Burning Angels (43 page)

The airship rose a fraction, the swell sucking greedily at her skids.

Jaeger turned and ruffled Simon Chucks Bello’s hair.

They might have saved him, but had they saved humanity?

Or Ruth and Luke?

Kammler must have anticipated that they’d go for the kid, for why else would he have risked sending out his hunter force; his dogs of war? He must have got wise to the fact that Simon Bello was the answer; the cure.

And in his heart of hearts Jaeger was convinced that the boy would prove to be their collective saviour. But right now, he felt little sense of joy or achievement. That final, horrific image of Narov being blasted off the RIB was seared into his mind.

Abandoning her to her fate – it was torturing him.

He peered out of the cargo ramp. The surface of the ocean was being whipped into a frenzied spray. The propulsors screamed at maximum revs, but the airship seemed momentarily stuck fast. He glanced to one side, darkly, and his eyes came to rest upon the distinctive form of one of the Airlander’s life rafts.

In a flash, a plan crystallised in his mind.

Jaeger hesitated for barely an instant. Then, with a yell at Dale to safeguard the kid, he leapt from the RIB, ripped down the life raft and sprinted along the Airlander’s ramp, until he was perched on the very edge of the abyss.

He grabbed the radio headset that the loadmaster would use, and called up Miles. ‘Get this thing airborne, but stay under fifty feet. Take us due west, and slow.’

Miles confirmed the message, and Jaeger felt the four massive propulsors rev to an even greater pitch. For long seconds the Airlander seemed to hang there, the propulsors cutting through the air to either side of the craft, the swell crashing powerfully against her hull.

Then the giant airship seemed to tremble once along the whole of her bulk, and with a final effort she shook herself free of the sea’s embrace. Suddenly they were airborne.

The giant beast of an aircraft turned and began to ease a path west across the waves. Jaeger scanned the ocean surface, using his GPS and the burning hulk of the Sunseeker as his reference points.

Finally he saw it – a tiny figure amongst the waves.

The airship was about a hundred metres away from her.

Jaeger didn’t hesitate for an instant. He figured the drop was over fifty feet. It was high but survivable, if he entered the water properly. The crucial thing was to let go of the life raft. Otherwise, its buoyancy would bring him up short, as if he’d driven into a brick wall.

Jaeger let the raft fall, and seconds later he jumped, plunging towards the ocean. Just prior to impact, he assumed the classic position – legs tight together, toes pointed, arms linked over his chest and chin tucked well in.

The collision knocked the wind out of him, but as he sank beneath the waves, he thanked God that nothing was broken. Seconds later he surfaced, hearing the distinctive hiss of the life raft self-inflating. It had an inbuilt system that automatically triggered on impact with water.

He glanced upwards. The Airlander was powering skywards and away from danger with its precious cargo.

The term ‘life raft’ did Jaeger’s inflatable something of an injustice. As it pumped full of air, it resolved itself to be a miniature version of the RIB, complete with a tough zip-over cover, plus a pair of oars.

Jaeger clambered aboard and orientated himself. A former bootneck – a Royal Marine commando – he felt almost as at home on water as he did on land. He fixed the position where he’d last seen Narov and began to row.

It was several minutes before he spotted something. It was a human figure all right, but Narov wasn’t alone. Jaeger’s eye was drawn to the distinctive V shape of a dorsal fin slicing through the surface of the water, circling her bloodied form. They were well beyond the protective barrier of the reefs here, which kept the beaches shielded from such predators.

This was a shark for sure, and Narov was in trouble.

Jaeger scanned the waters, spotting another and yet another razor-tipped fin. He redoubled his efforts, his aching shoulders screaming out in pain as he forced himself to row ever faster, in a desperate effort to reach her.

At last he pulled in close and stowed his oars, then reached into the sea and dragged her over the side and to safety. They collapsed as one, a heaving, sodden mess in the bottom of the life raft. Narov had been treading water for an age now, and bleeding profusely, and Jaeger didn’t have a clue how she could still be conscious.

As she lay there, gasping for air and her eyes tight shut, Jaeger busied himself tending to her wounds. Like all good life rafts, this one came complete with the basic survival essentials, including medical kit. She’d taken a bullet in the shoulder, but as far as Jaeger could tell it had passed right through the flesh, missing any bone.

