Her only thought was to climb as fast as she could.

  She was twenty feet from the bottom skid when the chopper came out of its dive. Suddenly, low gravity turned to high gravity, and she held on for dear life. This was when she allowed herself a glance forward.

  It was worse than she had imagined.

  The helicopter bore down on a glass-and-steel skyscraper, aiming to buzz its roof. Tempest tried to gauge how close it would be, and realized it would be way too close.

  She kept climbing, hand over hand, feet kicking at the air, willing herself higher.

  At the last second, she pulled her feet up to her chest as the helicopter raced over the top of the skyscraper. Tempest actually felt the edge of the skyscraper scrape at her back, but she cleared the structure.

  Tempest was now just ten feet away.

  The chopper cleared the skyscraper and dove again, looking for something else to knock this pest off.

  Tempest smiled. The pilot was too smart for his own good. Another dive meant another moment of low gravity for her, and hand over hand, she closed the distance, grabbing onto the bottom skid.

  The copilot pressed his face against the windscreen of his door. He was looking back, trying to see where that woman had gone. He saw her pulling herself up toward him. “She’s on the skid!”

  Chaban held onto his handhold as the helicopter dove a second time and watched in fascination as Saad and Chaucer fought for their lives.

  Suddenly the helicopter came out of its dive and began a series of left and right turns, almost as though it was attempting to avoid a missile.

  Chaucer and Saad slid right, grasping for anything that could keep them from sliding out of the helicopter. Chaucer and Saad slid left again, looking for some purchase to keep them in the vehicle.

  Tempest wrapped her arms tightly around the landing skid as the pilot tried to buck her loose. After he completed one set of evasive maneuvers, she prepared herself for the second.

  This time, when the helicopter banked left, she loosened her grip and threw her legs up high. The steep bank put her up and over the lip of the floor of the rear compartment, and with one swift move she let go of the landing skid. Her momentum carried her right into the cabin.

  Chaban couldn’t believe his eyes when Tempest MacLaren literally flew gracefully into the cabin and landed on her feet.

  “Hey, asshole,” she said.

  CHAPTER 49

  Tempest smiled, seeing that Chaucer was very much alive. She was proud of him. The kid had done good. She also liked their odds. Two against two. The best odds they’d had since Chaucer pulled her out of Paris.

  Chaucer and Saad were wrestling on the floor, going for arm locks from bad positions. Amateurs. But Chaucer was yelling something at her. She couldn’t quite make it out.

  The helicopter went into another high-g turn, and Tempest grabbed a handhold without even looking. She tried to concentrate on what Chaucer was saying.

  Chaucer yelled again, “The box!”

  Tempest looked around, suddenly remembering why they were doing all of this in the first place. And then she saw it.

  The stainless-steel case that Chaban had taken with him was wedged beneath his seat, but the evasive maneuvers of the pilot had dislodged it. Now it was sliding across the cargo floor in Tempest’s direction, just as Chaucer and Saad were also sliding that way.

  Tempest would have to let go of the handhold to get the box, but it was an easy enough thing to do. She switched from the ceiling handhold to the mounted machine gun.

  Then everything went to hell.

  The helicopter dove for a third time. The box left the floor, tumbled through the air, and went over the side of the helicopter. Tempest watched helplessly as it scooted right past her.

  Chaucer released his arm bar and kicked Saad in the chest. Suddenly Chaucer too was flying through the air, up and out of the helicopter.

  Tempest yelled as her ex-husband tumbled out of the helicopter. The helicopter banked again, and she grabbed onto the machine gun tightly.

  Chaucer felt a brief exhilaration of freefall—that feeling of weightlessness and acceleration. But he did not revel in it. Instead, he was laser-focused on the tumbling box, and he reached his hand out and snagged the handle.

  He allowed himself a millisecond of satisfaction before he looked back at his other hand as it squeezed tight against the webbing it was holding.

