The Blood Lance (31 page)

Kate brought the Bonanza A36 in from the west at a speed of
just under one hundred-fifty knots. When she had cleared the
last stand of trees bordering the park and was sure she was heading precisely on the coordinates Ethan had given her, she lowered the flaps and wheels simultaneously. The effect was like putting on brakes. She watched the needle of the VSI plummet, and then for a moment she simply floated above the dark earth, getting her bearings with her NVGs. She hit the ground hard, bounced higher than she thought she would, adjusted the flaps, and came down solidly this time. She was running fast now, the ground relatively flat and even. She saw a squad of police moving toward her from the tree line on her right. They shone a light on her, but no one gave the command to open fire.

Whilst the plane was still moving, Kate brought the tail around, performing a bouncing half-pirouette and started back along the same track.

Ethan caught up with Josh and Malloy just as they crossed the road and broke into the meadow. Tossing his Kalashnikov aside, he scooped Josh over his shoulder and started toward the plane. A shot was fired from beyond the plane, but it was a handgun and wasn't quite in range. Kate pulled forward with a spurt of speed and then slowed the plane so as to give him cover.

A spotlight danced over him as a couple more handguns barked. Malloy, trailing a few steps behind, began squeezing off single rounds from his Kalashnikov. Once Ethan got Josh into the plane and then jumped in after him, Kate hit the throttle. Malloy tossed his weapon aside and started running. He heard shots in the distance from larger guns. The bullets zipped past him with a crack. Then a round hit his back. He stumbled and nearly went down. He heard more shots from other points. Kate was running out of space and was going to have to accelerate if she wanted to clear the trees at the end of the meadow. Before she did, Malloy gave one last desperate kick. Closing in on the moving plane, he dived through the open door and caught Ethan's outstretched hand. Ethan gave a scream of pain, but his grip never slackened. Three rounds tapped the fuselage and then Ethan shouted, 'He's in!'

Kate hit the throttle hard. At sixty knots the nose lifted and the gunshots suddenly stopped. No one wanted to shoot down a plane inside the city. A grove of trees loomed in the foreground. Malloy grabbed hold of one of the seats trying to get some kind of anchor and watched the dark branches waving before them as the plane tipped higher. The RPMs redlined as the engine screamed. They brushed the topmost branches and heard the clang of wood on metal, and then the plane banked to the north with the two police helicopters in pursuit.

Malloy, feeling the first bit of relief, looked at Ethan. 'How did you get those grenades to go off on the other side of the park?'

'I was up in a tree about sixty feet and just gave them a toss in different directions.'

'And you got down and caught up with us?'

'You two weren't exactly breaking any land speed records.'

'Just fast enough,' Malloy told him.

When they had lost the helicopters chasing them Kate turned on the lights and Malloy got his first look at Josh Sutter, who looked closer to death than he had imagined as they lay together in the dark.

'How are you feeling?' he asked.

'Like a free man.'

'You know what? You look like a free man.' He ripped the armour free and took a look at the wound. The bullet had broken bone and there was plenty of swelling. He prodded the wound tenderly and got a cry of pain for his trouble.

'I think I can feel the bullet.' That was the good news. The bad news was that the slug had probably fragmented - so there could be quite a bit of internal bleeding in the heart or lungs. He tried listening to Sutter's lungs, but the roar of the plane and his own thumping pulse made it impossible.

'How is the breathing?' he asked Josh.

'About like it was all night. Hard to get a good breath, but that's just the pain.' Maybe it was the pain and maybe his lungs had filled with blood.

'We have any medical supplies?' he shouted to Kate.

'How about some water! Do we have any water?' Ethan asked.

'There's a case of bottled water in the back!' Kate shouted. 'Medical supplies are up here.'

Malloy got water for Josh and Ethan, and then went to the co-pilot's seat, taking Kate a bottle. She thanked him for the water and then asked if it was a long night. 'Probably the longest of my life,' he said. 'Well, maybe getting shot in Beirut was longer, but I don't remember it. I was out for about forty- eight hours.'

'From what Ethan said I wasn't sure if I was going to be picking up two or three of you this morning.'

'Josh is not home yet.' He looked at the horizon.

'We lost them,' she said, as if reading his thoughts. She was running just over the treetops and city buildings, the sky still dark.

'So where is Hoisburg exactly?'

'About ten minutes east of here.'

Malloy checked the skyline again. Ten minutes was good. In twenty the police would be giving chase with planes.

'I'm going to see what I can do for Josh.'

Malloy took what passed for a first aid kit back to Josh, but all he could do was clean the wound and bandage it. He needed antibiotics and there weren't any in the kit. Finishing with Josh, he looked under the makeshift bandage above Ethan's wrist and whistled.

'At least the bullet went through,' Ethan told him.

He showed Malloy the exit wound, but it wasn't clean. 'I'm guessing you've still got fragments in there,' Malloy told him. After he had wiped down the area with alcohol and then bandaged it, he went back to the cockpit and settled in beside Kate. With the plane skimming just over the tree tops, the effect was disconcerting. It felt like they were going to crash.

'How's your leg?' he asked.

'How do you know about my leg?'

'I saw you limping right before you climbed up the side of that building.'

'I wrapped it.'

'Must be hurting pretty bad by now. . .'

'I've hurt worse.'

Malloy pulled out his phone and called Jane. It was just past midnight Jane's time. 'We should rendezvous in five to ten minutes,' he told her. 'We're in a plane, by the way - in case the Berlin people are wondering how we're coming in.'

'I'll let them know.'

'You have any luck getting a medical helicopter dispatched?'

'Your contact has the information.'

'We'll have three passengers for the chopper - one critical.'

