Retribution (37 page)

The lumbering craft, capable of carrying up to thirty people, seemed to sink on its haunches for a moment, before gathering itself and lifting off the ground with a renewed down-blast of air, leaving the security guards on the ground staring helplessly into the sky.

H
arry turned to Captain Rekker, who was busy on his radio, his face taut with frustration at the disaster which had overtaken his team.

‘We need another helo,' Harry shouted above the noise. ‘We have to follow him.'

Rekker nodded and held up two fingers. ‘Coming in now . . . a Black Hawk. The Super Cougar's being tracked by ground navigation.' The Dutchman walked away, his jaw clenched, and Harry let him go. There was little he could say to assuage his feelings, and he guessed the captain was now facing the prospect of a foreshortened military career.

The Super Cougar was already a dot on the grey afternoon horizon by the time another engine noise heralded the approach of a second helicopter. They turned to see a Sikorsky Black Hawk thudding down towards them, a crew member leaning out of the door to assist the pursuers' entry.

The Black Hawk was slower than the Super Cougar, but not by much. They were already far behind and the weather was closing in. Harry knew there was every possibility Kassim might complete his murderous mission by simply throwing Kleeman out of the door, then forcing the pilot to ditch somewhere in the hills where he would be impossible to find.

But why hadn't he already done that?

They leapt aboard and fastened themselves in. Apart from Harry, Rik and Captain Rekker, there were two other members of the CP team and an army paramedic. Two journalists trying to get on the flight were dumped unceremoniously out of the door.

The Black Hawk rose in the air like an express lift and heeled over to follow the distant Super Cougar, throwing the passengers about in their seats. The pilot had been briefed on what was expected of him and was responding with relish.

The centre of Pristina rushed by through the open door. Within minutes they were out over open countryside, dotted with houses and farm buildings and lots of empty space in between.

‘He's heading north towards the hills.' It was Rekker, holding an intercom earpiece, from which he could hear the exchange of conversation between the pilot and the ground-control operator following the flight of the other craft. ‘Where the hell's he going? There's nothing up there but open country.'

Harry shook his head. He doubted Kassim himself knew which way to go, only that he had a mission to complete. Even sitting on his tail rotor, there would be precious little they could do to stop him without putting the lives of Kleeman and the crew at risk.

North? Harry pulled a map out of a bracket by the door and found Pristina. He stabbed his finger on it so Rekker and the others could see. North of here was Mitrovica.

Kassim was taking Kleeman back to the compound.

It meant he had no walk-out plan; this was the end of the line for both of them.

The Black Hawk began to buck around as it hit wind turbulence coming off the hills and funnelling down the jagged valleys. The CP team members looked unconcerned, accustomed to such uncomfortable transport and bleak conditions, intent only, as Harry knew they would be, on retrieving their man.

‘We're catching up!' Rekker shouted, and pointed through the open door as the Black Hawk swung round a tree-covered hill. Ahead of them, about two miles away, the Super Cougar was dropping down into a valley with a river running along the bottom, a sliver of white against the grey-green landscape. Slopes rose sharply on either side, seeming to close in deliberately on the two aircraft, the engine noise hammering back at them.

‘He's losing speed deliberately,' Rekker commented. ‘Bleeding off gradually so Kassim doesn't notice.'

Harry was impressed by the pilot's courage. If he did it carefully enough, there should be insufficient change in engine noise to alert their captor. As long as Kassim didn't think to take a look at the air speed indicator.

They followed the craft down, skimming in low over the river. Below them, white water foamed over gleaming rocks and coursed swiftly down a series of rugged falls, fed by incessant rain high in the hills. It was a cold and brutal scene, but possessed a coarse, natural beauty at odds with the wretched villages and towns nearby.

‘He's going in!' the crew chief shouted. The Super Cougar had dropped abruptly as if a string holding it aloft had been cut. It seemed about to hit the trees. Something must have happened on board. The machine's rear rotor seemed to brush over the top of a giant pine tree as it crested a ridge, and there was a collective intake of breath. Then, at the last moment it dipped, and the rotor exploded with a flash and a puff of smoke.

