Page 74 of Belgian Betrayal

Three shadowy figures moved past hedges, armors and a small pond. The figure in the rear seemed to be carrying something heavy over his shoulder.

A lead weight plummeted to the pit of Fearghas’s belly. That man was carrying a body.

“That’s them,” Cassandra said. “Stanhope has a helicopter pad on the grounds. He must be heading there.”

“I have to stop them,” Fearghas said and ran through the room and down another hallway to a staircase that led to the ground floor. He raced past a laundry room and burst through a back door into a garden.

“Ace, do you copy?” he said as he ran past a fountain.

“Fearghas? Is that you?” Ace’s voice sounded. “Got the rest of the crew here at the van, less you and Catya. Where the hell have you been?”

“In a secret passage and room on the second floor. Stanhope and Blackhurst have Catya. He has a helicopter pad on the grounds out past the rear garden; I think they’re headed for it.”

“Going cross country,” Ace reported. “We’ll have your six.”

Fearghas picked up speed, leaping over hedges and blowing past arbors until he burst into the open.

Ahead, a helicopter rested on a helipad, rotors spinning.

The three men had just reached it. Two of the men leaped inside. The one carrying the body paused to drop his load on the floor of the fuselage.

Ten yards away, Fearghas threw everything he had into reaching that chopper before it left the ground.

The man who’d dropped the body and was climbing into the helicopter suddenly fell backward, landing on his back on the pad.

Fearghas leaped, landed on the man’s chest and threw himself onto the aircraft as it lifted slowly off the ground.

The people in the back were a tangle of arms and legs, black tuxedos and a gold dress.

Catya was at the bottom of the pile, kicking and fighting like a wild cat.

Fearghas grabbed the man on top, wrapped his arm around his throat and yanked him out of the fight, recognizing him as the Deputy Prime Minister Blackhurst.

Blackhurst struggled and fell backward, landing on top of Fearghas so close to the open door that Fearghas could feel the wind whipped up by the rotors. It wasn’t his day to die, but it could be for the man crushing the air from his lungs.

Fearghas bucked, rolled and flung the man out the door. He fell ten feet, landing on the lawn. He came up on his hands and knees, then stood.

“Watch out!” Catya cried. “He’s got a taser.”

Fearghas spun in time to knock the device out of Stanhope’s hand. It skidded across the floor toward Catya as she struggled to sit up.

Stanhope lunged for Fearghas in an attempt to push him out the open door.

The helicopter lurched sideways.

Stanhope landed on Fearghas.

Before Fearghas could throw him off, the man stiffened, jerked and then collapsed, unmoving.

Fearghas rolled him to the side and looked up at Catya who held the taser in her hand, a fierce smile on her face. “That felt good.” She turned to the pilot.

Fearghas shouted, “Wait! Don’t use it on him. He has to land this thing.”

Catya leaned over the back of the pilot’s seat, wrapped her arm around his throat and pulled his headset away from his ear. “Land. Now.”

Applying just enough pressure to his neck to make him a believer, Catya held on until the chopper landed on the grass not far from where it had taken off.

Headlights bounced across the lawn as the MI6 communications van raced toward them.

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