Andy McDermott - The Midas Legacy

There was no time to reflect on her lucky escape. The Antonov was banking steeply to the right, and the weight of the transporter’s chassis hanging out over nothingness was causing its back end to swing outwards as overstressed steel gave way.

A squeal from the windscreen. Cracks spread down the wide pane as the unyielding fuselage ground down on it—

The window exploded.

A gale blasted into the cab. Instinctual reflex saved her eyesight, but with a hundred-knot slipstream behind it, even laminated safety glass was enough to slash her face. She was thrown backwards, barely able to breathe.

The transporter jolted, twisting out from the tailcone as the An-124’s bank steepened…

A new alarm shrilled in the cockpit, accompanied by an incongruously calm synthesised female voice. ‘Stall warning. Level out. Stall warning. Level out…’

‘Shit!’ gasped Petrov, straining to stay upright in his chair as the artificial horizon banked past forty-five degrees. Increasing power would stop the plane from falling out of the sky, but going any faster with a huge truck jammed into the fuselage ran the risk of losing control. All he could do was obey the robotic instruction and hope the vehicle fell away of its own accord. The Antonov responded sluggishly, nausea rising in its occupants’ stomachs.

Sek, clinging to one of the rear seats, looked at the monitor. The transporter was still there, its battered nose slewing around. But his eyes snapped to something on the other side of the ramp — Colonel Kang, clinging to a strap as he fought with the bald spy.

He knew he had to help his commander, but his lack of either Russian or English meant that getting the aircrew to put him on the plane’s loudspeaker system would take too long. Instead he rushed from the cockpit to give orders to the other soldiers in person.

‘Lock that fucking door!’ Petrov shouted as the plane levelled out. One of the crew slammed the bulletproof hatch and bolted it. ‘Don’t let any of the little bastards back in!’

The stall warning shut off. He watched the airspeed indicator until it climbed back to its previous mark, then tipped the Antonov into another sharp bank.

Eddie grappled with Kang, one hand clamped around the Korean’s gun arm as he drove punches into his stomach with the other. As long as the squat officer was holding the strap, there was little he could do to fight back…

The deck rolled beneath him, one sole slipping on the metal. The moment it took to stabilise himself left him open to attack. Kang drove an elbow against his damaged rib.

He cried out in pain, almost falling. Kang jerked his wrist from Eddie’s grip and slammed the gun against his head. This time, the Yorkshireman went down. He slithered across the hold as the plane banked more steeply, one flailing hand catching Kang’s shin. He grabbed at it, but his fingers only closed around cloth.

It was all he had. He squeezed his fist into a ball, clutching the material like a lifeline.

Kang yelled as Eddie’s weight dragged his hand down the strap. He fired at his tormentor, but in his panic the shot went wide. The Antonov’s roll steepened, the floor dropping away from the two men.

Fabric slipped through Eddie’s fingers. He couldn’t hold on—

His free hand found another recessed hook in the deck as he lost his grip on Kang’s leg. He swung away, dangling from his new handhold.

With the other man’s weight gone, Kang was able to pull himself back up to the wall. His panting fear was quickly supplanted by murderous glee as he saw that his enemy was now at his mercy—

Metal screamed and tore — and the TEL fell away from the ramp.

Nina felt the cab swing around. The transporter was about to go—

She scrambled over the dashboard — and threw herself desperately out through the broken windshield on to the ramp.

Behind her, the roof sheared off as the truck finally broke free. It caught for an instant on the cable — then the winch brake gave way, the steel line unspooling madly as the vehicle tumbled into the empty sky.

Nina landed painfully beside the forward hydraulic jack. She tried to grab the steel column, but missed as the aircraft suddenly rolled upright, throwing her across the ramp.

Kang was flung back against the wall by the Antonov’s drunken reel. His shot went high. Eddie scrambled forward, driving himself shoulder-first into the colonel’s stomach. Kang folded double, the breath erupting from his lungs.

Eddie hauled him around, about to throw him off the ramp when he saw Nina skidding helplessly down it — and behind her, the transporter falling away—

The cable snapped taut.

Somehow it held, the truck pounding to a stop as if hitting an invisible wall. The aircraft was thrown off balance by a dozen tons of steel abruptly yanking at it like a dropped anchor. It pitched sharply nose-down, rolling back on to its right side. Both Eddie and Kang were catapulted across the hold.

The Korean landed on top of his opponent. Eddie stifled a scream as his ribs took another punishing impact. Kang slid off him, both men clawing for handholds as the floor tipped further forward.

They found them almost simultaneously, but Kang’s was more secure. He dragged himself upright as Eddie dangled below him, smiling malevolently as he raised his gun again…

A shriek from behind him as Nina flew over the top of the ramp into the hold and rolled down the sloping deck past the two men. Kang glanced at her in surprise—

Eddie swept one leg up to deliver a cartilage-cracking kick to his kneecap.

Kang screeched and tottered backwards — just as the Antonov’s pilot pulled back hard on the control yoke, putting it into a steep climb.

The Korean lost his balance and fell on to the ramp. He groped at the metal surface as he slid down it — finding no holds.

He hurtled into open space, screaming in terror—

The last thing he saw was the glare of the transporter’s headlights — then he hit the truck’s flat front with a gory splat, his innards bursting across it like a bug on a windscreen.

Shrill metallic cracks came from the cable as it started to shear apart, the steel strands snapping one by one…

Sek and his men had been hurrying aft through the upper deck when the Antonov began its crazy roller-coaster ride, hurling them all to the floor. After a stomach-churning age, it finally levelled out. ‘Get up!’ he shouted, struggling to his feet. ‘Get down to the hold! We’ve got to protect the missile, and kill the spies!’

The bruised soldiers doubled their pace towards the plane’s rear.

‘Enjoy your flight!’ Eddie yelled after the departed Kang. He crawled to Nina. ‘How was yours?’

‘It sucked,’ she said dizzily, surprised not just at being aboard the huge aircraft, but simply at being alive. ‘I didn’t even get a bag of peanuts— Oh, you are kidding me!’ she cried as someone shouted in Korean. They both looked up to see a soldier at the top of the ladder on the hold’s starboard side. ‘Why can’t these assholes just leave us alone?’

‘It’d ruin their military Koreas,’ said Eddie. The couple ran forward as Sek and his team clattered down the ladder. ‘Get on the other side of the missile. They won’t dare shoot at it. The whole fucking plane’d blow up!’

The rocket was in a long cradle, empty ones beside it. Stacked beyond the missile at the front of the hold were numerous crates and containers. They would provide cover, but it would not take long for the soldiers to round them. ‘There’s nowhere to go!’ Nina protested.