  He felt the webbing burn the palm of his hand as he tried to arrest his fall one-handed.

  And then Chaucer panicked.

  He wasn’t stopping his fall fast enough. The webbing was quickly reaching its end, and he had barely slowed his descent by half.

  Hooking the case by thumb alone, he brought his other hand into play, grasping the quickly disappearing webbing and squeezing for dear life.

  Below, he could see that the series of dives had brought the helicopter within thirty feet of a major freeway.

  Chaucer also saw that he had five feet of webbing left.

  Four.

  Three.

  Two. He used every last ounce of strength to gain control of his fall, but he realized it would not be enough.

  One.

  Chaucer lost his grip and tumbled once again into the unencumbered hot air of the Persian Gulf.

  CHAPTER 50

  Slam!

  At first, Chaucer couldn’t put together what had happened. He was alive. Hurting, but alive.

  How far did he fall? Why wasn’t he broken or dead?

  Glancing up, he could still see the webbing moving ahead of him, but dangling just feet away. He had fallen a grand total of ten feet.

  He spun around and got his bearing. He was lying on his back atop a huge tractor-trailer. This trailer was nearly twice as high as the ones the West was used to, and it was three trailers long, like a land train. Chaucer had seen something similar in Australia and realized that in wide, empty desert regions, why wouldn’t you build your trucks taller and longer?

  This one, no doubt, had equipment and supplies for the oil fields.

  Chaucer snapped out of his reverie and took stock of his situation.

  The case. He checked the case, and other than a ding in one corner, it seemed to be perfectly intact.

  He made it. Chaucer looked forward and saw that he was on the rearmost of the three-trailer train. And that to get off, he would have to make it up to the cab.

  Then he saw the road sign.

  Tempest was stunned. Chaucer was dead. Luckily for Tempest, stun never lasted for her. It almost instantaneously morphed into blind rage.

  She kicked Saad in the face and launched herself at Chaban.

  Chaban dodged as best he could, but Tempest got him around the waist and landed a fury of body blows, one of which she was fairly certain broke a rib.

  But Chaban had the high ground. He began with an elbow in the back of the neck. He was quite used to that move stunning most people.

  But Tempest was not most people. She responded by head-butting him in the throat.

  The helicopter banked again, and Tempest grabbed Chaban’s shirt as a handhold. Saad’s body rose in the air as he fought to clear his head, but Tempest wasn’t looking at him.

  At the height of the helicopter’s turn, Tempest could see almost straight down.

  She—and Saad—had a clear view of Malcolm Chaucer standing atop some sort of truck.

  Tempest kicked at Saad again, but this time he dodged her and leapt up toward the narrow doorway that separated the cockpit from the cargo compartment.

  Chaban took her moment of inattention and capitalized on it. He landed a powerful blow to her jaw that knocked her to the floor. Sensing a strong advantage, he dropped on top of her, grabbing her by the hair and slamming her head into the steel flooring.

  One.

  Two.

  Three times.

  There was blood in Tempest’s eyes. A concussion as well, ringing in the ears. Even more than the usual tinnitus.

  Tempest judged herself to be at about seventy-five percent combat effectiveness, but she wasn’t thinking about any of that.

  She was thinking about the second coil.

  Just two feet ahead, there was a second coil of webbing, just out of reach. She willed her body forward to grab it.

  But Chaban was on her back with all his weight, and he pulled her head up to slam it into the steel a fourth time.

  Just then, her prayers were answered.

  The helicopter banked one more time, and the coil of webbing slid right into her hands.

  When Chaban slammed her head down this time, it hit the webbing. Not exactly a pillow, but it cushioned the blow enough to be relatively ineffective.

  As Chaban lifted her head a fifth time, Tempest uncoiled a section of webbing and threw it up over her head.

  When she pulled tight, she knew she had hit pay dirt.

  She spun and saw that she had the back of Chaban’s neck in the webbing, and in spinning she turned that simple loop into a noose.

