Crashers (44 page)

Lucas and O'Meara stepped carefully up to the holes they'd blasted in the outer walls. A stream of water gurgled up from a broken pipe in the bathroom. Dust obscured their vision.

In the front office, Kelly stepped over the manager's body, the V-10 leveled in front of him. He peered into the apartment, his throat tightening as he inhaled dust. He slipped halfway into the door, reached for the light switch.

The light of one unbroken bulb blinked on. Clint Black began warbling, midsong, from the radio at his left. At his feet sat the lidless blender, ratcheted up to its highest setting, plugged into the same socket as the radio. It
kicked on, shooting up a geyser of coffee and pepper and salt. The mixture burned his skin, injected itself into his mouth and nose, blinded him.

Kelly bellowed, stunned by the blistering concoction.

 

Daria kept her head down until the radio and the blender came to life, followed by a cry of shock. She'd established the angle before the shooting started, knew where the door was relative to her hiding spot. She rose, one knee in the ice cream, and fired twice.

Feargal Kelly screamed.

 

Lucas Bell peered through a hole in the south wall, saw the light of the dim bulb go on, saw Kelly hit twice in the chest. From his angle, he couldn't see Daria's muzzle flash.

He ducked back, checked his watch. “Damn,” he swore softly, holstered his Glock and circled the building, finding O'Meara peering through another hole. “Come on,” he said. “They'll be overhead in no time.”

“Fuck you,” O'Meara shouted. “Kelly! Kelly!”

“He's dead, man. C'mon.”

O'Meara stood his ground, an almost feral rage darkening his face. Lucas touched his shoulder and O'Meara yanked his arm back, teeth bared. “Fuck you. She's mine.”

“Is she your enemy, or the delegates on that jet?” Lucas asked.

“She's my enemy!”

“Good. Fine. Here's a compromise.”

Lucas marched to the cop car and popped the trunk. He found what he'd expected: a red plastic container with a gallon of gasoline, plus flares. He marched back to the devastated apartment and said, “Cover me,” as he passed O'Meara.

He opened the container and set it on the floor of the front office, tipping it over. Gas began glugging out. He took the safety cap off a flare, lit it, and tossed it deep into the apartment. He launched four more, their sputtering flames flickering in the darkness. He lighted the last one and tossed it into the gallon of gasoline, backpedaling fast before it caught.

The front office went up like dry hay, the fire gusting quickly to the apartment beyond and the other flares.

Lucas said. “Done. Now come on.”

TOMMY SAID, “I'VE GOT an idea. We catch up to the Albion Air flight, then fly directly beneath them, covering their Gamelan receiver thingamabob.”

Isaiah said, “They're heading west, Tommy. We're flying east.”

A beat, then Tommy said, “Oh.”

Ray was still staring at his cell phone. He said, “Did you get Silverman's cell number?”

Tommy rummaged through his shirt pockets and pants pockets, came away with five ripped-up pieces of envelopes or magazine edges. It was his personal filing system. “Um . . . yeah. Here it is.”

He handed it over. Ray punched the numbers into his cell phone.

“The customer you are trying to call is out of range,” a recorded voice said. “Please try again.”

Ray hung up, hit Redial. “The custome—”

He hit it again. “The cus—”

Kiki said, “What's the range of a cell phone?”

“It depends on the power of the cell tower,” Isaiah said. “It could be hundreds of miles.”

“The custo—”
Click.

Captain David Singh lined up Albion Air Flight 326 directly between China Lake and the marine weapons center, his four engines purring like contented lions, holding a cruising speed of 900 kilometers per hour; about 560 mph. Behind him, 838 passengers—including Representative Dan Riordan, Republican from California, and the delegates from Northern Ireland—waited patiently.

David Singh had been assigned as captain even before the massive airliner had been assembled at the sprawling, fifty-hectare Jean-Luc Lagardère facility. He'd overseen the assemblage of the central fuselage by the team from Alenia Aeronautica. Had watched the crews from Eurocopter install the three cargo doors and sixteen passenger doors. Had watched the stress testing of the wing-surface composites, courtesy of Hexcel.

