Another patch of turbulence rocked the helicopter. This time all those standing lost their balance momentarily as the helicopter dipped and juddered. Jason found himself falling to the side, the Russian behind him unable to hold on.
The soldier holding Stratton let go to secure himself. The operative stared down at the passing ground far below, managing somehow to remain on the edge yet unable to move away from it. What he did next was the result of a keen survival instinct and a belief that the Russian officer intended to kill them, one way or another. Against these zero odds of survival he could see only one wild option left to him. Even if he succeeded they would all most likely die anyway. But dying trying was better than not trying at all.
Stratton reached out and grabbed the door gunner by the collar, lifted the man out of his seat and with every ounce of strength he had threw him out into the void. Stratton looked doomed to follow the screaming gunner but as he fell he seized hold of the butt of the weapon that had turned outwards on its mounting. His feet left the edge of the ramp, his body swinging outside the craft. He hung for a second, far above the tundra, dangling in the wind, the gun the only thing stopping him from falling. Gripping the trigger guard, he swung his feet back up to find the edge of the ramp, the barrel now pointing back inside the helicopter. The soldiers went for their guns. The officer, standing a few feet away, opened his mouth in horror at the sight. Stratton couldn’t stop himself from squeezing the trigger even if he had wanted to. He was holding on to it for dear life. The gun chattered to life with horrendous power and the first rounds punched through the officer, hammering his instantly lifeless body back into the craft. Stratton yawed the deadly machine gun on its axis, one side to the other. The rounds chewed up the cabin and those inside it. They tore through the bulkheads, ripped up boxes and shattered the craft’s small windows. He hit each soldier with several rounds, at such close range tearing each man to shreds, the bullets passing through several of them at a time.
The machine gun ate hungrily into the ammunition belt that shuddered out of the feeder box, the empty casings flying into the air.
Rounds spat into the thin wall at the front of the helicopter and through both pilots beyond it, shattering the blood-stained windshields. Sparks flew from the holed instruments panel. The dead pilots released the controls, flopping in their seats, and the power went out of the rotors.
The weapon went suddenly quiet as the last link of rounds was consumed. The Haze’s engines had ceased to scream and although the rotors still turned their power was greatly reduced. The most dominant sound was the wind rushing in through the back and out of the smashed windows on the sides and at the front of the helicopter.
Stratton had killed them all, every last one of them.
The aircraft began to rotate as the tail rotor came to a stop, the gradually increasing rate of spin making it difficult for Stratton to climb back inside. He reached along the top of the gun and pulled himself in far enough to grab the framework from where he could get onto the deck.
Only then did he think of his travelling companion. A quick scan around suggested he had fallen out of the craft but then he saw the scientist’s hands wrapped around one of the door struts, the rest of his body dangling in the air, nothing below him but the Russian countryside. Stratton scrambled over to the side of the opening, hooked his arm around the bulkhead and reached down for Jason Mansfield.
The turning motion was making it increasingly difficult for Jason to hang on.
‘Grab my hand!’ Stratton shouted.
Jason needed both hands just to hold on. To relinquish one seemed to him to be fatal.
‘Now!’ Stratton yelled, his own position more than tenuous.
Jason went for it, pulling himself a little closer and lunging towards Stratton. The operative did not fail him. He gripped Jason’s wrist, planted a foot firmly against the door frame and pulled back with all the strength he had left. Both men rolled into the cabin as the spinning Haze fell. Fuel came cascading down the bulkheads from bullet holes in the ceiling that had punctured the tanks. As if they didn’t have enough problems, the smouldering instruments panel ignited and flames burst into the cabin from the cockpit.
Stratton could not see the ground rushing up towards them but it was clearly happening. ‘Get ready to take the impact!’ he shouted.
‘I admire your humour!’
‘If it doesn’t hit nose down we can survive it!’
‘Have you done this before?’
Stratton looked up at the cockpit. ‘Not on fire!’