  Chaban’s face went red quickly. He still had her by the back of her hair until Tempest’s knee found its target, forcing him to let go.

  Tempest rolled around on the floor, both to get out of kicking range and to further twist the webbing around his neck.

  The helicopter banked again, but Tempest and Chaban were tethered together by the webbing, anchoring each other.

  As Tempest fell toward the open door, Chaban was the only thing holding her inside.

  She got a breathtaking view of the highway below.

  She saw Chaucer on the truck.

  She saw an access road running parallel and above the highway, where a gorgeous convertible Rolls-Royce was out for a leisure drive.

  And when she looked back, she saw two disturbing things.

  One was Chaban drawing a knife.

  Two was Saad coming out of the cockpit with a gun.

  CHAPTER 51

  Chaucer stared ahead at the highway sign, trying to figure out if what he was seeing was real. As the sign passed over the cab of the truck he was on, he could see that it was.

  The trouble with a double-height trailer was that it left little to no clearance for anything hanging over the roadway. Here, the engineers had been precise. The road sign seemed to leave no more than six inches of clearance between it and the top of the truck.

  Chaucer estimated the truck was traveling at sixty-five miles per hour, which meant he had two seconds to react.

  The sign was about to hit him like a flyswatter and knock him likely to his death on the highway below.

  There were only two choices: under or over.

  Chaucer’s feet had already decided for him as he ran forward toward the sign. At the last second, he leapt into the air, hoping against hope to clear what appeared to be a four-foot-high sign.

  The sign clipped his toes as he misjudged the distance needed, and it flipped him head over heels for a full rotation.

  Slam! For the second time in as many minutes, Chaucer landed on his back on the tractor trailer. This impact hurt a little less by itself, but the combined punishment told him that chiropractic would be in order in the future.

  He glanced to his right hand, where the case was still firmly in his possession.

  The helicopter banked in the opposite direction and leveled out, pulling Tempest back into the cargo bay.

  She had an enemy with a gun and another with a knife who was freeing himself from his noose. Advantage: them.

  Tempest made a decision. Instead of running at either of them, she used her momentum to run in between them. Diving past Saad as he opened fire, she went out the far side of the helicopter. Momentum carried her into mid-air.

  Chaban cut through the webbing around his neck just before it pulled taut. Tempest was holding the other end of it.

  Her momentum arrested, her arc carried her downward, underneath the helicopter and under the skids.

  The impact of the skids against the webbing sped up her acceleration, like a catapult. She was now hurtling from left to right at great speed when she let go of the webbing.

  She had a single thought in her head.

  I hope I got the angle right.

  Chaucer leapt from the third trailer to the second. In the distance, he could see overpasses and more signs, but he had a bit of time. He looked between the trailers, looking for anywhere he could wedge a foot or a hand to arrest his fall to the speeding pavement below. He found nothing but smooth walls.

  And ahead, another road sign loomed.

  Tempest arced through the air, hands windmilling to preserve her orientation. She was aiming for the convertible and closing on it fast. She landed hard in the backseat, duck-diving and slamming into the door on the far side to keep herself from overshooting it completely.

  It was a hard impact, to be sure, but Rolls-Royces were basically built out of battleship steel, and the car held.

  The sheik on his pleasure drive yelled from the front seat, “What in all hell!?”

  Tempest popped up, shook off her second concussion of the mission, and stared at the man with her dark and merciless eyes.

  In perfect Arabic, she said, “Your choice. In or out?”

  The sheikh slammed on the brakes, quickly bringing the Rolls-Royce to a halt. Then he opened the door and ran. Tempest hopped into the driver’s seat, threw the car back into gear, and yelled back to the sheik, “Smart man!”

  CHAPTER 52

  Chaban saw Tempest and the Rolls. He saw Chaucer on the truck. But most importantly, he saw his case slipping away.

  Saad got on the machine gun and turned the turret toward Chaucer.

  “No!”

  Saad looked back at him. “I have the shot!”