He'd even run the initial tests of the state-of-the-art Gamelan flight data recorder.

He'd even blogged and Twittered about it. For a guy in his fifties, David Singh was proud of his social-media skills.

Because he'd been assigned even before the Airbus was built, Singh had unlimited faith in his bird.

 

“The customer you a—”
Click.
“The cust—”
Click.
“The custom—”
Click.

Tommy said, “That's a long shot, Ray. It's a big fucking state.”

Ray didn't even look up. “The customer you—”
Click.

“Let him try,” Kiki said. “I can't think of anything better.”

“The cus—”
Click.

Tommy rested a hand on her shoulder and she laced her fingers in his. She reached up and back, tousling his hair.

“The custo—”
Click.
“The c—”
Click.
“Hi! This is Dennis! I can't come to the phone now—”

“Got him,” Ray said. “We're within range of the same cell tower as Silverman.”

 

Dennis Silverman yelped when his cell thrummed near his kidney. He yanked it off his belt, scanned the LED. One missed call.

He turned, wondering where his cohorts were. It was the first time
he'd noticed the column of black smoke rolling out of the hotel, a half mile distant.

 

Daria realized that remaining holed up in the manager's apartment had pretty much run its course, now that they'd set it on fire. A fire that was spreading quickly, licking the popcorn ceiling and snaking up the curtains in the living room.

The smoke was building. With her broken rib, Daria didn't especially want to do much coughing, so she hunkered low, her head not much higher than her knees, and scampered out of the kitchen and across the living room. She expected the men to be waiting at the holes along the walls, and to fire at her as soon as she became visible. But no shots were fired and she made it all the way to the bedroom and the bathroom.

The shotguns hadn't just shattered the window in the bathroom, they had knocked the window frame out of the wall. A geyser of water splashed up from an exposed pipe. Daria aimed out the hole in the wall, squinting into the sunlight. No one was visible. A fire was the perfect way to drive her out of her hiding spot, but she didn't see any options. She leaned out of the hole in the wall where the window had been, sighting down her barrel to the left, then snapping her head back inside. No one had been waiting to the left. She did the same to the right, surprised to see that no one was there, either.

She heard the Jeep's engine roar to life, gravel slapping against the wall of the motel.

They'd abandoned her to go after their real quarry, she realized.

Daria dipped her head and shoulders into the geyser of water, relishing the cold for a moment, then eased herself out of the hole and onto the hard ground, just as smoke began filling the bathroom.

 

Kiki studied the GPS monitor. “There's a little town ahead. Boca Serpiente. No airport or anything.”

Isaiah said, “Fire,” and pointed out the window. Directly ahead of them, they could see a tiny pillar of black smoke rising from what looked like some sort of building. They were twenty thousand feet up in the air and maybe twenty-five miles away from the fire.

“That's got to be them,” Ray said. He rummaged through the emergency rations and found the powerful, heavy binoculars. “No such thing as coincidences.”

“Dammit.” Tommy made a fist and punched the top of Kiki's chair. “Who the hell do we tell? Nobody's listening to us.”

“My bosses in the L.A. field office know I haven't gone crazy. I just don't have any way to reach them! Maybe, if I can get a call in to someone else, an agent's spouse, someone who could drive over—”

Isaiah said, “Flight Three Two Six is less than four minutes from Boca Serpiente. And we're only about two minutes away. If your bureaucracy is anything like the air force . . .”

“Shit!” Ray spat. “We can't block their signal. We can't convince the authorities in time.”

He turned to Tommy, his face almost purple with rage. “I don't know what to do.”

Tommy stared at the column of inky smoke, drawing ever closer.

 

On the spacious flight deck of the Airbus, Eloise Pool leaned as far forward as her four-point restraints allowed. She turned to David Singh and pointed out the windshield. “Smoke up ahead. Looks like some sort of building on fire.”

Singh nodded. He'd seen it, too. He turned to the navigator. “Are you tracking November Tango?”

Teddy McCoy nodded. “Aye, sir. They're heading right at us, holding at two K.” That put the renegade jetliner a thousand feet lower than the Airbus.
Good,
Singh thought.
The farther we are when we pass, the better.

