Chapter 63
Duncan watched as the clock on the dash of the car clicked to 1:45pm.
"It's time." He said, turning to Ellen. "I suppose asking you to wait here would be a waste of breath?"
"You suppose right." She replied.
Duncan sighed and drove the car up to the check point at the gate.
"Here's a map and badges. Make sure you wear these at all times." The guard said as Duncan passed everything to Ellen and proceeded to drive forward.
"I should have come in here half an hour ago." He commented. "This place is so big, we'll never find her in time."
Ellen looked over the map. "It stands to reason whatever is going to happen won't be in any of the areas with a lot of personnel. I'm looking to see if I can pick anything up from the map."
Duncan agreed with her. Over the past decade the activities on the base had been cut substantially. It stood to reason that areas wouldn't still be seeing regular use. "Let me know if you find anything."
Ellen opened the map and her face fell. "It's here." She said, pointing to the tiny graphic of a helicopter circled in red ink. "I guess I wasn't as clever when I got these passes as I thought."
Duncan saw where she was pointing and made a hard left. "They have our every move figured out it seems."
Ellen felt for her sword and then the gun she'd concealed in her coat as Duncan brought the car around the last building separating them from the helopad on the map.
The area appeared to be completely abandoned. As the two of them cautiously stepped out of the car, there was absolute stillness all around. The only sounds were from the rest of the base in the distance.
"Be alert." Duncan reminded her as they moved forward. There were several helicopters parked on the pavement outside what must be a maintenance hanger, but they all appeared to be empty.
"We've got company." Duncan said as the sensation of another immortal hit him.
The words were hardly out of his mouth before the sound of an engine and rotary blades filled the silence. Turning quickly, Ellen and Duncan stared at the lone copter at the end of the row. The blades were turning, but no one was at the controls.
"I don't like the looks of this." Ellen commented as she tried to locate the source of the sensation. It appeared to be coming from behind the tinted windows of the maintenance hanger, but she couldn't be sure.
Walking carefully around the copter, Duncan froze as he looked up into the doorway. There, behind where the pilot and co-pilot should be, sat a very frightened Rayna. She had been bound and gagged, and seemed to be just as surprised to see MacLeod as he was to see her.
"Rayna?" What was Beth's sister doing in all this mess? MacLeod called out as he lunged toward the door. But before he could reach her, the copter began to rise. "What the . ?" It made no sense. How could a helicopter rise from the ground without a pilot?
Ellen heard Duncan and saw the young woman's face just before the vehicle rose. She wasn't at all like Duncan had described her, and what was that he called her?
"It's being controlled remotely." Duncan yelled to Ellen, pointing toward an antenna on the side of the copter. "They're going to crash it with her inside."
"Duncan look!" Ellen yelled through the rush of wind created by the propellers.
There, trailing behind the copter was a long, black line. Duncan realized that was what he had been intended to find. Whoever set this up intended for him to try and stop the copter from crashing by climbing into it while it was in the air.
Wasting no time he raced toward the line, jumping to reach it just before it's tail rose above his head.
Ellen screamed as she saw the helicopter begin to move from side to side, throwing a dangling MacLeod from one direction to another in an effort to cut him loose. "I've got to get to whoever is behind those controls." She decided, knowing that standing and watching as Duncan tried to make the climb would be of no help at all. Of course what she would do when she got to them she didn't know. She couldn't just shoot them because then the copter would crash. "Heck, it's going to crash anyway."
The front of the building was all windows, and there was no doubt she had already been seen. Ellen pulled her gun as she ran around the corner of the building, trying door after door until finally one opened.
"What am I doing?" she asked herself, knowing that her presence would not be a surprise.
Outside Duncan clung to the cable, inching his way higher and then slipping as the one holding the control slung him around like a rag doll. Rayna stared wide eyed at his efforts, knowing he was her only hope even as she tried in vain to free herself from the ropes that held her in place.
