Deadly States (Seaforth Files by Nicholas P Clark Book 2) (50 page)

Barry smiled.
“How did you know?” Barry asked.
“If you
hadn’t
been
on
our
side she would have
killed you and

“There’s twenty
minutes left
on the timers. But if we need to get
the show on the road a little earlier then I can activate them remotely,”
Barry said.

“OK then,” Jack said. “You two get the hell out of here. I have to see
a mad man about a mad dog. Both of whom need putting down.”
Alexa
moved to make a protest but she knew it was pointless. Jack needed to
finish the mission and there was no way that he would put
her in
danger as he did so. Barry wouldn’t have been his first choice as her
bodyguard, but as he was the only one able to accept the job at
that moment then there was no decision to be made.

Alexa and Barry left the office ahead of Jack. They
didn’t look back
as Jack watched them
move
down the short
corridor to a fire
exit
which led outside. Twenty
minutes to stop a well armed, highly
protected mad man.

Fireballs erupted high into the sky all around them. Jack tried to
maintain his composure, if only for her sake, but it was a far from easy
task. The Israeli air force was intent
on the complete destruction
of
the entire area.
Any one unfortunate enough to be in the area would
be just
one more casualty
of a war without end. The first four
or five
bombs that struck were close to the target,
but they
didn’t
quite hit
the bull’s-eye. Each massive explosion and sudden flash of orange light
was
quickly followed
by violent shockwaves which rocked their car
like a toy boat on an angry sea.
And with each explosion Jack held his
breath in
expectation
of a thermonuclear
explosion that would
end
once and for all their frantic attempt to escape. From various incidents
during the Cold War Jack knew that nukes were by and large,
quite
safe, and that many
of them had survived such catastrophic events as
plane crashes, and even an explosion on a submarine. But this attack
was many
orders
of magnitude more intense than anything that had
gone before. There was no precedent for an all
out,
direct attack by
warheads loaded with high explosives. One lucky shot could very well
start a whole new chapter in the story of
the bomb
.

No matter how fast and how recklessly he drove away from the

area, he would never be able to put
enough distance between them
and an
exploding
nuke.
Their
only
hope was
that
all
the
safety
features that the
engineers
had
put in
place when constructing the
weapons,
did their job, and then some. Jack’s suicidal
dash was initially to avoid the rain of fire that was being unleashed on the area, but
he was also very well aware of the fact that
even if the bombs
didn’t
explode there was still the very real danger that the layers
of casing
containing the nuclear
material would not
be
quite so lucky.
Given
the choice he would prefer the not knowing that came with instant vaporisation over the long and agonising death that he would suffer if he
was struck down with radiation poisoning. From the fleeting glimpses
Jack got
of the hell-like scene in his mirror he estimated that at least
twelve helicopters were now in the sky. How
many were providing
cover, and how many were unleashing hell, he could not be certain.

After ten minutes of high speed driving along the dusty road it was
certainly not time for them to breathe easy, but it was time for them
to at least
hope they
might actually
get
out
of the terrible predicament alive. Just as Jack allowed himself to hope to live to see another
day two helicopter gunships broke off from the main attack and they
headed towards them in an unfairly direct fashion and at a speed that
their car could never compete with. They
had
obviously spent all
of
their
missiles
but that
did not
mean they were unarmed—far from
it. The automatic weapons
on either side of the helicopters could cut
their car into tiny fragments in seconds.

“Stop the car, Jack,” Alexa ordered.
Jack paused. He couldn’t see what move she wanted him to make.
“Stop the car, Jack,” sherepeated. “Thereis noway that we are ever

going to outrun them.”
“I know that. But there is nowhere here for us to hide.”
When she issued the instruction for the third and final time she

did so in a low, resigned tone. Jack instantly knew what she was trying
to tell him. Inwardly he was protesting—on the outside he remained
the dignified British
officer. He brought the car to a stop. They
exchanged
knowing looks,
kissed
passionately, then
broke
off and got
out
of the car. They met at the front
of the vehicle as one of the helicopters passed overhead, slowed, and then turned to face them. Jack
barely noticed that
Alexa had taken him by the hand. Her hand was
trembling. That was the one and only time that she had shown any
fear in his
presence and it spoke volumes
of
how little she actually
believed in the wisdom
of
her
own plan. Jack turned to her and he
grinned; it was warm and it was reassuring, but it was not enough to
kill the tremor.

