Glad that he’d had the foresight to leave a number of radio transmitters along the way, John pulled out his radio and contacted the Navy SEAL commander.
“Ryan Walker?”
“Yes John, go ahead,” replied the Navy SEAL commander in charge of the operation on Lake Solitude.
“They’ve escaped at this end. Expect them to surface somewhere on the lake any minute now.”
“Understood,” Ryan replied. “We have two targets here. One appears to be a group of fifty or more mercenaries, pretty heavily armed, and the other is a single helicopter — the same one our suspects used when they dived here a few days ago.”
“Copy that. Hold your ground, but make sure that you don’t let that chopper out of your sight. If you have to choose between the two, follow the helicopter.”
“Copy that. Should we take it out now?”
“No, they have the virus. It needs to remain untouched. Do you understand how important it is that the virus not be damaged?”
“Yes, we’ve been ordered to protect it.”
“I’m making my way back to the surface, but I’m going to need a ride from the mountain top.”
“We’ll send someone,” there was a slight pause, and then the SEAL commander said, “The chopper’s blades have just started to rotate.”
“Don’t you fucking dare lose it!” John shouted into his transmitter.
Tom had just enough time to close the helicopter door before raising the collective and lifting off. To his right, approximately three hundred feet away, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a number of tracer bullets flying towards him. Instinctively, he swung the tail of the helicopter around, providing a minimal amount of protection.
He then tilted the rotary blades, and made his approach toward the edge of the mountain. If he could manage to drop off it, he would be free.
Tom’s eyes scanned the horizon and was relieved to see that there wasn’t another bird in the sky. Even if there had been another helicopter on the ground, he knew that it would take them too long to start up and catch him.
He heard three bullets harmlessly rake the side of his tail, and then he dropped off the next cliff and down into the valley below.
He picked up speed as he lost altitude, and within thirty seconds, he felt that he’d safely escaped.
It’s up to Sam now…
Behind him, Tom saw the two Blackhawks rapidly approaching.
Ah, shit! They’re going to be a little harder to outrun!
He still had the altitude advantage over his enemies, but they had fighting ships, and all he had was an underpowered, unarmed sightseeing helicopter.
No, his only chance was to lose them and get rid of the helicopter before they shot him out of the sky.
Tom used the speed that he had picked up with his dive to maneuver around a mountain and search for a lake, or someplace where he could safely jump out of his copter. As he came around the narrow peak, he saw exactly what he imagined Peter Greenstein once saw — rugged mountains, lethal pine trees, and no flat surface anywhere.
He kept flying as fast as he could, but the Robinson 44 simply wasn’t capable of keeping ahead of the more powerful Blackhawks.
Behind him, Tom could see that the two Blackhawks had slowed down and were following him carefully.
He continued watching as a number of tracer bullets flew past both his left and right windows.
It could have been less than a foot off his cockpit.
No pilot could miss that close a shot so many times, certainly not by accident.
“Robinson 44, this is the U.S. Blackhawk resting on your tail. You are hereby ordered to land immediately or we will take you out.” Tom heard the voice of a typically relaxed American drawl, from somewhere in the southern states. For a second, he imagined that he could probably match the voice to a face.
“U.S. Blackhawk on my tail, do you mind telling me what jurisdiction you have over a privately owned tourist helicopter in Italy?”
“We’re here with permission from the Italian government, on an anti-terrorism coordinated mission.”
“Copy that. Can you then please explain your reason for firing upon a civilian aircraft?” Tom asked.
“We have reason to believe that you are in possession of some artifacts from the Magdalena. Please turn to 110 degrees and follow me in to a landing point.”
“Acknowledged.” Tom knew when the game was up. There was no way he could outmaneuver one, let alone two, Blackhawks, and to even attempt it would get him needlessly shot down. He’d survived one helicopter crash, but he doubted he would survive a second one.
Ten minutes later he landed his helicopter at an Italian military base.
He let the blades slow down naturally and then waited for members of the U.S. Marine Corps to arrive.
By the time the rotors had slowed down to the point where it would be impossible for him to take off instantly, several Navy SEALs came and ripped him out of the helicopter. He watched, bemused, as the highly-trained team took the helicopter apart in an attempt to find something.
A large man, with short red hair, and a grin that said, “I’m gonna fuck you up,” approached him and said, “Okay, where is it?”
“Where’s what?”
The man looked at him, curiosity as much as pleasure, showing in his previously vacant eyes, and said, “Tom Bower, what the fuck are you doing caught up in all this?”
Blake Simmonds had seen the helicopter take off, and of all the people still on the ground, he alone knew for certain that it wasn’t carrying the virus. He believed that the risk he’d taken with Tom Bower had been worthwhile. Bower had done just what he’d needed him to do. He was certain that Sam Reilly would soon appear from that tunnel on the side of the mountain.
“The helicopter’s finally taken off, sir.” It was the leader of his team, Mark Osborne, who then asked, “Do we have a secondary target?”
“Yes. The hole left by the explosion is the opening from which our target is going to exit. I am certain of it,” Blake said.
“Will he be swimming, sir?”
“I have no idea. He definitely doesn’t have any SCUBA equipment. He may have a raft, but nothing else. The priority here is to take control of that side of the mountain, so that we can secure the opening before he gets through it.”
“Understood.”
Blake watched as Mark issued a number of quick orders to the other men on his team.
Around Lake Solitude, the firefight between the Navy SEALs and Blake’s team of mercenaries continued on into the night.
John Wolfgang climbed aboard the Blackhawk helicopter, as it hovered just a few feet above the mountain peak.
He wasted no time.
The outcome of the next hour would affect his entire life, and more importantly, Aliana’s.
A muscled arm in military attire passed him a satellite phone.
“It’s the commander on scene,” the soldier said, “He wants to speak to you, sir.”
John took the phone, and said, “Hello, John Wolfgang here.”
“This is SEAL Commander Ryan Walker here,” said the man’s voice with military efficiency, “We have a problem.”
“Go ahead.”
“We’ve forced the chopper to land, but it wasn’t on board.”
“Shit! What about the Magdalena?” John asked, quickly.
“What about her? We were told that she was stuck somewhere inside the mountain.”
“Yeah, well I have an idea that Sam Reilly has just made her unstuck.”
“And you believe that he’s going to bring her out of the hole in the mountainside?” Commander Walker asked.
“Sure do. I would make securing that your next priority.”