 

Donal O'Meara and Lucas Bell raced away from the burning building, the Jeep cutting cookies in the gravel.

“Bitch.” O'Meara said the word through clenched teeth.

“You're striking a blow for your nation,” Lucas said. “I'm striking a blow for my numbered bank account in the Cayman Islands. Think positive thoughts.”

A few seconds into the drive, O'Meara shouted, “What about the congressman?”

“Riordan?” Lucas, too, shouted to be heard over the engine, “You can kill him, I guess, but not if it means wasting ammo. I leaked that shit about his being a pedophile to the media three hours ago. Alive or dead, he's of no consequence. Alive will be funnier to watch on CNN.”

.   .   .

Kiki held the binoculars pressed against her eyes, scanning the ground before them.

Tommy said, “Oh, hell.”

“What?” Isaiah cast a quick look back at him, then returned to his monitors.

Tommy said, “I know what to do.”

 

Dennis Silverman had brought field glasses. He held them against his eyes, peering directly away from the sun, and caught a glint of light off glass or metal, maybe twenty miles away and very high in the air.

He checked his watch. “That's it. Come to papa.”

 

Isaiah said, “Are you out of your goddamn mind?”

Tommy said, “Probably.” And admittedly, his suggestion was the stupidest thought he'd ever had. It was the mother of all Hail Marys. “Anybody got any better ideas? Kiki?”

“It's . . .” She shook her head. “Isaiah? It's insane, but it would work.”

Tommy said, “New York?”

“Damn, Doc. It's . . . Shit. If I had something better, I'd put it on the table.”

Tommy said, “Isaiah?”

He turned in his seat as far as his shoulder restraints would allow. “Just for the record, Dr. Tomzak? I really hate you.”

Tommy said, “Line forms on the left,” and offered his hand. Isaiah took it.

 

Now that Daria's adrenaline was backing off a bit, the pain was back. She hobbled to the prowl car and circled the dead officer, then leaned against the sedan and tried to catch her breath. She was badly dehydrated, despite the few gulps of water in the apartment, and her rib was killing her. Her vision blurred for a moment, a wave of vertigo knocking her to one knee. She shook her head hard. “Up, bitch,” she growled in Hebrew, and remembered something she'd heard an American television announcer say: “Get your game face on.”

She didn't know what it meant, but it sounded right.

Daria tossed the half-empty Glock into the back of the cruiser, in
favor of the fully loaded Sig Sauer in the trooper's holster. She knelt and began searching for the keys.

 

Isaiah Grey drove the swap-out down to one thousand feet to let his spotter have a better chance at seeing the players. He was vectoring on the curling, inky smoke rising from the building, everyone on board assuming that Ray's Rule—no coincidences—meant that the smoke indicated the bad guys' basic location.

“That's them, over there,” Kiki said, lowering the field glasses and pointing. On a small rise sat two vehicles of some kind. Three men stood beside the vehicles; it was too far away to identify anyone, but they looked exactly like Walter Mulroney and Peter Kim standing outside their car in Woodburn, Oregon, and waiting to send a signal up to the swap-out.

 

“I can hear it,” Dennis said, grinning, as O'Meara and Lucas Bell stepped out of their Jeep.

Oh, man!
Dennis thought. Dropping the first bird had been a hell of a lot of fun but—by far—the worst part of it was that he hadn't been there to see the plane crash! Not this time. Front-row seats at half court, Jack Nicholson and Spike Lee. Besides, this time he'd be bagging an A380! Bigger and better. He'd forever be known as the first guy to down the high and mighty Airbus A380. Now that the fucking NTSB knew how he'd done it, he'd have to skip the country. But that was okay. Lucas Bell, his FBI buddy who had first connected him to the Red Hand, would be on the lam, too.

It'll be like a buddy flick,
Dennis thought.

 

Tommy, Ray, and Kiki dashed to the back of the jetliner, taking three seats in the very last row, closest to the tail cone. They buckled themselves in, then bent over, their heads in their laps.

 

“Damn,” Dennis said. “It's really loud. Must be the desert.”