‘Copy that, Zulu,’ Keegan replied. ‘We’re on our way.’
Outside, Mason was standing on the parapet staring down at the 100-foot drop yawning beneath him. Their rappelling rope was a lone white line tracing its way down the grim stone flanks. A lifeline. Their only means of escape.
Beside him, Frost was just finishing clipping her harness into place. ‘Move it. Go!’ he urged.
She shot him a sharp glare. ‘Easy for you to say.’
Swallowing down a sudden feeling of vertigo, the woman stepped out over the edge and pushed off, using the friction hitch in her right hand to control her rate of descent. She went far faster than she would have liked, knowing that time was limited.
Again she pushed away from the vertical surface and released her grip on the friction hitch, before slowing herself as she swung back in towards the wall again.
As soon as she touched down, Mason went to work clipping himself on. Their climbing harnesses were already a part of their uniforms, fixed in place and secured before they even boarded the flight here.
As he stepped out over the edge, he shouted to the sniper still inside the observation area. ‘Keegan, we’re clear. Fall back now!’
‘Be right behind you, buddy,’ Keegan replied without taking his gaze away from the scope.
No sooner had he said this than he spotted movement in the tower that Drake and the others had just emerged from. He couldn’t tell if it was a guard or an escaping prisoner, but he caught the distinctive frame of an AK clutched in the man’s hand, followed by a sudden muzzle flare as he opened up on full automatic.
‘Ah, shit! I’m hit!’ Mason cried.
Quickly lining up his sights, Keegan loosed a single
shot
in response, scoring a fatal hit to the man’s centre mass.
Not even bothering to watch the man collapse in his death throes, he turned towards the parapet in time to see Mason topple backwards over the edge.
‘Cole!’
In a heartbeat he had dropped his sniper rifle and sprinted to the edge of the parapet, staring down and expecting to see his comrade’s lifeless corpse sprawled on the snow-covered ground far below.
Instead, he found Mason dangling from his descent harness about 10 feet below, clutching his shoulder. His right arm hung slack by his side.
‘Jesus Christ. You okay, buddy?’
The younger man looked up at him. ‘Took a … round in the shoulder,’ he managed to say, his voice tight with pain.
It took all of two seconds for Keegan to weigh up their options.
Bringing him back up would be an exercise in futility, while going down to meet him was impossible; the line was only rigged for one person. Their best, and indeed only, option was to get him to the chopper where they could treat his injuries.
He could see the aircraft coming in to land about 100 metres beyond the prison wall, the downwash from its massive rotors kicking up a storm of snow and ice. Their salvation was tantalisingly close.
‘Can you still descend?’
‘I think so,’ Mason replied.
Without warning, he released his friction hitch and pushed off from the wall to start his descent. Pain, shock and blood loss had dulled his reflexes, making him careless.
The descent was far too fast. Realising he’d gained too much momentum, he squeezed the hitch closed, over-compensating and jerking himself to a halt about halfway down the wall. The sudden change in velocity upset the line, swinging him inward.
His injured shoulder slammed into the unyielding surface, and he let out an involuntary scream of agony as broken bones grated against each other. Dazed and almost blacking out with pain, he was barely able to keep a grip on the hitch as he slid down the wall, limp as a rag doll.
Frost was waiting for him at the bottom, and quickly unlatched him from the rope before pulling him to safety. It hadn’t been pretty, but he was down.
Bravo team reached the tower only moments later.
‘Move your arse!’ Drake yelled, forcibly shoving Dietrich up the metal ladder to the observation deck. The man was tiring fast, and was using most of his strength just to hold on. Drake knew how he felt.
Then suddenly Keegan appeared at the top, gripped his outstretched hand and hauled him up in a remarkable show of strength for such a small man.
‘Come on, asshole. Get up here.’
Drake went up next, then turned and reached out to help Maras. She didn’t grip his hand, determined to make it by herself.
‘Jesus, you really stirred up a shit storm here,’ Keegan remarked. He had discarded his rifle now, knowing it would be impossible to take the bulky weapon with him.
‘Only thing I could think of to buy us some time,’ Drake explained. ‘What happened to Mason?’
