DELIVERANCE: a gripping action thriller full of suspense (9 page)

Marshall looks stunned for a second.

I’m not one of your army buddies, Marshall
.
And I’m not in your chain of command either
.
Manners cost nothing
.

Marshall takes half a second to compose himself.

‘I’m sorry Sarah, he says, I was wrapped up in mission objectives. You are right, I shouldn’t treat you like you are part of the team, I apologise. But please will you do as I ask?’

Sarah does not reply for several moments, and Marshall wonders if she will reply at all. Then she says,
I am a part of the team
.
I just don’t want to be given any more orders
.

Marshall leaves it there, but stores her comment on the list of things to ask her about when there is time.

I just don’t want to be given any more orders
? What a strange thing to say.

He feels the Puma ascend, presumably to the designated height, and then he begins to plan the next chapter of their lives.

Chapter Fourteen

Quinn makes two further phone calls as she continues to speed onwards. One to her boss to update him on the situation, and the other to a man by the name of Richards, who is tracking the helicopter that Marshall, Sarah and Charlie are travelling in. She requests co-ordinates from Richards, and then disconnects.

Five minutes later, she looks upwards, and then she pulls her gun from its holster and checks the ammunition, whilst still speeding along at sixty miles per hour.

She looks up and smiles as she sees the lights in the sky.

Helicopter lights.

Whilst driving one-handed, she lowers her window and leans out to take aim. Once her arm is straight she steadies the wheel again and then fires two shots towards the Puma helicopter above. Nothing happens for five seconds, and then the helicopter suddenly and erratically begins to descend.

Quinn smiles and speeds towards it.

The pilot and co-pilot of the chasing helicopter have been assigned a few objectives: they are to track the homing beacon fitted to the Puma that is carrying Marshall, Sarah and Charlie. They are to maintain maximum speed and bring the helicopter down by any means. They have also been told to keep watch for certain signs.

The co-pilot, Fleming, suddenly spots what they have been told to look for. Two streaks of bright red colour ahead. Fleming notifies the pilot – Richards – in case he hasn’t seen it. But Richards has recently spoken to Quinn, and he knows that if he missed the signal, she would kill him.

‘Two tracer rounds fired from the ground,’ the co-pilot states.

Richards nods, and immediately begins a top angled descent towards the ground. It’s a little shaky due to the cross winds, but he wrestles the Puma downwards where he goes into a stationary hover 200ft from ground level.

Fleming then heads to the rear of the aircraft and hooks a harness to the safety loop by the side door. Once secured, he opens the door fully and drops out the weighted line which disappears over the side. He counts to 180 in his head, and then looks to the pilot for confirmation.

Richards nods.

Fleming hits the button to activate the winch, and after four minutes the line is pulled fully back into the Puma along with the cargo it has just retrieved from the ground: Quinn.

She orders the pilot to resume the pursuit the second she is aboard. The side door is closed and the Puma heads skyward again, building quickly towards maximum speed.

Quinn sits in the rear and pulls out the bag stowed beneath the bench to check the contents: a Desert Eagle handgun, an XM8 lightweight assault rifle, and a USMC knife. There are also two boxes of ammunition; one for each of the respective weapons. She strips down both guns and checks them thoroughly, before re-assembling them and loading them fully. Finally, she mounts the knife into the sheath on her belt and leans back in her seat, picturing the targets. She knows that Sarah and her crew are 700km ahead, and will not be caught easily. They will, however, surely run out of fuel. Unlike the Puma she is sat in, the other helicopter is not carrying additional fuel, and she knows there is nowhere for them to acquire any. The only place was the petrol station they raided. Now they have what they have, no more.

Quinn
, the co-pilot’s voice booms through her headset.

‘Go,’ Quinn replies.

They have just increased altitude by five hundred feet
.
Shall we follow
?

‘Yes,’ Quinn commands, smiling.
They must be looking for something. They are trying to increase their angle by gaining height, but that way they will burn more fuel. Follow them and maintain full speed.

Quinn is thinking that no matter what happens, she will catch them sooner or later. Sooner if they climb higher.

The only way is down.

Quinn
, the co-pilot’s voice crackles again.

‘Go.’

They are slowing down
.

‘Maintain current speed.
They are obviously slowing to conserve fuel, Quinn orders. Let’s catch those motherfuckers.’

The pilot maintains speed and climbs to match the leading Puma.

650km to go. Seven minutes at full speed.

Quinn closes her eyes and plans their deaths.

Aboard the leading helicopter, Charlie is now stationed hanging from the side door looking backwards. There is enough light in the sky now for him to spot anyone following them. Marshall sits rubbing his chin with his thumb, feeling indecisive. A moment later, he walks to the front of the Puma and takes the co-pilot seat.

‘Sarah, can we talk?’ he asks.

‘Do we have time?’

‘We have a little.’

‘Okay,’ she says. ‘But a little won’t cover it all.’

Marshall pauses for a moment, wondering what to ask first. So many questions, so little time.

‘What is a group of kangaroos called, Sarah?’

‘What?’

‘Nothing, never mind. Just tell me this: what the hell has happened to you?’

‘Too much to tell you in a few minutes.’

‘Please tell me what you can.’

Sarah takes a deep breath.

‘They were waiting for me when I arrived in Australia,’ she says flatly. ‘They collected me from the airport and took me to meet the boss.’

‘Who did?’

‘You know who. They said I used to be yours, but now I was theirs. They said everything that would happen to me would be your fault. I have held so much hatred for you, Marshall, you would not believe. But in the end, it was you who came to get me first.’

Marshall is speechless for a moment, but reacts the way he has been trained to: without emotion.

‘Start from the beginning, Sarah, tell me the whole story. Leave nothing out, no matter how insignificant it may seem.’

