“Right here.”
“I… It’s just…” Holly huffed out a hard breath, then she spoke quickly. “I just wanted to say I’m sorry, Mike. I really am.”
Before Mike could speak again, Holly rushed on.
“Taz? Andi? Full alert mode every second, or I’ll come back from the grave to haunt your asses.” And then the phone clicked off.
“What was that about?” Taz was the first to break the silence that followed.
“From the grave?” Andi asked softly.
Mike just nodded.
Miranda knew. It was because Elayne Kasprak really was that dangerous.
“Where we’re headed,” she pointed at the images still on the big screen, “the plane has already crashed. That should be safe. It’s just like this one, which is flying without a problem.”
She turned to Andi, “Did I say it right this time?”
After swallowing hard, she nodded. “Close enough, Miranda. Close enough.”
48
Holly glared at the empty interior of the Falcon. It had room for a dozen VIPs. The back two couches dropped down into a bed.
And she’d never felt so trapped in her life.
Seven hours to Diego Garcia was eighteen too many. Yes, it was a damn sight closer to Syria than Australia, but it was still in the middle of the fucking ocean. She needed to be in Syria with Miranda to keep her safe.
Could she possibly be any farther from where she needed to be?
Maybe if she parked her ass back on Johnston Atoll, but that was about it.
With the way her luck was running, maybe the Falcon trijet would just fall out of the sky. Though she’d already done that once in the last thirty-six hours, and all it had done was make things worse.
One of the pilots wandered out of the cockpit.
“Can I get you anything, Miss?”
“Can you make this jet go supersonic? Maybe Mach twenty or ninety?”
“Not unless you want to be ripping off the wings and walking outta the Great Sandy,” he nodded toward the windows.
A glance down showed they were still somewhere over Western Australia. Go down in that desert and it could take months for someone to stumble on them. Even her skills would be tested to the limit to survive there.
“Sorry, I don’t have time for that. Any other suggestions?”
“Pop a longneck, kick back, and enjoy the flight? Got some brew in the galley if you want. Passengers only, of course.” He offered a friendly wink.
She slouched lower in her seat. “No. I’m good. Thanks.”
He offered a friendly shrug, grabbed two sodas and a couple bags of chips before ducking back into the cockpit.
Bloody hell!
She’d just survived a major plane crash. Returning to Tennant Creek had only been depressing rather than the horror she’d expected. Quint had done an unexpectedly effective job of alleviating most of that with his kindness—and by screwing her so royally that even the Queen should be applauding his skills.
Curling up with Quint for a week or ten was a nice little fantasy. He’d be a lot easier than Mike. He was Australian and wouldn’t expect more than she was willing to give. Aussies still embraced their personal independence like the God-given right it was.
Mike was…
She didn’t even know how to answer that.
Kind, funny, thoughtful, such a good lover, a good cook, incredibly kind—
She’d already done that one.
Kindness wasn’t something she had much experience with, or need for. Every time she got near him out at Johnston Atoll he turned all thoughtful and solicitous. It wasn’t what she’d needed so she’d kept brushing him off.
Freaked-out passengers. Lines of bodies like she’d never had to deal with. Clarissa’s bloody Special Operations Group.
It had been a situation of pure edge, and he was distracting her with…that!
And now…
How was she supposed to deal with Elayne Kasprak?
That was the real issue.
Clarissa had given her a carefully worded carte blanche: I’ll give you full authorization to do whatever you deem necessary.
If anger had made the Zaslon operative dangerous before, what had imprisoning her for life without trial done?
Blind fury opened many unexpected doors.
49
The second vehicle upgrade had gone down much more quietly and neatly than the first. Close by the munitions bunkers, they’d gotten an unbloodied guard’s uniform and a truck.
The clothes were too small for the Chinese woman, Mr. Eurotrash, or the “Latin Wonder” as he’d introduced himself. That left Elayne and the slender Indian. She’d hardly said a word and, unlike the dead Arab woman who might have actually been an asset, she had no idea how to hold a weapon. Besides, her English sucked. Elayne took the uniform and the driver’s seat.