The older man’s craggy face twisted in a grimace. ‘Took a round in the shoulder. He made it down, though.’
There was nothing more he could do for now. Drake nodded towards the descent rope. ‘All right. Get yourself down there.’
The sniper nodded. ‘You be right behind me, you hear?’
It took him only a few moments to clip himself in. Wasting no time, he jumped up on the parapet, balanced on the edge and vanished into the night, fearless as always.
With Keegan gone, Drake turned his attention to Maras. He had brought a spare climbing harness looped into his belt kit, which he unlatched and shoved at her.
‘Put this on.’
According to Cain, she was fully trained at rappelling and should be able to handle the descent with ease. Experience was one thing, but he had his doubts about whether she could manage the physically demanding task. She was already tired from her exertions, and obviously not in a good place mentally judging by her reaction to the guard.
Still, she seemed to understand what to do, and quickly pulled the two loops of the harness up around her legs, then set about securing the waist straps.
As she worked, Drake dragged Dietrich over to the rope. ‘Come on, mate. This is the fun part,’ he said as he clipped the older man in.
‘I can’t …’ Dietrich protested weakly.
‘Bollocks you can’t,’ Drake snapped. ‘The hitch only needs one hand, and you can brace yourself against the wall with your good leg. Now come on. Move, you lazy arsehole!’
Without waiting for him to reply, he grabbed the wounded man around the waist and hauled him up over the edge of the parapet.
Drake had no way of knowing whether he would make it, but there was nothing he could do about it anyway. There was no time to lower him by hand, and they certainly didn’t have time to rig up a tandem harness. One way or another, Dietrich would have to get through this by himself.
Seeing the fear and worry in his comrade’s eyes, he leaned in close and gripped his shoulder. ‘Just get it done quickly, all right? We can fix you later, but first we have to get out of here.’
The older man looked at him for several moments, then finally nodded, rallying whatever reserves of strength remained and steeling himself for what was to come. Bracing himself against the wall with his good leg, he pushed off hard and released his grip on the hitch, gritting his teeth against the pain.
Last of all, Drake turned to Maras, standing with him at the edge of the parapet. ‘Can you do this?’
She offered a strange lopsided grimace that might have been a smile. ‘It has been a while for me.’
With that, she clambered up over the edge. Then she stopped and looked at him for a moment. She said nothing. He couldn’t be sure, but he thought perhaps he saw a hint of gratitude in her eyes.
Then she pushed off from the wall, released her brake, and was gone.
It was done. Drake turned back towards the prison. It was a scene of absolute chaos. Prisoners were running riot, smoke rose from the windows of both major cell blocks, and the rattle of weapons fire resounded in the open exercise yard. If there were any guards still operating as a cohesive group, they were going to have a nightmare bringing this situation under control. He imagined that none of the prisoners were under any
illusions
about their fate here – they would fight to the last man.
Keegan had had the presence of mind to leave a thermite grenade beside their pile of discarded equipment. Seizing it up, Drake returned to the parapet and clipped himself onto the descent rope, then pulled himself up over the edge. His bruised back and shoulder blazed with pain, but adrenalin was doing a good job of suppressing it.
Now ready, he pulled the pin from the cylindrical grenade and hurled it into the observation room, then pushed himself away from the edge and released his brake.
He had made it about halfway down the wall when a bright orange flash erupted above, lighting up the terrain around the prison like a signal flare. The grenade had done its work well.
One last push brought him down to ground level, and he touched down with a bump that sent a jolt up his legs. Still, he was on solid ground, and never had it felt so good.
Keegan was waiting for him. ‘Let’s go, buddy.’
Unclipping himself from the rope, Drake followed him as he sprinted away from the prison, heading for the chopper about 100 metres away. He could just make out the child-like shape of Frost as she helped a heavily limping Dietrich aboard.
The pilot was already increasing engine power by the time Drake and Keegan fought their way up the rear cargo ramp, snow and ice swirling around them.
Staggering aboard, Drake switched radio channels to speak to the pilot. ‘That’s it, Zulu. We’re all in. You’re clear to lift off.’
