The Sacred Vault

by Andy McDermott

  The de Havilland shuddered, buffeted by the winds sweeping across the ice plain. Nina grabbed Eddie’s hand. ‘Ow,’ he complained.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Bloody nails, digging into me!’ He pulled open her clenched fingers.

  ‘I’m just nervous - we’re about to land on a glacier hundreds of miles from anywhere, and I’m pretty sure we won’t get a warm welcome.’

  ‘Oh, come on. You’ve been to the Antarctic - this is like Central Park in comparison. Besides, we’ve got all these guys and their guns on our side - and the Khoils don’t even know we’re coming.’

  Shouts of alarm in Danish from the cockpit, the plane banking sharply—

  A bright flash outside the windows - then a hole burst open in the fuselage with an earsplitting bang and the shriek of shredding metal. One of the cops was hit in the head by shrapnel, a splash of blood flying across the cabin.

  The plane dropped, loose items tumbling in freefall as a freezing wind screamed through the rent in the hull. One of Probst’s men had not fastened his seat belt - he was dragged through the torn hole, the jagged metal ripping his clothing and flesh before the slipstream snatched him away.

  Another light outside, the orange flicker of flames. The engine was on fire. The de Havilland lurched, the rasp of its remaining propeller rising as the pilots increased power. ‘What the hell’s happening?’ Nina shrieked.

  Eddie clutched his armrests. ‘A missile! Those fuckers are trying to shoot us down!’ He twisted to look into the cockpit. The co-pilot yelled into his headset, declaring a Mayday - but from his expression was getting no reply. Beside him, the pilot struggled with the controls. The plane was dropping fast, nose angled downwards. Through the cockpit windows, Eddie saw a light in the distance, a glowing blue sphere on the snow.

  DYE-A. The Khoils’ base. They would crash within sight of it.

  A loud whine and a shrill grind of metal ran through the cabin as the pilot extended the wing flaps. The de Havilland’s dive started to level out. ‘Can you land?’ Eddie shouted.

  Panic cracked the co-pilot’s mask of professionalism. ‘We can’t make the runway! Crash positions! Brace for 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! Brace!’ screamed the co-pilot. The engine’s snarl echoed off the ice as the plane reached the ground . . .

  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 fuck!’ he yelled, exploding to life and thrashing against his seat belt. Nina shrieked, flinching back. He clawed open the buckle and jumped up, fists clenched in fury.

  ‘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 plane crash! That nerdy little bastard Khoil, when I get hold of him . . .’ Another, longer exhalation, then he took a deep breath before speaking again, more calmly. ‘Buggeration and fuckery.’

  ‘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. ‘Was ist pass . . .’ he began, before switching to English on seeing Eddie. ‘What happened?’

  ‘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 pushed harder, skirting the severed wing. The stink of fuel filled his nostrils, as he passed it. More debris lay in his path, as did a dark splash of blood across the whiteness. He kept running. The tail section loomed ahead—

  One of the snowmobiles veered towards the two men. The aurora’s light had betrayed them.

  Eddie cursed and leapt into the channel, hunching down as he scrambled over the churned ice. He looked back at the cop - who froze as the headlight pinned him. ‘Get down!’ he shouted. The cop broke from his paralysis and jumped after him—

  Gunfire spat from the snowmobile, bullets ripping into the young man’s head and chest. Blood splattered across the ice as he crumpled.

  Anger surging, Eddie ran on, head down. Ice sprayed over him as more gunshots smacked into the snow.

  The half-buried tail section was not far ahead. Its interior was dark, a black mouth surrounded by jagged metal teeth. He vaulted a large hatch lying on the ground and sprinted into the shadows. The open end of the fuselage was packed with snow, seats jutting through the mound - but beyond it the central aisle was more or less clear, the gun locker at its end.

  He scrambled over the drift. No emergency lights here, but there was enough illumination from the aurora for him to find the locker. He grabbed the handle—

  It turned - but the door only opened an inch before banging against something. He pulled harder. It flexed, but still refused to open. ‘Shit!’ He groped in the darkness . . . and found that the floor had buckled upwards in front of the locker.

  He kicked at it, trying to bend it back down, but it was too solid. A harsh light shone through the portholes - the snowmobile was almost on him. The other vehicle roared on down the slope towards the plane’s front section. Two men on each machine.

  The passenger on the one approaching leaned out from behind the driver, gun raised—

  Eddie dropped flat as bullets riddled the wreck. A shot clanked off the seat frame just above him. Spears of light stabbed across the cabin through each new hole in the fuselage.

