The Emperor's Revenge (Oregon Files 11)

The SUV bounced off and rolled onto its side, skidding across the pavement and popping the windshield out as it slid to a stop. Eddie shook the cobwebs out and then swatted the deployed air bags out of the way to watch the helicopter.

At first, it didn’t seem as if the helicopter had been significantly damaged, just knocked off its initial flight path. Because the tail rotor was encased inside a protective housing, the blades didn’t snap off instantly. But the aluminum housing was bent enough that the rotors began to wobble and then hit the frame.

As pieces of the rotor started to fly off, Eddie knew the helicopter wasn’t going to get very far.

—

Ivana hadn’t had time to strap herself in and she knew the helicopter wasn’t going to make it. The warning alarm signaled a major malfunction caused by the impact with the SUV.

Smoke poured from under the rotors, filling the cabin with noxious fumes. The door on her side of the chopper was still open. The men behind her were shouting in panic.

The helicopter spun in a lazy circle as it crossed over the Control Hub’s roof. For a moment, it seemed as though they’d crash on top of the building itself, but they cleared it, with only a few feet to spare, as they began their final descent onto the facility’s front lawn.

The spin violently increased as they plummeted. Ivana let go of the briefcase holding her laptop and it flew out the door. Not wanting to be trapped inside the helicopter when it crashed, she jumped free when it was still twenty feet above the ground. She curled herself into a ball, taking the brunt of the impact with her shoulder. The jarring blow knocked the wind out of her as she rolled to a stop.

Sirkal tensed to jump, too, but he made the mistake of leaping out at the same time that the pilot tried to bank the helicopter in a corrective maneuver.

Sirkal threw his hands up and screamed as he saw the massive main rotor churning toward him. It caught him in midflight, chopping him to pieces in a spray of blood and gore. Nothing larger than a hand made it to the ground.

The fragile rotor came apart and the Eurocopter slammed into the ground. The fuel tank ruptured as the fuselage collapsed from the crushing impact. The entire chopper exploded, taking the rest of the occupants with it.

Despite the pain in her shoulder, Ivana looked around for any way to escape. Then she saw her one chance.

A Mercedes was idling by the Control Hub’s entrance.

—

After Eddie and Linc crawled from the SUV’s remains with little more than scratches and bruises from the crash, they ran toward the smoke that was billowing up over the Control Hub building.

Eddie came around the corner to see Ivana pick up a briefcase and throw it into the burning hulk of the helicopter. She held one arm close to her body as if it were injured while she ran toward Gustaaf Dijkstra’s Mercedes, which was idling at the front entrance. Its driver, who had gotten out after the helicopter crashed, fled toward the building’s entrance when he saw Ivana waving a pistol at him.

Eddie sprinted toward her with Linc hot on his heels, but she climbed into the car and slammed the door. The Mercedes screeched away toward the facility’s gate.

“Close the gate!” he yelled at the guards.

One of them pressed the button to raise the cylindrical truck barriers.

Instead of slowing, the powerful Mercedes, which had already reached highway speeds, continued to accelerate in an attempt to make it across the top of the cylinders before they were fully raised.

But the top of the cylinders had risen just enough to catch the front of the chassis. The Mercedes catapulted over the cylinders and somersaulted in the air.

The air bags deployed, but the car continued to tumble over the pavement. Ivana, who hadn’t been wearing a seat belt, was slingshotted from the car and bounced across the pavement like a rag doll before the Mercedes came to rest as a jumble of nearly unrecognizable metal.

Eddie and Linc were the first ones to reach her. She stared up at them with unseeing eyes, her neck broken from the impact.

Eddie’s phone dinged. It was Murph.

“Eddie, are you and Linc okay? We heard an explosion.”

“We’re fine. The helicopter went down in front of the building.”

“Did Ivana Semova make it out? Because the electrical grid is about to melt down and we need her alive to stop it. And see if you can find that laptop she was carrying.”

“I’ve got bad news and worse news,” Eddie said as he looked at Ivana’s corpse. “Ivana survived the crash, but the bad news is that she threw her briefcase into the fire. I assume her laptop was inside. The worse news is that she’s no longer in a position to help us restore the grid. Her next destination is the morgue.”

“Then we are supremely hosed if Golov hits that transformer station.”

“Actually, there is one survivor,” Linc offered. “Antonovich might be able to help.”