Cliff Ryder - The Finish Line

Kate nodded in relief. "So he's aboard, as well."

"In a manner of speaking — he grabbed on to the landing gear as they took off."

"Oh, God." Headlines sprang unbidden into her mind: Secret Agent Splattered Over Belgian Countryside. "Where are they headed?"

"Toward the coast. I expect the hostile is headed back to his base of operations, once he shakes off his unwanted passenger."

"What about you?" Kate asked.

"I set the SUV to self-destruct. It was too heavily damaged to keep using. I proceeded on foot into the nearby fields. I'm about a quarter-mile away from where I last saw Mr. Vert on the helicopter. They were traveling north-northwest on a heading of 295. I'm still moving, and will circle back around into Brussels and withdraw from there."

Kate rubbed her temples and checked the virtual screen for David's locator chip. It still glowed a steady green. "Well, he's still alive, I can tell you that, so I can only assume he's trying to gain control of the aircraft. We'll try to get a fix on him, but you just concentrate on getting out of the country right now. We'll assist your other team members immediately. If Julio can be moved, we should have him back in our care as soon as this evening."

"Thanks, Primary. Anything else at this time?"

Only my wish that you were up there assisting David, Kate thought. "No, Jay, we'll get your full debriefing later. Keep moving, and good luck."

"One last thing, Primary."

About to log off, Kate paused. "Yes?"

"Don't count Mr. Vert out. From what I've seen of him, if there is a way to get this job done, I believe he'll find it."

"I hope you're right, Jay, I really do. Primary out." Kate disconnected the call and brought up the VR ops room again, bringing the screen with David's chip on it, which, knowing the circumstances, was currently moving much faster than she would have liked over the Belgian-French border.

Okay, maybe this wasn't such a good idea, David thought.

He had managed to pull himself up to where the skid met with the strut that attached to the underside of the aircraft. At the moment, however, that was about all he could do. The buffeting wind stream felt as if it were clawing at him with a thousand icy fingers. His hands were already turning numb in the frigid atmosphere, and every second he stayed outside was one more that he risked falling to his death.

It was at that moment that the door above him opened, and David saw the now familiar face of the brown-haired man as he extended a leg to kick him off the skid. He quickly scooted backward down to the rear strut and out of range. However, the man brought a pistol up in his hand and took aim at David, who had nowhere to go.

His fingers scrabbled for his own pistol, yanking it from his waistband and bringing it up as he hooked his leg around the strut and swung under the fuselage, only exposing a small part of himself. His injured arm quivered with the strain, feeling the pain even through the numbing stimulant. David waited, knowing that the man would either blow off his kneecap or come out to try to shoot him face-to-face. He hoped it would be the latter, as unlikely as that seemed.

A spark flashed off the metal of the strut as a bullet came within inches of his leg. The bastard's toying with me! David looked down to make sure he hadn't been grazed by a ricochet, as the drug he'd taken could block nerve impulses enough that he might have been injured and not know it. Not only was he unhurt, but he also saw the safety strap from the SUV, with its sturdy buckle, was still around his waist.

Wrapping his uninjured arm around the strut, David aimed his gun near the passenger's compartment, but not into it or near the rotor. He fired several rounds to keep his opponent's head down. He tried to see if the man was still outside, but didn't want to risk leaning out far enough to expose himself again.

Tucking his pistol into his pants, he turned around so that he was sitting facing the strut. Using his injured arm, he ran the strap between his body and the skid to hold it in place in the energy-sapping wind. Once it was around the thick metal tube, he clicked it back in place, securing himself to the metal bar. Far below, the Belgian landscape, a patchwork of fields, trees and small towns, seemed so very far away. David figured they had to be at least five thousand feet high, give or take a few hundred. More than enough to kill him from sudden deceleration trauma, as his Marine buddies had joked more than once about falling out of helicopters back in Afghanistan.

The passenger's door opened again as the helicopter turned right and dived steeply, the pilot obviously trying to shake him off. Ignoring the flare of pain in his side, David drew his legs up and turned around so that his back was to the strut. He managed to wrap his legs around the skid as the helicopter leveled off. The sudden altitude changes, dips and swerves were making his head spin. Groping for his pistol, he drew it as the man leaned out the door again, his own gun in hand, and now secured to something inside the helicopter, as there was a safety harness visible around his chest. Even with that, he kept a tight grip on the helicopter's door frame.

Their eyes met. In that second, David knew it was likely he was going to die. It was only a matter of whether he would get his shot off first. He lined up the pistol and brought pressure down on the trigger with his numb fingers, praying he could fire before taking the bullet he knew would be coming for him.

Huddled in the corner of the helicopter's seat, Maggie wavered on the edge of near catatonic shock. The events of the past few minutes had rushed over her in a frightening blur — Aragorn's betrayal and his almost casual execution, the assault on the house, their subsequent flight. She still saw that man's face in her mind's eye as her captor had run him down like a stray dog, with bullets chipping at the windshield, and her screams stuck in her throat…During the hurried chase down the road, whatever weapon he had been firing made such an earsplitting racket that all she could do was cover her ears and try to shrink even further from the emotionless, unstoppable killer holding her prisoner.

When the back of the van had blown up, a part of Maggie had almost cried with relief, because she'd figured they would stop running, that they had finally been caught. She almost didn't believe it when he'd pulled her out of the wrecked vehicle and dragged her to the helicopter. By that time, she was too far gone to even try to resist, couldn't muster up the will to attempt to escape, couldn't do anything but go along with him since the alternative would have been far worse. She had stumbled to the aircraft and collapsed into her seat as they took off, registering the thump of something hitting the aircraft's underside, but not really caring.

Her captor did, however, muttering under his breath and opening the door to step outside for a moment, then coming back in and rummaging under the seat for something.

The pilot got the man's attention, and they had a hurried, shouted conversation over the roar of the engine, most likely, Maggie thought, about why the man had stepped out of the helicopter. It was apparently resolved to their satisfaction, as the pilot suddenly put the helicopter into a steep dive that threw her against her seat belt, which she didn't even remember buckling around her waist. The man came back to his seat and found the thing he was looking for, an orange woven-nylon harness that he buckled around his chest. When he glanced at her, Maggie looked away, even as a thought rose in her head, one that she hadn't allowed herself to think, but which now cut through the fog of terror and shock to focus her mind.