What are you doing?

Swiftly taping the first needle in place, Bane inserted the other end of the tube into the arm of the corpse. Dark venous blood began to flow through it toward the dead man. Confused and horrified, Pavel watched aghast as Bane performed compressions upon the dead man’s chest, drawing the blood into the lifeless body.

The scientist felt sick to his stomach.

Less than a pint later, the obscene transfusion was over. Bane withdrew the needle from Pavel’s arm and gestured for him to apply pressure to the wound to keep it from bleeding out.

Meanwhile, an armed mercenary plucked the hoods from his comrades’ heads, then took hold of the first captive and hooked him to a cable. He hung on tightly as it pulled them both up through the cabin toward freedom. Within moments, they had disappeared from sight.

So there is a way out, Pavel realized. Maybe there was still hope for him—if Bane didn’t kill him first. I need to get off this plane before it crashes!

The second prisoner, no longer bound, started to clip himself to a cable.

Bane shook his head.

“Friend,” he said gently. “They expect one of us in the wreckage.”

The other man nodded in understanding. Without a word of protest, he unhooked himself from the life-saving cable. He clambered down toward Bane and clasped his leader’s arm. His eyes glowed with the fervor of a true believer.

“Have we started the fire?” the man asked.

Bane squeezed his arm in return.

“The fire rises.”

Evidently that was good enough, for the man handed Bane the line. He clipped it around Pavel, checking to make sure it was secure, and then produced a knife that he must have taken from one of his men— or perhaps one of the murdered American soldiers. Pavel gulped at the sight of the gleaming steel blade, imagining it slicing across his throat, but Bane merely slashed through Pavel’s seat belt, cutting him loose.

Gravity seized Pavel as he began to fall forward at last. He flailed in panic, searching for something to grab onto before he plunged to the bottom of the cabin.

Help me! he thought. I’m falling…!

They slipped free of the seats, hanging in the chaos, several feet above the cockpit doors and the bodies heaped there. Smoke and blood filled the cabin. Pavel wondered if the pilot was still vainly trying to regain control of the wingless aircraft. Loose bits of ash and debris blew against his face. His ears still rang from the explosion. His legs dangled in the air.

Bane took out a small hand-held detonator, and looked him in the eyes.

“Calm, doctor. Now is not the time for fear. That comes later.”

He pressed the firing button. Pavel couldn’t hear the click over the roar of the wind, but he definitely heard the explosions that released the CIA plane from the grapples. All at once, the entire cabin dropped away, leaving them hanging thousands of feet above the mountains. The man who had sacrificed his life fell with what was left of the plane, along with the pilots and the dead bodies.