Rick Shafer laughed at the site of MacLeod dangling like a puppet from a single string. "Dance Highlander, dance." He said as he spun the vehicle right and then pulled a hard left. "Keep that altitude steady." He said to the man who was operating the elevation of the helicopter. "I want him to make it almost to the door before we bring this bird crashing down to earth."
The man laughed along with his employer, enjoying the way he could control something so big with such a small lever.
Ellen heard their voices and pushed her way into the make shift control room Shafer had created behind the front windows. She was surprised when it only contained 2 men, both holding radio controls. She'd expected more. "Maybe they thought all the doors were locked?" she wondered to herself as she tried to decide what to do. One man was mortal, but the other . well that was the problem.
"Woooops!" Shafer laughed as he watched Duncan almost lose his grip, ignoring the presence he felt from behind.
Ellen could stand it no more. "FREEZE!"
Neither man made a move to even look over their shoulder.
"I said freeze, or I'll blow your heads off." She repeated her request with more conviction.
"Oh I don't think you want to do that." Shafer said in a casual tone as he continued to play with the control in his hand. "You see, if I drop this control, or if my friend drops his, then the chopper will spin or plummet out of control and this lovely game with MacLeod will be over in a most unpleasant way for the young lady he is trying to reach."
Ellen mopped the dampness from her upper lip nervously as she watched and realized what he said was correct. It took both controls to maneuver the copter and it would take both to bring it down safely.
"Besides, if you would care to look over your shoulder, you will see that it is you who are in danger of losing your head." Shafer still did not even glance in her direction.
"Well would you look at that?" Shafer continued. "It looks like MacLeod might just make it after all."
Indeed, before Ellen felt her arms being grabbed from behind and the gun pried from her fingers, she saw Duncan had climbed so high that he was almost able to reach one of the runners. A foot more and he could lift himself inside.
Ellen struggled against the arms that were dragging her out of the room, but to no avail. The man who had her was much bigger. In almost no time he had pulled her to the back of the building and out the door.
"Let go of me" she gritted between her teeth as she tried to wrench one arm free so she could reach her sword.
Her moment came when the man reached to open the car door where he intended to shove her inside. As soon as he released one of her arms, Ellen withdrew her sword and jabbed it down through the muscle in his calf and into his foot. He released her, and began to scream in pain when from out of nowhere, a noiseless bullet slammed into his head and silenced him for good.
Ellen whirled around, ducking behind the car door and wondering if the next bullet would be meant for her. It was then she felt the presence of another immortal and her eyes turned to a figure stepping out from behind a shed on the edge of the parking lot. She stood, still shielded by the door, but with her sword raised as she recognized the one who had just interfered.
"You!" Ellen yelled at him. "I should have known. MacLeod was right."
"He usually is." Methos replied as he looked carefully to his left and right before dipping low to the ground and running across the open expanse. Ellen still held her sword up as a defense, even though she knew it would be of no use against the gun he carried.
"Would you put that thing down?" he asked in an irritated tone.
"What? And just let you take my head?" she spat back "Not bloody likely."
"I don't have time for this." He shoved past her toward the back of the building and looked inside. Looking back over his shoulder he saw she hadn't moved. "Are you going to help me help MacLeod or do you like the way he looks dangling from that blasted bird?"
Ellen's mouth dropped open. He wasn't here to stop her, he was here to help? This made no sense, but hearing the hoots and hollers from Shafer and his man inside, she could tell Duncan probably wouldn't last much longer.
"I'm coming." She said as she followed him to the door. "There's a girl inside the copter. Duncan thought it was his friend Amanda, but it's not. It's someone he knows though."
Methos couldn't stop to wonder who was in the chopper right now, although he guessed it was Claudia. They had to get it down in one piece if possible. "How many of them are there inside?" he asked Ellen.
"Just two, but I imagine there are more guarding outside." She replied.
"There were, three of them." Methos told her. "But they won't be interfering." From his expression Ellen knew he'd taken care of them in the same way he'd taken care of the man who had attacked her.
