home his point, but the bullets-thankfully-missed by a wide margin.
“What was that damned noise?” Van Hoven shouted in the cockpit. He looked at Schrader and then at Boots, whose face had become pallid at the reality of riding in this death plane to London. “It sounded like one of our own guns!” Van Hoven looked out the glass, and gasped with horror as he saw the flaming Spitfire gliding toward the sea. The second Spitfire buzzed them like an angered hornet.
Boots knew the colonel had killed the gunners. That was part of the plan, though the guns had been loaded to lure the crewmen into believing they would be alive when they crossed the Channel. So who was back there manning the machine gun?
Boots left the cockpit, moving through the bomb bay where the carnagene was armed and ready.
Michael kept firing as the Spitfire circled them, the gun shuddering in his hands. And then he got what he wanted: the Spitfire’s wing gun sparked. Bullets thunked into the side of Iron Fist and threw sparks around Michael. He returned the fire as the British plane turned in a swift circle. The bastard was mad now, ready to shoot first and ask questions la-
Michael heard the clatter of hobnails on metal.
He looked to his left, and saw Boots coming at him along the walkway. The huge man stopped suddenly, his face a rictus of shock and rage at seeing Michael manning the machine gun, and then he came on with murder in his eyes.
Michael swiveled the gun to the left to shoot him down, but its barrel clunked against the rim of the opening and would go no further.
Boots hurtled forward. He kicked out, and before Michael could protect himself the big boot smacked into his stomach and sent him reeling backward along the walkway. He fell and skidded, the breath knocked out of him.
The Spitfire delivered another barrage, and as Boots reached Michael, machine-gun bullets tore through Iron Fist’s skin and ricocheted around them. Michael kicked into the man’s right knee. Boots howled with pain and staggered back as Van Hoven put Iron Fist into a shallow dive to escape the enraged Spitfire pilot. Boots went down, clutching his knee, as Michael gasped for breath.
On its next pass the Spitfire sent bursts of bullets into Iron Fist’s bomb bay. One of those bullets ricocheted off a metal spar and glanced away to hit a carnagene bomb’s fuse. The fuse sputtered, and smoke began to fill the compartment.
As Boots tried to haul himself up, Michael hit him on the point of the chin with an uppercut that snapped his head back. But Boots was as strong as an ox, and in the next second he heaved himself up and crashed headlong into Michael, throwing them both back against a metal-ribbed bulkhead. Michael hammered his fists down on Boots’s cropped skull, and Boots punched into Michael’s bruised stomach. Spitfire bullets ripped through the bulkhead beside them, showering them with orange sparks. Iron Fist shuddered, an engine smoking on its starboard wing.
In the cockpit Van Hoven leveled the plane off at one thousand feet. The Spitfire kept flashing back and forth, determined to bring them down. Schrader shouted, “There!” and pointed. The hazy landmass of England lay within sight, but now a third engine was smoking and beginning to miss. Van Hoven throttled forward, giving the bomber all the power it could handle. Iron Fist headed toward England at two hundred and ten miles per hour, Channel whitecaps breaking in its wake.
A fist cracked against the side of Michael’s jaw, and Boots drove a knee into his groin. As Michael crumpled, Boots grasped his throat and lifted him, slamming his skull into the metal overhead. Stunned, Michael knew he had to change but he couldn’t get a grip on the thought. He was lifted again, and again his skull hit the overhead. As Boots started to lift him a third time, Michael cracked his forehead against Boots’s face, crunching the man’s nose. Boots dropped him and staggered back, blood streaming from his nostrils. But before Michael could set himself for another attack, Boots swung a kick at his ribs. Michael dodged the blow, catching most of its impact on his right shoulder, and the breath hissed between his gritted teeth.
The Spitfire came head-on at Iron Fist. The wing guns sparked, and in the next instant the cockpit was full of flying glass and flames. Van Hoven slumped forward, his chest punctured by a half-dozen bullets, and Schrader writhed with a broken arm. One of Iron Fist’s engines exploded, sending shrapnel tearing through the cockpit. The bombardier cried out, blinded by metal fragments. The aircraft sank lower toward the waves, flames gnawing in the ruined cockpit and across the starboard wing.
