadar's being. His mood crashed from euphoria to panic. For several seconds he sat in the Powerchute, motionless, incapable of deciding what to do. Then he noticed the craft's forward motion, and his confidence returned. Unlike a helicopter, which went vertical rather quickly when the power was cut off, the Powerchute was a forgiving beast when engineless. It was, after all, no more than a parachute with something like a propeller-equipped lawn mower engine tacked on. The parachute was quite big enough and strong enough to bring both pilot and appendages to the ground in a mild and gentle manner.
Unfortunately for Kadar – given the chute's forward momentum and the way the wind was gusting – the immediate ground was represented by the burning cavern that had been the great hall.
Slowly he sailed nearer and nearer to it until he could feel the heat sear his face. The metal of the Powerchute frame became too hot to touch. The flamethrower was going to explode and douse him with burning napalm. Horror overwhelmed him. He began to shake with fear.
Frantically he tried to free himself of the flamethrower and at the same time to steer away from the conflagration.
The flamethrower had been clipped to the Powerchute frame with D-shaped carabiners – the things climbers use. They were easy to manage and utterly reliable if handled at the right angle, but in this case Kadar had to twist awkwardly back, and the release of each one of the four carabiners in turn was an endless nightmare. His fingers slipped and skidded and became slimy with blood from his scrabbling fingernails. He was physically sick with fear and panic.
He unclipped three of the carabiners, but the fourth evaded his every attempt. The flamethrower remained tied to the Powerchute as if it had a mind of its own and were determined to go down with its owner and burn him to death.
Kadar saw that he was not going to make it if he stayed with the doomed aircraft. He hit the quick-release buckle on his safety-harness, balanced himself on the edge of the Powerchute's metal frame, and, timing it as well as he could, threw himself through the air toward the edge of the dugout.
The drifting Powerchute still retained some momentum, which caused him to land hard on a corrugated-iron- reinforced corner of the dugout. The edge of the rusty metal sliced into his torso, and he heard a crack. He felt a terrible pain in his leg, as if his femur were broken. He felt himself sliding, and his hands flailed frantically, trying to find something to grip. He found a makeshift sandbag, but the material, previously slashed by heavy-machine-gun bullets, tore in his hands.
He was screaming – he couldn't stop screaming – and he couldn’t see because blood from a slash on his forehead mixed with earth from the sandbag was streaming into his eyes, and he felt a sudden, terrible rush of heat from the flames when the fire in the great hall burned through the metal casing of the abandoned flamethrower, igniting the whole twenty-three-kilo backpack.
He felt himself being gripped by his left arm and pulled forward away from the edge and dumped facedown on the sandbagged center of the roof. He slid his right hand under his body and drew his pistol. The weapon was already cocked with a round in the chamber. He slid the safety catch to the off position.
'Turn around,' said Fitzduane, who had decided to reoccupy the top of the keep after the heavy-machine- guns positions had been destroyed. A further incentive had come from a Ranger report of some as-yet- unaccounted-for flying machine that had been seen taking off with a hostile aboard.
The form lying facedown on the sandbags looked familiar, but Fitzduane couldn't bring himself to believe that it was the Hangman, or Balac or Kadar or Whitney or Lodge or whatever he was calling himself these days.
Kadar wiped the blood from his eyes and blinked. He could see. It was still possible. It could be done.
He raised his upper body on his hands, then took most of his weight on one arm and gripped his pistol with the other. He half turned to identify the precise location of his target. His eyes locked on those of his rescuer, and he stirred in surprise and then burning hatred. Good God! It was his nemesis; it was that damned Irishman. A lust to obliterate Fitzduane swept over him.
Simon Balac! The Hangman! The shock of recognition hit Fitzduane with equal force. He was momentarily stunned. Somehow he had assumed that the Hangman would remain safe in the background, directing operations. He had never expected that the man would put himself in harm's way. He felt a cold, clinical desire to kill, and then an adrenaline rush. It was a combination he hadn't experienced since seeing Anne-Marie slaughtered in the Congo nearly two decades earlier. It was a killing rage. He moved a step toward Kadar.