He started to move further inside, but Ellen stopped him. "Wait . one of them is immortal." She cautioned. "He'll sense us."
"He'll sense you maybe, but if a little trick I learned from a friend works . I'll be able to hide my presence within yours." Methos told her.
"Wait! There's something else. There are 2 controls. It takes 2 to keep the copter in the air." She warned.
That was a problem. Methos could tell the copter was being controlled remotely but he hadn't thought about 2 controls. This meant both of them had to be able to operate the controls once they'd disposed of the men operating them. He replaced the bullets he'd already used and nodded for Ellen to follow.
"Where are we going?" she whispered when he didn't go inside, but instead began to walk around to the other side of the building.
"The skylights." He said pointing to the roof. "The roof is covered with them, including a row across the front."
Ellen nodded when she realized what he had in mind. Methos led the way as they climbed on top of a delivery truck parked next to the building and then pulled themselves up onto the roof, being careful not to make any noise.
"They're going to sense your presence, so be ready. I'll shoot through your skylight first and then mine, but don't wait for me. You've got to get the drop on one of them and get that controller." He instructed, hoping that the courage he'd seen when she'd faced him in Chicago wouldn't fail them now.
Drawing her sword, Ellen crept easily toward the front of the building. Both she and Methos had to concentrate on the task beneath their feet, but both couldn't help but notice the struggle MacLeod was having as he tried desperately to reach the body of the copter.
"When he gets on that runner they're going to crash the copter." Ellen told Methos. Time was short because as she spoke, Duncan's hand grasped around the right runner and he began to pull himself up.
Shafer could feel Ellen's presence, but mistakenly thought she was behind him.
"Back again? My, my doesn't MacLeod run with a resourceful group of friends?" he spoke, but his words were wasted on the air. He didn't turn to look, so he had no way of knowing. In his arrogance he knew she'd never touch him. To do so would mean the end of this little exercise for MacLeod and she would be responsible.
What he couldn't sense because Methos had learned a trick about hiding his own presence inside that of another, was that Ellen not only wasn't inside the building . she wasn't alone.
Two shots sounded from overhead and before Shafer and his man could even react, Ellen and Methos came crashing through the shattered glass. Ellen landed directly on top of Shafer's partner, her sword taking the lead as it entered his chest and swept through his body, only hesitating the briefest of milliseconds as it glanced a rib.
Without giving his falling body a second thought, Ellen twisted her sword to make sure the task was complete and then withdrew it. Wrenching the control box from his hands, she hoped the video games she'd played at the pub would help her now as she tried to keep the copter in the air.
On the other side of the room, Methos task wasn't quite so easy. When he'd landed on Shafer, a piece of glass from the skylight sliced through his own upper arm, making it difficult to injure the man much less get the controls.
"Where in the hell did you come from?" Shafer complained as he wrestled with Methos for control of the gun and the remote.
"I knew you were no friend to MacLeod." Methos replied as he somehow managed to squeeze the trigger and plunge a bullet deep into Shafer's thigh. The flash of pain forced Shafer to drop the box, but he still was lucid enough to knock the gun from his Methos' hand before he could fire again.
As Shafer struggled to free himself from Methos' grasp, Methos heard Ellen scream. "Get the control! It's spinning."
Methos was forced to ignore Shafer as he dragged himself from the room, picked up the remote and struggled to right the copter's course. What he really wanted to do was to finish the man off or at least follow him to see where he was holding Joe and Claudia, but right now he had to concentrate on MacLeod and the copter. For all he knew it might be one of them MacLeod was trying to save.
"Hey Pierson! I'll be sure to give your regards to your lovely wife when I see her next." Shaffer couldn't resist taunting. "Is there anything else you'd like me to say?"
Methos gritted his teeth and forced himself to focus on the task as he watched MacLeod slip again. "You can tell her to forget she ever met me. I know that's what I'm trying to do." He muttered under his breath so low that only Ellen could hear.
"You might want to rethink that." Ellen said to him as Shafer disappeared out the back.