Inside the lead helicopter, Kleeman and the loadmaster were huddled together under Kassim's gun, desperately hanging on as the pilot tried to regain control of his craft. A trickle of blood was running down from inside his flying helmet, after Kassim had noticed the decrease in speed and fired a shot close to his head. He'd intended it as a warning, but the movement in the helicopter's flight had thrown his aim off, the bullet ripping through his helmet and grazing his skull.

Kassim locked his arm through a section of cargo webbing and stared through the open door at the wildly undulating picture below. In the distance he caught fleeting glimpses of the following Black Hawk, which had gradually drawn closer.

The floor dipped as they rounded a tree-lined slope, and Kassim felt his stomach heave. Abused by bad food, irregular sleep and severe stress, he was now in a death-ride across the Kosovan countryside. Yet he felt almost serene.

He had done what he set out to do, and reached the man who was responsible for the murder and violation of Aisha, his beloved sister. Now that man would pay for his crime. He spat out a mouthful of acid burning his throat and stared at Kleeman, who had not taken his eyes off him since leaving Pristina. The Special Envoy was looking deathly pale, but beyond an initial protest, had said nothing. Kassim had seen in his silence a confirmation that the man knew who he was. And why he was here.

He stared out at the blurred scenery below, the hills and valleys, the houses and farms and rolling woodlands, and considered the wider reasons he had been chosen to do this: to bring shame and disgrace on the organization that employed this man, which would be a giant fist against the Americans and their Coalition partners. He had been eager to be useful in the struggle, even if not in his own country, which was spinning by below. Now he was home, he realized that all of that seemed to matter very little. All the teaching, the training, the mantras about killing Americans, the special lessons in the way of the west, the constant drip-feed of hate, which he knew had been carefully tailored to influence him in his moments of doubt; just as the teachings of the Koran were used to wipe away doubts in those chosen to give their lives along the back streets and patrol routes used by the hated invaders. That all now seemed unreal – a vague and misty dream. In the minds of the ones who had schooled him and brought him this far, it had been their plan, their dream.

Now it was all his.

‘
Brace!
' the pilot screamed as the machine's tail dipped. There was a loud bang and the helicopter was wrenched violently to one side, as if swiped by a giant hand. Electronic alert signals began sounding and lights flashing, and he heard someone scream. He hoped it wasn't him.

So be it, thought Kassim, and raised his gun. And as the great machine tilted sideways and hung for a moment above the trees, defying gravity, he looked across at Kleeman and murmured a brief prayer for Aisha recalled from his childhood in the valleys below.

He pulled the trigger.

T
he Black Hawk pilot was already dropping his machine towards the ground as the stricken Super Cougar plunged out of the sky, the fuselage turning lazily as the pilot fought vainly to keep it level. A heavy worm of black smoke from the remains of the tail rotor trailed the helicopter's descent.

‘Brace for landing!' A crew member shouted a warning through the intercom as the ground came up to meet them with dizzying speed. Three hundred yards away the Super Cougar rolled lazily on its side and hit some trees with a crash, debris arcing into the air and one of the five rotor blades spinning away like a giant boomerang. Then the fuselage sank out of sight into a large gully.

Harry and Rik were out of the Black Hawk before it touched down and running towards where a plume of black smoke was rising into the air. The tops of the trees where the helicopter had impacted were burning, emitting a crackling sound as oil-fed flames ate into the wet branches.

Behind them, Rekker and his men broke wide to approach the crash site from the side and give covering fire, while the crew member and medic brought fire extinguishers in the hope that they might be of some use.

Harry arrived at the lip of the gully and stared down at a spot a hundred feet below, where the wreckage of the helicopter had finally come to rest. Held in place by two enormous pine trees above a series of waterfalls and a deep gully, it was lying on its side, the fuselage bent and torn with great gashes along the side.

For a moment nothing moved, save a piece of damaged rotor swinging in the wind and a renewed surge of dark, oily smoke from the remains of the rear assembly. Then the remains of a side window in the forward section popped out, and a figure in a flying suit emerged and rolled down the damaged fuselage. Another man followed and they both took off flying helmets. It was the pilot and co-pilot. Both appeared injured but mobile.