The pilot was in no mood to hang around. Engines
roaring
and rotors hammering the air, the massive chopper lurched skyward, buffeted and blasted by vicious crosswinds as the storm bore down on them.
Staring out the rear of the aircraft, Drake was just able to glimpse the outline of the embattled prison receding into the darkness before the cargo ramp slammed shut.
Chapter 24
AS SOON AS
they were clear of the prison, the Chinook turned and headed north-east at full speed, following one of the low valleys that criss-crossed the region. To avoid any radar installations in the vicinity, their altitude barely exceeded 50 feet, though it meant they took a hammering from the storm bearing down on them. The deck swayed and lurched beneath them like a ship in a typhoon, and more than a few shouts and curses were heard from the cockpit.
Still, they were alive, airborne and heading for home.
Drake removed his sweaty, clammy balaclava, closed his eyes and exhaled, allowing his heartbeat to slow to something approaching normal.
It was all behind them now. All the planning, the preparation, the fear, the worry, the danger and the problems. Somehow, against all the odds, they had succeeded.
He should have felt elation and exhilaration, but no such emotion stirred in him at that moment. The only thing he felt was crushing fatigue. For two days and one night he had been keyed up and consumed with his work. Now that the pressure was off, exhaustion was catching up with him at last.
The woman they had risked everything for was sitting opposite, staring right ahead but seeing nothing. She was
a
pathetic sight; thin, bedraggled, bloodied and filthy, she looked as if she’d just been liberated from a concentration camp.
‘Keegan, keep an eye on Maras, would you?’
She didn’t seem like much of a threat, but he was taking no chances after the earlier incident with the guard.
The old sniper nodded. ‘On it, buddy.’
Undoing his seat belt, Drake stood up and, negotiating the lurching deck with some difficulty, staggered over to join Dietrich.
The man was seated on one of the metal benches running the length of the cargo compartment, tending to his leg injury. He had cut away the fabric around the wound, and was busy applying a compress to slow the bleeding. Drake saw a syringe of morphine lying on the deck beside him.
He didn’t think it was a good idea for the man to be tending his own wounds after self-medicating himself with morphine, but it seemed there wasn’t much choice. Keegan was needed to cover Maras, while Frost was busy tending to Mason.
‘How are you doing, Jonas?’ he asked, his expression grave as he surveyed the wound. The bleeding didn’t look too bad, and judging by the fact that the man still had use of the limb, he suspected the muscle damage was minimal.
Dietrich looked up at him. ‘I’ve got a hole in my leg that wasn’t there this morning,’ he remarked acidly. ‘So not very good.’
‘You’re still alive,’ Drake pointed out.
‘So are you.’ He sounded almost disappointed.
Whatever gratitude he might have felt towards Drake for helping to get him to safety had long since
evaporated
. It was business as usual as far as Dietrich was concerned.
‘Fine. Let us know if you need anything,’ Drake said, grateful to leave him behind as he made his way further forward to join Frost.
The woman had removed her heavy, cumbersome jumpsuit, webbing, descent harness and armoured vest, leaving her in a sweat-stained T-shirt and combat trousers. She had a bandage pressed against the cut on her forehead.
‘Are you all right?’ Drake asked.
She flashed a defiant grin. ‘Not exactly a career-ending injury, but I won’t be doing any modelling work for a while.’
‘And Mason?’ he asked, gesturing to the injured man lying unconscious on a medical stretcher set up on the deck, IV lines snaking into his arm.
Her smile faded. ‘I’ve sedated him and stabilised him as best I can. He should pull through, but he’s going to need surgery on that shoulder for sure. I can’t tell how bad it is without an X-ray.’
Drake nodded. Of all the shitty, unlucky things to happen, getting hit by a stray round while preparing to evacuate had to be one of the worst. It was one of those freak occurrences that was just impossible to plan for.
Still, at least they had been able to get him out.
‘Do me a favour and take a look at Maras,’ he said, glancing at the woman they had gone through all this to rescue. ‘She doesn’t look good.’
She hadn’t moved a muscle since he’d left her. Keegan was watching her, keeping a weapon to hand in case she tried anything.