Rome jerked the steering wheel to the left, yelled out as he straightened the Rubicon again, “Get down in the well, Elizabeth, now! Guys, get ready.”
She wanted to yell she had the long gun at her feet and she should pick it up and fire. But she listened to him, as she’d promised, made herself into a ball, and stuffed herself into the front well of the Rubicon. She saw Rome had cuts on his face, blood welling to the surface and running in rivulets down his cheeks. Another spray of bullets struck the side of the Rubicon, pinged into the rear panels. One of them hit a back window, shattering glass on Lyons and King.
The helicopter flew past them and turned back again, lower now, not more than twenty feet above them, shuddering even louder.
Rome jerked the Rubicon to a stop, shouted, “Now!”
Lyons and King pushed open the rear doors and rose as one, opened fire with their MP-5s, Bea at the helicopter pilot and Royce at the shooter.
King shouted, “Got him!”
Elizabeth leaned up to see the shooter grab his neck, blood spurting through his fingers. He screamed as he fell out of the open door of the helicopter, the AK-47 clutched to his chest until he landed at the edge of the cow pasture and the AK-47 cartwheeled away. A dozen cows mooed loudly, and the herd, as one, moved away faster, toward the far fence.
Neither agent stopped shooting, both concentrating now at the fuselage and the pilot. The noise was horrific. Suddenly smoke billowed up and the pilot pulled straight up, the three rotor blades whipping the air. He made a clumsy turn south.
Bea and Royce shoved in new magazines and kept firing. Enough of this! Elizabeth had trained like a maniac for three months with the biggest badass in the known universe and she was supposed to stay hidden like a helpless wuss? No way. She pulled herself back onto the seat, grabbed up the long gun at her feet, leaned out the window, and fired at the helicopter pilot.
The Sikorsky dipped and twisted, and they could see the pilot desperately trying to right it, to gain control, but it was no good. It started to fall, the engine sputtering. The rotors sheared off the top of an ancient white oak and the helicopter flipped. They heard a long thin scream as it plowed into the ground and exploded. A cow stood apart from her brethren some forty yards away and stopped chewing its cud, watching the helicopter burn.
Rome ran to the burning helicopter and pulled the pilot out and away from the fuselage as Lyons and King ran to the man sprawled on his back in the pasture. Elizabeth knew both men were dead; they had to be. No way the pilot could have survived the crash. She moved closer even though she didn’t want to.She knew she had to. She was a part of this; she was the reason the two men were dead. She looked down at them—both were young and looked Middle Eastern. They carried no ID.
She stood silently off to the side, out of the way, as Rome called Savich, told him what had happened, and emailed photos of the dead men and the Sikorsky.
Hurley had trained her to shoot. Even though she’d seen what happened to targets when bullets ripped into them, it was nothing like this. The impact of seeing violent deaths was something she hadn’t imagined—the twisted bodies, and so much blood. Hurley had also presented her with dozens of possible attack scenarios, but they’d been abstract. Reality was something else entirely She swallowed, swallowed again. She wouldn’t vomit, she wouldn’t. She watched Bea pull out a handkerchief and dab the cuts on Rome’s face. “Not bad, Rome, I don’t think you’ll need stitches. No glass I can see and nothing near your eyes, but when we get back I’ll check you with a magnifying glass.” She trotted over to Elizabeth, studied her a moment, her white face, her dilated eyes. She took Elizabeth’s hand and rubbed it, soothing her, calming her. She said matter-of-factly, “You did good. That’s right, take some light shallow breaths, you’ll be fine. Now, I see some glass in your hair, but I don’t see any cuts. As for Royce, if he’s bleeding anywhere, he deserves it.”
And Elizabeth laughed. It was shaky, but still a laugh.
Rome stared down at the two young men. “I wish at least one of them had survived. Elizabeth might have recognized their voices, if they were the same two who attacked her in London. I hope DNA will tell us.” He’d wanted to check her out, but saw Bea had her well in hand. He knew all the training in the world couldn’t prepare you for the real thing. He drew a deep breath. That had been a close one. Without Bea and Buzz they might have succeeded.
Royce said, “If they’re local talent, we should be able toidentify them, unless it’s new imported talent not on the watch lists.”
Rome walked around the smoldering Sikorsky. “I wonder where they got hold of this relic.”
Bea brought Elizabeth to stand beside her. Bea studied the Sikorsky’s markings. “It goes back to my grandfather’s day. I doubt these guys found it stashed in a military hanger.”
Rome said, “I’m thinking a museum or private collection.”
Royce said, “There can’t be all that many of them around. I bet whoever let them fly this prized baby will be royally pissed.”
Bea said, “He’ll know soon enough when these two don’t return. By the time we find him, he’ll know we’re coming.”
Elizabeth looked away from the two dead men on the ground a dozen feet away from her. Her heart wasn’t pounding as hard, her insides were calming down. She hadn’t thrown up. She didn’t doubt they’d find the owners if Bea was right about the helicopter. She felt a spurt of hope. Maybe it would all be over soon. She listened to the three agents talk and didn’t move until she heard sirens in the distance.
Several CAU agents were gathered around the conference room table studying the array of photos Rome, Lyons, and King had taken of the burning Sikorsky and comparing them to a series of old photos on a laptop next to them.
Savich punched off his cell and clicked on one of the photos on the laptop. “Dr. Killigan says it’s this one, the YR-4A, the original prototype. Only three of them were built before they improved them, to keep the blades rotating in a stable plane and stop the control stick from shaking like a jackhammer. After Dr. Igor Sikorsky demonstrated his namesake in 1940, the Army Air Force, the Coast Guard, and the Royal Air Forceordered a hundred thirty-one of the updated model. One of these updated Sikorskys is on display at the Smithsonian. Killigan doesn’t know what became of the three originals, but like us, he believes they’re likely in the possession of collectors, if they survived.”
Ollie Hamish, Savich’s number two, said, “Seems to me the collector has to be complicit. How else could they have gotten hold of it? I can’t imagine they could steal it. And the pilot had to have some training. You don’t fly one of these old machines on spec.”
Agent Ruth Noble said, “But instruction had to be minimal, because they planned this so quickly. From what you said, Rome, the pilot had a lot of trouble controlling it.”
Sherlock said, “An old helicopter like this one can’t have been housed far from here. And if the collector is the mastermind, he took a huge risk, knowing the Sikorsky could be traced back to him if something went wrong, which it did.”
Savich said, “Well, he obviously didn’t think you guys would shoot it down. And from what you’ve said, the man seemed to be shooting at you, Rome, not Elizabeth. Which makes it seem they’ve been out to take her all along. If that’s true, then it seems Elizabeth is very important to them.”
Elizabeth pictured the two men who’d died, remembered their cheeks and chins were bone white compared to the rest of their faces, as if they’d just shaved off beards. If Dillon was right and they really didn’t want her dead, then why indeed did someone want her so badly? She said, “Me? You think I could be important enough to someone to keep trying to take me?”
But did she believe it? Could she believe it? She remembered so clearly the one with the knife ready to slice up her face, remembered the hatred. Nothing made sense.
