Empire of Gold

target to score a kill.

The Caravan’s tail shredded as if hit by a shotgun blast. Other sizzling shards ripped through the wings and fuselage.

One hit Valero above his ear, tearing away a chunk of flesh and hair. Blood splattered the windscreen.

He slumped, unconscious. The Cessna’s descent steepened, beginning to roll.

Eddie slid across the rear of the cabin as the plane tilted. ‘Eddie!’ Macy screamed. ‘Oscar’s hit!’ He hauled himself up and half ran, half fell down the aisle to clamber into the copilot’s seat. Rows of dials and gauges gazed meaninglessly at him. ‘One of these days,’ he gasped as he took hold of the control yoke, ‘I’m going to learn how to fly a fucking plane!’

He turned it like a steering wheel in the hope that it would counter the roll. Smoke trailing from its tail, the aircraft staggered back to a wings-level attitude – but still with its nose pointing down at the rainforest. The altimeter he understood, at least: two thousand feet.

Falling fast.

He pulled back the yoke, trying to level out. Nothing happened, the control refusing to move. ‘Oh, bollocks,’ he muttered as he tried again, harder. It gave slightly, then locked again. The damage to the Cessna’s rear had jammed the tailplanes. ‘Oh, bollocks!’

Fifteen hundred feet. He jerked the yoke in an attempt to free it. The plane responded slightly, producing a faintly nauseating roller coaster sensation, but the controls remained stuck.

But to have worked at all, they still had to be connected to the tailplanes. The problem was a physical obstruction, something preventing them from moving. Maybe they could be forced free . . .

One thousand feet—

Eddie planted his feet firmly against the instrument panel. Macy watched in frightened bewilderment as he gripped the yoke with both hands. ‘Everyone hold tight!’ he warned as he pulled at the control, simultaneously pushing with all the strength in his legs – trying to force the tailplanes to move through sheer brute force.

The yoke creaked. It seemed to give, but only a little. He pulled harder, aware that if he tore the handgrips clean off their mount, they were all doomed.

Five hundred—

‘Come on!’ he rasped, face twisted with effort. The jungle was rapidly approaching. Three hundred feet. Every muscle trembled as he strained. The glass of a dial cracked beneath his foot.

Two hundred—

Something snapped. The yoke suddenly broke free, the tailplanes slamming upwards to their full extent. The aircraft pulled out of its dive . . .

Not quickly enough.

The jungle’s tallest trees stretched up well over a hundred feet above the ground. Even as the Cessna levelled out, it was still heading inexorably into the thick canopy—

Branches and leaves disintegrated as the propeller carved through a treetop like a chainsaw. Eddie wrestled with the controls, still trying to pull up, but the plane hit another tree, branches clawing open the Cessna’s skin.

The towering trunk of an emergent redwood rose above the canopy ahead. Eddie shoved down a rudder pedal, but even had the controls been fully responsive there wasn’t time to turn away—

The tree scythed past less than a foot from the fuselage’s left side, slicing off the port wing at its root. Fuel erupted from the tank inside it as it crumpled. The Cessna’s tail, still smouldering, hurtled through the spray – and ignited it. The wing blew apart, an oily mushroom cloud roiling up through the foliage.

What was left of the plane dropped towards the ground, the mangled tail now aflame. ‘Brace!’ yelled Eddie, grabbing his seatbelt straps and bending into a crash position—

The Caravan hit on its belly, the impact tearing away the wheels and buckling the hull. The propeller blades bent as they churned through the earth. The starboard wing clipped another tree and was ripped in half, the fuselage skidding onwards in a huge spray of soil and rotting vegetation. The windscreen shattered, dirt filling the cockpit. Jutting roots tore at the aircraft’s belly as it crashed over them with a terrible screeching sound.

Which suddenly lessened.

Eddie clung to the straps, eyes shut tight. The plane was still moving – but the ground beneath it was somehow cushioning its passage. The bumps continued, but muffled, fading as the plane slowed . . .

And stopped.

The bent hull tipped back with a thump. Eddie wiped away mud and cautiously opened his eyes. They were indeed stationary. His arms ached where the straps had cut into them, and there was a horrible bruise across his stomach from the steering yoke. He flexed his hands, then his feet. Nothing broken.

Valero had fared much worse. Unconscious, he had been unable to protect himself, flailing as the plane ploughed through the trees. Two of his fingers were bent back at unnatural angles, and blood streaked his face where he had hit the controls. Becker, equally helpless, had come off better; secured in his seat, he was now slumped over the armrest, moaning softly.

‘Ow, God . . .’ a female voice whispered. Eddie staggered to his feet. Osterhagen sat bolt upright, eyes squeezed shut and breathing loudly and rapidly. Macy, meanwhile, had her head against the window, grimacing.

Eddie staggered to her. ‘Macy! Are you okay?’

‘I dunno . . . ’ She tried to stand. ‘Ow, that hurts – wait, if it hurts . . . ’ She rolled her head to clear the dazed fog from her mind. ‘I’m not dead?’