“Oh, thank God!” Kari exclaimed. “I thought you were dead!”
Frost’s voice emerged from the cabin speakers. “I’m fine. The containment area survived almost totally intact.”
“Was it Qobras’s people? I saw men parachuting into the grounds.”
“It was Starkman—and Edward Chase.”
Kari looked stunned. “What? But you said Qobras had—”
“Eddie!” Nina jumped up and ran to the desk. “You mean he’s alive? What happened, is he okay?”
“You might want to remind Dr. Wilde that she isn’t helping her case by sounding so pleased about that,” Frost said, voice acidic. “Chase was working with Starkman against us.”
Kari frowned at the screen. “You lied to me! If you knew he wasn’t dead—”
“None of this matters,” Frost cut in. “All that does matter is that they’ve failed. We still have the virus cultures in the containment area, and Schenk is moving our security teams to make sure they can’t get across the bridge to attack your plane. I thought Chase and Starkman were already dead—they soon will be for sure.”
“Nice wheels,” said Starkman, impressed. He and Chase stood in the garage beneath the house, before Kari’s collection of cars and motorcycles. “What’s the fastest one? Lamborghini? McLaren?”
Chase shot open the cabinet containing the keys to the vehicles. “No, we need a convertible—the Ferrari.” He pointed at the bright scarlet F430 Spider, noticing that Kari’s racing bike was no longer in its neighboring parking spot, then hunted for the right key. It was easy to find—the black and yellow prancing horse logo was instantly recognizable from his schoolboy fantasies.
“A convertible? Why?”
“Because I’m going to need to shoot from it. There’ll be more guards on the way—they’re not just going to let us drive straight across the bridge!” He tossed the keys to Starkman. “Come on! You’re driving!”
“What the hell are you planning?” Starkman demanded as Chase jumped into the Ferrari’s passenger seat.
“I don’t know, I’m making this up as I go!”
“Always the wise-ass, weren’t you?” Starkman climbed into the driver’s seat and put the key in the ignition. The Ferrari’s engine crackled to life with an almost animalistic growl. “You think you can bring down the plane with just a UMP?”
“I don’t want to bring it down—Nina’s still aboard! Okay, go!”
The Ferrari peeled out of its bay with a shriek of tires as Starkman overrevved the engine. “Whoa! Little touchy!” He eased off and turned for the main door, which started opening automatically as they approached. “You’re going to try to save her? What’re you gonna do, jump onto the plane while it’s taking off?”
“If I have to!” Chase looked at the gear on Starkman’s back. “Give me your grappling gun.”
“You’re out of your fucking mind!” Starkman objected. But he handed the device to Chase anyway.
The door rose high enough for the low-slung Ferrari to fit beneath. Starkman stomped on the accelerator, the engine howling. The car blasted forward like a bullet. “Holy shit!”
“I always wanted one of these!” Chase checked the load on his machine gun, then looked ahead. The driveway from the house zigzagged down the hill to join up with the road leading to the bridge—where another pair of Grand Cherokees had been positioned into a roadblock. Beyond them, halfway across the bridge itself, was a silver BMW X5.
Starkman pointed; more of Frost’s security forces crouched behind the Jeeps. “Hate to tell you this, but Ferraris aren’t bulletproof!”
“Nor are Jeeps! You ready?” The F430 swooped into the last curve.
“As I’ll ever be!” Starkman hefted his UMP in his left hand, holding the steering wheel with his right. The Ferrari straightened, the makeshift roadblock directly ahead—
“Fire!”
Chase opened fire as the Ferrari accelerated, sweeping his shots across the right-hand Jeep at window height. Starkman extended his arm from the side of the car and blasted away at the other SUV, spent bullet casings clinking off the windscreen.
The Jeeps shuddered under the onslaught, glass exploding and metal panels cratering as shots ripped through them. Chase saw a man fall. He didn’t expect to take out all the guards—he just needed to keep them down until the Ferrari could blast past.
“Get on the pavement!” he yelled.
“What?”