One more roadblock, but she’d barely had to wave her ID and crack a John Wayne joke about “Gettin’ these hosses back to the stable” before they flagged her through.
As soon as she’d cleared it, the Latin Wonder stuck his head in through the small window that connected the truck box to the cab.
“You know, we’re totting a very nice load of eight two-hundred-pound bombs.”
“Any timers?”
“Not that I can find.”
“Well, I can always get creative if I have to. Hotwiring a detonator isn’t exactly magic.” She kept driving.
“Ah, Señora, you make my heart go pit-a-pat.”
“Stay out of sight.”
He didn’t argue, just pulled back and closed the window to a crack.
Elayne eased along like she was in no hurry.
Two armored personnel carriers raced by them, headed south. Gone to see why they weren’t hearing from their first roadblock. Or maybe why the underground prison had gone offline.
Time was running short.
Holly had survived the crash on Johnston Atoll.
She was probably all back and cozy with her little team. Or maybe she was in Australia—that’s where her plane had been going when Elayne had knocked it out of the sky from inside her prison cell.
Except now she was outside her prison cell.
Oh yeah! Can’t keep a good woman down! Uh-huh! Uh-huh! She did a little rock-and-roll beat on the truck’s steering wheel as she rolled along. Butt-dance in her seat. Feeling the rhythm.
Finding Holly again wouldn’t be hard though; she’d be coming to her.
Because Elayne was going to have her hands around the throat of that lying little Miss Miranda Chase bitch.
Oh, I have no idea what actually caused this AN-124 Ruslan Condor to crash.
She’d goddamn known Elayne had sabotaged it! And Elayne had bought in to that crappy little lie—which was even worse!
To fall for the spacy-naive-crash-investigator act demanded payback.
Yes, Miranda as bait for Holly.
And once she was done destroying Holly, she’d take Miranda apart with her own two hands.
She’d already beaten Holly once, downing her plane.
Twice, by now, wiping the Syrian desert with those US senators.
It had to be something that high profile to draw their precious Miranda Chase out into the open where even conventional forces could grab her. How convenient that it had also served her unknown benefactor’s agenda.
Now? She could do the final step herself. So much more exciting.
Yes, Miranda would suffer and Holly would know.
Even better, she’d do Miranda first.
Maybe right in front of Holly.
Oh…yes!
Slow and painful. Draw it on. And on. And…
So good!
So—
The release slammed into her with such an intense viciousness that she almost lost control of the truck.
Yes, it would feel just that good knowing Holly would live to watch her precious Miranda die in agony. And shame. Agony and shame. Oh, yes!
When Elayne finally rode the searing arc back down and her head cleared, the truck wasn’t moving.
“Why did we stop, Señora?” The Latin Wonder called from the back.
Straight ahead lay the American airbase.
No fences. No base security. The island was all British and American forces; no civilians to keep away. They didn’t need anything else because the next nearest land was over a thousand kilometers away.
“Have a look.”
The Latin Wonder stuck his head through the small window at the back of the cab and then sighed lustily.
“Oh, that is soo sexy!”
Lined up in along a big, paved runway were a half dozen US military jets.
Big ones!
50
Another bloody island atoll, glaring in the sunlight.
Holly stared down at Diego Garcia from above.
Quint had kissed her goodbye at the foot of the Falcon 7X’s stairs.
“Welcome on my doorstep anytime, Holl.”
She’d kissed him again for that, then climbed the stairs.
“Tropical island. Fruity rum drinks with muddled fruit. You in a bikini,” he called after her.
“In your dreams, Quint.” Then she’d gone without looking back.
He belonged in Tennant Creek. She had too…long ago. Not anymore.
Approaching Diego Garcia from the south, the view was a laugh. The narrow, sixty-kilometer-long slice of white coral and coconut palms drew the white outline of a bikini babe against the blue ocean. Complete with curvy hips, a wasp waist, and a massive bustline to the east.
“Oh, if you could only see me now, Quint.”
On the ground, there was a car waiting for her.
“Are we headed back to Australia?” one of the pilots asked. The other one was stretching his legs and chatting with the driver of a refueling truck that had pulled up—a big Latino guy with an easy smile.
