Black Hawk Day Rewind: An action packed spy thriller (Mark Savannah Espionage Series Book 1) (19 page)

72

Anaïs knew she was running low on gas and had made a call to the Dallas Air-Park for authorization to land, within seven minutes they would be on the ground. She wasn’t concerned about the weather situation; she had logged enough flight hours to make a commercial pilot green with envy. She was worried about the health of the passengers: in their state, any delay could cause them additional problems.

The Twin Otter began to drift heavily sideways pushed by the wind; Anaïs’ eyes moved quickly between the anemometer and the turn and bank indicator to control the balanced turn and attitude; her body movements and the contractions of her muscles became faster, she increased the pressure on the pedals to coordinate the rudder.

Anaïs was working on the stick and rudder continuously to handle the inclination of the wings and to maintain attitude and direction because of the lateral gusts of wind that were putting greater pressure on one side of the aircraft.

Everything seemed to be happening very fast, but Skylinep92 had to make time slow down if she wanted to keep calm and handle the situation with intelligence and coolness.

Skylinep92 noticed that her rate of descent was too fast so she pushed the power levers making the engines roar and propellers speed up; she stabilized her descent, reaching the final approach with flaps at 20° in order to maintain aileron effectiveness, a gust from the left slammed against the wing and the fuselage, forcing the agent to fight with her foot and the stick, then finally the identification lights of the threshold flashed.

Anaïs felt like a boxer in a violent full contact match, the gusts got stronger, leaving the male nurse definitely awake and breathless. Now Anaïs could read the number 16, she was clear-headed and impassive. It began to hail.

A final flurry forced her to quickly correct and give a bit of throttle and opposite rudder to avoid drifting from the center of the runway. Anaïs held the Otter on central lines, as airspeed decreased she increased the control on the upwind wing and on the opposite rudder, and finally the flare application got the left wheel to touch down, followed by the right. She immediately applied full reverse thrust to decelerate and leave the aircraft weight to settle on the wheels.

Skylinep92 relaxed and let time resume its normal speed. She was able to taxi to the hangar and park the plane as the wind was getting stronger and the hail, accompanied by thunder and lightning, lashed the ground with an unusual violence on account of the size of the hailstones.

"If you need to go to the bathroom, I'll help you get off," she said to the male nurse, whose face was still taut and almost green as a result of the turbulence.

"Thank you, I’d love to get off, I got a little air sick there. I just need a minute to go to the toilet. The patients are stable and they don’t need any special care. I'll be right back, just call me on the protected line if you need anything. I really got scared, I’ll admit it. You were really great!"

"Take it slow, nothing will happen to them."

The male nurse got slowly down from the plane, regained his balance, crossed the parking lot and headed to the bar of the airport; he was aware of being on a mission and that he should speak as little as possible and mind his own business, even at the risk of being rude.

When he came back on board ten minutes later, completely soaked, he had regained a healthy and relaxed glow.

"I had a quick snack and drank some coffee, I feel better now. How long do you think we need to wait? How are the patients?"

"I think we can take off again in about twenty minutes,” replied Anaïs. “I checked the SIGMET and the forecasts, we’ll find a little residual turbulence, but not like before. As for the patients, their parameters are exactly the same and they don't show any signs of waking. They’re all yours. Oh look! The rain is letting up; I'll check the wings and the landing gear."

"Why? Have they been damaged?" asked the nurse, a little dismayed.

"Just routine checks. And since we briefly got caught in that hail storm, it’s best to check that nothing is damaged. I also want to drink a coffee. I'll be quick, don’t worry."

Anaïs got off the plane and began to carefully inspect the wings, the fuselage, rudder, elevators, propellers and then she looked over the landing gear: fortunately she saw no damage.

73

"Damn it! The pilot of the turboprop that made that landing under the storm was a woman! Congratulations to her!" said the bartender looking out and seeing Anaïs inspect the wings of the Twin Otter.

Mark had also witnessed the landing and when he heard that it was a woman, he picked up his binoculars and stood up to look through the windows suddenly interrupting the game of chess. Even David stopped concentrating on the board and followed his gaze curiously.

When Mark brought the lenses into focus, he barely managed to hold back an expression of surprise: he recognized Anaïs Degann. He wondered who she was carrying and for what purpose.

"Do you happen to know who that pilot is? She was, as you say, truly remarkable," he turned and called to the bartender.

"One of her passengers came into the bar, a quiet kind of a guy, he didn’t say anything. No, I don’t know her, not from around here. I only noticed when the guy paid the bill that he had a company badge, a name like Biotech..."

"Biosketch Technologies by chance?"

"I think so, you know them?"

"It's a government biotechnology research company."

"Ah!" said the bartender who had now lost any interest in the issue.

"Why are you making that face? Do you know her?" David asked intrigued.

