‘This is outrageous,’ Steiner thundered in German.
There wasn’t much Ben could do without risking his life and those of everyone on board. He sat calmly in his seat as Steiner continued to yell. The pilot worked the controls, bringing the chopper down lower towards the pine forest. Ben could see the green canopy skimming past under them, and the second chopper now far away, just a little dark red dot against the sky.
The crude hijack was turning out to be quite neatly orchestrated. When Ben saw the wide circular clearing in the trees opening up ahead, he knew the pilot had found his prearranged landing zone.
The instant the chopper touched down, the co-pilot was out of the cockpit and tearing open the rear door, still pointing the pistol at them, shouting
In seconds, Steiner, Dorenkamp and Ben were herded out of the aircraft and marched impatiently at gunpoint across the leafy ground. The muzzle of the pistol swept from side to side, covering them all. The pilot grabbed Steiner’s jacket collar, shoving him across the clearing towards the trees about thirty yards away. The billionaire was protesting violently, scarlet with fury. Dorenkamp was pale and subdued, glancing at his employer as if he wished he could say, ‘Shut up, you’ll only make this worse for us.’
Ben glanced up at the sky to see the second chopper still a long way off but banking round towards them and coming in fast. It looked to him as though the kidnappers had only managed to infiltrate part of Steiner’s crew. He estimated that they had ninety seconds at best to get Steiner out of there before the rest of the team landed. Tight timing, but the kidnappers seemed right on schedule and things were going smoothly.
‘Keep moving,’ the co-pilot muttered, waving his gun at Ben. They were just twenty yards from the trees now. Ben peered through the dense greenery and could just about make out the shape of a commercial van parked on the other side on a lane. It was white, rusty and battered, long wheel-base, maybe an old-model Fiat Ducato. The perfect disposable and inconspicuous kidnap getaway vehicle.
Fifteen yards to the trees. There was a movement in the foliage, and then branches parted and five figures stepped out of the forest to meet them. All were armed with pistols, all dressed from head to foot in black military gear: combat trousers, assault vests, ski masks. To his amazement, he realised that all five had little red, white and black metal swastika badges pinned to their jackets, like military insignia. The audacity of it stunned him.
‘Move,
Ben slowed his pace, feeling the co-pilot’s hand shove him hard in the back. The guy barked in German to keep moving. Ben sensed the pistol muzzle come closer, just a few inches from the back of his head.
Which was precisely what he’d been waiting for. He needed the gun to be as close as possible for what he was about to do next.
It was a combination of the two moves he’d used at Le Val to disarm Rupert Shannon and take him down, except this time it was for real. He whirled round faster than the guy could react, took control of the gun wrist and threw a stamping kick to the knee. The co-pilot cried out in pain.
Ben twisted the Beretta out of his grip. He sensed the pilot making a lunge at him, and caught him across the face with the butt of the pistol. The man screamed and went down, letting go of Steiner.
Then it was mayhem. The two pilots were rolling on the ground, clutching their injuries. The ground team were suddenly all yelling and screaming, waving their pistols. Steiner was like a drunk, staggering and swaying wildly on his feet and roaring ‘No shooting! No shooting!’ at Ben. Complete chaos. But the ability to remain calm and lucid when everyone around him was losing their heads had been what had earned Ben his SAS badge all those years ago, and it was as natural to him as breathing. Inside his mind, time had slowed down to a crawl, the shouting a distant muffled roar as he contemplated the scenario and sped through the options facing him.
He’d been in enough volatile stand-off confrontations to know that the few seconds the element of surprise had bought him were going to run out fast. He was outgunned five to one. He could only get two, maybe three of them before they took him down. Then they were going to kill Dorenkamp too, stuff Steiner in the van and take him away. Mission failed, disastrously.
Out of all the overwhelming odds against him, there were only two things in his favour. The first was that he had a gun in his hand. The second was that it gave him control over the enemy’s primary resource: Steiner himself. These people were kidnappers, not assassins. Which meant the businessman was worth something to them. Money, information, wartime documents, evidence, whatever it was, if anything happened to Steiner it was beyond their reach forever.
And that gave Ben an edge. A big one. It was crazy, but the logic was perfect – and anyway, he’d been doing crazy things all his life.
‘Back off and drop your weapons,’ he yelled in German. ‘Nobody does anything. Or I’ll kill him.’
The kidnappers were stopped in their tracks. Suddenly the tables had turned, and now they were the ones running out of options and squandering precious seconds in indecision.
The second chopper was almost overhead now, hovering and circling, battering the trees with its downdraught as the pilot zeroed in on a safe landing point.
Then the kidnappers scattered in panic. The black-clad ground team went running wildly towards the trees. The pilots staggered up on their feet, hobbling away after them. Ben lowered the pistol and let go of Steiner’s collar, ignoring the man’s fury. He turned and saw the second chopper landing on the far side of Steiner’s personal craft, the doors flying open, Neville and Woodcock and the others spilling out, clutching their weapons, sprinting across the clearing towards them.
Ben pushed Steiner towards Dorenkamp, who was staring at him wide-eyed, as if in a trance. ‘Get him into the helicopter.’ Then, as the PA gripped hold of his employer’s arm and started tugging him away to safety, Ben took off towards the forest.
On the other side of the trees, he could hear the Fiat’s engine revving up hard as the fleeing kidnappers darted through the thicket towards it. The sound of its side door sliding open. A voice inside screaming ‘Come on! Move!’
The woods were dark after the sunlit clearing. He crashed through the bushes and whipping branches. If he could just catch one of them, he might be able to neutralise the threat against Steiner, end this whole thing. That would probably mean the end of Shannon’s protection contract – but Ben didn’t have time to worry too much about that right now.
Up ahead, he saw two of the men in black burst out of the trees and reach the van and leap inside. Then a third, followed by the bloody-nosed co-pilot. The van was rolling now. More screams and yells. The second pilot managed to scramble on board, another man in black right behind him.
There was just one kidnapper still in the woods, fifteen yards from the road and moving fast. Ben ran harder, forcing every ounce of power out of his legs. Suddenly the kidnapper tripped and went sprawling onto the ground. By the time he’d picked himself up again, Ben had gained precious yards on him. The guy threw a glance back over his shoulder, spotting his pursuer, the eyes in the mask opening wide in alarm.
Someone in the van had seen Ben, too. The flat report of a 9mm, and a bullet cracked off a tree near his head. He crouched low and let off a string of return shots from the captured Beretta, taking out the back window and blowing a rear light into fragments of red plastic. He didn’t want to kill anyone, and he certainly didn’t want to get into a fire-fight. But he might be able to convince the van driver to abandon the last of the gang, who was now dashing along almost parallel with the road to keep up with the accelerating vehicle.
The van surged ahead, braked hard, accelerated again, the driver unsure what to do.
Ben fired a couple more shots, driving the running man further off course, and now the terrain was sloping
