Part 4 Chess Moves #3
In a fleeting instant, I saw—or thought I saw—a figure, a man, who ducked back behind the pillar as I rushed by, clearly caught by surprise at my presence on the blow-through level.
I didn’t see his face, but in that split second I saw his clothes.
He wore white coveralls.
The superintendent had been wearing white coveralls . . .
And he’d gone missing a short while ago . . .
As I reached the northern edge of the floor, I turned to peer once again at the concrete pillar he’d been hidden behind.
But I saw no-one.
I didn’t have time for that now.
I was now standing in one of the open square ‘windows’ on the north side of the tower, 98 storeys above the world.
The nose of the dangling helicopter was close, only eight feet above me.
Then I did what I couldn’t tell Audrey I was going to do.
I broad-jumped out of the window, out over the 1,400-foot drop, up toward the chopper—
SAM ON THE CHOPPER
—and my outstretched hands caught its left-hand landing strut, my feet swinging up wildly with the momentum of my leap.
Now I was hanging from the forward-tilted helicopter, high above the world.
For the moment, I was out of view of the others on the roof and the helipad.
I wouldn’t be for long.
I threw one leg over the landing strut above me and climbed like a monkey onto it.
Then I opened the left-side co-pilot’s door and slipped inside.
I slid into the co-pilot’s seat.
The dead pilot was slumped in his chair, a bloody bullet hole in his head.
If I looked straight ahead through the canopy, all I could see was the northern side of the golden tower stretching away from me like a dead-straight vertical road that converged at the street 98 floors below.
I tried not to look at that.
Behind me in the rear cabin of the chopper, tied up and held in her seat by her seatbelt, was Yasmina King, wide-eyed and terrified.
‘Hello again, ma’am,’ I said.
‘You . . .?’ she said, amazed that someone was in there with her. She also seemed dazed, as if she’d been drugged. ‘What are you . . . doing here?’
‘Trying to stop you getting killed.’ I clambered over into the rear cabin and checked her bonds.
Whack!
I heard it before I felt it.
A second whip crack outside.
The sound of another strap detaching from its tie-down stud.
And the chopper—with us inside it—jolted sickeningly, dropping another two feet over the edge.
Metal squealed against concrete as the aircraft shunted downward.
‘Shit . . .’ I said.
My phone buzzed. It was Audrey. I hit speaker.
‘Yeah?’ I said quickly.
I was scanning Mrs King’s bonds: her hands were flex-cuffed behind her back and a small black device was attached to the buckle of her four-way seatbelt: the remote that opened it.
I hesitated.
This guy had used small explosives several times already.
I was worried this device might be booby-trapped with more.
Audrey said, ‘Are you out of your mind, Sam!? You jumped in there!? You’ve got forty seconds . . .’
My phone double-beeped.
A second call was coming through: unknown caller.
Him.
‘Audrey, he’s on the other line. Gotta go.’
(At least I hoped he was. It’d be a terrible time to get a scam call. I mean, God, I was already inside a helicopter dangling off the edge of a building and now I was juggling two phone calls.)
I switched calls.
‘Dr Speedman. My, my, you are determined. Be careful in there, if you tamper with my remote on her belt buckle, you might set off the charges attached to the last two straps holding up the chopper.’
He ended the call.
I had to do this another way.
My eyes found the co-pilot’s seat.
I swallowed.
I mean, hey, I’d done 37 hours of simulated helicopter flying . . .
No time, Sam. Do it!
I lunged forward, sliding once again into the co-pilot’s seat.
I scanned the myriad switches and dials on the dash while mentally going through my helicopter start-up checklist.
‘Sam! Twenty seconds . . .’ Audrey’s voice was back on the phone. The call had reverted to her.
‘Give me a second here, Audrey.’
Starting up a chopper isn’t like starting a car.
You don’t just turn a key.
You have to do a whole sequence of pre-ignition checks, in the correct order, and then you turn the key.
And with Audrey on the phone and the whole helicopter about to fall off the building and Mrs King in the back, I was doing my best to remember that sequence.
‘All right, think,’ I said to myself. ‘Fuel. Electrical. Area clearance—okay, that doesn’t matter for this.
Throttle in idle, check. Mixture, check.
Clutch disengaged. Hydraulic and governor switches, on.
