‘Forget it,’ Lopez whispered to him as she noted the direction of his gaze. ‘We can’t make a run for it and there’s nowhere to go anyway.’
Ethan peered sideways at their Russian escorts as they reached the dense snowbank. ‘We need a distraction.’
‘We’re not going to find one up here.’
Jarvis and his men reached the snowbank and set the dead guard’s body down. Ethan joined them, and then the Russians pulled collapsible shovels from their rucksacks and tossed them to Ethan and his companions. Yuri Polkov pointed at the deep snowdrifts.
‘Start digging,’ the Russian sneered. ‘You didn’t think we were going to do for you, did you?’
Ethan picked up one of the shovels and turned to Jarvis, whispering from the side of his mouth as he began digging.
‘I was hoping that you called the cavalry?’
Jarvis offered him an apologetic glance. ‘I’m afraid that my resources this time are limited. I did manage to send a message, but I don’t know if it will reach the intended recipients.’
‘Who did you contact?’
‘Stop talking!’ a Russian yelled as he rushed up and jabbed his AK-47 into Ethan’s back.
Ethan winced beneath the blow and fell silent as they gradually excavated down to the rock below, a thin grave of ice and bitterly cold rock. Ethan’s shovel hit the stones as alongside him Lucy and Lopez dug out a few more chunks of snow and then found themselves standing on the bedrock.
‘Perfect,’ Yuri snarled as he cocked the pistol in his grasp and looked at his companions. ‘Now, let’s shoot the men first and enjoy the women to ourselves before we put them in afterward.’
The mercenaries sniggered in delight as they took aim at Ethan and his companions. Ethan was about to suggest paying them double in order to let them live when he heard a strange sound drift across the mountain tops, a droning that rose above the blustering gale. Ethan looked up from the rifles aimed at him and peered into the grey sky as he sought the origin of the sound, but the winds were in the wrong direction and were snatching the noise away.
The Russians turned and looked over their shoulders up into the slate grey sky at the tumbling cloud. Ethan judged the distance to them, but he knew that he wouldn’t make it before a bullet found its mark even from the wildly inaccurate AK-47s.
Suddenly, from the grey clouds appeared a pair of bright white lights that swept like headlight beams to point directly at the Russians. The two lights seemed to hover in the clouds, pointing accusingly at the Russian gunmen.
‘What the hell is that?’ Lopez yelled above the wind and the rising drone of noise emanating from the lights.
Ethan felt a supernatural awe creep beneath his skin, and then suddenly the droning noise leaped in intensity as the lights brightened as something rushed toward them. From the low scudding clouds burst the shape of an aircraft, twin engines turning above broad, straight wings and a pair of bright landing lights blazing like white suns as the Catalina thundered down. Ethan’s eyes widened as he realized that the aircraft was on a direct collision course and then it suddenly pulled up, its engines roaring as the belly of its fuselage suddenly gaped open.
‘Cover!’
Ethan ducked down and pulled his hood over his head as from the belly of the Catalina an immense cloud of water crashed down, the intense cold turning half of the water volume to ice in an instant that showered the mountainside with a dense hail of rain ice that pelted the Russians like bullets as the Catalina roared overhead and left a blizzard of hail and snow behind it.
His head down and protected by his hood, Ethan rushed forward even though he could not see where he was going. The hail hammered down around him and he heard the Russians crying out in panic and disarray as one of them loomed before him where he crouched on the mountain slope, his hands over his head to protect him from the onslaught of ice. Ethan wasted no time as he swung one boot on the run and it slammed into the Russian’s head with a dull thump that snapped his skull to one side and sent him sprawling across the rocks.
Ethan saw the AK-47 spin from the man’s grasp as he lost consciousness and Ethan jumped for it. He landed on top of the weapon and rolled his shoulders across the ice as he stuck his legs out to lay prone on the ice. He aimed the AK-47 at the other three Russians as they struggled to find their feet in the aftermath of the Catalina’s attack.
Ethan squeezed the trigger as he found the first target. Two shots cracked from the rifle’s barrel and struck the man in his back, severing his spine as the AK-47’s barrel jerked upwards. The Russian collapsed onto the snow as the second man turned and tried to swing his rifle to bear on Ethan’s position.
Two more shots rang out and struck the Russian in his belly and shoulder, the man twisting violently as he screamed in agony and collapsed onto the snow.
The third and farthest Russian whirled and fired at Ethan from the hip, the bullets hurtling this way and that and churning up the snow around Ethan as he held his own rifle tight into his shoulder and fired a single shot. The bullet struck the Russian in his chest and spun him around in mid-air to land on his back on the snow, his heart shredded.
Yuri Polkov aimed the silver pistol at Ethan, but the old man was forestalled as Lopez’s voice called out.
‘Freeze, Yuri!’
Ethan glanced across and saw Lopez gripping the AK-47 she had salvaged from one of the fallen Russian mercenaries. Ethan got up and strode across to Yuri, the AK-47 trained on the old man as Ethan reached out and snatched the pistol from him.
Yuri Polkov flinched, his once cruel eyes now wide with fear.
‘What do we do with him?’ Ethan asked over his shoulder.
‘You can have the remains,’ Yuri pleaded. ‘You can have them!’
Ethan heard the sound of the Eurocopter’s engines starting up further down the mountainside, and he realized that if they didn’t move fast none of them would get off the mountain alive.
‘Looks like your own people are clearing out without you,’ Lucy observed with a grin.
‘We need those vehicles and preferably that helicopter!’ Ethan said.
‘Yuri should be arrested and handed over to the authorities,’ Lucy insisted.
Ethan looked at Jarvis, who shook his head. ‘He’ll slow us down too much and the weather’s closing in fast. He wanted to prove there’s no god — how about we grant him his wish?’
Ethan nodded as he turned and set off toward the plateau below. Lucy, Lopez, Jarvis and the remaining guard turned and followed him, Yuri left standing beside the snow drifts as he began trying to pursue them.
‘Wait!’ Yuri yelled as he hobbled after Ethan and his companions. ‘What about me?’
Ethan did not reply and neither did any of the others. Together they dashed down the mountainside even as ahead the Eurocopter’s blades began turning ever faster. Ethan ran hard down the steep slope and hit the magma flow just as the helicopter was vanishing inside a swirling maelstrom of snow dislodged by its powerful rotors.
‘They’re getting away!’ Lopez yelled.
Ethan dropped down once more into the prone position, this time atop the lava flow and looking down toward the plateau, and he aimed the AK-47 at the Eurocopter as it began lifting off. He opened fire and saw the shots impact the side of the helicopter, and then suddenly Lopez was alongside him and their rifles clattered deafeningly loud as the bullets hammered the cockpit and engine bays.
The Eurocopter’s engines howled and then screeched with the sound of rending metal as something gave within them. The transmission assembly burst through the upper fuselage as it tore itself apart and the helicopter spun through three hundred and sixty degrees as it tilted wildly to starboard and plunged back down onto the ice.