“The sidewalk, sidewalk!” The SUVs had blocked the two-lane roadway, but there was a pavement for pedestrians on the right.
“We won’t fit!”
“Yes we will!” Not that they had a choice—in a collision between a lightweight Italian sports car and a two-ton American SUV, there was no doubt which would come out worse.
Starkman swerved the Ferrari to the right, both men still firing at the Jeeps. Chase’s gun clicked empty. Bullets clonked into the side of the F430 as the security men shot back.
“Shit!” cried Starkman. “We’re not gonna fit!”
“Just go!” screamed Chase, bracing himself as the F430 hit the curb. The front spoiler splintered on impact—then the low-profile wheels slammed against the unforgiving concrete with a bang that pounded up his spine like a hammer blow.
Chase’s side of the car screeched against the bridge’s railing while the front wing on Starkman’s side clipped the rear of the Jeep and crumpled back like tinfoil. Both wing mirrors were sheared off, spraying the two men with glass.
“Duck!” Chase shouted as Starkman swung the Ferrari back onto the road. More bullets struck the car as they hunched down in their seats, one clanking against the hooped rollbar just inches behind Chase’s head.
Starkman accelerated again. Chase was shoved back in his seat as the Ferrari blasted away from the Jeeps. He let out an involuntary whoop of excitement at the sensation. “Bloody hell!”
“Good choice of car!” Starkman called over the rush of the wind. “Okay, so—”
The windscreen shattered.
Starkman spasmed as blood sprayed from a wound in his chest, a ragged hole blown right through his body armor. The engine note dropped abruptly as his foot slipped from the accelerator. The Ferrari coasted, slowing fast.
“Jesus!” Chase cried. He grabbed the steering wheel, trying to keep the F430 from hitting the parked BMW ahead.
Standing beside it, a gleaming gun in his hands, was someone Chase recognized instantly.
Schenk.
He recognized the gun, too. Frost’s chief of security had just shot Starkman with a Wildey.
His Wildey.
Chase brought up his UMP, remembering too late that he needed to change clips. Schenk aimed the long silver barrel at him—
He released the wheel and flung himself bodily over the top of his door. The distinctive boom of the Wildey reached him as a Magnum round blew a fist-sized hole in the back of his seat. He hit the ground hard and rolled.
Another boom. A chunk of asphalt flew into the air inches from his legs. He rolled again, the awkward shape of the cable gun digging into his back. There was a crunch of metal as the slowing Ferrari banged into the side of the SUV and came to a halt. The engine stalled. Schenk jumped back, taking cover behind his vehicle.
Chase sprang up and ran for the BMW. Schenk saw him and fired again, but Chase dived behind the X5, fumbling for a new magazine.
Shit!
Touch alone told him something was wrong. The open end of the clip was crooked, bent out of shape. He’d crushed it under his own weight when he rolled over the road. It wouldn’t fit into the UMP’s receiver.
Chase dropped the useless magazine, instead flipping the UMP in his hands and sweeping it at ankle height as Schenk rushed around the side of the X5, the Wildey ready in his hand—
The German’s shot went wide as Chase hooked one foot out from under him with the UMP’s stock. Schenk grunted as he was knocked off balance, and staggered, arms windmilling.
Chase rugby-tackled him, driving him ba
ck until he crashed against the guardrail, trying to force him over.
But Schenk was a solid slab of muscle, too big even for Chase to overpower by brute force. He realized the danger he was in and bent at the knees, dropping his center of gravity below the top of the railing. His arm swung, and the butt of the Wildey smashed down on Chase’s neck, felling him with a bolt of pain. Schenk’s boot cracked against the side of his skull. Chase dropped onto his side. Head swimming, he looked up.
The Wildey was pointed straight at his face. Beyond it, Schenk came into focus. The German grinned—
Blam!
Chase flinched.
But it wasn’t the Wildey that had fired.
It was Starkman’s UMP, the last bullet in its magazine gouging a bloody hole in Schenk’s right shoulder. The Wildey dropped from the German’s hand as he lurched back against the railing.
