STOP AT NOTHING: 'Mark Cole is Bond's US cousin mixed with the balls out action and killing edge of Jason Bourne' Parmenion Books (31 page)

8

Cole heard the guard approach, and the sharp intake of breath as he saw the wet patch around Cole’s crotch.

Cole then heard him pulling something from his bag, muttering curses as he did so. Probably new trousers, Cole figured. He had known the guard would not want the embarrassment of signing over a prisoner covered in piss.

His only concern would have been if the guard had not noticed; he knew that scents carried in cold, confined atmospheres, but there was no guarantee it would be picked up. Cole would then have been forced to do something that definitely
would
be smelled by the guard, and he was extremely happy that it hadn’t come to that.

He sensed as the man came closer, and felt him reach over his head, hearing the click of a switch. The electromagnets. Cole hoped that one switch would control both ankles and wrists, but was not unduly surprised to find his arms still fastened in place. It would make things harder, but not impossible.

He felt the guard kneel down in front of him.
Not yet
. The man’s hands pulled the shackles apart wider, creating space to remove Cole’s legs.
Not yet
. The guard then pulled Cole’s lower legs free of the magnetic clamps.
Now!

Cole’s legs shot up instantly, wrapping themselves tightly around the guard’s unprotected neck in a judo technique known as
sangaku jime
– the triangle choke.

Cole’s eyes were open now, and he watched the guard’s own eyes go wide as the oxygen to his brain was effectively cut off, Cole’s right leg cinched tight over his left, his hamstrings contracting as they cut off the blood supply at both sides of the man’s neck.

It took only seconds for the man to slump relaxed, unconscious. Cole kept it tight for another few seconds, just to prolong the period of unconsciousness but several seconds short of death, and then released his grip, the guard falling in a heap on the floor.

Wasting no time, Cole shuffled forward on the seat of his chair, creating some space to move in, before rocking his legs back over his head, his body concertinaring in the middle, shoulders and back hunched against the chair backrest.

The switches were based on a panel at the back of the headrest, which was where Cole had felt the guard reach earlier, and he tried to jab towards the unseen buttons with his toes.

His first effort failed, and his second, but on his third attempt, his body cramped, his ribs aching, he managed it; there was an audible click, and he felt the tight metal around his wrists loosen as the shackles fell open.

He jumped from the chair, bending down to secure the guard. The leg strangle was effective, but the result was short-lived, and the man would soon be awake with almost no ill effects. He found the man’s bag, and used handkerchiefs, a shirt, and a leather belt to bind and gag him.

All he had to do now was take control of the cockpit.

9

Cole changed trousers quickly – the new pair was not a perfect fit by any stretch of the imagination, but they would do – and pulled the guard’s Glock 17 pistol from the holster on the man’s belt.

He set off through the fuselage, checking the gun as he went, racking the slide to put a round in the chamber. There could be up to five more people through the sliding metal door, Cole knew – the pilot, co-pilot, flight engineer, navigator and a loadmaster. On such a routine flight though, Cole would have been surprised if there was a full complement.

He stopped to check out of the starboard porthole, and saw a vast expanse of water beneath. The Hercules routinely cruised at a much lower height than a jet aircraft, often under 20,000 feet, and it was therefore below the cloud line, giving Cole an unobstructed view.

They had obviously already cleared the European mainland, probably Britain too, and would now be somewhere over the Atlantic. But where? He had no idea how long the sedative had laid him out, and so had no idea how long they had been airborne. The flat, lifeless seascape below gave him no point of reference.

Cole turned away from the small circular window, just in time to see a uniformed crewman – the flight engineer? – coming through the sliding door into the cargo area, a tray of mugs in his hands.

Cole’s weapon was up and targeting the engineer before the man could work out what was going on. A quick glance of the trussed-up body of Schoenhoffer told him everything, and his eyes went wide, the tray dropping in seeming slow motion from his hands.

The tray crashed to the floor, and Cole had still not taken his shot. He couldn’t – the engineer was military, but not a hands-on combatant. Instead, Cole made a dive forwards, trying to get himself into the doorway before the engineer could close it.

The engineer recovered his senses and snatched backwards through the portal as quickly as he could, reacting as if scalded. Cole was almost there, so close, his arm extending to stop the door being closed, but the man was too quick, and Cole heard the disheartening metallic scrape as the sliding door was pulled shut, then the click of the heavy lock; then the inevitable shouts as he alerted his compatriots.