Jason’s confidence was not improved by the comment.
The flames licked down the walls and the cabin began to fill with smoke. Fuel dripped onto Jason’s arm and caught alight. He rolled frantically across the floor as he fought to extinguish the flames. Burning fuel splashed Stratton’s boots and trousers. They might be roasted alive even before the helicopter crashed.
The sudden impact was tremendous. The wheels and undercarriage of the huge copter collapsed beneath it, crushed into the ground. The violent contact ripped away the open rear doors and the tail collapsed, the smaller rotor crashing down into the hard-packed snow. A huge snowdrift absorbed a great portion of the impact. Yet the Haze had come down on the incline of a hill so it tipped and rolled onto its side. The main rotors buckled like straws and the heavy chopper’s momentum took it down the slope. The two men inside it had been thrown flat by the force of the landing, then, as the cabin turned over, they had rolled up the sides and into the flames. As the rotor hub sank into the snow the craft skewed round so that the rear opening led the way downhill. It slid along like a great whale with its mouth open.
Stratton and Jason tumbled down into the snow that was being scooped inside the opening. It helped to extinguish some of the flames on their clothing but not all of them. As Stratton looked out the back he saw some kind of wooden structure covered in snow. They were going to hit it. Whatever it was. Yet right now outside was far better than in. ‘Go!’ Stratton yelled, clambering to his feet. He ran across the bulkhead towards the opening. Jason was up and behind him, both of them still alight. As they reached the opening the helicopter struck the wooden framework which disintegrated and the back of the chopper abruptly dropped as if it had broken through something.
The sudden fall hurled Stratton and Jason out of the back of the mangled Haze. As they braced for the ground it did not arrive. Because they had missed it. It became instantly dark and they continued to fall, both still ablaze, the wind fanning the flames on their clothing as they dropped into utter darkness. Neither of them could remotely comprehend what was happening. It was as though they had died and were accelerating straight into hell.
They could see nothing in the pitch dark by the time they struck the water like a pair of flaming meteorites. The force hit them like a hammer blow and they plunged beneath the surface, arms and legs flailing in desperation, fighting for their lives. Stratton pushed the water behind him madly, stroke after rapid stroke in the direction he thought was up. As his lungs tightened he burst through to the surface, thrashing around for something to grab. He couldn’t see a damned thing. His hand brushed a rough-textured wall and he did his best to cling to it. Jason spluttered to the surface somewhere nearby, thrashing around and gasping for air.
They held on to the sides of the cave or whatever it was, panting like exhausted hounds, the flames from above providing a small amount of illumination.
‘At least we’re not on fire any more,’ Stratton said, between breaths.
‘What is this?’ Jason asked.
The sides of the cavity were sheer, circular and rocky, like a vast cylindrical chimney a hundred feet high. As they looked up, the light above began to change subtly from white to orange. A sound drifted down to them, echoing off the walls, the sound of metal scraping on stone. Which was precisely what it was. The horrific reality struck them both at the same time.
‘Oh my God,’ Jason muttered.
The blazing helicopter was toppling into the chimney. It had nowhere else to go but down and in this narrow space that meant it would land on top of them.
Jason moved along the wall in a desperate effort to find something to hold on to as he stared up at their impending doom. He found an empty space. He felt around it quickly to discover edges on two sides and on top.
The helicopter was a tight fit in the shaft, though not quite tight enough to hold it in place. It came down towards them like a blazing lift. The increasingly loud noise it made as it scraped down the sides was horrendous. Yet the encroaching flames increased the light and Jason could see that what he took to be an indentation in the wall was a lot more. ‘A tunnel!’ he shouted.
Stratton had been considering diving down as deeply as he could to avoid the impact and flames and then hoping to find a way back up through or around the aircraft. But the tunnel was a far more attractive lifeline and he shot across the gap to join Jason who was already pulling himself inside. Stratton clambered in after him. The scientist stayed on his knees in the shallow water, catching his breath. Stratton did not stop and clambered ahead of Jason as if he was being pursued.
