advanced. Through the glare he could make out the pilot in the cockpit - and the Alligator’s cannon, mounted on the gunship’s stubby starboard wing. It was slaved to the pilot’s head movements, turning to track Chase, making ever finer adjustments to its aim. One shot was all it would take.
Only ten feet to go, less, but the cannon was locked on to his chest, the pilot grinning with expectant triumph—
The wind suddenly rose as Mitchell brought the MD 500 down on top of the Kamov.
The smaller helicopter’s landing skids instantly disintegrated as they hit the gunship’s upper rotor disc, but the blades themselves were also smashed, one shooting outwards like a javelin over Chase’s head. Unbalanced, the Alligator began to spin, its tail swinging round . . .
Towards the crane.
Chase desperately leapt along the jib as the chopper veered towards him. He lost his grip on Excalibur, the sword falling away. But it was already forgotten as he threw himself at the tower—
The Kamov hit.
The whole crane shook as over nine tons of metal and composites slammed sidelong against it, swinging the jib round far faster than its screaming gears could take. Rapid-fire bangs erupted from the helicopter’s rotor shaft as explosive bolts blasted all the remaining blades free, followed a fraction of a second later by a much louder detonation as the canopy blew off and the pilot shot skywards in his ejector seat on a trail of rocket flame.
With nothing to hold it aloft, the Kamov plummeted to earth, its momentum spinning it away from the base of the crane before it smashed into a pile of girders and exploded. Even dangling from the top of the tower, Chase felt the heat from the expanding fireball.
The entire crane was shuddering from the impact. A ladder ran down the centre of the tower, smoke from the burning Kamov boiling across it. Chase scrambled for a foothold, then squeezed through the framework to the ladder. Breathing the smoke wouldn’t be healthy, but it was the only way down—
A sound like a shotgun blast above him. He snapped up his head - and saw one of the jib’s diagonal cross- members shear loose at one end, the weld splitting under the strain.
Another strut broke, then another. The entire jib sagged, bending under its own weight. It was a chain reaction, each failed spar putting more and more pressure on the others.
Chase stared in horror, then desperately tugged his jacket’s cuffs over his hands. The crane would give way at any moment . . .
With an ear-splitting shriek of tearing metal, the jib folded like paper, ripping apart where the helicopter had collided with it and spearing towards the ground. The tower lurched, the massive concrete counterweights extending out behind the operator’s cabin pulling the whole thing over.
Like a giant redwood felled by a lumberjack, the massive crane slowly but inexorably began to topple.
The leather of his jacket covering his palms, Chase squeezed his hands round the outside of the ladder - and jumped off the rungs.
And fell.
Using his feet as guides against the vertical stiles, he plunged down the core of the shuddering crane.
The falling tower picked up speed, buckling. He was no longer falling vertically - the crane was leaning at five degrees, ten, the horizon rising above his line of sight as the ground rolled towards him.
The leather protecting his hands shredded as he sliced over the joints of each section of ladder, but he couldn’t slow down - he was still too high to survive the fall.
Twenty degrees, thirty, metal twisting and tearing all around—
With an explosive boom of shattering concrete, the tower ripped away from its base.
Chase was still slithering down the ladder, but now he was on top of it as it hurtled towards the horizontal. He shot through the oily smoke, opening his stinging eyes to see the muddy ground rushing at him with increasing speed. Now he squeezed both hands tightly round the stiles. He felt the heat of friction through the leather as it tore and burned, slowing his descent, but maybe too late—
The crane smashed down.
The protruding counterweights hit first, sending a whipcrack ripple down the length of the collapsing structure. Chase bounced from the ladder and slammed against the framework above him, then thudded back down on to the rungs as the wrecked crane came to rest.
He lay unmoving, sprawled over the broken ladder. Concrete dust wafted over him. The echoes of the impact died away, for several seconds the only sound the crackle of the burning helicopter.
Then Chase coughed.
‘Fuck . . . ing hell . . .
The mere fact that he’d been able to crawl from the crane told him nothing major was broken, but there was a nasty throb in his left arm where it had been injured a year earlier. His head hurt too; he rubbed his forehead and realised he was bleeding, another deep slash to add to the one he’d received jumping through the window at Vaskovich’s mansion.
The thought of the Russian cut through the fog of pain. Chase sat up. He had no idea what had happened to Nina. And as for Mitchell, and Excalibur . . .
Both the latter questions were answered within seconds of each other. A buzzing roar came from above as the MD 500 descended, the stubs of its wrecked undercarriage like broken insect legs. As he watched the helicopter drop into the construction site, he saw Excalibur sticking out of the mud near the crane’s base like a gleaming grave marker. Which, for Chase, it almost had been.
Still breathing heavily, he hobbled to the sword. A moment of effort was all it took to pull it from the ground.
He had Excalibur.
But his body ached too much for him to feel triumphant. Wearily, he turned to see the helicopter hovering unsteadily over a large pile of sand. Before Chase could wonder what the hell Mitchell was doing, the MD 500 dropped sharply, smacking down on its belly atop the soft pile. It squirmed deeper into the sand as the rotors kept spinning, but Mitchell had already shut down the engine and dived from the cockpit, rolling to the bottom of the heap and running as fast as he could on his injured leg towards Chase. Behind him, the helicopter wobbled, then finally tipped over. Its rotors thudded through the sand, kicking up a huge gritty spray before being brought to a stop.
‘Bloody hell!’ Chase cried. ‘Took a bit of a chance, didn’t you? You could’ve been pureed!’
‘Can’t wait around,’ Mitchell said grimly, taking out a phone. ‘I didn’t have any other way to land, and there’s already police and fire trucks on the way, I saw them from the helo. We’ve got to get out before they arrive. You okay?’
Chase indicated his torn clothing and bloodied skin. ‘Oh, absolutely fucking top! What about Nina?’
‘I don’t know. You had the relay - I lost contact with her as soon as we moved out of range. Come on.’ He called a number as he hurried towards the site’s main gate, issuing rapid orders. Chase followed, the sword in his hand.
An hour later they were in an American safe house, an anonymous apartment in an equally anonymous block a few miles from the crash site. They had got clear just before the police arrived, hurrying through the darkened streets until being picked up by the same driver who had taken them to Prikovsky’s warehouse - although his gleaming SUV had been replaced by a much more discreet old Volkswagen Golf.
‘So do you know what’s happened to Nina?’ Chase demanded as Mitchell concluded another call. He himself had called Prikovsky, learning that while his girls had all left the mansion, Nina had not been with them. That didn’t mean she hadn’t got a lift back to Moscow with someone else, but his concern was rapidly growing.
‘Not yet,’ Mitchell snapped. ‘Vaskovich is moving, though - his private jet just took off from Vnukovo airport. It’s a safe bet he’s aboard.’
‘Probably doesn’t want to be around when the Russians start asking why one of their shiny new gunships just crashed in the middle of Moscow. I bet that bloke Mishkin’s wishing he hadn’t taken the job. It’ll be a bugger to explain.’