Cole’s mind raced. What would happen now? The crew would doubtless alert Andrews, who would certainly inform Hansard. And what then? Cole considered matters even as he went back to the porthole. Hansard would probably up the amount of agents that would be waiting for him at the air base, and he was pretty sure they would launch an armed siege of the plane. Other than that though, probably not a lot would alter. After all, he was going to be killed if the plane landed anyway.

He looked out of the window, and saw the very vague, very faint outline of the coast just visible in the distance. Probably no more than an hour until they were feet dry over the United States.
Shit
.

He went back to the forward end of the cargo hold and tested the door. It didn’t move an inch. Cole considered shooting it, but knew that it wouldn’t do any good – it was two-inch thick steel, and the ricochets would probably kill him.

He paced the plane, thinking. And slowly – ever so slowly, piece by piece, it came to him. It would be dangerous, certainly. Suicidal, possibly.

But he knew if he didn’t get to the flight deck, he would be dead anyway.

10

Sarah Cole eased herself down the stairs one by one. She was far from fully recovered, but the fact was that she was going stir crazy cooped up in that little bedroom.

Also, the events of the past few days meant that she wanted her children close to her, and they had been enjoying themselves so much with Stefan’s own three children that they had scarcely been up to her room to visit her.

So despite the pain, the dizziness and the nausea, she had popped a couple of super strength painkillers and made the arduous trip from her bed, out of the bedroom, agonizingly across the hall, and slowly – oh, so very slowly – down the stairs, holding onto the wooden banister for dear life.

She was also more than a little concerned about her husband, as there had still been no sign of him. As she reached the bottom of the stairs, she resolved to get Stefan to try and find out some information – it simply wasn’t sufficient waiting around, hoping Mark would either show up at last, or contact them in some way. They needed to find
him
.

Sarah would take Stefan off to one side, away from his wife and the kids, and discuss it with him.

She turned the corner into the kitchen, but it was empty. She heard voices off to the right, and followed them through the kitchen, into the dining room, and then further into the house, each slow, deliberate footstep more painful than the last.

And then she was there, at Stefan’s own little den, a wood panelled study where he sat to write his memoirs over a bottle of night time schnapps.

He was sitting with Ben and Amy, who were sitting in rapt fascination as he showed them a large hardback book.

He looked up as her shadow passed over the entrance to the room. ‘Well, look who’s up!’ he said jovially. ‘Mark would kill me if he could see you! Have a seat, have a seat!’

Steinmeier got up and helped Sarah the last few steps into the room, sitting her down in a comfortable easy chair next to the sofa where Ben and Amy were sitting.

Her children all but ignored her, continuing to leaf through the big book, and although she had missed them and certainly wouldn’t have minded if they had run to her and covered her with kisses, she was really quite glad. It meant they weren’t concerned about her, or about the events of the past few days. They were now somewhere familiar, somewhere fun, and somewhere safe.

But Sarah was surprised not to see Sabine and the three other kids. ‘Thanks Stefan,’ she said, accepting his offer of a mug of coffee as she relaxed into the chair. ‘What are you guys doing?’

‘Oh,’ Steinmeier said, sitting down between Ben and Amy, ‘we’re just going through some of our old photo albums. Mark’s in a few of these, although Ben and Amy don’t seem to think it’s him!’

Sarah smiled. He had certainly looked different back when he had been Mark Kowalski, that was sure. But she wondered why Stefan had the album out, and why he was showing them such strange pictures.

‘Where’s everyone else?’ she asked next.

‘On an unfortunate trip,’ Steinmeier explained. ‘Sabine’s mother has taken rather ill, so they’ve all gone to visit her in Bern.’

‘Oh, it’s nothing serious I hope?’

‘Well,’ Stefan said uneasily, ‘at this stage they do not know. We will have to wait and see. And maybe pray, yes?’

‘I’m sorry, Stefan,’ Sarah offered, and Steinmeier nodded his head.

He felt guilty for lying to her. There was nothing wrong with his mother-in-law. He had simply sent his family away for their own safety.

Because just five hours earlier, he had finally made the call.

11

Dan Albright was no longer in the hospital. After disconnecting himself from the monitors and drip he was hooked up to the previous evening, he had signed himself out. The doctors had at first refused to let him go, but he had demanded it and they had no power to keep him.

