Page 147 of King’s Ransom

‘I don’t think he was happy with the outcome.’

‘How so?’

I looked out through the chopper’s bubble.

To my right was the Atlantic Ocean.

Directly ahead, beyond the peninsula and the bay, loomed the skyline of New York City, hazy in the afternoon light.

‘Mr King made me an offer and I refused. I don’t think Mr King has heard the word “No” in a long time.’

Murph shrugged. ‘Hey, you seem like a nice guy so I’m sure you got your reaso—what is that?’

He squinted, peering forward.

I followed his gaze.

There was something in the air ahead of us.

Something small and black . . .

. . . flying toward us.

I reared back in my seat as I realised what it was.

‘Oh, shit,’ I said.

It was a Spiderhawk aerial drone.

Then—braaaaack!—two long tongues of flame flared from the drone and a wave of 7.62mm rounds hammered into our helicopter and my world went to Hell.

Our chopper was hit all over by machine-gun fire.

The windshield shattered.

I ducked as a bunch of rounds sizzled over my head and slammed into my seat’s headrest.

‘Argh!’ Murph shouted in pain.

I spun to see the whole front of his body slicked with blood.

Murph slumped forward, held in his seat by the seatbelt. I couldn’t tell if he was unconscious or dead.

The chopper lurched sickeningly as I reached for the secondary control stick in front of my seat.

Alarms squealed.

Warning lights flashed.

The chopper veered toward the ground.

Smoke belched from the rotor housing above me.

I couldn’t see it, but I was pretty sure our engines had been hit by the drone’s gunfire.

I wrestled with the control stick. The helicopter was maybe two hundred feet off the ground.

I needed to get it down before the engines failed—