‘Yeah, sure, just give me a sec— Oh jeez!’ The LongRanger stopped spinning… and plunged down vertically towards the statue.
The pilot pulled sharply on the cyclic stick. Eddie was thrown backwards as the helicopter’s nose pitched upwards. The engine shrieked through the bulkhead behind him as it went to full power.
But they were still falling, the rotors struggling to find lift. The statue’s torch and arm rushed past, terrifyingly close—
The pilot screamed, slamming the cyclic hard over to the left — and the helicopter reeled sideways.
The rotor still hadn’t managed to overpower gravity, but it did pull the LongRanger away from the Statue of Liberty. The helicopter skimmed past the great green head, arcing downwards to slew sidelong over the tiered terraces surrounding the plinth. Tourists fled as it buzzed past just above them, finally levelling out over the lawns along the island’s southern side and clearing the water’s edge barely ten feet above the pavement.
‘That… that was too damn close,’ the pilot gasped, slowing the aircraft and bringing it to a hover. He pivoted it around to look back at Liberty Island. People on the waterfront stared at them in astonishment. ‘What’s going on? Who the hell was that guy?’
Eddie peered up at the statue, seeing a line of red running down its face from the figure spiked upon its crown. ‘Nobody who’ll be missed. And hopefully there isn’t anyone left to miss him.’ He pulled the starboard door shut. ‘Take us back to the heliport.’
The LongRanger swung about and started towards Manhattan, leaving behind the body of the last survivor of the Nazi colony.
Once over his initial shock at the near-death experience, the pilot proved to be almost hyperactively chatty. ‘So anyway, my name’s Harvey, Harvey Zampelli,’ he said as the aircraft approached the South Street heliport. ‘You need anything from me, anything at all, just say the word and it’s yours. You want free flying lessons? I’m a qualified instructor — all you gotta do is ask!’ He briefly took his left hand off the collective to draw a business card from his breast pocket and pass it back to Eddie, who by now had donned headphones to block out the rotor noise. ‘There’s my number. And hey, if you wanna recommend me to your family and friends for a helicopter tour, that’d be great too. The best views of Manhattan, and very reasonable prices!’
‘Thanks,’ Eddie replied. ‘I’ve been thinking about flying lessons, actually. This isn’t the first time I’ve been on a flight where the pilot got knocked out, or worse. Be useful to be able to land the thing myself.’
The pilot laughed, his nasal bray trailing off as he realised that his passenger wasn’t joking. ‘Anyway, the offer’s there, huh? Though don’t take me up on it for a coupla days, at least. I kinda get the feeling I’ll be answering a lot of questions from the cops and the FAA about all this!’
‘Yeah, me too.’ Eddie pocketed the card, then watched the final approach to the heliport. A couple of police cars had arrived, cops closing off the entrance to the pier, but the Englishman was more interested in the one Kroll had commandeered. Figures stood near it, the familiar red hair of one blowing in the wind. He smiled at the sight.
Harvey brought the chopper in to a slightly shaky landing, letting out a gasp of relief as he started to power down his aircraft. Eddie climbed out and jogged clear of the still-whirling rotor blades. Nina was waiting for him near the police car with Natalia. ‘Are you both okay?’ he called as he reached them.
‘I am good, yes,’ Natalia replied, though her face looked drawn from the strain of her ordeal. ‘But what about you?’
‘Still walking, and blood’s mostly on the inside where it should be, so not too bad overall,’ he told her with a crooked grin, before turning to his wife. ‘What about you?’
‘Fine,’ Nina replied, with a tired sigh. She too appeared shaken, but experience had made her better at masking it. ‘What happened to Kroll? No, don’t tell me,’ she added quickly. ‘I can already tell from your expression that you’re going to come up with some God-awful one-liner, so I’ll just assume that you threw him out of the helicopter and he died.’
‘Close enough,’ replied Eddie, who had indeed already devised half a dozen terrible puns. ‘He’s gone.’
‘Thank God.’ She embraced him. ‘I want to go home.’
‘Me too,’ he said, kissing her. ‘Think the cops’ll want a chat with us first, though. I’d better phone Amy.’
‘There’s always something, isn’t there?’
‘Yeah.’ He smiled, then looked down at her, worry crossing his face. ‘Did he… did he do anything that might have hurt the baby?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘He didn’t hit me in the stomach or anything, but I did get thrown around — and it wasn’t exactly a stress-free experience. I’ll need a check-up.’
Eddie nodded. ‘Come on,’ he said, ushering the two women towards the terminal building. ‘Let’s get out of here.’
To the relief of all concerned, tests by an obstetrician at the hospital revealed that the three-month-old foetus still seemed healthy and unaffected by the day’s travails. After the examination, it was the turn of the police to seek answers — led by Amy Martin, who was furious that two NYPD officers had been injured as a result of Eddie’s not immediately calling in Kroll’s location, until he mollified her by pointing out that Nina had been about to be hanged when he arrived. The cops eventually accepted the couple’s version of events, albeit with a degree of grudging disbelief, and let them return home, Natalia accompanying them.
‘And after all that,’ Nina announced to the young German, once they were back at the apartment, ‘here’s the reason you’re here. I’d kinda hoped we could have done this right after you arrived, but, well, Nazis…’
She opened a cupboard in the kitchen and delved into its deepest recesses, producing something that despite the dirt and tarnish on its surface was still clearly an item of both great age and value. It was a Greek amphora, a slim-necked silver vessel about eighteen inches high. She put it down on the counter in front of her guest.
Natalia regarded the battered jug with a mixture of hope and apprehension. ‘This is it? The water from the Spring of Immortality?’
‘That’s it,’ said Nina. It was in fact the only artefact that had survived the destruction wrought when she tricked the elder Kroll into setting off the trap awaiting anyone greedy enough to seek eternal life. A large dent on one side marked the spot where she had clubbed the Nazi leader’s head as he tried to drown her.
‘There isn’t much left in there,’ Eddie warned. ‘A couple of pints at most.’
‘I just hope it’s enough,’ the redhead said. She used a knife to prise open the stopper. ‘I don’t know how it works, but I’d recommend drinking it straight from the jug. Silver keeps the water’s properties active somehow.’
‘And you think it will cure me?’ asked Natalia.
‘It cured me. At least, I can’t think of any other reason why my tumours went into remission.’ Nina offered the container to the younger woman. ‘Here.’
The German stared at the vessel for a moment, then took it. A glance at Eddie, who gave her a reassuring nod, and she raised it to her lips to take an experimental mouthful. ‘Oh!’ she said, surprised. ‘It… it feels like a soda, as if it is fizzy. But there are no bubbles.’
‘Yeah, I know. It’s weird. But it’s okay.’
Natalia hesitated, then drank again, this time more deeply. She stopped after a few mouthfuls. ‘I do not want to take it all.’
‘You’re the only person in the world who’s still suffering from eitr poisoning,’ said Nina. ‘And you’ve had it your whole life. You need it more than us.’