A third thunderous shot — and the man’s head burst apart as if a bomb had detonated inside his skull, only his lower jaw and tongue remaining intact amidst the carnage.
‘Don’t think I’ll be telling my kid about this bit,’ Eddie said as he lowered the smoking Desert Eagle. He glanced at the tunnel leading back to Nina, then reluctantly collected the first dead man’s MP5, slinging it over his shoulder before jumping to grab the lip of the cavern’s overhanging roof. Water dripping from his clothes, he pulled himself up and looked around, spotting boot prints in the dust. He started uphill after them.
He had barely gone twenty yards before hearing the distant whine of an engine. Cross and the others had reached the helicopter. ‘No you fucking don’t,’ he muttered, checking that the MP5 was ready for action as he ran.
The climb was steep and rocky, but he saw flatter ground some way above. He hurried up the slope, hearing the chop of rotor blades picking up speed. It would be at take-off revolutions soon; once it left the ground, it would be out of his weapon’s range very quickly.
Dust billowed over the edge of the rise as the noise reached a crescendo. A moment later, the red and white aircraft rose into view, already tipping into flight away from him…
Eddie whipped up the MP5 and fired on full auto.
A stream of bullets arced into the air after the chopper. He was at the limit of the weapon’s effective range, but sheer firepower was enough to score several hits. Sparks spat from the fuselage as rounds struck home, punching through the thin aluminium to strike more vital components beneath. A puff of smoke came from one of the exhausts. ‘Yeah!’ he yelled as the helicopter lurched. ‘Get back down here!’
Cross grabbed his seat for support as the Bell jerked violently. Paxton wrestled with the controls, an alarm shrilling urgently in time with flashing warning lights. ‘I’m losing oil pressure in number two engine!’ the pilot shouted. ‘I’ll have to shut it down!’
‘Can we still fly on one engine?’ demanded Simeon, holding Anna in place.
‘Yeah, but it’ll be tricky. We should make it back to Ovda, though.’
The landscape swung past the windshield as the helicopter slewed around. Cross spotted something on the hillside below — a figure in dark clothing. ‘It’s Chase!’
‘I told you I should have killed him!’ Simeon snarled.
Cross shot him an angry look, but he had bigger concerns than insubordination. The Englishman fired another brief burst. Norvin flinched, but no more bullets came. ‘He’s out of ammo!’
‘Take us back around,’ said Simeon, grabbing his MP5. ‘I’ll deal with that son of a bitch!’
‘No, we need to get out of here!’ Paxton countered, knuckles white as both hands gripped the shuddering controls.
‘Take us back to the airbase,’ Cross ordered, to Simeon’s disappointment. He looked back at his right-hand man as the aircraft gained height. ‘Don’t worry, they won’t get out of there.’ He reached for the radio. ‘Time to call in a favour.’
Eddie glared after the chopper as it stabilised and headed into the distance. ‘Bollocking fuck-nuts!’ he said, discarding the empty MP5 and squishing back down the mountain. He didn’t know where the helicopter was going, but Israel was only a small country; Cross and his remaining people would probably be on a jet with the angel within the hour.
He dropped back down into the cavern, retrieving the climbing gear before returning to the cenote. The rock blocking the mouth of the passage proved to be as precariously balanced as he had thought; it only took a couple of minutes to force it over the edge. It fell to the foot of the shaft with a booming splash. ‘Eddie!’ said Nina with relief from across the gap. ‘Are you okay?’
‘Yeah, but Cross got away,’ he said glumly. ‘What about you?’
‘I’m fine. Jared’s stable, but from the way he’s been acting, you’d think he was fit and ready to run a marathon.’ The Israeli, sitting against the open door, grinned. ‘And Dalton’s been a moaning prick, but that’s nothing new.’
The politician was hunched against the tunnel wall. ‘You know, I’m getting really tired of your attitude.’
‘And I’m getting really tired of your continued existence. Now, Mr President, kindly shut the fuck up.’ She put both hands to her bump. ‘Mommy doesn’t normally use rude words, hon — that’s Daddy’s department — but sometimes they’re justified. Don’t you use them, though, okay?’
Dalton rolled his eyes. ‘Nauseating.’
‘Yeah, I bet you were a fun dad,’ Eddie snarked. ‘Okay, Jared? We’ll rig up a Tyrolean traverse and use the harness to bring you over.’
He pounded new pitons into the rock and fixed ropes to them, then threw the rest of the coils across the chasm. Jared and Nina caught them and pulled them in. The Englishman then lobbed over the hammer and more steel pegs. Once one rope was secured on both sides, the other was tied to Nina’s climbing harness so it could be pulled back across, then she, Jared and finally Dalton made their way over. ‘Thank God!’ the latter gasped as his feet made contact with the floor.
‘Thank Nina,’ said the Englishman. ‘I would’ve left you over there.’ He set about retrieving the climbing equipment. ‘We’ll need this to get back down to the Landie.’
‘Great,’ grumbled Dalton. It’ll take us hours to drive out of this desert.’
‘If only we’d had access to the CIA’s black funds for a helicopter,’ said Nina sarcastically. ‘You know, Mr President, they really should have revoked your access to all that stuff when you resigned from office.’
‘And you don’t work for the IHA any more, yet they seem happy to fund your whims at the drop of a hat. It’s high time the United Nations had its funding brought into check—’
Eddie jabbed a finger at his face. ‘Oi! Mr Pussy-dent!’ Nina let out an involuntary guffaw at the sheer childishness of the insult, and Dalton’s outraged reaction to it. ‘You know how she told you to shut the fuck up? Shut the fuck up.’ Dalton seethed, but bit his lip at the Yorkshireman’s menacing stare.
‘The only thing we want to hear from you is what Cross intends to do with the angels,’ said Nina as Eddie finished gathering the gear. They started down the tunnel. ‘Where’s he planning to release them?’
‘I’ve got nothing to say,’ Dalton replied stiffly.
Nina blew out an incredulous breath. ‘Seriously? You don’t get it, do you? Cross betrayed you! He got everything he needed from you and then left you here to die. You’ve got nothing to gain by protecting him.’ The ex-president stayed silent. ‘Maybe you think you’re maintaining plausible deniability, and that somehow you’ll be able to worm your way out of responsibility for what happened at the Mission. But trust me: you won’t be celebrating your political comeback when you return to the States. You’ll be in a federal prison on charges of conspiracy to kidnap and murder, if not outright terrorism.’
‘I told you: people like me don’t go to jail,’ he retorted.
‘Then maybe it’s time for a bit of vigilante justice,’ said Eddie, making a show of checking the Desert Eagle. Dalton fell silent.
They emerged in the cavern. Eddie helped Nina out of the sinkhole, then Jared, before climbing out himself. The two men then pulled Dalton up. ‘Are you okay?’ Nina asked Jared, seeing him grimace.
‘Yeah, yeah,’ he replied, not with full conviction. ‘But you’re right, I won’t be doing much on this leg for a while.’
‘Hopefully you won’t have to.’
‘Still got to climb down,’ Eddie reminded them. He started towards the passage through the cliffs, the others following. ‘How long’ll it take before we can tell anyone what’s happened?’