"No, but I wonder who she’s carrying at the moment. Usually, you don’t travel in two in a Twin Otter and, if I am not wrong, aren't those patients from the "Transtem 1.1 project?"

"Why do you care about them?"

"Because we’re talking about Biosketch Technologies Inc., which comes as a big surprise to me," Mark said, quietly.

"What shall we do?" asked David, who wasn’t at all interested in Biosketch Technologies Inc. “It’s stopped raining."

"Do you want to fly again?"

"I would love to!"

"There is still some turbulence, we’ll wait half an hour then we’ll do another circuit."

"Okay, we can finish our chess game, too," Marshall concluded.

As Mark sat down to resume the game, he realized that Anaïs Degann was heading toward them: he had to hide but where…certainly not in the bathroom since she might go right there.

He looked around and decided to go out on the balcony; he had no choice if he didn’t want to arouse David’s suspicions.

"I’m going out on the balcony for a moment to check the weather situation... no cheating!"

Mark opened the door onto the balcony and followed the path to the terrace from which he could peek inside carefully without being seen.

Soon afterwards, Anaïs Degann entered the bar and asked for the toilet. When she returned, she ordered a coffee and sat down at a table to relax before leaving.

"Congratulations, you made a superb landing!" the bartender smiled affably.

"Thanks," she said muffling her tone.

"Are you a professional pilot?"

"Yes, for a company."

Anaïs, ignoring the barman and his obvious interest in her, put sugar in her coffee and leaned back in her chair. The bartender nodded in assent and then went back to his work.

Mark watched Anaïs carefully from the balcony, he still felt that nagging sense of familiarity that he’d felt when he met her the first time in New York; and he realized, as if that were not enough, that he was happy to see that she was well and that he had not left any scars on her face.

He thought that she was exceptionally beautiful and interesting, she had to have years of flying behind her to be able to land safely during a storm with such strong lateral wind gusts and the hail that had left her no room for error.

For a moment, he found himself thinking that he’d really have liked to take her out to dinner if only their lives were different. He barely had the time to imagine a quiet candlelight dinner talking about aircraft, when he remembered she was trying to kill him and she wouldn’t give up easily.

Mark moved slowly and positioned himself in order to observe the twin-engine with his binoculars: he saw three people on stretchers and a male nurse inside the aircraft. He imagined they were patients of the "Transtem 1.1" project since the bartender had noticed the Biosketch Technologies Inc. badge.

After ten minutes the girl started to move quickly. Mark watched as Anaïs Degann got up, took her empty cup of coffee to the counter, paid the bill, said goodbye to the bartender, and quickly returned to the Twin Otter.

When he saw the turboprop aircraft taxiing on the runway, Mark Savannah came back into the room to join Marshall again.

"I would say that if you feel like it, we can go for another ride," he said to David.

"I’m ready!"

They headed back to the hangar to board the Savage. Mark began the routine checks and when he took off, he decided it was best to avoid following the exact same route as the Twin Otter, and immediately turned North-East.

74

"Are you tired? It must’ve been a tiring journey," Jago C. Green asked Anaïs, as she came down from the Twin Otter and he coordinated the transfer operations of the sedated patients.

"Hello Green, not particularly, but I still have that intercostal pain, that bastard Savannah, I hope I find him soon. Do you have any news about him?"

"Yes, my dear, Savannah was reported seen in a recording while he was leaving a station. You sure are a lucky bastard! And you have a nice ass, I've always thought that..."

"Mind your own business and your own fat butt. Jago... so where is Savannah?"

"I was paying you a compliment but never mind…Arkansas, Little Rock, on the Texas Eagle route, but when he came out of the station, we lost track of him; at which point I guess he either stopped in town to visit someone, or went on with some other means of transport, not a cab, because no taxi-driver remembers him… And no hotel has registered any of his aliases; there’s been no positive response from the photo we showed the hotels, so it is likely that he continued the journey."

"What about buses?"

"All of them headed South, within two hours of his sighting."

"Anyway, he wouldn’t be such an idiot as to get off the train directly at his destination; he knows very well that there are cameras in airports and stations," said Anaïs.

"What do you plan on doing?"

"I want to use our informants to get news from the states bordering Arkansas and then look for other clues going back to the period he was an intelligence agent. I see no other solution at the moment. Can you retrieve the names of his last team?"

"Secret, Anaïs, and the British agency has no intention of reopening a discussion about Savannah..."

"Sorry but haven’t they burned him? Don’t they want to terminate him?"

"They let us wash their dirty laundry in order to avoid a diplomatic incident because it involves Reed’s son. I remind you that Richard Reed worked for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. In addition, we owe them a favor..."

"I’ll ask the Colonel then, without additional sources we’re not going anywhere, I'm afraid."