"Would you just shut up and try to control that spin while I see if I can give them a soft landing?" he shot back at her.
"Methos it's not what you think." Ellen replied, her eyes focused on the copter as she saw MacLeod manage to step up on the runner and disappear inside.
Methos cursed under his breath. MacLeod had given him up to another immortal. "Some thanks I get ."
It was then Ellen realized her slip. She'd called him by the name she'd promised MacLeod she would forget. "You'll find out soon enough." She thought, realizing she should do as he asked and shut up until MacLeod could tell him everything.
"Look out!" Methos yelled at her as the tail of the copter clipped a wire, sending sparks into the air.
"I'm trying . I'm trying . " she yelled back. "Just don't yell at me. I can't concentrate if you are going to yell."
Inside the copter, a very exhausted MacLeod used the knife in his belt to cut the ropes that held Rayna to the seat. He pulled off her gag and then held onto her when the copter took a sharp swing to the right.
"We're going to have to jump." MacLeod told her. "Just hold onto me and try to stay on your feet if you can . if you can't . then just roll with it."
"Are you nuts?" Rayna asked him.
"We've got to get out of here before this thing comes down with us inside." Duncan insisted.
The copter dropped in altitude at just that moment and Duncan didn't wait for her to argue or get up her nerve. He grabbed Rayna around the waist and threw both of them outside the door.
They landed with a hard thud on the ground, his body cushioning hers as she landed on top of him before they rolled and she found herself pinned beneath.
An instant later the copter exploded above them, raining fire and debris all around. MacLeod somehow managed to cover Rayna, but that meant he took several shards of hot metal in the back. A part of the propeller sliced through her leg, the pain excruciating. The last thing she remembered was seeing Duncan's eyes close, her mind registering that he was dead just before Rayna fell into unconsciousness.
Inside Methos and Ellen looked from the fireball in the air to one another. They had control of the copter, there was no reason it should have exploded like that . no reason that is except that Shafer had been carrying a third control, one that would guarantee MacLeod's mission was not a success.
Duncan watched as the clock on the dash of the car clicked to 1:45pm.
"It's time." He said, turning to Ellen. "I suppose asking you to wait here would be a waste of breath?"
"You suppose right." She replied.
Duncan sighed and drove the car up to the check point at the gate.
"Here's a map and badges. Make sure you wear these at all times." The guard said as Duncan passed everything to Ellen and proceeded to drive forward.
"I should have come in here half an hour ago." He commented. "This place is so big, we'll never find her in time."
Ellen looked over the map. "It stands to reason whatever is going to happen won't be in any of the areas with a lot of personnel. I'm looking to see if I can pick anything up from the map."
Duncan agreed with her. Over the past decade the activities on the base had been cut substantially. It stood to reason that areas wouldn't still be seeing regular use. "Let me know if you find anything."
Ellen opened the map and her face fell. "It's here." She said, pointing to the tiny graphic of a helicopter circled in red ink. "I guess I wasn't as clever when I got these passes as I thought."
Duncan saw where she was pointing and made a hard left. "They have our every move figured out it seems."
Ellen felt for her sword and then the gun she'd concealed in her coat as Duncan brought the car around the last building separating them from the helopad on the map.
The area appeared to be completely abandoned. As the two of them cautiously stepped out of the car, there was absolute stillness all around. The only sounds were from the rest of the base in the distance.
"Be alert." Duncan reminded her as they moved forward. There were several helicopters parked on the pavement outside what must be a maintenance hanger, but they all appeared to be empty.
"We've got company." Duncan said as the sensation of another immortal hit him.
The words were hardly out of his mouth before the sound of an engine and rotary blades filled the silence. Turning quickly, Ellen and Duncan stared at the lone copter at the end of the row. The blades were turning, but no one was at the controls.
"I don't like the looks of this." Ellen commented as she tried to locate the source of the sensation. It appeared to be coming from behind the tinted windows of the maintenance hanger, but she couldn't be sure.
