When the Wind Blows - James Patterson [112]
“The future has just arrived,” intoned one of the British news journalists, “and we’ve got the pictures to prove it.”
Chapter 120
I SAW EVERYTHING as it developed from ground level. Kit was down and I was trying to comfort and aid him. He’d been shot below the clavicle and there was a great deal of blood on his neck and staining his shirt. He insisted that he wasn’t hurt badly. I didn’t believe him. I was shaking with fear.
“She brought the ‘good guys,’ ” he said in a low voice. “She’s a smart girl.”
She was also poetry in flight. I was so proud of Max, only I was also deeply disturbed and frightened for her. She was taking too many chances near the whirling helicopter blades—not to mention the guns. She was fearless.
The noise overhead was deafening and confusing. I could make out a bold scrawl of call letters on the sides of the helicopters.
The TV news was here—live. Max had brought the cavalry, hadn’t she?
The TV choppers were filming all the surprised, guilty faces. Gillian and the rest of the bastards, including her husband. Maybe they wouldn’t get away with this, after all. Their dirty secrets were being exposed. On TV. That’s what I hoped, anyway.
Max suddenly banked sharply to the right. She wasn’t just fearless; she was reckless. She dived toward the black Bell Jet Ranger helicopter that was rising from behind the main house. She was trying to hinder, or even stop the takeoff. She didn’t want them to escape.
From out of the towering pines, Matthew joined her. Jesus, what a sight that was. Brother and sister finally reunited. They were getting their revenge, a little payback.
“Watch out!” I screamed. I stood up to yell. I waved my arms. “Max, come down. Max, don’t.”
There was no way she could hear me over the roaring, thundering noise that filled the sky. Max was definitely too close to the rising helicopter. She was doing it on purpose.
Too close. Too dangerous.
She appeared to collide with the helicopter in midair. It happened fast. I couldn’t tell if she’d actually struck the copter, and if so, how much damage she’d done to herself.
I watched, and I was still yelling as she began to plummet. Oh Max—don’t fall. Please don’t. Oh please, Max.
The helicopter had jigged, tried to avoid her, but now it wobbled and spun. It was out of control, dropping rapidly from about five hundred feet. The chopper was definitely in trouble. The blades slowed and it began to shudder and shake. I could see men and women inside, looking out the windows, frightened, close to panic.
Matthew floated like a leaf above the failing chopper. He was watching close up. Way too close, as if this were all some kind of game to him. It looked like he might be sucked down into the maelstrom.
I left Kit for the moment. I thought he’d be all right; I prayed that he would. I was racing toward Max when the ground shook, the result of a terrifying, fiery explosion.
The helicopter had crashed into treetops and limbs on its way down. A deafening metal-against-metal shriek pierced the air. The copter collided with the ground and burst into flames that shot high over the tops of the surrounding evergreens. Smoke, black as coal, billowed from the wreckage. Everyone on board must have died in that insane, terrifying instant.
I was a witness again. I didn’t want to be. I desperately wanted my old life back.
I saw Max struggle out of a cloak of thick black smoke. Her wings and face were covered with soot and ash. She was still flying, but she looked exhausted. She was trying to fight off fatigue, but it weighted her down.
The other children were circling back from the shelter and safety of the