Tatiana could see distant figures, sprinting over the parched dirt. And then she recognised Ezra.
“He’s on his own,” said Dillon.
“Can you shoot his pursuers?”
“At this altitude and height? I’ll cut all three of them in half!
Ezra’s far too close to them… It’s impossible to distinguish the targets with these type of machine guns anyway…”
The amphibian aircraft roared over the cliff top and banked at distance, single propeller flashing silver against the sun; and then they returned for another pass. Ezra, surprisingly for his bulk, was sprinting ahead of his two pursuing Assassins. He was unarmed… and carrying something in his clenched fist that glinted a multitude of candy colours and then, in a flash they were over and gone. Dillon banked the aircraft once more — a distant droning insect to those on the ground.
“If I land, we’d be sitting ducks,” shouted Dillon. “Vince, what do you think?”
Vince was sat in the rear of the cockpit with his net-book on his lap. “They’re armed, both carrying SMGs and they’re closing on Ezra fast. They obviously want him alive, or they would have shot him by now. But he hasn’t got much longer.”
“Dillon, we’ve got to help him!” screamed Tatiana. “We’ve got to help him now!”
Ezra, sweat pouring down his body, glanced up as the A-25M roared low overhead. He was as good as dead, he knew, but the small circular optical disc he was carrying in his right hand could not fall into the wrong hands…
Under any circumstances — could not.
The missing blueprints were now hindering the progress of the Chimera Programme — availing Ferran & Cardini and the Government valuable time. And as Ezra had said before, those individuals involved were enemies of every Western democracy, and Ezra was their Achilles Heel. Their weakness.
How could Kirill and Ramus hope to hold every government around the planet to ransom with the Chimera virus programme if there was an identical programme to counter all the commands? There to throw a spanner in their plans for a worldwide computer meltdown? There to piss on their firebefore the fire is even lit? No, they needed the blueprints.
Ezra did not dare to glance over his shoulder. But he could hear them, hear their rubber soled running shoes on the dirt of the track. Ezra considered himself a fit man, but these two bastards had chased him for miles; virtually all of it across uneven cross-country terrain. The Assassins had known the exact layout of his facility, and from the very start, had played out the entire attack with the sole intention of drawing him out and to send him fleeing across the countryside with bullets at his tail. It hadn’t taken them long to separate him from his group. They had known. Known what he carried.
A grim smile twisted his lips. He kept going, finding that extra reserve of energy, stored for such occasions. Ezra’s endurance had been pushed to its limit and he could feel his body using every last drop of adrenalin, using reserves that he never dreamed he had — the large man did not know how he still managed to put one foot in front of the other.
For the past half a mile the two Assassins had slowly wound him in, like a big fish on the end of a line. Now they were just thirty paces behind him and panic settled like a dark demon across his soul. With his heart pounding, all that he could think of — was what to do? What in God’s name was he going to do?
Why hadn’t they just simply gunned him down as soon as he’d started to run?
They knew; knew that he held the key to the final piece of encryption that would fully complete the Chimera Programme — the key to unlocking everything stored on the small disc. With him dead, it would take them a lifetime to crack — but with him alive, and drugged to do whatever they wanted?
Mere minutes. He’d seen, first hand, what they could do.
He shivered. He did not want to be caught.
Better to die, he thought.
He strode on keeping up the pace with every ounce of strength left in his body.
And then he was there…
There was a shout from behind him as one of the Assassins realised what was about to happen.
Ezra pounded up to the ridge and in silence, without looking down, leaped with all his might. Hands lightly brushed against his back. An Assassin had followed him, not from choice but from momentum and speed.
Ezra had launched himself over the cliff and into — nothing…
He kept the disc tightly gripped in his hand.
There were no final words. No shouts of Geronimo. Ezra merely kept his mouth shut, even though the world had opened up before him… So large… So colourful…
And he knew; this was the first time he had truly seen.
The first time he had felt.
And the first time he had felt so light and carefree.
Fresh Santorian air raced past his tear-blurred vision.
Ezra fell.
“No!” screamed Tatiana from the cockpit of the aircraft.
The A-25M banked once more; the forward machine guns rattled off hundreds of rounds and the Assassin on the cliff top was cut to pieces — it all happened so quickly that it didn’t even know anything about it.
“Get down there, down to the base of the cliffs,” she commanded. “What good will it do? Ezra’s gone, Tats.” Dillon said softly. “Just do it, Dillon.”
Dillon stared at her for a moment, but altered course and flew along the cliff top and then dropped down towards the sea far below. He flew a wide circle and came in low over the water, waves rolled onto the shore, but showed no signs of life. For a while Dillon cruised up and down the stretch where Ezra would have dropped, searching; but Ezra had gone.
“Tatiana, we can’t search forever,” Vince said gently. “I know. Just a few more minutes.”
Propeller whining, the A-25M circled and searched. Finally, it veered off, climbing steeply, and then headed north, away from the shoreline, away from the cliffs, away from the island of Santorini.
To the west the sun was starting its journey over the horizon, and behind them in the distance the red cliffs of Thira. Dillon was drained and exhausted, had levelled out at five thousand feet and the A-25M had reached its cruising speed on a northerly heading. “Take me away from this place,” whispered Tatiana.
The two Assassins walked slowly into the control room, stopped just inside the doorway, looking down at the congealing blood they were standing in. Then looked around at the blood soaked prostrate figures sprawled over workstations and on the floor, their blood sprayed up the walls and across the ceiling of the chamber.
“Ezra is not here,” came the soft female voice. “And now they are all dead.” The Assassin pulled off its black hood, and in the process revealed feminine blond hair, soft blemish free skin and, the most piercingly blue eyes. She went to one of the security camera monitors, typed in the start run time, and watched the footage for a few moments. “He ran towards the cliff top. Ezra jumped — is dead, his body lost to the ocean, and the disc with him.”
“What shall we do now?” The second Assassin looked searchingly at the first.
The soft voice was calm, she shook her head and turned away, stepping towards the escape tunnel hewn through the stone and the welcoming calming coolness beyond.
The Assassin abhorred the heat. She hated this place.
Her words echoed back, hollow and empty.
“We bury our dead and then we leave this place.”