Cliff Ryder - The Finish Line

That man killed my brother.

It was an inescapable fact. She hadn't seen the face of the man who had coldly placed three bullets into her only living relative, the one person she had relied on for the past thirteen years. But she was sure it was him. It was in the way he moved, with a singular, ruthless efficiency. It was in his eyes, his stance, his casual brutality. He was a man who used violence like other people used a spoon — as an effective tool to get the results he wanted, and one of the casualties had been Ray.

He was preparing to open the door again, having secured the safety harness to a metal ring that he had raised from its recess in the floor. While seeming to stare at the floor in front of her, Maggie watched him out of the corner of her eye, that one thought looming larger and larger in her mind.

That man killed my brother.

Her fingers went to her bruised and tender jaw, gingerly exploring the swelling there, feeling the cracked bone and the space where her tooth had been. She felt the flash of pain that accompanied her touch. Instead of impeding her, the sting did the opposite, clearing her brain of the numbing cloud that had settled over it, and letting her think clearly for the first time since she had left the house where her brother had died.

The man opened the door. The wind filled the cabin, rippling Maggie's clothes and making her squint her eyes at the sudden force buffeting her.

She had been running from him for the past thirty-six hours, but wherever she tried to go, he was there. St. Pancras, Paris, Belgium. I'll never be free of him, Maggie thought, until one of us is dead.

Almost without realizing it, her hands stole to the seat belt buckle, and she slowly unlocked it, careful not to make a sound, even though there was little chance she'd be heard over the helicopter's engine. The man's back was to her as he leaned out the door, about to shoot something outside. Maggie placed the two pieces of the seat belt next to her, her gaze alternating between the man and the ring his harness was locked into.

She edged out of her seat, crouching on the floor, only three feet from the ring. She reached out for it, her hand creeping closer and closer. She touched the smooth, cold metal, her fingers unfastening it from the metal circle.

The scream burst from her lips as she leaped forward, hands reaching out to shove him through the door, every synapse, every fiber of her being wanting to push him out into the cold air and watch him fall, helpless, until he hit the ground.

Her hands contacted his back, and she pushed with all her might, throwing him off balance and down toward the lip of the door frame. Even in the buffeting wind outside, Maggie was aware of something blurring past her head, then, before she could follow up and heave him the rest of the way out, the man reared up, throwing her off like a rag doll.

Staggering across the passenger's compartment, Maggie cracked her head on the roof and fell back into her seat. Blinking back tears of pain, she looked up to see the man standing over her, his face a mask of raw fury. Then he was upon her, and she could only curl up and try to cover her face with her arms as the merciless blows rained down.

David wasn't exactly sure what had happened. As if in slow motion, the man had leaned out, raised his pistol and put a bullet into David's shoulder, the already injured one, making him shout and drop his pistol even as he had fired. The man had smiled grimly and aimed at David's face, about to put a bullet between his eyes, when he had suddenly lurched off balance. His second shot had gone wild. Then he was gone, vanishing inside the helicopter with a roar of rage. The door slammed shut behind him in the wind turbulence.

Clutching his injured shoulder, blood oozing between his fingers, David leaned against the skid and gasped for breath in the tempest under the helicopter blades. He was trying to get his battered body under control again. He wanted to rest, to close his eyes for just a moment. It was overwhelming, but he knew he couldn't give in. Instead, he unbuckled the strap around his waist and tied it to the skid, forming a slipknotted loop on the other end that he could put his leg through.

Holding on to the cold fuselage, he eased along the helicopter's side until he was at the door, tensed to react to it opening again. He wasn't sure what he would do if it did. He slowly reached for the handle, straining against the wind, and got his good hand on it. He yanked the metal release and pulled the door out with all of his remaining strength, forcing it open enough to wedge his body inside.

The brown-haired man was hunched over something, his right arm rising and falling with powerful regularity. Drops of some liquid spattered against the cabin's ceiling, and it took him a moment to register that blood was spraying with each blow. The man was savagely beating someone.

Maggie.

David crawled inside and lunged at the man, ready to put him down once and for all.

As he did, however, the man whirled to meet his charge, bringing up his pistol and going for David's throat with his other hand. Stopped in midstep, David was forced back against the closed door, with the man choking the life out of him until he could bring his pistol over to shoot him. David got his free hand up to stop the pistol before it was aimed at his head, but he was exhausted after everything he had gone through, and the muzzle came closer and closer to the side of his head.

Stars swam in his vision as the man's choke hold intensified, cutting off the flow of blood and oxygen to his brain. Something had to give, and David knew what it was. The only question was whether he could do it before he either was strangled to death or took a bullet in the brain.

Grasping for whatever gasps of oxygen he could suck down, he moved his wounded arm to the door handle. His opponent, hearing him wheeze, snarled and squeezed even tighter.

"You just don't know when to fucking die, do you?"

"Afraid not…despite your…best…efforts…" As he had hoped, the retort made his attacker more furious, and he redoubled his efforts to kill David, smashing him into the door. At the same time, David pulled on the handle and pushed back with all his strength, leaning out into the airstream. He shoved the pistol away and grabbed the man's jacket with his hand as he arced backward, pulling the mercenary out of the helicopter with him.

David tumbled head over heels, and felt a peculiar, weightless sensation as the earth and sky tumbled crazily about him. Then reality reasserted itself, and the nylon strap connecting his leg to the skid tightened around his thigh with a painful jerk as it stopped him cold, leaving him suspended in midair. The momentum of his fall shot him completely under the helicopter, making him swing back and forth, all of his limbs flailing wildly.

The plan should have been more or less foolproof, except that something had gone terribly wrong. A heavy weight was wrapped around David's torso, crushing him, dragging him down. Something blocked his vision and David heard panicked, ragged breathing in his ear that he was sure wasn't his own.

The bastard's hanging on to me! Hanging more or less upside down, David's injured arm dangled uselessly below his head, and for a moment he thought his other one might be broken or injured, as well, since he couldn't seem to locate it as he whirled and spun in the downdraft. The other man's arms and legs seemed to be everywhere at once, crawling on and clawing at him as he tried to improve his hold. David's uninjured arm smacked into something, and he grabbed on and held on tightly.

The other man shouted, but David couldn't make out what he was saying. He realized he was holding on to the back of the man's jacket, and that his enemy was trying to climb up David's body to reach the nylon strap. Using his hold on the cloth, David pulled him back with all his strength. The man tried to wriggle free, but David brought his free leg up into the man's face, feeling the crunch of cartilage as it met his nose. The man's grip slackened, and David did it again, and again. He pulled at the man's back, trying to peel him off.