Prime the throttle, check. Make sure it’s closed, check.
Battery and strobe switches, on. All right, go. ’
I turned the ignition key.
Nothing happened.
The engine didn’t start.
The rotors didn’t turn.
Whack!
Oh, dear.
The third ratchet-strap whip-cracked, detaching from its tie-down stud, and the chopper dropped another few feet over the edge.
Now held up by only one strap, it swayed a little as it dangled.
I swore. I must’ve forgotten something in the start-up sequence. But what?
‘Ten seconds, Sam . . . nine . . . eight . . .’
The rotor brake.
That was it.
It was located above my head—something my computer simulator couldn’t replicate—that was why I’d missed it.
‘Mr Speedman, hurry . . .’ Mrs King pleaded groggily.
‘Seven . . . six . . .’
I went through my checklist again.
‘Fuel. Electrical. Throttle in idle. Rotor brake, off. Mixture.’
‘Five . . . four . . .’
‘Clutch disengaged. Hydraulic and governor switches. Throttle primed and closed.’
‘Three . . . Sam . . .’
‘Battery and strobe switches. Go!’
I turned the key.
And got ignition.
The rotors above me started turning slowly.
‘Two . . . one . . .’
Whack!
With a sharp blast, the fourth and final strap detached and the helicopter—with me and Mrs Yasmina King inside it—slid off the top of the skyscraper.
Sitting in the cockpit beside the dead body of the pilot, I looked around in horror as the whole chopper slid, slowly and inexorably, off the top of the building.
I glanced up at the slowly turning rotors above me.
‘Come on . . .’
In about one second, my landing skids would come completely free of the roof’s edge, at which point, we’d be done for, since the helicopter would go vertical and all it could do then was fall.
Then—gloriously—the rotors engaged, the slow-turning blades firing up, becoming blurs of speed.
And abruptly my chopper was alive.
The landing struts kept sliding and . . .
. . . came free of the roof . . .
. . . just as I engaged the throttle . . .
. . . and the aircraft lifted gently into the air, hovering a few feet out from the rooftop.
‘You did it!’ Yasmina King shouted.
‘You did it!’ Audrey shouted over the phone.
‘I did it!’ I shouted, even though it was taking all my concentration to keep flying the helicopter.
It was, after all, my first official time flying a real one.
‘Hey, Audrey,’ I said. ‘I need to hang up now. Gotta focus.’
‘No problem.’ She rang off.
A minute later, flying very slowly and cautiously, I landed the chopper back on the rooftop helipad.
I powered it down and when the rotor blades finally stopped, I climbed into the back seat and peered at the remote device attached to Mrs King’s seatbelt buckle.
‘Can you release me?’ she asked.
Her eyes were glassy. She’d definitely been drugged, presum-ably so she could be brought up here without any struggle, much like Cassandra had said had happened to her. It was a good bet Winnie Tan had also been immobilised in this way.
‘I’m not sure,’ I said. ‘Let me try something. I couldn’t try it before since it would’ve triggered our fall. Let’s see if I can interfere with this thing’s RF signal.’
I held my cell phone close to the device and rang Audrey’s number.
(It didn’t matter what number I called. I just needed the phone to create a small electromagnetic field around the device to disrupt its radio frequency signal. This is the same reason airlines ask you to use Airplane Mode while flying.)
Then I quickly reached forward and unclipped the buckle.
To my relief, it came free without any kind of explosion and I whisked Mrs King out of the chopper.
Outside, the FBI agents flocked to her side. Heidi, who had held Mrs King’s son, Alexei, in her arms since he’d been found in the pantry, carried the boy over to his mother.
I stepped away from the chopper, sweating and gasping.
Audrey hugged me, then shook her head. ‘I’m glad you didn’t tell me what you were going to do. How’s that fear of flying in choppers going now?’
‘I still don’t like it,’ I said.
A shout made us turn.
Yasmina King was waving off the FBI people as she took her son from Heidi.
‘Get away from me!’ she yelled. She rubbed her eyes, shaking off her stupor. ‘Where is my daughter, Katya! She is five years old! Find her, you fools!’
She stalked off the roof with her little boy.
As she did, her eyes found mine and she paused in mid-stride and nodded ever so briefly, the closest she came to saying thank you.
Then she strode off.
Audrey whistled. ‘You’re welcome, lady.’