Chapter 12
The twin unmarked interceptors closed the gap with predatory precision, their dark fuselages blending seamlessly into the swirling fury of the alpine snowstorm. The helicopter pitched violently as the turbulence from the lead pursuer’s rotors buffeted the aircraft, sending a cascade of warning lights flashing across the cockpit console.
“Hold on!” the pilot screamed over the intercom, fighting the collective controls as the aircraft shuddered under the strain.
Sarafina braced herself against the bulkhead, her arms wrapped tightly around the leather journal tucked inside her coat. Across the cabin, Victoria fought to secure the satellite uplink modem into her briefcase, her fingers moving with cool, methodical speed despite the violent rocking of the cabin.
“We aren't going to make it across the border,” Victoria yelled over the deafening scream of the turbine engines. “They’re positioning to force us down into the restricted military sector!”
“There has to be another way!” Sarafina shouted back, watching through the front windshield as a jagged, snow-choked ravine loomed directly out of the whiteout ahead.
The pilot attempted a sharp evasive dive, but the second interceptor cut off their vector, firing a blinding burst of warning flares that illuminated the entire canyon in a harsh, orange glare. The shockwave from the flare blast shattered the helicopter’s starboard navigation light, sending a shower of glass fragments across the cabin floor.
“Engine two is failing! We’re losing altitude!” the pilot yelled, his voice laced with panic as the altimeter plummeted toward the jagged pine trees lining the ravine floor.
Sarafina felt her stomach lurch into her throat as the helicopter plummeted into the freezing canyon, the skids clipping the upper branches of a towering pine before slamming violently into a deep drift of fresh mountain snow. The world dissolved into a cacophony of twisting metal, shattering glass, and the blinding white spray of displaced powder as the aircraft skidded to a dead stop against the stone wall of the ravine.
Silence followed—heavy, ringing, and suffocating.
Sarafina groaned, slowly opening her eyes to find herself trapped beneath a tangle of fallen luggage and displaced cabin panels. Her left shoulder throbbed with a dull, sickening pain, but her hands instinctively flew to her chest to check the journal. It was still there, safe inside her trench coat pocket.
“Victoria?” Sarafina called out, her voice raspy and choked with smoke.
There was a faint rustle from the front of the cabin. Victoria pushed herself up from the wreckage of the copilot seat, blood trickling from a shallow cut on her forehead, but her expression remained as steady and unshakeable as ever.
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“I’m here,” Victoria said, kicking open the jammed side emergency hatch, letting a blast of freezing alpine air rush into the ruined cabin. “We need to move before the interceptors land. They know exactly where we went down.”
Sarafina unbuckled her harness and crawled through the jagged opening into the deep snow, the freezing air biting instantly through her clothes. As they scrambled behind a thick cluster of boulders at the edge of the ravine, the heavy thrum of military rotor blades echoed overhead, hovering directly above the wreckage.