It had been necessary for the doctors to remove his eye completely, and it was now protected by a white plastic eye guard. His savaged nose was also covered by a guard, and his shaven head was criss-crossed with scabs. With the addition of light stubble, he now looked nothing like he used to; nothing at all.

After leaving the hospital, he had subsequently booked into a nearby hotel, where he had started making his plans. He had left for the sole purpose of tracking down Sarah Cole and killing her. He decided he was going to kill her kids first, right in front of her, force her to watch every last second. And then he was going to slit her throat from ear to ear.

He was lying in bed dreaming of his revenge when the call came. ‘Albright,’ he answered, immediately sitting up in bed upon hearing Charles Hansard’s voice on the other end. ‘No sir, I’m fine. No, I’m not at the hospital anymore, I was discharged last night … Yes sir, I’m in good health.’

And then Albright listened quietly to what Hansard told him, and he felt the excitement build as he was given his orders.

12

If the aircraft was going to cross over the US coastline within the next hour, then at their cruising speed of 250 miles per hour, they would be at Andrews within the next ninety minutes or so. This was both a good thing and a bad thing, Cole reflected as he wrenched free the upper attachments of the wrist and ankle bracelets from the chair at the rear of the cargo hold.

It was good because the aircraft’s speed would necessarily slow as it made its final approach, whilst the altitude would also reduce steadily, and both facts would make his task more achievable. It was bad news also however, as it didn’t give him long to accomplish this task – climbing out of the plane, moving over the length of the aircraft’s fuselage, before smashing through one of the cockpit windows from the outside, and then climbing back in to subdue the flight crew and take control of the plane.

Such a task seemed impossible, but Cole knew it could be done – or at any rate, would
have
to be done.

The answer lay in the electromagnets that had been used to restrain him. Cole knew the special chair was not a regular part of the Hercules’ equipment, and although it was now plugged into the aircraft’s main electricity supply, it would have had to be wheeled on board whilst magnetised under its own power.

Cole found a set of tools strapped to the side of the fuselage interior, and then once he had located the heavy battery pack at the rear of the chair, he wasted no time in detaching the unit. He then pulled the wires free from the chair, before breaking off the top part of the cuffs.

He then stripped the control panel from the head of the chair, removing the switches and connecting them back up directly to the cuffs, before testing to make sure it was all still operational. He held one of the ankle cuffs against the chair and flicked the switch, and the electromagnet pulled the top manacle in tight. The bond was nearly unbreakable once the current was passing through the magnet, and despite pulling for all he was worth, Cole couldn’t move it one iota.

Satisfied, Cole emptied the German guard’s backpack and placed the battery pack inside, leaving the wires trailing out from between the closed zip. He then focussed on strapping one ankle bracelet and one wrist bracelet to the front of each leg, cinching them tight.

Although the fact that there had been two switches on the chair – one to control the wrist shackles and the other to control the ankle shackles – had made his earlier escape a little harder, it was now going to play to his advantage.

He was going to use the electromagnetic manacles as climbing clamps, which would hold him securely to the metal fuselage, even with a 250 mile per hour wind trying its hardest to rip him free. He had used such aides before in the SEALS, when climbing up the slippery hulls of ships – although those clamps had of course been professionally custom-made. His home-made version would have to do though, and the same principles still applied.

Because one switch activated the ankle clamps and the other the wrist clamps, he strapped one of each to his legs, and he would have the corresponding opposite clamp in each hand. When he pressed the switch, one side of his body would therefore be securely fastened to the side of the plane, leaving his other side free to move; and then once in position, he would magnetise the other side, before freeing the first side and moving again.

It would be a slow process, Cole reflected as he made his way to the rear parachute door. He would have gone out of the front crew access door, but unfortunately it was on the other side of the now locked interior door, just opposite the stairs leading to the flight deck. It meant that he would have to exit via the rear of the plane, and traverse almost the entire length of the vehicle.

Cole reached for the door lever, the guard’s Glock pistol wedged securely into his belt, and pulled down hard. The door slid back and sideward, and Cole was immediately buffeted by the streaming, biting cold wind.

He took a deep breath and moved forward, hoping that the battery would last long enough for the dangerous climb. If it didn’t, it was one hell of a long way down.