Free The Last Survivor (A Wilde/Chase Short Story) by Andy McDermott

jeans, drawing a long line of blood down the back of his thigh. Another momentarily snagged his leather jacket, almost tearing him loose before it sheared from the trunk.
    The aircraft dropped even lower, heading straight for one tree standing tall above its neighbours …
    And pulled up just before impact, the uppermost branches disintegrating as the skids ploughed through them. A last twig slashed at Eddie’s cheek, then he was clear.
    ‘Did you get him?’ Kroll barked at the pilot.
    ‘I – I dunno. I think so,’ was the hesitant reply.
    The Nazi took a firm hold of the wall strap and braced his feet against the rear seats. ‘Do not try anything,’ he growled, before cautiously leaning out of the open door to peer at the port skid.
    There was nobody there.
    He allowed himself a moment of sadistic satisfaction. ‘
Hab ich ihn
,’ he muttered, before drawing back. ‘He is gone. Now, take me over there!’ He pointed across the great expanse of New York Bay, at the shore of New Jersey beyond Liberty Island. Crossing into a different state would slow the response time of law enforcement, giving him a greater chance of escape.
    With a nervous glance at his passenger, the pilot brought the LongRanger about, picking up speed over the water.
    New spikes of pain jabbing at him from numerous cuts, Eddie balanced atop the starboard skid, using the handle of the rear door to raise himself into a crouch. He deliberately didn’t turn it, wanting to see where Kroll was before making a move. He peeked through the window.
    The Nazi was in the centre of the cabin, a knee on one of the rear-facing seats in the middle row. He had his gun to the pilot’s head, having worked his right arm through the gap between the headrest and a bulky support pillar. With the port-side door jammed open, if Eddie moved fast enough, he could throw him out …
    If
he moved fast enough. He would have to open the starboard door first, and Kroll would almost certainly catch the movement in his peripheral vision. What he needed was a distraction.
    There was only one way to create one. Taking a deep breath, and keeping hold of the handle with his left hand, he dropped as low as he could and edged along the skid towards the pilot’s door.
    The helicopter was now holding a steady course, but it was still far from stable. The fuselage felt as if it were swinging beneath the rotor hub like a much-abused punching bag, the pilot constantly making adjustments to compensate for the shifting air currents. The Englishman had ridden in helicopters many times before, sometimes even on the outside of them, though in those latter cases he had simply been hanging on for dear life. This time, he had to negotiate its exterior and attract the attention of one of its occupants … without being seen by the other.
    He advanced inch by inch, left arm stretching out behind him – realising with dismay that there were no handholds ahead. The pilot’s door handle would only be reachable if he let go of the rear, and the slightest jolt while he was unsecured would pitch him to his death. All he could do was press his splayed palm against the aluminium bodywork and pray that he had somehow acquired gecko-like suction.
    Closer. Another glance into the cabin. Kroll was still watching the view ahead. Eddie hunched down again, shuffling forward until his left arm was extended as far as it would go. He slid his right hand along the fuselage, stretching out towards the window beside the pilot …
    His fingertips fell fractionally short. He could reach the rubber seal around the Plexiglas, but not the window itself. For his plan to work, the pilot needed to see him.
    He shifted his grip on the rear handle, fingers caterpillar-crawling along the metal until they reached its tip. That give him another couple of precious inches. Leaning forward again, he strained towards the window—
    The helicopter lurched.
    Eddie gasped in fear, instinctively flattening himself against the door, hard