It was then that he heard it. A stupendous noise – an earth-shattering, thunderous roar – filled the air, as if a deep-ocean earthquake was ripping apart the sea floor. It reverberated through the skies, drowning out all other sounds.
Moments later, a dart-like form tore out of the heavens, its single Rolls-Royce Adour turbofan jet engine powering it along at a punishing 800 m.p.h. It streaked above them in a shallow dive, twisting this way and that as the drone operator corrected the Taranis’s flight path to keep it on course with its target.
Jaeger heard deafening gunfire erupt from the direction of the Sunseeker, as those in the pursuit boat tried to blast the drone out of the skies. He pinned Jones in the sights of his MP7, squeezing off short aimed bursts, as his arch-enemy unleashed savage fire in return.
Beside him Narov was likewise eking out the last of her bullets.
But it was then that Jaeger sensed it.
His ears caught the soft, sickening hollow crunch of a high-velocity round striking human flesh. Narov barely cried out. She had no time to. The impact of the shot threw her backwards, and moments later she’d tumbled from the craft into the sea.
As her bloodied form slipped beneath the swell, the dart-like form of the speeding Taranis struck the horizon. There was a blinding flash of light, and a split second later a deafening explosion rolled across the ocean, chunks of blasted debris raining down on all sides.
Flames boiled and seethed around the stricken form of the Sunseeker, as the RIB powered onwards across the ocean. The motorboat had been struck in the stern, and flames and smoke were pouring off the vessel.
Desperately Jaeger scanned the waters immediately to their rear, searching for Narov, but there was no sign of her. The RIB was flying along at top speed, and in no time they would lose her.
‘Spin the boat around!’ he screamed at Dale. ‘Narov’s overboard and hit!’
Dale had been facing forward the entire time, steering a tortuous course through the ever-shifting swell. He hadn’t seen what had happened. He slowed the RIB in preparation to make the turn, just as a call came in on the Thuraya.
Jaeger punched answer. It was Miles. ‘The Sunseeker’s down, but not out. We’ve got several figures alive, and they still have their weapons.’ He paused, as if monitoring something from his vantage point, then added: ‘And whatever you’ve slowed for, get moving and make for the RV. You have to save the boy.’
Jaeger slammed his fist into the bulwark of the RIB. If they turned back towards the smouldering wreck of the Sunseeker, in order to search for Narov, the risk of the boy getting hit was too high. He knew that.
He knew the right thing to do was to press on – for his family’s sake; for the sake of humanity. But he cursed himself for the decision that he was being forced to make here.
‘Get under way again,’ he snarled at Dale. ‘Move! Make for the RV.’
As if to reinforce the good sense of that decision, a burst of fire hammered out of the distance. Some of Kammler’s men – Jones himself possibly included – were clearly determined to go down fighting.
Jaeger moved around the craft, busying himself trying to comfort Simon Bello, while scanning the skies ahead for the squat, bulbous form of the Airlander. He didn’t know what else he could do.
‘Listen, kid, stay calm, okay. Not long now, and we’ll have you out of all this shit.’
But Simon’s reply was lost to Jaeger, for inside he was burning up with rage and frustration.
Minutes later, the airship came looming into view, the ghostly white presence descending from the sky like an impossible apparition. The pilot took her massive bulk into a perfect hover, inching her towards the surface of the sea. The giant five-bladed propulsors – one set to each corner of the airship’s hull – whipped up a storm of spray as the Airlander’s skids made contact with the waves.
The pilot inched lower, until the open cargo ramp dipped its end beneath the ocean swell. The Airlander’s turbines screamed as the pilot held her rock-steady, the downdraught whipping a storm of seawater around the faces of the two men on the RIB.
Jaeger took control of the boat now. What he was about to attempt was a manoeuvre he’d only ever seen done by one of his former commando coxswains, back when he was a young marine recruit. It had taken that guy years of training to get it just right, yet Jaeger had just one shot to execute it perfectly.
He turned the RIB until its prow was facing directly into the hold. The loadmaster gave a thumbs up from the Airlander’s open ramp, and in response Jaeger gunned the powerful outboard. He was thrown back against the helm seat as the engine roared and the RIB surged ahead.
Any moment now they would slam into the Airlander’s open ramp at full speed, so Jaeger hoped to hell he had got this dead right.
91
Moments before the point of impact, Jaeger raised the outboard engine to the point where the prop was hardly in the water, and then cut the power. The giant airship loomed above them, there was a sharp jolt as the RIB hit the ramp, leapt upwards and slammed down with a sickening thud, slewing its way into the hold.
The boat careered forward on to the flight deck, skidded sideways and came to a juddering halt.
They were in.
Jaeger flashed a thumbs up to the loadmaster. The propulsors screamed above them as they went to full power, the massive airship preparing to lift her impossible bulk from the sea, along with her extra cargo.
The airship rose a fraction, the swell sucking greedily at her skids.
Jaeger turned and ruffled Simon Chucks Bello’s hair.
They might have saved him, but had they saved humanity?
Or Ruth and Luke?
Kammler must have anticipated that they’d go for the kid, for why else would he have risked sending out his hunter force; his dogs of war? He must have got wise to the fact that Simon Bello was the answer; the cure.
And in his heart of hearts Jaeger was convinced that the boy would prove to be their collective saviour. But right now, he felt little sense of joy or achievement. That final, horrific image of Narov being blasted off the RIB was seared into his mind.
Abandoning her to her fate – it was torturing him.
He peered out of the cargo ramp. The surface of the ocean was being whipped into a frenzied spray. The propulsors screamed at maximum revs, but the airship seemed momentarily stuck fast. He glanced to one side, darkly, and his eyes came to rest upon the distinctive form of one of the Airlander’s life rafts.
In a flash, a plan crystallised in his mind.
Jaeger hesitated for barely an instant. Then, with a yell at Dale to safeguard the kid, he leapt from the RIB, ripped down the life raft and sprinted along the Airlander’s ramp, until he was perched on the very edge of the abyss.
He grabbed the radio headset that the loadmaster would use, and called up Miles. ‘Get this thing airborne, but stay under fifty feet. Take us due west, and slow.’
Miles confirmed the message, and Jaeger felt the four massive propulsors rev to an even greater pitch. For long seconds the Airlander seemed to hang there, the propulsors cutting through the air to either side of the craft, the swell crashing powerfully against her hull.
Then the giant airship seemed to tremble once along the whole of her bulk, and with a final effort she shook herself free of the sea’s embrace. Suddenly they were airborne.
The giant beast of an aircraft turned and began to ease a path west across the waves. Jaeger scanned the ocean surface, using his GPS and the burning hulk of the Sunseeker as his reference points.