Free The Templar Prophecy by Mario Reading Page B

he did not answer.
    The Storch dipped to one side and then swung back across its own wake in a jerky arc. Inge let the lunchbox fall. She knew that she had to regain control of the aeroplane or she would never get her husband to a hospital. The Storch had performed a near perfect semi-circle during the fracas and was now heading directly back towards the Charlottenburg flak towers. Another sixty seconds’ flying time would see her and the plane ripped to shreds.
    She levelled the Storch and took it down to just above roof height. For the next five minutes Inge flew by prayers and adrenalin alone, until she felt that they were safely out of the danger zone. Only then did she crane her head back over the seat and look down into the cabin’s semi-darkness.
    Hartelius lay in an impossible position, his head at right angles to his body. No one still living was capable of such an unfeasible contortion. Inge began to wail.
    The next fifteen minutes were lost to her. Somehow she continued to fly the plane, but it was not through any effort of will. Speed and direction appeared to have no meaning for her. Tears and mucus flowed unchecked down her face. She was as unaware of her flight position as she was of the Russian soldiers below her, targeting the Storch with their rifles, submachine guns and, in one case, a plundered Panzerfaust.
    Instinctively, intuitively, when Inge first caught sight of the moon reflecting off Schwielow Lake, muscle memory caused her to ease back on the control stick and gain a little height.
    Five minutes passed, during which her hearing slowly returned. She ripped off her flying goggles and mopped ather face with her sleeve. When she could see properly again, she set her course along the luminous strip of the Havel River, which she knew would carry her eastwards towards the American lines. Rumour had it that the US Ninth Army had reached Tangermünde. That’s where she would make for.
    As a German woman, Inge knew that she could expect no mercy from the Russians. But the Americans were a different matter.
    Now, with her husband dead, her country raped, and all her former allegiances null and void, Inge had nothing left to lose.

TWELVE
    Eberhard regained consciousness just over an hour into the flight. This coincided exactly with the Storch’s crossing of the Elbe River into US-held territory. Eberhard, however, was aware of little more than that they were still flying in the dark – that his vision had in some way been impaired – and that a significant amount of time had elapsed between his execution of Hartelius and his return to full awareness.
    He lay still and endeavoured to work out just how badly he was injured. It would be pointless to rear up in search of his pistol only to find that his limbs were not functioning correctly – or that he wasn’t able to see what he was looking for. The madwoman flying the Storch would hit him again with her metal lunchbox. And this he could not tolerate.
    He needed the bitch alive, unfortunately, as he had not the remotest idea how to fly a plane by himself. Plus she was his now. He intended to take her at his leisure and inflict the maximum possible humiliation on her in the greatestpossible time span. He might even fuck her on top of her dead husband’s body. There. That would be something to see, now, wouldn’t it?
    The only thing Eberhard could not fathom about his condition was why he kept on hearing voices. Was he hallucinating? He began to probe around himself for the pistol. Slowly. Steadily. His fingers acting as feelers. It was an impossibility that the woman could have struggled across from the front seat whilst the Storch was still in motion and retrieved the weapon herself. The cabin was not designed for that sort of in-flight movement. Once the pilot was strapped into the bucket seat, that was the end of it – they were in there for the duration.
    Eberhard muttered under his breath as he searched for the