The Last Survivor (A Wilde/Chase Short Story) (8 page)

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 –
over
compensated, 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.

With a nervous glance at his passenger, the pilot brought the LongRanger about, picking up speed over the water.

New spikes of pain jabbing at him from numerous cuts, Eddie balanced atop the starboard skid, using the handle of the rear door to raise himself into a crouch. He deliberately didn’t turn it, wanting to see where Kroll was before making a move. He peeked through the window.

The Nazi was in the centre of the cabin, a knee on one of the rear-facing seats in the middle row. He had his gun to the pilot’s head, having worked his right arm through the gap between the headrest and a bulky support pillar. With the port-side door jammed open, if Eddie moved fast enough, he could throw him out …

If
he moved fast enough. He would have to open the starboard door first, and Kroll would almost certainly catch the movement in his peripheral vision. What he needed was a distraction.

There was only one way to create one. Taking a deep breath, and keeping hold of the handle with his left hand, he dropped as low as he could and edged along the skid towards the pilot’s door.

The helicopter was now holding a steady course, but it was still far from stable. The fuselage felt as if it were swinging beneath the rotor hub like a much-abused punching bag, the pilot constantly making adjustments to compensate for the shifting air currents. The Englishman had ridden in helicopters many times before, sometimes even on the outside of them, though in those latter cases he had simply been hanging on for dear life. This time, he had to negotiate its exterior and attract the attention of one of its occupants … without being seen by the other.

He advanced inch by inch, left arm stretching out behind him – realising with dismay that there were no handholds ahead. The pilot’s door handle would only be reachable if he let go of the rear, and the slightest jolt while he was unsecured would pitch him to his death. All he could do was press his splayed palm against the aluminium bodywork and pray that he had somehow acquired gecko-like suction.

Closer. Another glance into the cabin. Kroll was still watching the view ahead. Eddie hunched down again, shuffling forward until his left arm was extended as far as it would go. He slid his right hand along the fuselage, stretching out towards the window beside the pilot …

His fingertips fell fractionally short. He could reach the rubber seal around the Plexiglas, but not the window itself. For his plan to work, the pilot needed to see him.

He shifted his grip on the rear handle, fingers caterpillar-crawling along the metal until they reached its tip. That give him another couple of precious inches. Leaning forward again, he strained towards the window—

The helicopter lurched.

Eddie gasped in fear, instinctively flattening himself against the door, hard enough to
thunk
against the aluminium. He froze. Had Kroll heard the noise?

If he had, then the Englishman was dead. Kroll wouldn’t even need to use his last bullet – he only needed to open the door to push him to his doom …

It remained shut. Eddie cautiously craned his neck to look into the helicopter. The Nazi was still fixated on the view through the windscreen. With the other door open, the rotor noise inside the cabin was as loud as it was out on the skid, drowning out everything else.

Almost as if responding to his thought, Kroll took a pair of headphones from a hook and pulled them over his ears to muffle the sound. Eddie lowered his head again. That would reduce the risk of the Nazi hearing him open the door, but he still needed his distraction.

He stretched out his right hand again, this time tipping his head back as far as he dared until he could see the pilot’s right arm and part of his headphones. The man was looking straight ahead, keeping the helicopter on a course towards New Jersey. Eddie pressed his fingertips against the window and tapped it.

No reaction. He tried again, harder. ‘Come on, listen,’ he growled, continuing his little tattoo on the Plexiglas before turning his hand and banging the window with his knuckles. Liberty Island was quickly approaching, over a thousand feet below. ‘You playing Napalm Death in your earphones? Look around, for fuck’s sake!’ The raps became full-on pounding, but still there was no reaction—

The pilot’s head finally turned towards him.

Eddie knew instantly from the man’s incredulous flinch that he had been seen. He pressed himself against the fuselage so that he could stretch his hand as far forward as it would go, then quickly flashed all his fingers, twice in quick succession. After a short pause, he did it again – this time holding in his little finger on the second flash.
Ten
, followed by
nine
. Another brief wait, then he held in his little and ring fingers.
Eight
. Hoping that he had established the timing, he waved his flattened hand from side to side to suggest rocking the aircraft when the countdown reached zero, then retreated as fast as he could.

He continued the count in his head.
Seven
.
Six
.
Five
. At the rear door, but he still had to get all the way behind it before opening it.
Four
.
Three
. His head passed the door handle. Another couple of steps, and he was clear.
Two
. Kroll was still in the same position but now with an odd look on his face, a dawning recognition that something had changed but unsure what …

Eddie realised at the same moment as the Nazi. The pilot kept glancing down and to his right. He was trying to spot the stowaway, and by looking away from the instruments, he was making it far too obvious. Had he even understood the message?

Kroll opened his mouth to speak, but some sixth sense instead prompted him to turn his head towards the window.

Their eyes met. The Nazi’s widened in surprise—

One!

Eddie yanked the door open. Kroll whipped around, but the gun caught against the headrest as he tried to pull it through the narrow gap.

The former SAS soldier lunged into the cabin – and the pilot slammed the cyclic control stick hard over to port. He
had
understood the countdown. Kroll reeled towards the open door as Eddie charged at him.

The pair collided with a
whump
. The gun came through the gap as Kroll lurched back – and reflexively pulled the trigger.

Eddie flinched away from the muzzle flash, but the weapon wasn’t pointed at him. The bullet hit the pilot. A red line sliced open across his forehead as it grazed his skull. He thrashed against his seat belt, then slumped to one side, unconscious …

His hands dropped from the controls.

The LongRanger immediately pitched downwards, curving towards Liberty Island. Eddie glanced in dismay at the freely moving joystick, but there was no way to reach it from the rear compartment.

Kroll threw himself at the Englishman with a roar. Eddie tried to brace himself, but the Nazi had sheer size on his side, slamming him back towards the starboard door. It had been forced shut by the slipstream but hadn’t latched, banging against the rear frame.

The Yorkshireman changed tack, balling a fist and driving it with punishing force into the blond man’s stomach. Kroll grimaced, breath hissing between his teeth as Eddie pounded his other fist home, but the attacks didn’t stop him. The Nazi grabbed his opponent’s throat with one hand – and swept the empty gun at his face with the other.

Eddie managed to bring up one arm to deflect the blow, but the weapon still caught him a painful crack to the forehead. ‘That
hurt
, you Nazi shithead!’ he growled, striking back with a vicious uppercut to Kroll’s jaw. Enamel splintered, tearing into flesh. The younger man spat blood from his lacerated gums.

But he maintained his hold on Eddie’s neck. The gun lashed down again—

Eddie caught his wrist, arresting the blow inches from his head. He sent another punch at Kroll’s chin. This time his adversary saw it coming and jerked away quickly enough to receive only a glancing blow. The Englishman tried to jab at his face, but the Nazi had a longer reach, straightening his arm and pushing down harder on his opponent’s windpipe. Eddie tried to draw in a breath, but managed only a choked rasp.

Kroll squeezed harder, grinning psychotically as the other man delivered ineffectual blows to his shoulders and upper chest. ‘You thought you had killed us all,
Engländer
? You thought you had destroyed the New Reich?’ The grin twisted into a leer. ‘As long as one of us remains alive, the legacy of Adolf Hitler will never die!’