Walking carefully around the copter, Duncan froze as he looked up into the doorway. There, behind where the pilot and co-pilot should be, sat a very frightened Rayna. She had been bound and gagged, and seemed to be just as surprised to see MacLeod as he was to see her.
"Rayna?" What was Beth's sister doing in all this mess? MacLeod called out as he lunged toward the door. But before he could reach her, the copter began to rise. "What the . ?" It made no sense. How could a helicopter rise from the ground without a pilot?
Ellen heard Duncan and saw the young woman's face just before the vehicle rose. She wasn't at all like Duncan had described her, and what was that he called her?
"It's being controlled remotely." Duncan yelled to Ellen, pointing toward an antenna on the side of the copter. "They're going to crash it with her inside."
"Duncan look!" Ellen yelled through the rush of wind created by the propellers.
There, trailing behind the copter was a long, black line. Duncan realized that was what he had been intended to find. Whoever set this up intended for him to try and stop the copter from crashing by climbing into it while it was in the air.
Wasting no time he raced toward the line, jumping to reach it just before it's tail rose above his head.
Ellen screamed as she saw the helicopter begin to move from side to side, throwing a dangling MacLeod from one direction to another in an effort to cut him loose. "I've got to get to whoever is behind those controls." She decided, knowing that standing and watching as Duncan tried to make the climb would be of no help at all. Of course what she would do when she got to them she didn't know. She couldn't just shoot them because then the copter would crash. "Heck, it's going to crash anyway."
The front of the building was all windows, and there was no doubt she had already been seen. Ellen pulled her gun as she ran around the corner of the building, trying door after door until finally one opened.
"What am I doing?" she asked herself, knowing that her presence would not be a surprise.
Outside Duncan clung to the cable, inching his way higher and then slipping as the one holding the control slung him around like a rag doll. Rayna stared wide eyed at his efforts, knowing he was her only hope even as she tried in vain to free herself from the ropes that held her in place.
Rick Shafer laughed at the site of MacLeod dangling like a puppet from a single string. "Dance Highlander, dance." He said as he spun the vehicle right and then pulled a hard left. "Keep that altitude steady." He said to the man who was operating the elevation of the helicopter. "I want him to make it almost to the door before we bring this bird crashing down to earth."
The man laughed along with his employer, enjoying the way he could control something so big with such a small lever.
Ellen heard their voices and pushed her way into the make shift control room Shafer had created behind the front windows. She was surprised when it only contained 2 men, both holding radio controls. She'd expected more. "Maybe they thought all the doors were locked?" she wondered to herself as she tried to decide what to do. One man was mortal, but the other . well that was the problem.
"Woooops!" Shafer laughed as he watched Duncan almost lose his grip, ignoring the presence he felt from behind.
Ellen could stand it no more. "FREEZE!"
Neither man made a move to even look over their shoulder.
"I said freeze, or I'll blow your heads off." She repeated her request with more conviction.
"Oh I don't think you want to do that." Shafer said in a casual tone as he continued to play with the control in his hand. "You see, if I drop this control, or if my friend drops his, then the chopper will spin or plummet out of control and this lovely game with MacLeod will be over in a most unpleasant way for the young lady he is trying to reach."
Ellen mopped the dampness from her upper lip nervously as she watched and realized what he said was correct. It took both controls to maneuver the copter and it would take both to bring it down safely.
"Besides, if you would care to look over your shoulder, you will see that it is you who are in danger of losing your head." Shafer still did not even glance in her direction.
"Well would you look at that?" Shafer continued. "It looks like MacLeod might just make it after all."
Indeed, before Ellen felt her arms being grabbed from behind and the gun pried from her fingers, she saw Duncan had climbed so high that he was almost able to reach one of the runners. A foot more and he could lift himself inside.
Ellen struggled against the arms that were dragging her out of the room, but to no avail. The man who had her was much bigger. In almost no time he had pulled her to the back of the building and out the door.
"Let go of me" she gritted between her teeth as she tried to wrench one arm free so she could reach her sword.