‘It’s not over!’ Stratton shouted.
Jason didn’t understand and quickly glanced back between the running operative and the tunnel opening.
‘The fuel tanks!’ Stratton yelled. The horizontal tunnel was barely high enough for him to run along at a crouch. The water came up to his knees.
Jason immediately understood what Stratton meant and thrashed forward in pursuit of the SBS man. It became pitch black as Stratton got deeper inside and he held a hand out in front of him for fear of bashing his head.
The sound of the helicopter’s carcass scraping down the shaft increased as it closed on the bottom. When it struck the water with tremendous force the tanks did indeed rupture as Stratton had predicted. The remaining fuel ignited and the resulting giant fireball had only two directions in which to expand. The surging flames rolled into the tunnel in pursuit of the two men.
As the raging inferno reached their backs they threw themselves beneath the surface of the water that lit up around them. It lasted a few seconds before extinguishing itself.
The men broke the surface, sucking in the contaminated air and coughing and spluttering as they fought to recover from the seemingly endless sequence of near-death experiences.
The helicopter had not dropped below the surface of the water completely and flames continued to burn inside it, throwing some faint light into the tunnel.
The men looked at each other as they got to their feet, panting for air.
‘Is it over yet?’ Jason gasped, wondering if they would have to run from anything else in order to survive.
Stratton looked back at the burning helicopter as his breathing returned to normal. He had run out of adrenalin and the cold was creeping over him. Getting to the surface was all he could think of but he doubted they would be able to climb the main shaft. He would investigate further once the flames had died down.
He looked along the tunnel into the deep shadows, wondering where it led, if anywhere. He took a few steps, sceptical of just how useful the investigation would be in almost total darkness. The air was still and tasted dank as if it had not changed in years. His confidence that it led anywhere other than to an eventual dead end was not high. As his eyes adjusted to the dim light he thought he could see the faintest of red glows at the furthest extent of his vision.
Stratton took another few steps forward at the crouch, feeling his way by passing his fingertips along the ceiling of the tunnel. He paused to rub his eyes, wondering if they were playing tricks on him. The glow remained and he continued on towards it. It became stronger with each step and seemed not to be coming from a direct source but shining down into the tunnel from above.
As he felt his way along his hands moved higher and the cramped tunnel opened up into a small cavern filled with the red glow. He could stand upright. He had found the source of the light, a robust bulb inside a wire housing fixed to a metal box. Much more significantly, the light was fixed above a steel door set in a concrete frame that sealed off the tunnel. The door was covered in rivets and a coat of rust but it looked so thick that it would take centuries for the corrosion to eat all the way through. Encouraging though the presence of the door was, it looked like it hadn’t been opened in years.
‘Jason.’ His voice echoed around him.
Jason lay slumped, staring at the flames and wondering what they were going to do next. He looked around to see that Stratton had gone and his voice was coming from far away. The scientist lifted his bent body and made his way into the darkness.
When he saw the red glow he speeded up, his hopes lifting at a vague possibility. A solution to their dilemma. When he reached the cavern he stood alongside Stratton and stared in amazement at the light. He could see no handles on the door. However, a line of sturdy hinges down one side indicated that it could open, in theory at least.
‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking?’ Jason asked.
‘The laboratory.’
‘Is it possible?’
‘The helicopter could easily have covered the distance.’
‘Do we
want
it to be possible?’ Jason asked, touching the door. He was wearing a grin. ‘This is too crazy.’
‘It’s some kind of secure emergency exit. Unless the Russians have other underground installations in the area, I’d put money on this being the lab mine.’
‘Why put an emergency exit into a tunnel like this?’
‘The place was a chemical and biological warfare lab. Anywhere would be better than inside if there was an accident. Maybe there’s a way from here to the surface.’