A third figure appeared in the main doorway of the machine, his face covered in blood. He wore combat gear and was holding a submachine gun.

Kassim.

There was too much vegetation in the way for a clear shot, and Harry began a cautious descent of the steep slope between the trees, aware that if he slipped, he wouldn't be able to stop until he landed right in front of the helicopter. He kept his eyes on Kassim, who seemed unaware of how close the pursuers were, and was struggling to get clear of the wreckage.

Then Kassim looked up and saw Harry and Rik, and to one side, Rekker and one of his men.

He tumbled from his perch on the fuselage, his weapon sweeping towards them.

His first burst sprayed through the trees, clipping off branches and chunks of wood. The second burst caught one of the men as he moved down, throwing him on to his back.

It was Rekker.

Kassim switched his attention to Harry, sending a burst of fire past him, one round tugging at his sleeve. It was enough to spin him off balance, and he slammed against a tree, feeling the rough scrape of bark against his face.

‘
Down!
' Rik shouted, and Harry dropped to the ground just as Kassim took aim again.

Rik fired two three-shot bursts. The second caught Kassim in the chest. The impact flipped him over and out of sight down the slope, his submachine gun falling to the ground.

Harry skidded the last few feet down to the Super Cougar and looked beyond it, to see Kassim's body floating in a pool of water fifty feet below. He reached up and hauled himself over the lip of the helicopter's main door, and stared down at two figures lying against the other side of the fuselage. Both were covered in blood. He recognized Anton Kleeman. The other was a crew member.

Rik joined him, coughing through the smoke. ‘They dead?'

‘Can't tell,' replied Harry. The air inside the cabin was thick with the powerful stench of aviation fuel and the sickly smell of burning rubber. He handed his MP5 to Rik and slid inside the helicopter, the movement producing a rasping groan of metal as the machine slipped against the trees.

He bent to check the crewman. He was barely conscious, with a serious gash across his chest and a bullet wound in one shoulder. A steady flow of blood was pumping from the chest wound, and Harry knew they hadn't long to get him some help.

‘Get the medic,' he told Rik, then turned to Kleeman.

To his surprise the envoy was conscious, his eyes watching Harry but dulled by shock. Harry checked him over carefully and found a bullet wound in the man's side. Kassim must have shot them both, the intended
coup de grâce.

‘Get me . . . out . . .' Kleeman breathed hoarsely, his skin white and greasy. He tried to pull himself up by using the injured crewman as leverage, but his leg was caught under the bench seat that had collapsed under the craft's impact. ‘Damn you . . . get me out! You can see to him later.'

Harry felt a cold anger clutch him at the man's selfishness, and wondered if Kleeman had ever shown true compassion about anyone. Somehow he doubted it.

He bent and grasped the bench seat and braced himself, then heaved upwards, feeling the metal beginning to straighten. It moved sufficiently for Kleeman to pull his foot clear, and the envoy scrabbled away, gasping and coughing.

‘Who . . . who was that man?' he asked, touching his side and inspecting his bloodied fingers. He seemed surprised to see the splash of red, as if he'd never considered that he might bleed like anyone else. He slumped against the crewman, eyes rolling, and waved away a spiral of smoke drifting across the cabin.

Harry stared at him. ‘You don't know?'

‘No – should I?' Kleeman coughed again, and a small spot of blood appeared on his lip. If he noticed, he made no sign.

‘But you remember the compound at Mitrovica,' said Harry.

Kleeman's gaze faltered, eyes moving away. It was as if the envoy had decided that, for once, silence might be safer than words. It might have worked had he not said, ‘You knew that crazy bastard was coming after me! I saw him at the airport, yet you did nothing to stop him – any of you!'

It was enough. Suddenly Harry knew –
knew
without a flicker of doubt that Kleeman was responsible. It was in the air around them, in the sickly pallor of the man's face, in the expression of his eyes, the set of his mouth.