Luck of the devil, he thought. He stemmed the bleeding, then bound up the wound. The key thing now was to get water into her, to rehydrate and make up for the blood loss. He thrust a bottle at her.

‘Drink. No matter how bad you feel, you got to drink.’

She took it and gulped some down. Her eyes found his and she mouthed a few inaudible words. Jaeger leaned close. She repeated them, her voice barely above a croaking whisper.

‘You took your time . . . What kept you?’

Jaeger shook his head, then smiled. Narov – she was unbelievable.

She tried to stifle a laugh. It petered out into a watery cough. Her face twisted in agony. Jaeger had to get her to some proper medical help, and quickly, that was for sure.

He was about to take up the oars and start rowing again when he heard it. Voices, coming from the west, their position obscured by the thick pall of smoke drifting across from the burning wreckage of the Sunseeker.

Jaeger had little doubt who it might be – or what he had to do.

92

Jaeger cast around for a weapon. There was nothing in the life raft, and Narov’s MP7 had to be somewhere at the bottom of the sea.

Then he spied it. Strapped in her chest sheath, as always: Narov’s distinctive commando knife, the one that had been a gift to her from his grandfather. With its razor-sharp seven-inch blade it was perfect for what Jaeger had in mind.

He reached across and unfastened the sheath, strapping it around himself. In response to her enquiring look, he leaned close.

‘Stay here. Keep still. Something I’ve got to deal with.’

With that he raised himself on to the side of the craft and dropped backwards into the sea.

Once in the water, Jaeger took a moment to orientate himself on the sound of the voices that drifted to him through the haze of smoke clinging to the waves.

He set off with long, powerful strokes, only his head showing above the surface. Shortly, the smoke swallowed him. He used his ears alone to navigate now. One voice in particular – the coarse but strident tones of Jones – drew him onwards.

The Sunseeker’s life raft was a large inflatable contraption, hexagonal in design and enclosed within a rain cover. Jones and his three fellow survivors were inside it, the flap open, going through the craft’s supplies.

Jones must have seen his shot hit Narov; seen her blasted into the sea. Not one to give up or give in, he would know he had a job to finish.

It was time for Jaeger to end this.

He had to cut the head off the snake.

The life raft was far more visible than a lone swimmer, one keeping low in the sea. When Jaeger reached its rear, he stopped and began to tread water, his eyes and nose barely above the waves. He composed himself for a second, then took a massive gulp of air and slipped beneath the surface.

He dived deep under the craft, surfacing silently at the point where the flap lay open. He could see the massive form of Jones weighing down the side of the raft. He kicked up powerfully, rising from the sea directly behind his target, and in one lightning move snaked his right arm around the man’s neck in a savage chokehold, jerking his chin upwards and to the right.

Simultaneously, his left arm came around in a powerful thrust, sinking the blade of the knife down through the man’s clavicle, driving it towards his black heart. Seconds later, their combined weight pulled them from the vessel, and they sank as one.

It was hard to kill a man with a knife. And with an adversary as powerful and as experienced as this one, doubly so.

As they sank into the ocean depths, the two men twisted, writhed and fought, Jones struggling to break free from Jaeger’s death grip. For long seconds he clawed, elbowed and gouged, desperately trying to break free. In spite of his wound, he was immensely – unbelievably – powerful.

Jaeger couldn’t believe how strong he was: it was like being tethered to a rhino. Just as Jaeger figured he could hold him no longer, a sleek, arrow-headed form flashed across his peripheral vision, its sharp V-shaped fin cutting through the water.

Shark. Drawn here by the smell of blood. Steve Jones’s blood. Jaeger glanced in the shark’s direction and realised with a jolt that there were a dozen or more circling them.

He gathered his strength, released his grip and kicked away from Jones as powerfully as he could. The big man spun around, muscled arms groping for Jaeger in the half-light.

But it was then that Jones must have sensed its presence.
Their presence. Sharks.

Jaeger saw his eyes go wide with fear.