Chase caught his gun and flipped it around. “I think this is mine.”
He fired. The bullet hit Schenk in his left eye, the eyeball bursting in a revolting spray as the shot continued through his brain and exploded out of the top of his skull. His head snapped back with the impact and he toppled over the railing, falling hundreds of feet to the icy waters below.
Clutching his aching head, Chase staggered to the Ferrari. Starkman was slumped over the door, bubbles of blood dripping from his mouth. For a second Chase thought he was dead, but then his one eye twitched, looking up at him.
“Bet you’re glad you didn’t kill me now, huh?” Starkman said weakly. He pulled himself upright and flopped back into the seat. “Come on, you got a plane to catch…”
Chase opened the door to lift him into the passenger seat, but Starkman shook his head. “Leave me … I’m fucked, and company’s coming.” He looked in the direction they had come. One of the Jeeps from the roadblock was already chasing them, and more vehicles were speeding up the road from the corporate buildings. “I’ll stop ’em …”
“With what?”
Starkman somehow managed a half-smile and held up a block of CL-20—the timer already running.
“Just make sure you’re off this bridge in twenty seconds,” he wheezed, with his last ounce of strength forcing himself out of the Ferrari to lie on the road at Chase’s feet. “Fight to the end, Eddie …”
“Fight to the end,” Chase repeated as he jumped into the Ferrari and restarted the engine. He jammed it into reverse and pulled away from the BMW, then clicked into first and poured on the power.
Riding in the passenger seat didn’t even remotely compare to the experience of controlling 483 horsepower. The acceleration was so fierce it felt like taking off in a jet. By the time he remembered to change up a gear, he was already doing over sixty miles an hour, the engine wailing like a banshee behind him.
Into third, now doing eighty, snicking the gear lever through the gleaming chrome gate …
In the mirror he saw that the Jeep had almost reached Starkman, the other vehicles now pouring onto the bridge.
The other end of the bridge was coming up fast, but he could only guess how much time he had left before the explosive detonated. Just moments.
One hundred miles an hour and accelerating, but still a few seconds from solid ground—
The image in the mirror disappeared in a flash of light. A moment later came a huge crack like a thunderbolt, immediately followed by a lower, more sinister rumble.
The flat plane of the bridge suddenly became a slope—
It was collapsing!
Starkman’s bomb had blown out the center of the sweeping arch, the two halves of the structure plunging into the river below. All Chase could do was keep his right foot jammed to the floor and hope the Ferrari reached the end of the bridge before the whole thing dropped out from under him!
He was now driving uphill, speed falling alarmingly as a wave of jagged cracks swept past up the road surface. “Oh shit—”
Everything tilted, and the road disintegrated beneath him—
The Ferrari shot off the end of the collapsing bridge as it tumbled into the fjord, crashing down onto solid ground. The exhaust pipes were torn away as the underbody hit the road, the engine note becoming a raw, ragged rasp.
Chase fought to keep the car under control as it slewed around. He stamped on the brake. The Ferrari juddered as the antilock system kicked in, but it was skidding sideways, tires straining, threatening to burst.
He hauled at the steering wheel. The car spun backwards towards a wall.
Foot off the brake, and accelerate—
With a shriek of tortured rubber, the Ferrari came to a stop in a cloud of acrid tire smoke barely a foot from the airfield’s perimeter wall. Chase coughed as the swirling mist blew past him. Through the smashed windscreen he saw another cloud, a ghostly line of dust marking where the bridge had been. The security forces pursuing him were gone, having plunged into the river with their boss.
And Starkman.
Chase paused to give his ex-comrade a silent word of thanks.
Then he turned to look down the runway. In the distance, he saw the hulking white shape of the A380 against the dark backdrop of the surrounding hills, about to turn around.
About to take off.
He put the battered Ferrari into gear, then set off with a screech of tires.
TWENTY-NINE
The A380 slowed as it approached the end of the taxiway, preparing for the wide half-turn to point it down the two-kilometer-long runway.
