Nobody’s Hero (Ben Koenig #2)

Chapter 117

‘It won’t work,’ Draper said. ‘Tas will see you. He’ll see you both, and he’ll kill you both.’

‘Not when I’m shooting at him he won’t,’ Koenig said. ‘He’ll be one hundred per cent focused on me. He’ll be in a firefight with someone who won’t take cover. He won’t be able to lay down suppressing fire, as I won’t react to effective enemy fire the way he’ll expect. It’ll be like it was on that airfield. His confusion will turn to panic. He won’t see anything but me.’

Draper shook her head in disbelief. ‘This is utter madness,’ she said.

Her cell phone rang again. She tilted the screen so Koenig could see who was calling. It was Smerconish. She sighed. ‘He’s no doubt calling to find out why we aborted the landing.’ She accepted the call. ‘Sir?’ She listened for around two minutes, then said, ‘Sorry, sir, you’re breaking up. I’ll call when we’re on the ground.’ She powered off her cell phone. Threw it on the table. ‘Boy, is he cross. Says if we fly within ten miles of Mead, he’ll treat us as hostile and order an F-35 to turn us into air debris.’

‘He won’t.’

‘Of course he won’t,’ she said. ‘And I’m kinda insulted he thought he could bully me.’ She thumped the table. Angry. The cell phone bounced in the air. ‘I hate being ordered around by stupid people,’ she muttered. She stood, the change in her demeanour evident. ‘I’m going to see my pilot.’

She was back in a minute.

‘I’m surrounded by lunatics,’ she said, taking her seat and brushing the hair out of her eyes.

‘He’ll do it?’ Koenig said.

‘Not only will he do it, he thinks he knows how to do it. He says he’ll reduce the airspeed until we stall. And after you’ve jumped, he’ll try to restart the engine.’

‘You don’t employ fools, do you?’

‘It’s why I’ve never offered you a job,’ she said, although Koenig could tell her heart wasn’t really in the insult.

‘Are we on?’ he said.

‘We are. But you’re wearing a life jacket as well.’

‘I can’t. I’ll stand out like a fishing float. Plus, I’ll need to reload underwater. That will be the only time Tas will feel safe enough to return fire. I might as well make it difficult for him.’

She didn’t respond for several moments. Finally, she sighed, ‘I guess the two of you are jumping out of my fucking airplane.’