Now she was looking directly at Pieter, and she smiled.
Without giving himself time to think of the risks, and hoping he had judged it right, Pieter snapped open his seat’s safety harness and pulled off his headset and then jumped straight out of the door.
His leap lasted maybe a second, no more, but it was the most terrifying single second of his life.
He just had time to register the look of total surprise on Lotte’s face before he landed on top of her. He heard her muffled scream, followed by a howl of pain which he realized came from his own lips as his jaw hit the wooden side of the boat. Momentarily stunned, he shook his head to clear his senses and then turned to grab her.
Lotte was pushing and shoving, her legs trying to find a purchase on the seat. She’d let go of the rudder stick on the boat’s engine, and now she grabbed at Pieter’s hair, then clawed his face and eyes, and he had to swipe her arm away. Her face was pushed close to his own and he saw her brown eyes now blazed with insanity.
Quickly using his greater strength he rolled her over and forced both of her arms behind her back, giving them an upward twist which made her scream, and then he reached for the cuffs hanging on his belt and he snapped them over her slender wrists.
She was panting and he was panting, but the brief fight was over.
Pieter sat back in the boat and looked at her as she twisted and glanced back over her shoulder at him, smiling that insane smile once more.
The roar of the helicopter just feet above them and the waves crashing over the sides of the motor launch drowned out all further thought, so he came to his feet in the rocking boat and hauled her up. Turning around he saw the chopper was now at head height, and the crewman was leaning down with his arm outstretched.
Together they managed to manhandle Lotte through the doorway. Pieter clambered in after her, his foot catching the outboard motor on the way up, sending the empty boat into a crazy spin so that it turned in quick circles, creating a whirlpool like a miniature version of the Lofoten Maelstrom.
Pausing in the hatchway, he gave her a hard shove into one of the seats. Immediately three or four guns were levelled at her.
Sliding the door shut – the sudden drop in engine noise and the violent downdraft from the rotors was wonderful – Pieter stood with his legs braced for balance, one hand grasping a metal stanchion. Without once taking his eyes off her he reached for his discarded headset and spoke into the small microphone.
“Take us down onto the dam.”
Pieter could taste blood in his mouth and he guessed he had lost a couple of teeth from the whack he’d taken. He was also soaking wet and freezing cold and physically spent. But there was still a job to do. They’d got Charlotte Janssen into custody, but Nina Bakker was still somewhere down there, still a captive and frightened little girl.
The pilots spun and pitched the helicopter downwards and they quickly slid sideways towards the dam below, and moments later they touched down on the centre of the road.
Pieter opened the door again and pulled Lotte out of her seat and pushed her outside onto the tarmac. He kept a firm hold on her arm as he jumped down behind her.
He pointed at two of the armed men in the back of the helicopter.
“You two, come here. Pilot, get your bird back into the air and start searching for the man and the girl. Switch back over to the police radio frequency and guide me in when you spot them.”
He tossed his headset back through the doorway, and he, Lotte and the two policemen stood back and watched them lift back up into the sky.
Walking Lotte across the road he quickly unfastened one half of the handcuffs and then closed it over the metal guardrail along the roadside overlooking the frozen shore below. He locked it again, but stayed crouched alongside her, his eyes looking into hers.
“Why?” he asked quietly in the sudden calm. “Why did you take her? Why did you kill her parents? If it was me you wanted, why not just come and kill me?”
Lotte laughed gently, but she had tears in her eyes.
“You fool. I don’t want to kill you. That would be too easy. I want to destroy you, Pieter. To take the silly girl, kill her while the whole world is watching, and see you suffer forever.”
Pieter gave a tiny shake of his head and he reached up and gently rubbed away the dampness on her cheek with his thumb.
“I don’t think you want that at all.”
Lotte twisted her face away to dislodge his hand, her chin trembling, and then gazed off into the middle distance with her watery eyes, seeing but not seeing the real world.
A double cracking sound brought Pieter to his feet, and at the same time one of the policemen shouted a warning: “Gunshots sir! From the beach!”
Pieter instinctively ducked, braced for the rounds to hit one of them, but when nothing happened he realized they were not the sniper’s target.
“Oh God!” came the cry.
Above them, the helicopter was turning, twisting around in mid-air, and as it pointed back towards them they could clearly see the two small bullet holes in the front of the cockpit canopy and one of the pilots slumped over his controls.
His colleague was desperately wrestling with the joystick, and he had a look of sheer terror on his face as the machine continued to spin around and lose altitude fast.
Those on the ground could do nothing but watch helplessly as the helicopter now shot upwards, pointing straight at the sky, but their brief flickerings of hope lasted just seconds as now it pitched all