With her free hand Alexa began to wave to the helicopter. The rail
gun mounted on the left
of the craft began to spin. Within seconds it
was at the optimum speed for firing. One quick burst would be enough
to reduce Jack and
Alexa to mincemeat. They
held their
breath and
waited.
After what seemed to be an eternity the gun stopped spinning.
Dust and small stones blasted Jack’s face as the craft
edged forwards
and landed. Four commandos leapt from the helicopter. Two took up
defensive positions at the side
of the helicopter while the
other two
soldiers dashed towards Jack and
Alexa. For whatever reason, and in
moments like that those reasons were seldom questioned, someone in
charge had changed the order to kill everyone and everything in the
area, to an arrest and detain command, and Jack was only too willing
to cooperate with that new
order. The commandos lead Jack and
Alexa to the helicopter and plastic straps were tied tightly around their
wrists before they were bundled into the craft, just as it was taking off.
That the restraints were fixed suggested that the soldiers had no idea
who they really were, and that fact alone made the order not to shred
them as they stood in front of their car all the more perplexing.

“Any chance that you might tell these fine gentlemen exactly who
we are?” Jack said, to Alexa.
“Until we are back in my country it would not matter,” she said. “I
don’t understand?”
“Anyone picked up in a hostile zone must have their identity verified by their immediate superiors. It is protocol. These guys probably
know who I am but until we land they will treat me like the enemy.”
“Let’s hope they
don’t treat us in the same way that your government treats some of its other enemies,” Jack said, and then smiled.
Alexa
did not take the criticism in the way that it had been intended.
“We are alive Jack, and had I been in charge of this helicopter we
would not have been. Let’s put this one down to a bit
of good luck,
and leave it at that.”
“You’ll get no arguments from me on that one, doll.”
What she said made sense, yet at the same time it made no sense at
all. If there was any doubt about their identity then they would have
been shot
on the spot. He knew that
much about the Israelis. Shoot
first, and then ask
questions; it was what they were famous for and
given the
precarious
position the country
found itself in
on
purely
geographical grounds, that kind of terror was the only thing keeping
it from being whipped from the face of the earth by its neighbours.
Something was
definitely
not
quite right and it
gnawed at
him
not
knowing what it was. That the commandos allowed him to continue talking to
Alexa
on the helicopter, and that they allowed them
to hold hands,
meant that they knew they were not a threat. Yet the
restraints
meant that the trust was not complete.
Alexa
did not look
like a woman who had just escaped a certain death and who was about
to be brought back to the safety of her own country. She had the look
of
the condemned about
wrong. He also knew
her and Jack knew that
something was very
enough to know that she would
only let
him
know what was wrong when she was good and ready, and if he tried
to force it
out
of her through a
pointless round
of nagging then she
would shut up even more tightly, and perhaps she might shut up permanently on the matter.
Although it was a
perfect
day in that
part
of the Middle East,
the ride back into Israel was far from smooth. The helicopter at first
climbed high into the sky—the angle was so steep that Jack found
himself
clinging
onto his seat with his free hand—which itself was
clinging
onto
Alexa’s hand with perhaps a little too much force. The
craft levelled out for a short time before entering into a near vertical
dive until they were so close to the ground that Jack could see clearly
the looks
of fear
on the faces
of
children
out working in the fields.
They flew at high speed towards a ridge of small hills and as they approached
Alexa loosened her grip—that was a clear sign to Jack that
they were almost
out
of
danger. Just
over the ridge a large military
complex came into view. There were two runways; a large, main runway, and a slightly shorter, secondary landing strip. Tanks and other