Her moment came when the man reached to open the car door where he intended to shove her inside. As soon as he released one of her arms, Ellen withdrew her sword and jabbed it down through the muscle in his calf and into his foot. He released her, and began to scream in pain when from out of nowhere, a noiseless bullet slammed into his head and silenced him for good.
Ellen whirled around, ducking behind the car door and wondering if the next bullet would be meant for her. It was then she felt the presence of another immortal and her eyes turned to a figure stepping out from behind a shed on the edge of the parking lot. She stood, still shielded by the door, but with her sword raised as she recognized the one who had just interfered.
"You!" Ellen yelled at him. "I should have known. MacLeod was right."
"He usually is." Methos replied as he looked carefully to his left and right before dipping low to the ground and running across the open expanse. Ellen still held her sword up as a defense, even though she knew it would be of no use against the gun he carried.
"Would you put that thing down?" he asked in an irritated tone.
"What? And just let you take my head?" she spat back "Not bloody likely."
"I don't have time for this." He shoved past her toward the back of the building and looked inside. Looking back over his shoulder he saw she hadn't moved. "Are you going to help me help MacLeod or do you like the way he looks dangling from that blasted bird?"
Ellen's mouth dropped open. He wasn't here to stop her, he was here to help? This made no sense, but hearing the hoots and hollers from Shafer and his man inside, she could tell Duncan probably wouldn't last much longer.
"I'm coming." She said as she followed him to the door. "There's a girl inside the copter. Duncan thought it was his friend Amanda, but it's not. It's someone he knows though."
Methos couldn't stop to wonder who was in the chopper right now, although he guessed it was Claudia. They had to get it down in one piece if possible. "How many of them are there inside?" he asked Ellen.
"Just two, but I imagine there are more guarding outside." She replied.
"There were, three of them." Methos told her. "But they won't be interfering." From his expression Ellen knew he'd taken care of them in the same way he'd taken care of the man who had attacked her.
He started to move further inside, but Ellen stopped him. "Wait . one of them is immortal." She cautioned. "He'll sense us."
"He'll sense you maybe, but if a little trick I learned from a friend works . I'll be able to hide my presence within yours." Methos told her.
"Wait! There's something else. There are 2 controls. It takes 2 to keep the copter in the air." She warned.
That was a problem. Methos could tell the copter was being controlled remotely but he hadn't thought about 2 controls. This meant both of them had to be able to operate the controls once they'd disposed of the men operating them. He replaced the bullets he'd already used and nodded for Ellen to follow.
"Where are we going?" she whispered when he didn't go inside, but instead began to walk around to the other side of the building.
"The skylights." He said pointing to the roof. "The roof is covered with them, including a row across the front."
Ellen nodded when she realized what he had in mind. Methos led the way as they climbed on top of a delivery truck parked next to the building and then pulled themselves up onto the roof, being careful not to make any noise.
"They're going to sense your presence, so be ready. I'll shoot through your skylight first and then mine, but don't wait for me. You've got to get the drop on one of them and get that controller." He instructed, hoping that the courage he'd seen when she'd faced him in Chicago wouldn't fail them now.
Drawing her sword, Ellen crept easily toward the front of the building. Both she and Methos had to concentrate on the task beneath their feet, but both couldn't help but notice the struggle MacLeod was having as he tried desperately to reach the body of the copter.
"When he gets on that runner they're going to crash the copter." Ellen told Methos. Time was short because as she spoke, Duncan's hand grasped around the right runner and he began to pull himself up.
Shafer could feel Ellen's presence, but mistakenly thought she was behind him.
"Back again? My, my doesn't MacLeod run with a resourceful group of friends?" he spoke, but his words were wasted on the air. He didn't turn to look, so he had no way of knowing. In his arrogance he knew she'd never touch him. To do so would mean the end of this little exercise for MacLeod and she would be responsible.
What he couldn't sense because Methos had learned a trick about hiding his own presence inside that of another, was that Ellen not only wasn't inside the building . she wasn't alone.