"He surely will be able to help, and we’ll move accordingly. Explain the issue to him and get his instructions," replied Green, who had no intention of taking direct responsibility for arranging a meeting for her with Jenkins, who he didn’t trust at all.

Anaïs Degann did have to kill Savannah, but she should not have the slightest clue about Richard Reed’s parallel activities; and if someone did inadvertently provide information about that issue, he didn’t want to be involved or responsible.

75

"Anaïs! I'm glad to see you back in such good shape. I heard you had a pretty tough nut to crack during the flight and as usual you were great," said Reed, who was just passing down the hallway and had stuck his head into Jago C. Green’s office.

"Colonel Reed, nice to see you. How are you? I was just coming to talk to you…when do you have ten minutes for me?"

"Come along now, I’ll offer you a good cup of coffee in my office. Should Green come with us?" said the Colonel, looking into Jago eyes.

"Of course, we have to talk about how to go on with the mission," said Skylinep92.

"Jago? Do you have time for a coffee now?"

"I'm sorry, Colonel, I’m really very sorry, but I have to follow the operations for the preparation of the transplants and carry out the cyclical quality checks. Can you do without me?" Green replied slyly. In fact, he had no intention of attending the meeting in order to avoid any kind of responsibility.

"Sure, SkylineP92 will update you later."

The Colonel and Anaïs went out together and headed for Walton I. Reed’s office.

After having drunk her coffee, Anaïs began to speak.

"As you know, Savannah headed to Little Rock and now we're going to search for possible clues along the bus routes, but I think we need to search for clues in his past and more specifically meet the agents who worked with him on missions. Who can I contact in your opinion, Colonel?"

"Anaïs, unfortunately, the British agency declined to provide us with the names of the agents who worked with him on the "Uday who runs fast" operation and Jenkins, a CIA agent, has already testified against Savannah, as you have read in the dossier that Jago gave you, revealing much of the French mission. Personally, I don’t have access to the specific file on Afghanistan, the country where he tracked down the terrorist; it's a secret dossier of the highest level due to the diplomatic implications of the four involved countries: the UK, USA, Pakistan and Afghanistan," said Reed, lying. In fact, he had read the report, and he considered the contents dangerous due to the details it contained.

"So, what do you recommend we do? If I can’t get things moving, we risk losing time and maybe increase the advantage he has over us. Maybe Jenkins can give me some ideas, they may be details of little interest to the investigation but useful for us."

"Forget Jenkins, he’s a waste of time, he has a limited brain."

"But if all the information is top secret and you can’t get it without hurting the susceptibility of the different parties involved, and even Jenkins cannot be disturbed, there is only the current option, which doesn’t include any shortcuts but only several weak leads to follow," replied a very puzzled Anaïs, who had noticed a certain nervousness on the part of the Colonel who had shown, openly, to be reticent to any attempt to sift through Savannah’s past.

"You're right," said Reed, modifying his attitude. "Maybe Samuel Q. Jenkins remembers a particular conversation or some interesting details. You can go and talk to him after you’ve taken your passengers back to Oklahoma. You might as well give it a try."

"When is the return flight?" asked Anaïs.

"Tomorrow night, you’ll take them back with a doctor and a male nurse," said Reed picking up the phone. "Hello Jago? Please check if Samuel Q. Jenkins is in on an operative mission, thank you. Call me back immediately."

Jago C. Green, after a few minutes, called Reed back on his cell phone.

"All right, yes, thank you. Make an appointment with him for Anaïs in the afternoon the day after tomorrow, and organize courtesy transportation for her to Langley, thank you."

"Anaïs, Jago will organize a meeting with Samuel Q. Jenkins for you and the return trip as well. Let's hope we’re not wasting more time." Reed said, seriously.

"Well, thank you. That evening I'll get together with Green to evaluate the status of the situation. I’ll update you when I get back, sir."

"See you soon, Skylinep92."

As soon as Anaïs had left his office, Walton I. Reed called Samuel Q. Jenkins on a secure line.

"Jenkins, it’s Reed. Jago will call you to schedule an appointment with Anaïs Degann, one of my field agents. She’ll ask you some questions about Mark Savannah. You will confirm the official version of events and won’t say anything else about him. Agreed? Great, come by my office when you want.

“By the way,” Reeds voice became suddenly cold, “stop using the coke, otherwise you might just get your fingers burnt. You have it under control? Sure, just remember I am the one who lets you keep up your standard of living and allows you to work.

“And don’t forget that in four days we have to start the joint monitoring with Grigoriy. You’ll have to make some day trips to Oklahoma now and then. Call me back after you speak with Anaïs, I want to know word for word what she asks you. It’s important. Perfect, I'm counting on you."

Walton I. Reed knew Skylinep92 very well. The questions that she asked Jenkins would reveal if she had any suspicions that might lead her to discovering the darker side of his son Richard Reed.