  “We can’t risk hitting the case!” said Chaban. “You’re going to have to go down and get it!”

  Saad looked outside the helicopter, down at the highway. He looked at the dangling webbing below him.

  He was not happy, but he was loyal. He started climbing down the webbing.

  Chaban got on the machine gun and swiveled it, aiming at the Rolls.

  He had no compunction whatsoever about removing Tempest from the face of the planet. He sighted her, led her a little as the Rolls accelerated. He pulled the trigger.

  Nothing happened. He looked over the machine gun and quickly discovered the problem. While Tempest had been using it as a handhold, that bitch had also managed to disable it.

  Chaucer leapt over another road sign, landing hard on the truck’s roof. Still, his right hand clutched the steel case. He psyched himself up to leap from the second trailer to the first, when he saw something up ahead.

  No—it wasn’t a road sign or an overpass. Those were coming up fast, but were still in the distance.

  No, he saw a strand of blue webbing.

  And a moment later, Saad landed atop the trailer in front of him. He looked visibly relieved to be off the webbing.

  Chaucer couldn’t put the case down. So it was either to be a weapon or a liability.

  When Saad drew a SOG combat knife, Chaucer realized the case had a third function: a shield.

  Chaucer backed up as Saad leapt from the first trailer to the second trailer, the one he was on. Saad came in for the quick kill. He had the stance of an experienced knife fighter.

  Against an unarmed opponent, it should be no contest. Only Chaucer’s stainless-steel case was an unknown factor.

  Saad stabbed. Chaucer parried with the case.

  Saad advanced. Chaucer retreated.

  The sequence repeated.

  Saad was feeling Chaucer out, checking his reaction time, his instincts.

  Saad smiled. Chaucer didn’t counterattack once. He only retreated.

  Saad knew it was the strategy of a dead man. Chaucer saw it in his eyes: confidence. What he didn’t know was that Chaucer wasn’t simply retreating.

  He was waiting.

  And now the moment was upon him.

  He took another two steps back until he was at the edge of the second trailer, at the space between it and the first.

  Saad came in for another attack.

  Chaucer took one step back—and fell into the gap.

  He threw one hand up and caught the lip of the second trailer, hanging on for dear life.

  At first, Saad couldn’t understand what he was doing.

  Then he looked behind him.

  A huge road sign barreled right at him.

  Saad’s reflexes were incredibly fast, and he did the only thing he could think to do.

  He dropped to the deck.

  The road sign raced over the top of the truck and slammed into Saad.

  But because of his prone position, it didn’t hit him full force.

  Rather, it grazed him, dragging him over the second trailer and onto the third before it passed by.

  He hung onto the edge of the third trailer, just a foot from oblivion.

  Ahead, he saw Chaucer stand back up on the second trailer and start running forward.

  Saad lifted himself up, barely noticing the blood on his back from where the road sign had scraped off a layer of skin.

  He ran after Chaucer.

  CHAPTER 53

  Chaban fixed the machine gun. He whipped it around on its turret and took aim at Tempest in the Rolls. She was pushing the luxury car to its limits, racing to catch up with Chaucer and the tandem trailers. Once again, he led her, aiming a good ten feet in front, and then he opened fire. The .50 caliber screamed and spat a heavy stream of lead, but Chaban could see that he had missed. Tempest had been moving faster than he thought, and his shots peppered the access road far behind her.

  He adjusted his aim for a second attempt.

  Tempest heard the report of the machine gun. She saw tracers flying behind her. She gritted her teeth, knowing exactly what it meant. Glancing over at the helicopter, now flying almost level with her, she stomped on the accelerator. Shooting a moving platform from a moving platform was not easy. She hoped Chaban had little to no experience developing that skill. At a faster speed, he’d have a harder time dialing her in. Knowing how far to lead was as much art as science. And besides, there were delivery trucks ahead on the access road, big white and tan mobile shields for her to hide behind.