Two shots sounded from overhead and before Shafer and his man could even react, Ellen and Methos came crashing through the shattered glass. Ellen landed directly on top of Shafer's partner, her sword taking the lead as it entered his chest and swept through his body, only hesitating the briefest of milliseconds as it glanced a rib.
Without giving his falling body a second thought, Ellen twisted her sword to make sure the task was complete and then withdrew it. Wrenching the control box from his hands, she hoped the video games she'd played at the pub would help her now as she tried to keep the copter in the air.
On the other side of the room, Methos task wasn't quite so easy. When he'd landed on Shafer, a piece of glass from the skylight sliced through his own upper arm, making it difficult to injure the man much less get the controls.
"Where in the hell did you come from?" Shafer complained as he wrestled with Methos for control of the gun and the remote.
"I knew you were no friend to MacLeod." Methos replied as he somehow managed to squeeze the trigger and plunge a bullet deep into Shafer's thigh. The flash of pain forced Shafer to drop the box, but he still was lucid enough to knock the gun from his Methos' hand before he could fire again.
As Shafer struggled to free himself from Methos' grasp, Methos heard Ellen scream. "Get the control! It's spinning."
Methos was forced to ignore Shafer as he dragged himself from the room, picked up the remote and struggled to right the copter's course. What he really wanted to do was to finish the man off or at least follow him to see where he was holding Joe and Claudia, but right now he had to concentrate on MacLeod and the copter. For all he knew it might be one of them MacLeod was trying to save.
"Hey Pierson! I'll be sure to give your regards to your lovely wife when I see her next." Shaffer couldn't resist taunting. "Is there anything else you'd like me to say?"
Methos gritted his teeth and forced himself to focus on the task as he watched MacLeod slip again. "You can tell her to forget she ever met me. I know that's what I'm trying to do." He muttered under his breath so low that only Ellen could hear.
"You might want to rethink that." Ellen said to him as Shafer disappeared out the back.
"Would you just shut up and try to control that spin while I see if I can give them a soft landing?" he shot back at her.
"Methos it's not what you think." Ellen replied, her eyes focused on the copter as she saw MacLeod manage to step up on the runner and disappear inside.
Methos cursed under his breath. MacLeod had given him up to another immortal. "Some thanks I get ."
It was then Ellen realized her slip. She'd called him by the name she'd promised MacLeod she would forget. "You'll find out soon enough." She thought, realizing she should do as he asked and shut up until MacLeod could tell him everything.
"Look out!" Methos yelled at her as the tail of the copter clipped a wire, sending sparks into the air.
"I'm trying . I'm trying . " she yelled back. "Just don't yell at me. I can't concentrate if you are going to yell."
Inside the copter, a very exhausted MacLeod used the knife in his belt to cut the ropes that held Rayna to the seat. He pulled off her gag and then held onto her when the copter took a sharp swing to the right.
"We're going to have to jump." MacLeod told her. "Just hold onto me and try to stay on your feet if you can . if you can't . then just roll with it."
"Are you nuts?" Rayna asked him.
"We've got to get out of here before this thing comes down with us inside." Duncan insisted.
The copter dropped in altitude at just that moment and Duncan didn't wait for her to argue or get up her nerve. He grabbed Rayna around the waist and threw both of them outside the door.
They landed with a hard thud on the ground, his body cushioning hers as she landed on top of him before they rolled and she found herself pinned beneath.
An instant later the copter exploded above them, raining fire and debris all around. MacLeod somehow managed to cover Rayna, but that meant he took several shards of hot metal in the back. A part of the propeller sliced through her leg, the pain excruciating. The last thing she remembered was seeing Duncan's eyes close, her mind registering that he was dead just before Rayna fell into unconsciousness.
Inside Methos and Ellen looked from the fireball in the air to one another. They had control of the copter, there was no reason it should have exploded like that . no reason that is except that Shafer had been carrying a third control, one that would guarantee MacLeod's mission was not a success.