He faced forward, bringing up his legs and swinging to hook his ankles over the tubular spar. Pulling himself up, he looked at the cabin door—
And saw the USP pointing at him.
‘Shit!’ he gasped, jerking his feet off the skid and dropping back down to present a smaller target — as Kroll fired.
The bullet whipped past the Yorkshireman’s left arm. The Nazi pulled the trigger again as Eddie swung backwards from the skid’s tail, this round searing past just inches from his chest. The river reeled below him. He looked back up, knowing he was completely helpless…
The third shot didn’t come. Instead, Kroll glowered at him before withdrawing the gun. Eddie realised that the Nazi was down to his last round; unable to look directly down his gun’s sights, and with the blast of the rotor wash throwing off his aim, he didn’t want to waste it.
But the Englishman knew he was far from safe. Kroll retreated slightly, then opened the door. The Nazi pushed it wider with one knee and leaned out, gripping a strap on the cabin wall with his left hand. His right was still holding the gun. He looked down the sights, pointing it straight at Eddie’s head—
The helicopter made a sharp roll to port.
Eddie was sent swinging beneath the skid by the sudden movement — but Kroll was almost pitched out of the cabin, only his grip on the strap keeping him from a long fall. Expression flicking from malevolence to shocked panic in an instant, he scrabbled to brace himself.
The door swung wide, a loud crack of breaking metal coming from the hinges as it hit the limit of its travel. The noise from beside his head made Kroll flinch. He pushed himself back into the cabin, fury returning as he rounded on the pilot.
The Englishman was little better inclined towards the man, even if he had just saved his life. In trying to tip his unwelcome passenger out of the helicopter, the pilot had almost thrown the stowaway after him. Eddie flexed his fingers, managing to re-secure his hold on the skid.
Kroll stabbed his gun against the pilot’s head. ‘If you do that again, I will kill you!’ He glared through the windshield, spotting something off to the right. ‘The building, there!’ he shouted, indicating the expansive flat roof of the South Ferry terminal. ‘Land on it, hard — crush him!’
‘We’ll crash!’ the pilot protested. ‘The skids won’t take—’
‘Do it!’ The Nazi pushed the hot muzzle against his cheek.
The pilot jerked away in pain, then sent the LongRanger swooping down towards the shoreline.
Eddie tried to pull himself back up, but the force of the slipstream as the helicopter gained speed made it impossible, sending him trailing behind it like a banner. All he could do was cling on and hope Kroll didn’t force the pilot to make any wild moves that would throw him off.
That wasn’t what the Nazi had in mind, he realised as the ferry terminal rolled into view. The chopper was heading straight for it — too fast for a landing. Kroll was going to scrape him off against the roof!
People on the ground scattered and ran, thinking the LongRanger was about to crash. For a moment Eddie considered letting go and taking his chances with a splashdown in the river, but it was already too late — he would hit one of the jetties or even a moored ferry. His only option was to hang on and hope the pilot’s survival instincts kicked in.
Which they would have to do very soon—
The helicopter lanced down at the roof — then abruptly tipped backwards, engine screaming as the pilot desperately tried to flare the aircraft to slow its descent. The edge of the terminal flashed past beneath Eddie’s feet, but he was still too high to survive the fall. Thirty feet up, twenty, the LongRanger’s tail boom now behind him as it reared back still further.
Ten feet, slowing, slowing…
He let go.
The landing was hard — the helicopter was still moving at over twenty miles per hour. He let his legs crumple as he hit the flat surface and rolled to absorb as much of the impact as he could, but it didn’t prevent agony from exploding in his ankles and knees. He bowled along the roof, throwing his arms out to bring himself to a painful stop on his back.
He looked up—
And saw the tail rotor scything at him.
Eddie threw himself sideways just as the decelerating LongRanger hit the roof with a bang, the rear tips of its skids gouging ragged tears in the surface before slamming flat. The whirling saw-blade tips of the rotor shrieked over him, missing by mere inches.
‘Shit!’ he gasped, rolling on to his front to see the helicopter slither to a halt. Scrambling to his feet, he ran towards it.
The port-side door was still jammed open by its broken hinges. If he could get inside the aircraft before it took off, he might be able to take down its hijacker—
The engine shrilled to full power again, hot exhaust gases blasting him, and the helicopter rose drunkenly from the roof. Eddie ducked as the tail jerked towards him, but then the pilot compensated — overcompensated, the rear rotor pulling the aircraft around clockwise. The open door was now on the far side of the fuselage, out of reach as the LongRanger climbed.
The Yorkshireman made another leap — catching the starboard skid this time. The chopper lurched again as it took his weight. He was able to pull himself up and secure his legs with relative ease.
But Kroll would know he was there…
The blond Nazi staggered as the helicopter swayed. ‘I warned you—’
‘It’s not me!’ the pilot cried as he brought his aircraft clear of the ferry terminal. ‘It must be that guy again!’
Kroll glared at the open door, through which he could see the roof — and the absence of the Englishman, alive or dead — but was unwilling to risk leaning out again. Instead, he looked past the pilot. The helicopter was heading west, Battery Park stretching across Manhattan’s southern tip. ‘Those trees!’ he barked, pointing. ‘Fly through their tops — hit him on them!’ When there was no instant response to his order, he struck the USP’s butt against the pilot’s head, drawing blood and a pained wail. ‘Now!’
Eddie had just managed to haul himself on top of the skid when the helicopter dropped into another steep descent. ‘Oh Christ, what now?’ he gasped.
The answer came as he saw the treetops rushing at him. He closed his eyes, gripping the landing gear as tightly as he could—
Branches lashed him like bullwhips as the aircraft skimmed the trees, the rotor downwash blasting a blizzard of green in his wake. The cracks and snaps of breaking wood were audible even over the howling engines. The tip of a limb ripped through his jeans, drawing a long line of blood down the back of his thigh. Another momentarily snagged his leather jacket, almost tearing him loose before it sheared from the trunk.
The aircraft dropped even lower, heading straight for one tree standing tall above its neighbours…
And pulled up just before impact, the uppermost branches disintegrating as the skids ploughed through them. A last twig slashed at Eddie’s cheek, then he was clear.
‘Did you get him?’ Kroll barked at the pilot.
‘I–I dunno. I think so,’ was the hesitant reply.
The Nazi took a firm hold of the wall strap and braced his feet against the rear seats. ‘Do not try anything,’ he growled, before cautiously leaning out of the open door to peer at the port skid.
There was nobody there.
He allowed himself a moment of sadistic satisfaction. ‘Hab ich ihn,’ he muttered, before drawing back. ‘He is gone. Now, take me over there!’ He pointed across the great expanse of New York Bay, at the shore of New Jersey beyond Liberty Island. Crossing into a different state would slow the response time of law enforcement, giving him a greater chance of escape.