Chapter 119

Chapter 119

Jakob Tas had expected the F-35s and he’d expected the surveillance drones. But he hadn’t expected the Gulfstream. He watched it with mild curiosity. He initially thought it was a Vegas whale on a comped trip to see the Grand Canyon. An overweight, overindulged lard ass. The kind the casinos manipulated with free shit so they didn’t feel bad when they lost a quarter mil at the baccarat tables.

But then the Gulfstream started circling the NorseBoat. He definitely hadn’t expected that. It was out of place. An anomaly. Something he and Margaret hadn’t planned for.

And then the Gulfstream began to lose altitude. Tas wondered if it was in trouble. That the pilot was considering an emergency landing on the lake. Which would be stupid. Gulfstreams weren’t seaplanes. They couldn’t land on water. Their hulls were aerodynamic; seaplane hulls were hydrodynamic. Seaplanes were designed to land on water. To float on water. To take off from water. They had more in common with boats than with airplanes. If the sleek-as-a-falcon Gulfstream attempted a water landing, it would break on impact. Everyone would die. No miracle on the Hudson for this wannabe Sully.

He reached for his 10 × 50 tactical binoculars. They’d cost over $2,000 but had been worth every cent. They had good magnification, a large depth of field, and image stabilisation. Made the F-35s appear so close he felt he could reach out and touch them. He brought the binoculars to his eyes and cast around until he found the Gulfstream.

The pilot was in trouble. Tas could see the open emergency exit. Just above the wing. Looked like the passengers were getting ready to bale. Suicide. The water would be like granite at that height. He figured they had no choice. Maybe there was a fire onboard. Or a lunatic.

The Gulfstream was about one hundred metres above him now. Low enough for Tas to no longer need the binoculars. He kept them glued to his eyes anyway. Something wasn’t right. The Gulfstream was still circling the NorseBoat. Tighter and tighter. Clockwise, like an emptying sink. Tas felt like the axle in a wheel. He was getting dizzy.

The Gulfstream had now lost so much airspeed it was in danger of stalling. Right on cue, Tas heard the engine sputter, then catch again. It made another complete circle. Dropped maybe another fifty metres.

Then it did exactly what Tas thought it would do. It stalled. The engines quit and died. Silence instead of noise. The Gulfstream should have plummeted. And it did. Kind of. Except first it banked so sharply the wings were almost in the six o’clock position.

Tas blinked in surprise. Someone had fallen out of the emergency exit. A man. His arms and legs were flapping like a rag doll. Stayed that way for maybe a second before he tucked his legs and hands into his torso. Looked like he was going to hit the water like a mortar shell. Tas held his breath, fascinated. Then, right at the last second, literally, the man’s legs shot down and his arms shot up. He hit the water. Hard. Despite it happening two hundred yards from the NorseBoat, Tas heard the crack of the man’s legs breaking. Sounded like a gunshot. Tas winced.

He trained the binoculars on where the man had hit the water, at the epicentre of an expanding series of ripples. The man hadn’t entered the water like an Olympic diver. He’d made quite the splash.

The man bobbed up. It didn’t mean he was alive, though. Unless bodies were weighted down, they floated. For a while, anyway. Tas knew that for certain. He’d been involved in a job in Vienna where a body hadn’t been weighted down right. Someone got a punch-dagger in the spleen over that mistake.

Tas figured the Gulfstream guy was dead or dying. He certainly wasn’t moving. He adjusted the magnification so he could see the man’s face. He gasped.

‘I don’t believe it.’ He said it out loud. Couldn’t help himself. There had been a lunatic on board the Gulfstream. It was Koenig. Miss Wexmore had sneaked a picture and emailed it. The crazy asshole had jumped without a parachute. And now he was in the water. Facedown. Lifeless. Broken legs, probably a broken back. If he wasn’t dead, he would be in a minute.

Then, to Tas’s astonishment, Koenig lifted his head. He trod water with his arms and turned his body so he was facing the NorseBoat. He then began to breaststroke towards him.

Slowly.

A noise behind him made him turn away from Koenig. Another splash. A louder one. Someone else had jumped from the Gulfstream. Whoever this guy was, they’d made a better landing than Koenig. He reached for his binoculars, then grinned. It was Margaret’s friend Elizabeth. She was wearing an orange life jacket and was about one hundred yards away. Tas didn’t know what was happening, but he knew a gun when he saw one. Elizabeth had just found hers. Tas let muscle memory take over. He raised his Heckler & Koch G11 and snapped off a couple of rounds. The first missed; the second didn’t. He saw the puff of blood and watched as Carlyle slumped in the water, motionless.

He nodded, pleased with himself. A kill shot at one hundred yards, fired from an unstable platform, was good shooting. He turned back to Koenig.

The crazy fool was still swimming towards the boat. The blood in his wake looked like an oil slick. Some people didn’t know when they were beaten. Tas raised his gun, although he didn’t think he’d need it. Koenig looked half dead. Like he had nothing left to give. The only thing left in his tank was stubbornness.

And then it all got too much. Koenig stopped. Hung limply in the water, head down. Not moving at all. Like a Rolling Stone in a swimming pool. Tas raised his gun and aimed for the top of Koenig’s spine. His fingers tightened on the trigger.

And then he eased off. He shook his head in admiration.

‘Ah, what the hell,’ he said. ‘A man shouldn’t have to die alone.’

He put the gun down and started the engine.