thump as the lurking man was blasted across the hallway into the opposite wall.
He wouldn’t be alone . . .
Chase fired at the other side of the door. Somebody tumbled to the floor, blood spraying across the hall carpet.
Movement in his peripheral vision—
He spun back to face the Russians by the safe - and saw Kruglov dive at his boss and throw him down behind Mishkin’s chair. The minister screeched, flinging up his arms in a pathetic attempt to shield himself from Chase’s bullets.
Chase didn’t fire. He couldn’t blow away the Russian Deputy Minister of Defence to kill Kruglov, or even to stop Vaskovich’s plans. Instead he ran for the doors, hearing movement outside. Gun in one hand, he swung Excalibur with the other—
Even without its weird glow, the sword was still sharp, hacking deep into the wrist of the guard who had been just about to shoot him. Before the man even had time to scream, Chase pistol-whipped him with the Desert Eagle and knocked him to the floor.
Nobody else was in the hallway, but others would be on their way. Nina and Mitchell were both speaking at once, the latter’s shouts drowning out the former’s frantic whispers. ‘Eddie! What happened, what’s going on?’
‘If you can cut three minutes off your flight time, that’d be great!’ Chase answered. ‘How do I get out?’
‘Back the way you came, but carry on past the stairs, then go left.’
Chase was already running. ‘Shit - how’s Nina going to get to the chopper now?’
The background noise from the hall had changed, party conversation turning to confusion at the gunfire. ‘Eddie, Eddie!’ Nina said as loudly as she dared. ‘Dominika just ran upstairs! What do I do?’
‘Nina,’ said Mitchell, ‘in about two minutes that whole place is going to be in total panic. You’ll have to get out then - either meet up with Prikovsky’s other girls, or just steal a car and head for the US embassy.’
‘I don’t know where it is!’ Nina protested.
Chase was almost at the stairwell. ‘I’m going back for her!’
‘
Chase reached the stairs, slowed fractionally - then continued past them. ‘Shit!’ Reluctant as he was to admit it, Mitchell was right. He arrived at the turn and went left. ‘Nina, get close to the front door - soon as people start running, you go out with them!’
He heard a door crash open behind him. He twisted and fired at the guard who ran round the corner. The shot missed, blowing a hole in the wall, but it had the intended effect - the man jumped back into cover.
Mitchell directed him towards the balcony. Chase kicked open a door, firing another shot back down the hallway as he went through. The pursuing guard fell to the floor. Behind him was Dominika, wearing a black cocktail dress, hair now an acidic yellow.
Chase took aim. She saw him and dived, the .50-calibre bullet burning over her as she landed and grabbed the guard’s gun. Before Chase had a chance to recover from the recoil she loosed off four rapid shots. He jumped backwards as the door frame splintered.
The room was a library. It was unlit, but enough illumination came through the arched French windows from the lights outside for him to see the balcony beyond. Mitchell had been right about there being enough clearance for a helicopter to hover beside it, but it would be tight.
No time to fiddle with the windows. Instead, he flung Excalibur at them as hard as he could. The sword smashed through, clanging down outside amidst the shattered glass and broken wood. Chase shielded his face and jumped at the broken hole. Jagged glass sliced against one side of his head, but his leather jacket took most of the damage. He shook off the fragments, then snatched up the sword and pointed the Desert Eagle back at the library’s door.
No sign of the chopper. He glanced over the balcony’s side. Dozens of expensive cars were parked below. On the front lawn, mostly hidden behind the mansion, was the glossy black tail of a helicopter.
A shadow in the doorway. Chase fired as another of Vaskovich’s guards rushed through. The bullet hit his shoulder, spinning him like a top.
Dominika jumped through the door behind him, gun blazing. The remaining windows burst apart. Chase dropped into a clumsy roll as bullets chipped the stonework of the balcony wall behind him. He fired a wild shot. The Russian woman rolled too, far more gracefully, dropping her now empty pistol and taking the wounded guard’s weapon in a single smooth movement.
Only two bullets left in the Desert Eagle. Maybe Mitchell had a point about his choice of weapon after all . . .
The helicopter suddenly roared into view overhead. A gale scattered glass fragments across the balcony as it swept past, nose tipping up sharply in a hard braking manoeuvre. It wheeled round, turning side-on to the mansion and slipping back towards it.
Chase had lost sight of Dominika in the darkened library. But she was there somewhere, waiting to strike.
The helicopter, a small MD 500 with a rounded, almost egg-shaped fuselage, moved closer. Its strobing navigation lights lit up the balcony like silent explosions. He could see Mitchell in the pilot’s seat, eyes flicking between him and the yellow-painted tips of the rotor blades, judging the distance to the mansion wall. Fifteen feet, ten, the blades perilously close to the wall . . .
Movement: acid-blond hair streaking past the broken windows—
Chase blasted off his penultimate shot as Dominika ran across the library, muzzle flashes searing a dotted line across his vision.
But she wasn’t aiming at him.
The helicopter’s aluminium skin bucked as bullets cratered the thin metal, the Plexiglas windows cracking. The aircraft lurched. Chase thought Mitchell had been hit, but he recovered, only startled. The American mouthed words at him, voice drowned out by the engine noise.
Chase looked back at the library. Dominika was in cover past the windows. He only had one bullet left. And she had a much bigger target to aim at.
The MD 500 swayed drunkenly, buffeted by its own backwash from the building as well as whatever damage Dominika had inflicted. It drifted away from the balcony despite its pilot’s attempts to hold it.
Running out of time . . .
Chase vaulted on to the stone balustrade - and jumped.
Excalibur clutched in his left hand, he slammed against the helicopter’s port landing skid, hooking his right arm over it. The Desert Eagle dropped away, spinning down to smash like a hammer through the windscreen of a Lamborghini parked below. The whole chopper was shaking from the impact, Mitchell battling to compensate for the extra weight swinging from one side.
Dominika sprang out of the library and emptied her clip into the helicopter’s cabin.
A bullet slashed across the top of Mitchell’s thigh. He yelled, reflexively jerking his leg against the anti-torque pedal. The MD 500 spun round anticlockwise, the cockpit for a moment head-on to the balcony, presenting him as a perfect target—
But the gun’s slide had locked back. Dominika was out of ammo. The little helicopter kept turning before Mitchell fought past the pain and regained control of the tail rotor, countering the spin with the other pedal. The chopper had made almost a half-turn, its starboard side facing the balcony, hovering less than ten feet from the edge.
Chase hung from the port skid. He saw Dominika looking back at him. She dropped the useless gun, tensed . . . and leapt from the balcony.
She caught the starboard skid with both hands, swinging from it like a gymnast - and kicked Chase in the chest.
Air whooshed from his lungs as he was knocked back, the crook of his elbow slipping off the skid. He dropped, just managing to clamp his hand round the metal tube. His headset jolted loose, following his gun down to earth. Gasping, he swung helplessly, the sword a dead weight in his other hand.
Dominika pulled herself up, wrapping her legs around the skid as the MD 500 finally steadied and began to climb.