Jones’s wound was pumping a cloud of blood into the water. As Jaeger kicked further away, he saw the first shark bump Jones aggressively with its nose. Jones tried to fight back, punching it in the eye, but the animal had the taste of his blood now.

As Jaeger made a desperate surge towards the surface, he lost sight of Jones’s form within a sea of writhing bodies.

He was painfully short of breath now, but he knew what was waiting above: gunmen, scanning the sea. With a last burst of energy, he swam beneath the raft, using Narov’s blade to slice open the entire length of its underside.

The bottom of the vessel collapsed, the three figures inside it plummeting into the water. As they fell, one of them kicked out and caught Jaeger in the head. His eyes rolled, and for a moment Jaeger felt himself black out. Moment’s later his hand caught the torn edge of the craft where it was spilling air, and he pulled himself upwards.

He thrust his head and shoulders through the breech, grabbed a few lungfuls of oxygen, and dived again. As he kicked deep, he noticed that Narov’s blade was gone from his grasp. He would worry about that later . . . if he ever got out of this alive.

He struck out in the direction of his own life raft. The gunmen in the water might well have seen him, but their thoughts would be all for their own survival now. There would be life vests in their stricken craft, and even now they would be trying to save themselves. Jaeger would leave them to the sea and the sharks. He was done here. He needed to get away, and get Narov safe.

Minutes later, Jaeger heaved his sodden form into the Airlander’s life raft. As he lay back, panting exhaustedly, he saw Narov try to rouse herself so she could take up the oars, and he had to physically restrain her from doing so.

He got in position and began to row, heading away from the carnage and for the coastline. As he worked at the oars, he glanced at Narov. She was overcome with exhaustion, the shock kicking in big time now. He needed her to remain conscious, to keep rehydrating and to stay warm, and they would both need energy as the adrenalin began to wear off.

‘See what’s in the stores. The emergency rations. We’ve got a long row ahead and you need to keep drinking and to eat. I’ll do the work, but only if you promise to live.’

‘I promise,’ Narov murmured, her voice sounding close to delirious. She reached to investigate with her one good arm. ‘After all, you came back for me.’

Jaeger shrugged. ‘You’re on my crew.’

‘You had your wife on that aircraft – dying. Me in the sea – dying. You came back for me.’

‘My wife has got a team of medics caring for her. As for you . . . well, we’re a honeymooning couple, remember?’

She smiled absent mindedly. ‘
Schwachkopf.
’

Jaeger needed to keep her talking and to keep her focused. ‘How’s the pain? The shoulder?’

Narov tried to shrug. The movement made her grimace. ‘I’ll live.’

Good for you, Jaeger thought. Unyielding, blunt and honest to the end.

‘Better sit back and enjoy the ride then, while I row you home.’

93

Five weeks had passed since Jaeger had paddled the Airlander’s life raft to shore and got Narov to the nearest hospital. It had taken him to the edge of his endurance and had seemed to age him. At least that was what Narov had said.

He reached for a surgical mask, slotting it over his mouth and nose, doing the same for the diminutive figure standing beside him. Over the past few weeks he’d spent barely a day apart from Simon Chucks Bello, and the two of them had grown close.

It was almost as if the kid who had saved the world had become like a second son to him.

Jaeger glanced up. Spotted someone. Smiled. ‘Ah, great. You’re here.’

The man in the white surgical suit, Dr Arman Hanedi, shrugged. ‘Over the past few weeks, when have I not been here? It’s been a little busy . . . I think I have forgotten what my wife and children look like.’

Jaeger smiled. He got on well with Ruth and Luke’s doctor, and over time he’d learned a little of his story. Hanedi was originally from Syria. He’d come to the UK as a child in the first wave of refugees, back in the 1980s.

He’d got himself a good education and had gone on to rise through the ranks of the medical profession, which was no small achievement. He clearly loved his chosen field, which was a bonus, for during the last few weeks he’d had his work cut out, combating the world’s most fearsome epidemic.

‘So she’s pulled through? She’s conscious?’ Jaeger prompted.

‘She is. She came round thirty minutes ago. Your wife is made of incredibly strong stuff. That long an exposure to such a virus – to survive it . . . it’s little short of a miracle.’