impact!’
‘Oh, shit,’ Eddie gasped. He faced the cabin, relaying the instruction to the others before turning to the terrified Nina, who was leaning forward with her hands on the back of her head. ‘No, no!’ he said, pulling her upright. ‘We’re facing backwards - crash position’s different. Sit up straight, keep your back against the seat. Sit on your hands so they don’t flap about.’ He demonstrated.
She followed his example. ‘Eddie, I’m scared!’
Eddie tried to think of something reassuring to say, but all he could manage was ‘I’m not fucking thrilled about it either!’ He glanced sideways, seeing the aurora-lit landscape rising to meet them. A cluster of lights rolled past the windows - they had passed the radar station. He looked back at Nina, meeting her frightened eyes. ‘Stay with me-’
‘Brace! Brace!
The de Havilland hit. Hard.
The landing gear, fitted with skis for a touchdown in snow, collapsed. One of the struts stabbed upwards into the cabin and impaled an Interpol agent. The shock of impact pounded through the seats as the plane slammed down on its belly, skidding across the glacier in a huge spray of ice. Another agent’s seat belt snapped, flinging him across the cabin to crack headfirst against the wall.
Deceleration pressed Nina and Eddie into their seats, vibration battering them. Metal cracked, something wrenching away from the hull’s underside with a horrible screech—
The entire fuselage was ripped in half behind the wings. Two men, strapped helplessly into their seats, were yanked backwards as the floor was torn out from beneath them - and the tail section mowed them down. Its jagged leading edge gouged into the ice, making it tumble as it fell away behind.
More seats broke loose and spun into the trail of debris, another man screaming as he was thrown into the night. Nina gripped her seat as tightly as she could, eyes closed in terror.
The front section tipped over as it continued its uncontrollable skid, the undamaged wing dropping towards the ice - and stabbing into it. The sudden drag spun the fuselage round - then the entire wing was abruptly torn away at its root, wrenching a huge chunk of the ceiling with it. The weight of the remaining wing dragged that side down. Another slam of impact as the wingtip hit the ice, a crunching groan of metal as the wing buckled . . . and the plane finally bumped to a stop as the wrecked engine dug into the ice like an anchor.
The silence was so sudden that for a moment Nina, eyes still squeezed closed, thought she was dead. It wasn’t until she managed to draw a breath that she convinced herself otherwise.
Even that breath told her she was not out of danger. The air was bitingly cold - and laden with the heavy stench of aviation fuel. She opened her eyes. To her surprise, some of the emergency lights in the remains of the cabin were still glowing.
The scene they illuminated, however, was not one she wanted to see. A member of the Interpol team was sprawled over a broken seat, a jagged metal rod impaling his neck. Probst was still alive, breath steaming from his mouth, but from the unnatural angle of his foot it was certain that he had broken his ankle. The agent beside him was also breathing, apparently unconscious. The surviving cop was strapped in his seat facing her, a deep cut on his cheek. He groaned softly.
No sound from the seat beside her, though, no billowing condensation in the cold air. Nina almost didn’t dare turn her head to see what had happened to her husband - and when she did, she felt a sharp stab of whiplash pain. But she forced herself to look round . . .
Eddie was slumped in his seat, eyes closed, blood round his mouth.
Not breathing.
‘Eddie?’ she said, voice quavering. No answer, no movement. She reached out to touch his face, but stopped just short, afraid that she would find no warmth. ‘Eddie? Are you . . .’
Still no reply. More frightened now than she had been during the landing, she touched his cheek—
‘Buggery bastard
‘Eddie, Eddie!’ Nina cried. ‘Jesus! Are you okay? Eddie!’
A plume of frozen breath hissed out through the gap between his two front teeth as he grimaced. ‘No, I’m fucking not! God! A plane crash! A fucking
‘So . . . I guess you’re okay?’
‘Nothing broken. Feels like someone whacked me with a bat, though.’ He put a hand to his chest, finding that his coat was torn where some piece of flying debris had struck him. ‘What about you?’
‘Hurt my neck, but apart from that, I think I’m all right.’
The surge of rage fading, Eddie took in the other survivors, and hurriedly crouched beside Probst when he saw his foot. ‘Shit, that looks bad.’
The German’s eyes fluttered open. ‘
‘We were shot down,’ Nina told him, shakily standing. She heard electronic warbles from the cockpit and investigated. Her hopes that the pilots were still alive were quickly dashed; one man was bent over with his head twisted at an unnatural angle, eyes staring blankly at the ceiling. There was no sign of the other, but blood smeared across a broken window suggested he had been thrown out of the plane.
Eddie quickly checked the other two survivors, waking Probst’s associate as the cop groggily sat up. He looked back at Nina. ‘Is the radio working? We need to send an SOS.’
‘I don’t know. Something’s still switched on, though - there’s a weird noise.’
‘It . . . it’s a radio jammer,’ said Probst. ‘It must be at the radar station.’
‘Oh, great,’ Nina moaned. ‘That means the only people we can call for help are the ones who tried to kill us.’ She spotted a yellow box marked with a red cross under the empty pilot’s seat and pulled it out, finding not just first-aid gear but also survival equipment - packaged food, a Very pistol and flares, foil blankets, various tools. ‘Walther, I’ve got some bandages and a splint,’ she said, bringing the box to Probst. ‘We’ll try to fix your foot.’
Eddie moved to the torn end of the fuselage and looked out across the plain. They had landed on a slope, the long, wreckage-strewn gouge torn by the front section as it slid downhill clearly visible in the aurora’s ghost-light. The wing that had been ripped away was standing almost vertically, poking out of the ice like some strange flag. Beyond it, some distance away, he saw the broken tail section half buried by snow.
There was another source of illumination, something more than the auroral display. Over the crest of the hill was an unnatural glow. The radar station. The building itself was out of sight; the plane’s uncontrolled slide down the ice had carried it a mile past the base.
But they wouldn’t be alone for long. Two bright white lights appeared on the horizon.
Snowmobiles.
32
‘They’re coming,’ Eddie said. ‘We need guns. Who can move?’
The cop stood, grunting in discomfort but still able to walk. The other Interpol officer tried to get up, only to drop painfully back into his seat. ‘Okay,’ Eddie told the cop, ‘come with me.’
‘I’m coming too,’ said Nina.
‘No,’ he said firmly, indicating Probst. ‘Do what you can with his foot. We’ll take these bastards out before they get to you.’ He put a hand on the cop’s arm. ‘You ready?’
The Greenlander was only young, in his twenties, and his fear was clear. ‘I - I’m okay,’ he said.
‘You’ll be fine,’ Eddie reassured him. He pointed to the wreckage of the tail. ‘We get to the gun locker and kill any fucker who comes down that hill. Sound good?’ The cop nodded. ‘Okay, let’s go.’
He jumped out of the fuselage. The surface snow was surprisingly hard-packed, his feet only sinking a few inches before ice crunched beneath them. He started to run up the slope beside the ragged, debris-strewn gouge, kicking up a crystalline spray with each step. The cop followed.
The snowmobiles were speeding towards the crash site, roostertails of snow swirling in their wakes. Eddie
