Temple of the Gods

He checked the airspeed indicator. ‘It shouldn’t take too long to get there, then. Although I’ll remind you that I don’t have a clue how to land this thing.’

‘You did okay with the takeoff. I think you’ll manage the landing too.’

‘I’ll try to keep it below terminal velocity.’

Nina smiled, then looked round. Eddie still hadn’t reached the rear of the cabin. ‘Hurry up, honey! There’s a draught!’

‘You try walking with holes in your leg,’ he called back.

‘I have done. It sucked!’

He grinned, then turned back to the ramp. Some of the equipment stowed behind the seats had been hurled out of the aircraft during its spin, one of the tarps flapping furiously in the wind. A couple of the parachutes had also gone, but there were still enough left to allow himself, Nina and Larry to bail out if the worst came to the worst. Holding a ceiling strap, he peered at the ground. They were at about seven thousand feet, and still climbing. Nothing below but sand and rock.

He straightened, looking for the ramp controls. There was a control box mounted on one wall. He hobbled towards it—

Something smashed against the back of his head.

Eddie crashed to the deck, stars going supernova in his vision. An intense, sickening pain oozed through his body. He tried to get up, but his limbs refused to cooperate, as weak and limp as a baby’s.

‘Hello, Eddie,’ said Sophia with a triumphant snarl.

She had been hiding beneath the other tarpaulin. The Land Rover had been empty, set to roll away to deny anyone else its use for escape. She stood over her former husband, letting the large wrench she had used as a weapon clang to the floor as she pulled the Jericho out of his jacket. The tool slid down the ramp and spun away in the AW101’s slipstream.

Nina jumped from her seat, but froze as Sophia aimed the gun at her. ‘Well, look at this!’ the Englishwoman shouted over the wind. ‘A family reunion. How sweet.’

‘Let him go, Sophia!’ Nina demanded, surreptitiously scanning the floor for the dead pilot’s gun — but where it had ended up, she had no idea.

‘Oh, I absolutely intend to. But without one of these.’ She revealed the pack of a parachute on her back. ‘I could just shoot him, but that seems like rather poor payback for everything he’s done to me.’ She kicked the helpless man at her feet, producing a groan. ‘I’m going to shoot you, though. After you watch him die.’

‘You fucking bitch,’ Nina spat.

‘Oh, come on, Nina. An educated woman like you can do better than that, surely?’ Sophia braced herself against the seats and used a foot to shove Eddie closer to the ramp. ‘But then, as I’ve always said, one can’t expect class from an American.’

Larry whispered to Nina from the side of his mouth. ‘I could shake the controls, make her fall out.’

‘Eddie’d fall out too,’ she replied in kind, still desperately searching for a weapon. No gun. Was there anything else she could use?

Maybe — if she could reach it without being shot.

Twisting awkwardly to keep the gun trained on Nina, Sophia kept pushing Eddie nearer to the ramp. ‘I think it’ll take about thirty seconds for him to hit the ground from this height,’ she said. ‘I’m going to watch, just to make sure. Eddie does have the annoying habit of popping up when he’s supposed to be dead, but not this time. This is the end. For both of you.’ Eddie was now almost fully on the ramp. ‘As soon as I see that little Wile E Coyote puff of dirt, it’s your turn.’

A final thrust of her leg — and Eddie slithered down the ramp.

‘No!’ Nina screamed, but there was nothing she could do—

Eddie’s eyes opened — and he grabbed a cargo ring set into the metal surface just as his legs went over the edge.

Straining to hold on as the wind and rotor downwash tore at him, he looked up. The infuriated Sophia towered over him, stepping to the ramp’s top and holding on to its frame with her left hand as she leaned out. ‘Why,’ she shouted, trying to jab at his fingers with her outstretched boot heel, ‘can’t you just —’ another strike fell millimetres short — ‘die?’

The final blow caught his knuckles. Eddie yelled in pain—

And lost his grip.

The gale snatched him backwards, whipping him over the edge of the ramp.

‘Yes!’ Sophia cried, the exclamation of victory bursting out of her almost orgasmically. She glanced round at Nina—

A dazzling light shot down the length of the cabin and struck her hard in the back.

Sophia reeled as the flare that Nina had fired spun past, spraying her clothing with sparks and fire. She clutched the frame for support… but the two stiff prosthetic fingers prevented her from getting a firm grip. Her gloved hand slipped from the metal — and she followed Eddie down the ramp with a horrified shriek, tumbling away into the empty sky.

Nina dropped the flare’s tube and ran down the aisle. ‘Come and get us!’ she yelled to the stunned Larry. Determination driving out doubts, she passed the last row of seats, snatching a parachute off the rack—

And threw herself out of the back of the helicopter.

The slipstream pummelled her as she sailed into open air, the desert spreading out eight thousand feet below. The noise of the chopper’s engines faded, but the wind’s roar in her ears only grew louder as she picked up speed in free fall.

Parallax revealed two dark shapes against the landscape. Sophia — and Eddie. She forced back her fear, fixing her gaze on him as she grappled with the parachute’s harness. Working her arms through the flapping loops, she strained to fasten the buckle across her chest. It clicked shut — but only then did she realise that there was another set of straps through which she was meant to put her legs. When she pulled the ripcord, the sudden force of braking could tear the parachute right off her body.

But there was no time to remove it and try again. All or nothing…

Eddie had been slammed back to full awareness by a massive adrenalin surge — one driven by pure fear. His military training had taught him how to try to recover in the event of a parachute failure… but this time he had no parachute. And there was nothing below that might save him either — no bodies of water, no tall trees, just flat, hard desert in every direction.

Even so, he rolled face-down and spread his arms and legs. The increased drag would slow his fall — slightly. He would still hit the ground at over a hundred miles per hour.

He was going to die.

He turned his head, trying to find the helicopter in the hope that Larry had at least tipped his killer out of the back… and was shocked to see two figures plunging through the sky after him. The nearer was Sophia.

The other could only be Nina.

An awful, nauseating realisation of defeat rolled over him. Sophia had got what she wanted — she had killed them both. And as he watched, a parachute blossomed above his ex-wife. Not only had she killed them, but she would live to gloat about it.

Sophia gasped as the slam of deceleration yanked her harness straps tight. She took hold of the steering lines — then flinched as something shot past her.

Nina! The American had been at the far end of the cabin — which meant she hadn’t fallen out, but deliberately jumped. She was trying to save Eddie.

Sophia almost laughed at the futility of the gesture. It couldn’t possibly succeed. And now she would have a grandstand view of both her enemies smashing down on the desert floor…

Something was wrong.

She could feel heat on one side of her head, but it wasn’t from sunlight. She looked round—

And screamed.

Her parachute’s pack was aflame, ignited by the flare. The wind-fanned fire was rising rapidly up the nylon webbing risers connecting her harness and the cords of the chute itself. She desperately tried to swat out the flames, but they were too big, too hungry, greedily consuming fabric and line.