  If he stayed put, he was a dead man - he would be pinned inside the hull. He slithered on his belly over the piled snow as more shots punctured the plane’s skin. Emerging into the faint auroral glow, he pulled himself round the torn edge of the fuselage to take shelter behind it.

  The snowmobile’s snarl dropped to an idling stutter. The gunfire also stopped. Eddie risked a peek at his attackers. If the gunner were reloading, that would give him a few seconds to take action . . .

  He wasn’t reloading. He was pulling the pin from a grenade.

  Eddie sprang up and ran for the rear of the wreckage as something small but heavy clanged off metal behind him—

  Nina had forced herself to keep bandaging Probst’s ankle even through the sound of gunfire - but she jumped up in horror at the explosion, seeing debris showering down round the tail section.

  One of the snowmobiles was still barrelling straight for her. The other had stopped further uphill; a man hopped off, the driver revving up and turning to ride after his comrades.

  No sign of Eddie. Had he been inside the tail?

  She didn’t have time to consider the horrible thought. A man on the nearer snowmobile opened fire. ‘Jesus!’ she gasped, ducking. Bullets kicked up snow and peppered the fuselage

  The other Interpol agent yelled in fright as a round struck the forward bulkhead. He lurched upright, clambering into the open and starting to run across the ice.

  ‘No, wait!’ Nina shouted, but it was too late. The gunman had spotted the fleeing figure, and shouted for the driver to angle after him. Flame flashed from his gun’s muzzle as he opened fire on full auto—

  The running man tumbled bloodily into the snow.

  The snowmobile swerved back towards the plane, driving alongside the trench. Nina crouched beside Probst, desperately searching for an escape route, any form of defence. But the wrecked fuselage offered no protection and no hiding places, and they had no weapons—

  Yes, they did. She pawed through the survival kit. The orange-painted Very pistol might not have been designed as a weapon, but it was still a gun. She opened the breech and inserted a flare, then snapped it closed.

  ‘You’ll never hit them with that,’ Probst warned her weakly.

  ‘I’m not aiming at them,’ Nina replied, jaw set. She raised her head, judging the distance to her target. Waiting for the right moment.

  The gunner fired again. Shots cracked against the seats. Nina flinched, but held her position.

  Waiting . . .

  Now!

  She pulled the trigger.

  With a thump, the flare sizzled away on a trail of red-lit smoke towards her target - not the snowmobile, but the severed wing, and the ruptured auxiliary fuel tank inside it . . .

  And fell short.

  She had overestimated the projectile’s power, not aiming high enough. The flare landed, sending up a plume of steam as the intense heat melted the snow. Nina ducked, fumbling for a second flare, but she knew that by the time she reloaded, the snowmobile would be past the wing.

  She had missed her one chance.

  Eddie was being hunted.

  The gunman had quickly realised that his grenade had not caught anyone inside the fuselage. Now, he was circling the tail section, MP5K at the ready. There were no tracks in the surrounding snow, so his quarry was close by . . .

  Eddie heard the crunch of his footsteps as he approached the stern. He was crouched on the other
side of the high tail, unable to move - any sound would reveal his position. And at such close range, a burst from the Heckler and Koch would go straight through the plane’s aluminium skin. The other man didn’t even need to see him to kill him.

  His only chance was a surprise attack as the gunman rounded the tail. But he could tell his hunter was cautious, unlikely to fall for such an obvious ploy. The icy crackles came closer, pausing. Listening.

  Eddie tensed, ready to spring - but he knew that without a diversion, he had no chance of reaching his enemy before being shot . . .

  Nina loaded another flare. But it was too late - the snowmobile had passed the wing—

  A new light, brighter than the aurora. Startled, she looked between the seats - and saw flames spreading outwards from the sputtering flare.

  The fuel!

  It had trickled downhill - and now the fire was rushing back up the line of flammable liquid to its source—

  The wing exploded, metal shards scything in all directions. The blast tore apart the engine, sending one of the propeller blades spinning away - to slam into the snowmobile. The driver’s upper body was reduced to a red pulp by the heavy piece of metal, his hands and the stumps of his forearms left clinging to the handlebars. The vehicle swerved out of control and crashed into the trench, flinging the other man into a pool of burning avgas.

  Eddie heard the explosion - and the crunch of ice underfoot as the gunman whirled to see what had happened.

  His diversion—

  He threw himself bodily at the rudder, slamming it into the gunman on the other side. Swinging round the tailplane, he launched himself at the staggering figure and tackled him at chest height. The gun went off - but the bullets went wide. He pressed home the attack, driving a powerful blow into the man’s stomach.

  The gunman crashed against the battered fuselage. Eddie grabbed for the MP5K, but only managed to get a hold on the other man’s wrist.