Chase kept his eyes fixed on the aircraft as he accelerated, clicking up through the Ferrari’s gears. The blasting wind forced him to squint, eyes streaming, but all he had to do was keep going in a straight line.
He had never been aboard an A380, knew almost nothing about its internal layout beyond it being a double-decker. But that was the passenger version—this one was a freighter, meaning he was even more in the dark. He would have to wing it when he got on board.
He would have to wing it to get on board. Trying to block the plane’s takeoff with the Ferrari would be like trying to stop a tank with a cardboard box. The enormous aircraft would blow the sports car aside as if it weren’t even there.
And he couldn’t try to stop the plane by shooting at it—there was too much risk of killing Nina if it caught fire or crashed as a result.
Although if it meant stopping the virus then it might have to be a necessary sacrifice—with himself going the same way …
He was doing over 140, barely able to see the speedometer through his watering eyes. The A380 was a white blur ahead as it moved into its turn.
Whatever he was going to do, he had to think of it fast…
“Ms. Frost!” The pilot’s voice echoed over the intercom. “There’s a car on the runway!”
Kari went to the port side of the cabin to look down. “What?” she gasped. Nina peered past her. She saw the runway stretching off into the distance as the plane turned—and racing down it, a scarlet Ferrari convertible!
The car charged towards them at incredible speed, its lone occupant taking on form. Even at a distance she recognized the balding head behind the wheel the moment she saw it. “Oh my God! It’s Eddie!”
Kari reacted with shock, then went to the intercom. “This is Kari Frost. Under no circumstances are you to abort the takeoff. Whatever he does, get this plane into the air. That is an order.” She returned to the window. “What the hell is he doing?”
“Trying to stop you,” said Nina.
Kari set her jaw, her expression turning hard. “He won’t succeed.” She moved to the top of the stairs and shouted down to the guards, “Get your guns and open the hatch! Somebody’s trying to stop us from taking off—”
Nina realized that Kari’s back was to her, and she had only the lightest hold on the handrail.
She didn’t even have time to consider the thought rationally. Instead, she acted on pure instinct, rushing at Kari with both arms held out like battering rams and pushing her down the stairs.
Taken completely by s
urprise, Kari had no chance to stop herself from falling. She screamed as she tumbled down the metal steps, flailing limbs smashing against the hard edges, then hit the floor with a bang, bleeding and dazed.
Nina stared down at her almost in shock at what she’d done before instinct took over again. Fight or flight…
Flight!
She ran to the door at the back of the cabin, praying it wasn’t locked. It wasn’t. Darting through, she found herself inside the upper hold, a vaulted tunnel of bare metal ribs holding a line of cargo containers, rattling against their restraints. Banks of white LEDs mounted along the ceiling provided ghostly illumination.
There was no lock on the door. She hurriedly looked around for some way to secure it.
The nearest container was just a few feet away, held in place by thick straps attached to lugs in the floor. She yanked at what she hoped was the release lever. With a loud clack, the strap came free. She looped it behind a spar in the wall before tying it around the door handle, pulling it tight. It wouldn’t stop the door from being opened, but it would make it much harder for anyone to squeeze through the narrow gap.
She stepped back, looking down the hold.
The virus …
For the virus to be released in flight, whatever container it was in had to be somehow plumbed to the skin of the Airbus. If she could find the container, there might be some way to sabotage it.
Loud footsteps from the cabin: someone racing up the stairs.
Nina ran down the hold.
The A380 was about to complete its turn, and Chase was almost at the end of the runway. He wiped his eyes, trying to get a clear look at the aircraft. Under the fuselage were five undercarriage legs, one at the nose and the other four spreading out the plane’s weight as widely as possible.
When the undercarriage retracted into the plane’s belly, there should be access hatches he could use to enter the fuselage if he got onto one of the landing legs.
Might be access hatches, he reminded himself.
He had to take the chance. It was now or never. The A380’s four gaping engines were spinning up.
The Hunt for Atlantis_A Novel Page 41