Boots limped toward Michael, who tried desperately to shake off the pain. Reaching down, Boots gripped his collar and hauled him up, then slammed a fist into his face. Michael fell back against the bulkhead, blood all over his mouth.
Boots drew his fist back, to smash into Michael’s face again.
Before the blow could be delivered, Michael twisted to one side and his hands found the red cylinder of the fire extinguisher. He tore it loose from its straps and swung it around as Boots’s fist came at his face. The man’s fist was stopped short by the cylinder, and his knuckles broke like matchsticks. Michael punched the cylinder into Boots’s stomach like a battering ram. The breath whooshed from the huge man, and Michael struck upward with the cylinder into Boots’s jaw. He heard the satisfying crunch of the jawbone breaking. Boots, his eyes glazed with pain and his lips split open, grappled with Michael for the cylinder. A knee drove into Michael’s side, and as he sagged to his knees Boots wrenched the cylinder away from him.
Boots lifted the fire extinguisher, intending to smash Michael’s brains out with it. Michael tensed to lunge at him before the cylinder could slam down.
Over the shriek of the wind Michael heard the chatter of the Spitfire’s guns. Fiery tracers came through the plane’s side and ricocheted off the bulkheads. He saw three holes, each the size of a fist, open across Boots’s broad chest. And in the next instant a bullet clanged against the fire extinguisher, and it went off with a blast like a miniature bomb.
Michael flung himself flat as pieces of metal clattered in all directions. Chemical foam hissed on the bulkheads. He looked up, and saw Boots standing there holding on to a machine-gun mount with one arm.
Boots’s other arm lay a few feet away, the hand still twitching. He looked at it, blinking with dumb amazement. He released his grip, and staggered toward his arm.
When Boots moved, his intestines began to slide from the gaping wound in his side. Pieces of red metal glistened in the hole, and his clothes were drenched with chemical foam. Another wound had been torn open on the side of his throat, the blood streaming down from the severed veins like a crimson fountain. With each step Boots diminished. He stopped, staring down at his hand and arm, and then turned his head to look at Michael.
He stood there, dead on his feet, until Michael got up, walked to him, and knocked him over with a finger.
Boots crashed down, and lay still.
Michael felt near passing out, but one glance out the portal and the realization that the sea was less than three hundred feet below cleared his head. He stepped over Boots’s grisly bulk and went toward the cockpit.
In the bomb bay he recoiled at the smoke and the hissing noise. One of the carnagene bombs was about to detonate. He went on, finding the navigator desperately trying to fly the plane as the pilot lay dead and the copilot was severely wounded. Iron Fist was dropping steadily, the Spitfire circling above. The coast of England was less than seven miles away. Michael said to the terrified navigator, “Put us down. Now.”
The man fumbled with the controls, chopping the power off and trying to get the nose up as Iron Fist-now truly a crippled bird-dropped another hundred feet. Michael braced himself against the pilot’s seat. Iron Fist fell, plowing into the Channel with a surprisingly gentle bump, its force at last spent.
Waves washed over the wings. Michael didn’t wait for the navigator. He went back through the bomb bay to the plane’s waist and unlatched the entry door. There was no time to search for a life raft, and he doubted if one had survived that hail of bullets. He jumped into the Channel’s chilly water, and swam away from the aircraft as fast as he could.
The Spitfire came down low, skimming the surface, passed over Michael, and headed toward the green land beyond.
Michael kept going, wanting to get as much distance as he could between him and the Fortress. He heard hot surfaces sizzling as the plane began to sink. Perhaps the navigator got out, perhaps not. Michael didn’t pause. The salt water stung his wounds and kept him from passing out. Stroke after stroke, he left the airplane behind. When he had gotten a distance away, he heard a rush and gurgling and looked back to see the plane going down at the
