Ben looked a fraction of a second too long. A heavy boot caught his ribs and he felt something crack. He cried out, rolled to the floor, clutched his side. He crawled under the desk. The giant grabbed the edge of the desk with one hand and hurled it over. He ripped out a drawer and crashed it down over Ben’s head. It shattered into pieces, showering him with bits of office equipment. Something glinted on the carpet. It was a letter-opener in the shape of a dagger. His fingers closed over it, and as the giant came on again Ben plunged the blade downwards into the man’s boot.
It was a solid heavy-grain leather boot. The blade was blunt. But Ben stabbed it so hard that it went through the leather into the foot inside. Through the foot into the sole. Through the sole into the wooden floor. It pinned him like an insect to a board.
The big man threw his head back and howled in pain. Ben struggled to his feet and lashed a foot into his groin. That had an effect. The man doubled up. Ben grabbed the giant’s tiny ears and slammed a knee into his face.
Outside, Clara broke away from Glass. Her hair streaming in the blast from the spinning rotor blades, she ran towards the windows. She slipped on the snow and fell, then scrabbled back to her feet. Glass went after her and grabbed her by the hair. He yanked her back and she screamed.
The giant was teetering, moaning, trying to stagger away from his pinned foot. Ben tore a fire-extinguisher off the wall and rammed the heavy metal cylinder down on his head. The man crashed to the floor and rolled on his back. Ben brought the base of the extinguisher down on his face and almost vomited as the man’s skull caved in. The giant convulsed and twitched for a second and then lay still.
Bloody and hurt, Ben ripped the.44 Ruger from the dead man’s belt. The cylinder was loaded with six fat magnum cartridges. He staggered towards the open French window. Glass was dragging Clara back towards the helicopter. He picked her up and stuck her under his arm. Her little legs kicked wildly.
Ben ran out onto the roof, ignoring the pain from his cracked rib. He aimed the heavy revolver and yelled Glass’s name over the roar.
Glass jerked Clara’s body round in front of his. He pressed something against her neck. His thumb was on the plunger of the syringe. ‘I’ll kill her,’ he screamed. ‘Put the gun down.’
Ben dropped the revolver and kicked it away from him. Glass grinned through his pain and dragged the child inside the helicopter. Still holding the syringe to her neck, he handcuffed her to the frame of the seat. Ben watched helplessly. Glass slid behind the controls. He’d learnt to fly in Africa and he was a good pilot. Crazy enough to take off in the snow, but then Jack Glass had always been crazy. He was proud of that.
The helicopter began to lift off. Ben could see Clara’s pallid face through the perspex window. Her mouth was open in a scream that was drowned out by the huge noise and the wind.
He ran across the helipad. The chopper was in the air, driving the snow into a storm of flakes that stung Ben’s eyes. He picked up the fallen.44 but didn’t dare to fire.
He looked around him in desperation as the hovering chopper spun slowly round on itself. Along the edge of the roof was a stone parapet, about four feet high. He ran to it and leapt up on top of it. He shoved the long barrel of the revolver through his belt and steadied himself with his hands. It was a long way down. The chopper dipped its nose as Glass hit the throttle.
Ben launched himself. For an instant he was weightless. The floodlit grounds of the mansion were below him. He saw the flashing lights of police cars swarming down the driveway. The party was in chaos.
He began to fall. Then his flailing hand clasped the cold metal of one of the chopper’s skids. The craft veered to the right, moving away from the house. The thudding wind tore at Ben’s hair and clothes as he dangled in space. He reached up and clapped his other hand onto the skid, kicking with his legs to haul himself up. Below him, the ground spun dizzily.
Glass felt the chopper unbalanced with Ben’s weight. From the cockpit he could see him hanging there, desperately trying to climb up to the side door. He smiled and turned the chopper towards the house. He couldn’t shake him off, but he could scrape the bastard off.
In the darkness a chimney stack loomed large. Glass banked hard towards it. Ben had a glimpse of brickwork rushing towards him. He raised his legs clear and the chopper roared over the roof. Glass brought it round again, the G-forces stretching Ben’s arms as he hung on to the skid.
Glass headed for the roofs again. Ben’s flailing legs raked violently up an incline of tiles, some of them coming loose and tumbling down to the ground below. Glass banked the chopper another time, laughing. One more pass and he’d leave Hope smeared like a bug across twenty feet of stonework.
But he banked too early. The tail rotor caught the side of the roof with a crashing shower of sparks and twisted metal. The helicopter juddered. The controls went crazy as the craft began to spin away from the house and towards the trees.
Ben had a foot on the skid now. Reaching out with an effort he clasped the handle of the side door and ripped it open. He threw himself inside the cockpit as the chopper gyrated out of control over the treetops, its lights tracing a wild circle over the snowy green pines and the naked branches of oaks and beeches.
Glass lunged at him with the lethal syringe. Ben dodged the stab and drove Glass’s wrist against the controls. The needle clattered to the floor. The two men wrestled over the seats, gouging and punching. Ben dug his fingers into Glass’s cropped hair and slammed his face against the dials, and again, and again, until Glass’s forehead was streaming with blood.
The helicopter was going down, spinning faster and faster. Glass’s fingers clawed at his face. Ben hammered him against the door, punched him in the teeth, slammed his head against the controls again. Glass flopped limply in his seat as the chopper banked violently to one side and twisted downwards towards the treetops.
Ben heaved on the controls but there was nothing he could do. The chopper spun wildly for another hundred yards before it hit. The rotors disintegrated and flew apart as they sliced into the treetops. They tumbled down, snapping branches raking and tearing at the fuselage, engine stalled, pieces of twisted rotor crashing down with them. Ben was hurled against the floor and the roof as the craft flipped over and over.
Thirty feet from the ground, the Bell tore free of the lower branches. Through shattered perspex Ben glimpsed the snowy forest floor rushing up to meet them. The impact flung him hard against the instruments. The chopper buried its nose in a snowdrift. Splintered branches and pieces of aircraft rained down.
Glass was lying slumped across the control console. Sparks crackled from somewhere behind the dials and the strong scent of aviation fuel reached Ben’s nostrils.
He hauled himself painfully upwards through the dark, smashed cockpit. Above him, Clara was wedged on the back of the front seats. Her lip was bleeding. She desperately tugged at the chain that connected her wrist to the steel tubing of her seat.
Ben heard the crackle and whoomph and looked over his shoulder. Flames licked at the inside of the glass, searing across the controls and the front seats. In seconds the helicopter was going to blow.
He yanked at the handcuff chain, glinting in the flames. It held fast. Clara’s eyes were bulging, her hair plastered over her face. She strained to tear her little wrist out of the steel bracelet, but it was tight against the skin.
The flames were catching. Ben clambered down towards Glass’s slumped body and felt in the pocket of his bloody tuxedo for the key to the cuffs. It wasn’t there. The heat was unbearable. A tongue of fire licked Ben’s back, scorching his jacket. There wasn’t time. The chopper was going to explode.