Revenger (41 page)

Oh no, they couldn’t.

As the jets sped away to the far end of their turning circle, Carver took the fins, mask and snorkel from his pack. He put them on and then undid his seatbelt and opened the door. Or rather, he tried to open it. Taken together, the speed of the plane and the storm-force headwind amounted to a hurricane, and it took every ounce of Carver’s strength to shift the door, inch by inch, degree by degree,
until
he could twist his knees round and use them to keep it from slamming back in his face.

He was looking out under the wing now, trying to judge the move he would have to make to get out, step on to the wheel-guard and then jump as far away from the plane as possible. He didn’t mind taking his chance with the sea, but it would be just a little bit tragic if he had his brains knocked out by a stabilizer before he’d even pulled the ripcord.

A thought came unbidden to his mind, the memory of a time he’d thrown himself from another doomed plane. Alix had been with him that time. They’d only had one parachute between them . . . and that had been attached to an armed atomic bomb set to detonate the moment it dropped below an altitude of fifteen hundred metres. Next to that moment of rampant insanity, this jump was a Sunday-school outing.

A great grin crossed Carver’s face as he thought of Alix and all the times they’d had together.

Somewhere off in the distance he saw the lights of the Typhoons as they turned and came in for another run.

Carver gave them the finger. ‘Fuck you,’ he muttered. Then he inched his legs out of the cabin and down until his fins were resting on the wheel-guard. He gripped his left hand against the door frame to hold himself, and then shifted his bodyweight out of the plane, with his back pressing against the inside of the open door.

Now he was perched on the side of the plane. He thought of his captive writhing and twitching inside the cabin. He thought of the jets turning round for another approach. He thought of the house he would build by the sea in Brazil.

Above all, he thought of the woman he loved.

Then Sam Carver shouted, ‘Ali-i-i-i-i-x!’ and he jumped off the plane, into the storm-tossed skies and down towards the chilly, grey-black embrace of the sea.

About the Author

Tom Cain
is the pseudonym for an award-winning journalist with twenty-five years’ experience working for Fleet Street newspapers. He has lived in Moscow, Washington DC and Havana, Cuba. He is the author of
The Accident Man
,
The Survivor
,
Assassin
,
Dictator
and
Carver
.

Also by Tom Cain

The Accident Man

The Survivor

Assassin

Dictator

Carver

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REVENGER
BANTAM PRESS: 9780593067703
Version 1.0 Epub ISBN 9781448127368

First published in Great Britain
in 2012 by Bantam Press
an imprint of Transworld Publishers

Copyright © Tom Cain 2012

Tom Cain has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

This book is a work of fiction and, except in the case of historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

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