The Bear, who was out of ammunition and had been delayed while looking for an alternative weapon, was climbing the ladder leading to the roof. He called out to Fitzduane. It was a casual shout of inquiry, but it saved Fitzduane's life. The Irishman turned slightly to acknowledge the Bear and the Hangman rolled and fired.
Fitzduane felt a burning sensation as the round furrowed his cheek. He staggered backward and slipped on a coil of rope. He crashed onto the sandbags as further shots from the Hangman cracked over his head and smashed into the tripod-mounted block and tackle.
With difficulty the Hangman hauled himself upright.
Distracted by his agony, his hands shaking, Kadar made a half turn and fired in the direction of this new arrival. His burst of four shots missed, but the Bear lost his original point of aim, and instead of impacting on the Hangman's torso as intended, the crossbow bolt sank into the Hangman's broken leg at knee height, splintering bone and ripping cartilage. He screamed at the sudden crescendo of pain and emptied his magazine in futile rapid fire in the direction of his tormentor.
The Bear crouched down on the access ladder behind cover and restrung his crossbow and fitted a fresh bolt.
Kadar sobbed in agony and frustration and groped for a fresh magazine for his automatic. There was nothing there. He remembered his fatigues ripping when he landed. The spare clips must have fallen out of his torn cargo pocket. He glanced around and saw one of the magazines on the edge of the roof. As he limped hesitatingly toward it, a second crossbow bolt smashed into his back. It failed to penetrate his Kevlar body armor, but the momentum of the missile threw him forward, and he stumbled onto his knees.
The impact of the roof on his wounded knee and broken leg caused pain so extreme that he felt cocooned in a miasma of pure horror. Beads of sweat broke out on his face, and it was only through the maximum exertion of his formidable willpower that he was able to remain conscious. He fought to stay in control. His nightmare of suffering was worse than anything he had ever known or could have believed possible. His cries echoed into the flame-lit darkness, and tears ran down his cheeks. He tried to crawl toward the magazine. He whimpered.
Fitzduane, blood streaming from his furrowed cheek and momentarily disoriented by his fall, took long seconds to recover. Still somewhat dazed and oblivious of the shotgun strapped to his back, he dragged himself to his feet and with both hands grabbed the heavy coil of rope he had tripped over.
Kadar sensed Fitzduane's approach as he was reloading his automatic. He worked the slide, chambered a round, and cocked the weapon, then turned to shoot the Irishman.
Fitzduane slashed down hard and at an angle with the rope, lacerating Kadar's face and knocking his gun hand to one side. He then dropped the rope and grabbed Kadar's hand as it moved back toward him. Groggy from his wounds and the near-unendurable pain, Kadar tried to fire but could not; Fitzduane had his thumb inserted between the hammer and firing pin, and he gripped the slide tightly. Slowly Fitzduane forced the weapon away from where it had been pointed, but he had to remove his thumb as the Hangman twisted the automatic. Kadar fired repeatedly in a frenzy of desperation, but the rounds blasted futilely into the night.
Fitzduane waiting until the Hangman's weapon was empty and then butted him in the face with his head, smashing his opponent's nose. As the Hangman reeled and cried out in agony, Fitzduane loosened his grip on the man's arms and drew his fighting knife. He plunged it under the body armor into the terrorist's stomach and twisted and ripped with the blade. A terrible keening moan filled the air.
The Bear came up, another bolt fitted to his crossbow, and fired point-blank at Kadar's threshing, contorted face. The Hangman's head was twisted to one side at the moment of being struck, so the bolt cut through both cheeks, clefting the palate and smashing teeth. His whole body convulsed at the impact, but frenzied, he fought on. Blood and mucus frothed from his lips and bubbled from the holes in his cheeks, and terrible gagging animal sounds came from him. The Bear felt nauseated as he strained to reload his weapon.
Fitzduane withdrew his fighting knife, angled it toward the vitals, and then thrust it hard into Kadar's side and left it there. Without a pause he flicked open the coil of rope, knotted it around the Hangman's neck, and kicked the
