Andrew Klavan - The Final Hour

That’s what I would have thought if I’d had time to think, so like I say, it was a good thing there was no time. I simply turned the plane again and pushed its nose down, diving right beneath the chopper before the gunman could get off another shot.

I heard Rose let out something between a curse and a prayer, his usually flat voice rising with fear as we continued diving across the river. But I couldn’t level out. I couldn’t see the helicopter behind me, but I knew it must be turning around, repositioning itself for an attack. I had to keep turning, twisting, diving, dodging.

Up ahead, I saw high-rise brick buildings-apartments in one of the towns or boroughs outside Manhattan-I didn’t know which one. I pointed the plane straight at the rising brick walls.

Once again, my headset filled up with shouts from Mike and Rose.

“Charlie, watch out!”

“Pull up, Charlie! We’re gonna hit!”

But I didn’t pull up. I forced the plane to sweep down out of the sky, knowing all the while that the chopper was right behind me.

I came off the river low, flying right over the street, right down the corridor formed by the brick towers on either side. We had lost so much altitude that when I glanced to the side, I saw the brownstone rooftops right next to me. I saw the upper windows in the buildings to my right and left. I could even see some shocked faces staring out at us through the glass.

I strained against my seat belt as I tried to look around, tried to spot the chopper, find out where it was. It was nowhere in sight.

I heard a scream-two screams.

Mike: “Watch out!”

Then Rose: “Charlie!”

I looked ahead-and let out a scream of my own.

A railway bridge was suddenly there, right in front of me. We were soaring right at it. I could already read the graffiti painted on its side.

I was about to pull up on the stick so we could rise above it. But just then, the chopper appeared, above and in front of me. It was blocking my escape route. If the plane lifted up now, we’d crash right into the chopper.

The Cessna barreled through the sky toward the side of the bridge. The chopper hovered above, turning so that the gunman could take his shot. To my left and right, the way was blocked by the brick towers.

My mind went blank. I couldn’t think of a way out. My head was filled with the sound of Mike and Rose shouting in my ear.

Then I saw the intersection, just before the bridge. I banked the plane and we went roaring around the corner and down the cross street.

The Cessna went over almost onto its side as we made the turn. The engine noise filled my ears, a howl like a baby’s. The sickening swirling scene in the windshield was like something out of a video game-one of those sequences where you have to dodge through obstacles-as the plane slipped through the gap between one brick tower and another. Of course, in video games, you have an endless number of lives. In reality, you only have one. It makes a big difference in how you play.

For an instant, I caught glimpses of people on the street below. We were actually so near the ground I could make out the horrified looks on their faces as they stood with their mouths open, gaping up at us.

Then, with a panicky jerk at the yoke, I leveled the Cessna out before it could come full around and smash into one of the buildings. The plane straightened and wobbled down the center of the street. I gave it gas and lifted the nose. We rose and rose until we were above the tower rooftops.

For a moment, I had a feeling of freedom, of escape, a sense that we were pulling away, speeding for the open sky.

Then the gunman struck again.

This time, I not only couldn’t hear the shots, I didn’t see the chopper or the shooter at all. But I felt this terrifying, stuttering jolt as the bullets ripped into the fuselage. For a second, I felt the plane was flying out of control. Then the yoke seemed to grip. I lowered the nose and dove toward the street again, turning at the same time to avoid another round of bullets.

I caught sight of the chopper as it heeled to one side to come chasing down after me. Then I looked out ahead. We were diving down toward a street of smaller buildings: low, old brick-and-wood shops and houses.

Old wooden telephone poles lined the streets.

The pavement rushed up toward us. I leveled the plane out, close to the ground, and we shot ahead. A moment later, sparks flew from the plane’s left wing and I knew the helicopter had come down after us, that the gunman was firing at us from behind.

Desperate-terrified out of my skull, to put it plainly- I stared ahead, steering down the middle of the street. I saw people running for cover, cars screeching to the curb, drivers jumping out and dashing into stores and doorways. The road now lay clear in front of me. The dusk was settling over it, a blue-gray darkness overcoming the last light of day.

I had an idea. I guess you could call it an idea. Moving that fast, that low, that close to buildings and the street, with the chopper on my tail and the gunman taking shots at me, I wasn’t exactly thinking, not in a way you’d call thinking, anyway. But things flashed into my mind, half thoughts, half images, half-formed. There was no time to sort them out or make decisions about them. But there was also no choice but to act-and pray.

What came to me was the idea of telephone lines: the telephone wires that go from pole to pole. It came to me that telephone wires were deadly to low-flying planes. You couldn’t see them until the last minute-in this light you probably couldn’t see them at all-and if you ran into them they grabbed you, tangled you up, and tossed you to the ground.

As our plane shot down the street toward the corner, I realized there must be wires right in front of me, crossing the street from one set of poles to another. In seconds, we would hit them and go down.

So here was my idea-my crazy, sort of idea. I let the plane sink lower. Lower. So low that the windows of three-story houses flashed by me. We were seconds away from reaching the corner-and we were headed directly at the wires, the telephone wires invisible in the twilight.

I waited. Waited.

Then I started to lift the Cessna’s nose. Not fast at first, not hard, just enough to make the plane rise a bit. I sent up a prayer that I’d have time to get enough altitude to go over the phone lines. I prayed the wires wouldn’t snag the landing gear that hung down from the bottom of the fuselage. I prayed-and lifted the nose farther.

We rose and rose… And then there they were. I saw them: the phone wires crossing the street, parallel black lines like the lines on a sheet of music. I pulled back hard on the yoke and gave the plane full throttle. We lifted up and up suddenly. The wires passed underneath us. And then I banked the plane hard to the left.

The plane came around fast, low over the low rooftops. We made a quick semicircle and were just in time to see what happened next.

As I’d guessed, the chopper was right behind us. It had come down low to trail us, to try to get another shot. It had been right on our tail, the gunman taking aim.

But the pilot hadn’t thought about the wires.

As the Cessna turned, I looked out the window and saw the chopper start its rise to come after us. It never made it. Instead, it seemed to stop stark-still-just stop right there in the air above the street as if it had been caught in the hand of an invisible giant. It had flown right into the phone wires. The next second, the force of the impact flipped it upside down, just like that.

The gunman was hurled off his perch in the open doorway. With the Cessna still turning, still rising, I saw his black form tumbling through the air toward the empty street. His body smacked against the pavement so hard I could almost feel the thud.