'Why three?' Kate asked.

'Medical chopper for you, Ethan, and Josh. I'm going on to the Embassy in Berlin.'

'Just get us to a train, T. K. Ethan and I will take care of ourselves.'

'Maybe you ought to look at his wrist before you make that call.'

'If you can get us some antibiotics we should be fine.'

'Whatever you think is best,' he answered. He watched the tree tops slipping under them for a time, and then asked, 'When did you learn to fly?'

'Last year in France.'

'You have any trouble getting the plane?'

'I had a little trouble finding a private airfield, but I called a friend of mine I fly with and he told me where I could find one. After that, I stole a car, drove through a chain link fence and shot my way through a hangar door. By the time the night watchman woke up, I was already on the runway.'

Kate dipped one wing and buzzed two black SUVs parked on the shoulder of a country road. 'Are those your people?'

Malloy slipped on his NVGs and studied the figures. 'They look about right.'

'I hope so. I've had enough surprises for one night.'

Kate climbed to two hundred metres. Their horizon to the west was still clear, but Kate was apparently more interested in studying the road. Once she could see they had a clear runway she turned the plane in a long, descending arc and came back round, now heading toward the SUVs. The plane slowed when she lowered the wheels and then again as she extended the flaps. They dropped to within fifty metres of the road, which appeared to twist out from under them for a moment and then come back - now running straight out like a runway for nearly half-a-mile. There were some scrub trees at the side of the road, but the wingspan was only about ten metres and Kate settled the plane neatly between them. She touched down softly, braking gently at first, then more aggressively as they started closing in on the parked SUVs.

'Nice job,' Malloy told her as she pulled to a stop some ten metres short of the Americans.

The Road from Hoisburg to Uelzen, Germany

Sunday March 9, 2008.

'How can I help?' the American Embassy officer asked after shaking hands with Malloy and introducing himself as Brian Compton. He was a tall, well-built man with a military haircut and crystal blue eyes. Like the three men under his command he was packing a machine pistol and wearing armour.

Malloy gave him the address of his Neustadt hotel. 'You need to get someone to collect my computer and personal effects. If the Germans get hold of that computer, they'll know who was responsible for the trouble last night.'

'I think they already know.'

'Maybe, but they can't prove it.'

'We
'll
make it a priority.'

'Once the computer is secure I want one of your people to check Sutter and me out of the Royal Meridien. The police will probably want to ask about a Mr Thomas with the State Department and Special Agent Sutter, but all your man knows is that Jim Randal got wind of something yesterday and went rogue. Thomas and Sutter reported him to their superiors and were then ordered to proceed to Ramstein at nine o'clock last night. You might want to make sure we have the flight records out of Germany to back it up, but there shouldn't be any rush on that. As far as your man knows, we are already on our way back to the States.'

'They're not going to believe a word of it,' Compton answered.

'What do you care? Your people all have diplomatic immunity, don't they?'

'Do you know the status of Dale Perry's safe house?'

'We got ambushed at the back door, plus there is a trail of blood leading right to
it
.
I'm guessing the Germans have found it by now.'

'How about his computer?'

'I cleaned it.'

'You take anything out before you did?'

Malloy shook his head and lied out of habit. 'Didn't have time.'

'Okay,' Compton said after collecting himself. 'Not the best news, but not the worst either.' He went to the men in his command and gave them their orders. Two of them took off for Hamburg. The third got in the second SUV and waited as Compton helped Malloy get Josh Sutter out of the plane and into the van. Malloy took the front seat. Compton, who had the medical kit, climbed in the back with Ethan, Kate, and Josh Sutter.

'Agent Sutter will be getting on the helicopter. These other two have opted to find treatment elsewhere.'

Compton gave Malloy a surprised look.

'Don't ask.'

'Okay,' he said, 'let's see what we've got.'

'Agent Sutter may have some internal bleeding,' Malloy told him. 'Otherwise the wound is clean. How, I don't know, but it is. These two are the ones I'm worried about.'

Compton looked at Ethan's shoulder wound. 'Who's the surgeon?' he asked.

'She is,' Ethan said, nodding toward Kate, giving her a quick smile.

'Nice work, ma'am. You have any medical training?'

'I had a sewing class once.'

Compton's smile vanished when he unwound Ethan's bandaged wrist. 'This isn't good.' He pointed at Kate's thigh. I'm going to need to look at that too. Kate pulled her pants down and Compton cut the blood soaked blouse strips away. As he did, Compton sucked at his teeth disapprovingly. 'You two
need
to get on that chopper.'

'We
need
antibiotics,' Kate answered.

Compton searched through his bag. 'I'm equipped to treat a gunshot wound - not something like this.' He found some cephalosporin and held up the bottle. 'This,' he said, 'is good at
preventing
infection. I should give that to Agent Sutter. You two
have
infections. If you don't get help soon, you could be looking at septic shock. You do understand that is usually fatal?'

'Just clean the wounds and get us some drugs,' Kate told him.

The rendezvous with the army medics was southeast of Uelzen. Once the helicopter settled in a farmer's field Compton and his driver cradled Josh Sutter in their arms and carried him out. Malloy followed. Whilst Compton rummaged about with one of the medics for parenteral penicillin, Malloy told Josh Sutter, 'I'm going to find the people responsible, Josh.'

'Do me a favour. If you do, give me a call. I want to be there for the arrest.'

'You got it, buddy!'

When Malloy, Compton and the driver climbed back into the SUV, Kate asked if he would mind driving them back to Uelzen. She and Ethan would take a train from there. 'We can drive you anywhere you want,' Compton told her as he passed them the penicillin and needles.