Sarah describes her encounter with the driver at the airport and how he made her feel at ease by lying about where he was from. Then she tells Marshall about the prison car.

Then it gets worse.

‘Once the guy finished taking a piss, he resumed driving for what felt like another seventy miles before we arrived at a warehouse. It was grey folded panelling, approximately 700ft long.’

Marshall notices her loose language. He doesn’t think he ever heard her swear once before.

‘Then when we arrived there, he asked one more time if I would like to give him a blow job. I declined, so he opened the door and let me out.’

‘Why didn’t you run?’

‘The same reason I haven’t been able to run ever since. There was flat and barren landscape for as far as I could see. And I would have been on foot.’

Marshall nods.

‘I'm sorry for interrupting, Sarah. Please continue.’

‘He escorted me into the building and locked the door behind us. Then he ushered me into the centre of a large floor where there was a single chair, and he told me to strip.’

‘What did you do?’

‘Nothing. I just stood there.’

‘And then?’

‘He told me to strip again, but this time he pulled a gun and pointed it at my leg. He told me that either I do it, or I’ll be limping for the rest of my life.’

‘So what did you do?’

‘What the fuck do you think I did, Marshall? He had a gun. I stripped.’

‘Then what happened?’

‘Nothing happened for about two minutes. I thought they were just trying to scare me. Maybe some old Army joke or something.’

‘But then?’

‘After two minutes, four men appeared. They examined me from a distance for a short while, circling me like animals. Then they took it in turns to rape me for the next three hours.’

Marshall cannot speak. Cannot breathe.

He feels like a complete failure. The one person he ever really cared about in his life, and he brought this tragedy upon her; with perhaps more to follow. Sarah and Marshall both begin to speak at the same time, and then stop. They stare at each other. One with intense sadness, and the other with much anger.

‘They are here,’ Charlie suddenly calls out, which breaks the atmosphere.

Marshall flips open his GPS unit and gives Sarah a look of regret. She matches it with a look of contempt.

‘Take us down to the following co-ordinates,’ he orders. Then after half a second, he adds: ‘Please.’

Sarah calmly and efficiently begins a controlled landing. Marshall still can’t quite believe how easily she pilots the Puma. There is obviously a lot more of her story to come.

‘Charlie,’ Marshall bellows. ‘How far out are they?’

‘Approximately 500ft.’

‘That should give us time.’

As Sarah descends the helicopter quickly, they each don a headset and Marshall gives out the mission brief. Then he asks if anyone has any questions.

No one answers.

He asks again, this time in a voice he used many times in the past to elicit a response from soldiers in his chain of command, and Charlie simply replies: ‘No.’

‘Sarah?’ Marshall begins.

I will tell you that I fully understand and have no further questions when I am not wrestling eight hundred pounds of metal towards the ground quicker than it’s supposed to happen,
Sarah says coldly.
Now if you will kindly just shut the fuck up, we may all live for the next few minutes.

Marshall looks stunned, but remains silent.

That told you
, Charlie mouths to Marshall.

Marshall responds by raising his middle finger. He then holds his hands apart as if signifying the size of a fish he caught. Charlie understands instantly that he means
how far back are they?
and responds by holding up four fingers, then five fingers, then a fist.

In the helicopter behind them, the co-pilot, Fleming, notifies Quinn through the headset that he has a visual on the target.

‘Range?’ Quinn asks.

Four hundred and fifty feet
.

‘Maintain speed,’ she orders, as she picks up the rifle and the pistol and lays them both across her lap. ‘Let me know when we are within three hundred feet.’

Three hundred feet will be plenty close enough for a shot with the rifle, even if it’s only to disable the helicopter.

Sir, they are descending
.
Advise
? Fleming says.

Quinn is momentarily stunned. They wouldn’t really try to run would they? It would be suicide. A word she loves the sound of. She once made her team use it as a charging chant. Shit, did that confuse the enemy.

‘Have they levelled?’ she asks.

No sir
, Fleming gasps.
I don’t know where she was trained to fly
,
but she has gone into an incredibly acute descent
.
She must be riding the red line
.

Quinn is annoyed that she can actually hear admiration in this idiot’s voice.

‘Follow them,’ she orders.

We will be coming in at less of an angle
, Fleming replies.

‘I ordered you to follow them. Do it, or die.’

If I try to pull off that manoeuvre
,
Richards
, the pilot interrupts,
we will probably all die right here and right now
.

Quinn goes quiet momentarily. She very nearly kills the both of them, but decides against it at the last minute. After all, she is carrying very heavy tipped ammunition and after killing them, it would damage the helicopter.

She decides that they can die later instead, perhaps. Slowly.

‘Just get us on the fucking ground,’ she orders.

Ten minutes later, Quinn, Richards and Fleming are sat in their now landed Puma, not far from the other helicopter. Quinn dishes out orders.

‘We go in hard and fast,’ she states. ‘I want a quick and secure holding pattern. Do not shoot unless absolutely necessary. This kill is mine.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Fleming and Richards chorus.

‘Point formation. I will lead.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Let’s go.’

Quinn sets the pace at a quick march, while Fleming and Richards fall in behind her. She has the rifle slung across her shoulder and the Desert Eagle in her hand. Both weapons are set to fire. The pilots have Beretta-92Fs, both with safeties on.

Then, as Quinn rounds the front of the helicopter they have been chasing, she cannot believe her eyes. The targets are all stood there right in front of her. Marshall on the left, Charlie in the middle, Sarah on the right, approximately ten feet apart from each other. Marshall has a gun in his hand, which looks to be a Sig Sauer-P230, but he has it down at his side pointing at the floor.

Quinn and her team just stand there for a moment while Quinn takes in the scene.