“Don’t know, mate. I’ve got a problem here I have to deal with, then we’ll see. Get on a full load of fuel.”
“Aye, aye, ma’am.”
“I’m not a ma’am, I’m a Holly.”
“Ray.” They shook on it.
They raced her out of the equatorial heat and over to a small office building along the east side of the runway.
Ernie Maxwell turned out to be six feet tall, athletic build, with melting-pot coloring that was part Arab, part African American, and part just plain striking—not particularly handsome, but the kind of face you couldn’t forget.
The meeting room had all the friendliness of a street thug interrogation room. Four sides of concrete broken only by a steel door. White table. Four chairs. One camera—unplugged.
“What do we know so far?”
“The woman is pure business. Excellent,” he unrolled a map of the island across the table and put a long finger on a spot across the lagoon.
She looked at the scale, thirty kilometers by road. And there were places where the atoll was so narrow that road was about all there was.
“Twelve hours ago at two a.m. local, something went wrong at our detention site, and it flooded out of control. I have two dead and two unaccounted for. The site was below sea level, and I haven’t been able to get any divers over there yet. We had ten guests—”
“Inmates.”
“As you wish,” he nodded without pausing. “Two bodies accounted for, both apparently shot during the initial escape.”
“Okay, now give me the bad news.”
“Within two hours of breakout,” he touched a spot near the very southern tip, “a three-man Air Force roadblock was gunned down here. And here,” he tapped near some unlabeled buildings, “a munitions truck loaded with eight, two-hundred-pound bombs went missing. An Air Force sergeant had been knifed in the back. And a senior airman’s body was found, naked. No blood, her neck broken, and no uniform. We found the truck two miles north of the airfield, parked in ten feet of water. One bomb is missing.”
He stopped.
Holly looked at him.
He didn’t say anything.
“And?”
Ernie Maxwell shook his head. “We haven’t found any sign of them in the last ten hours.”
Holly rubbed her forehead and felt a headache building. “Boats, planes—”
“Full lockdown. The Air Force had a full squad locked aboard each aircraft and they’re required to check in every hour.”
“Jump it to every ten minutes.”
He nodded.
“The only boat in the lagoon right now that can go deep sea is one of the Brit’s submarines.”
“Let me guess, they’re now off the dock and submerged in the lagoon.”
“The woman is smart,” Ernie nodded.
“As are the Brits. And from me you want to know…what?”
“Quite simple, Ms. Harper. What are they going to do next?”
“And how the hell am I supposed to know that? Got some tea leaves or maybe a divining rod? Tried making one of those in the Outback as a kid, the indigenous just about laughed their asses off.”
“No, not handy,” Ernie barely cracked a smile.
Holly tipped back her chair until she found the balance point on the back two legs and rocked there.
Balancing act.
It was all a goddamn balancing act.
Elayne had escaped a flooding CIA Black Site, taken out armed guards, busted one roadblock, stolen a munitions truck, and rolled through another roadblock. Yet the moment she’d reached the airfield, she’d evaporated.
“Gone to ground until dark?”
Ernie stared at the wall for a moment, then shook his head.
“No,” Holly agreed. “She’s casing everything out. Looking for any way off this place.”
“That bomb she kept?” Ernie offered.
Now it was Holly’s turn to shake her head. “Not unless she’s desperate for a distraction. She’s Zaslon. Stealth is her preferred method. Busting up that first roadblock wasn’t her style. Stealing a truck and an identity to cruise through the second block, then evaporating? That’s absolutely her.”
“She was in there for a year. Maybe she…” but Ernie tapered off, finally shrugging.
“Elayne Kasprak spent a year waiting for opportunity. That flood was it and she grabbed it. Doesn’t matter who else made it out, she’s the one in charge.”
“Is she really that dangerous? We had Guo Cheng—she was China’s top assassin. We caught her just feet away from Taiwan’s President. And Najila Dawoud. She masterminded two embassy bombings. Paolo Ortiz has personally toppled at least three Latin and South American govern—”
“Doesn’t matter. Elayne is in charge. If anyone argues with her? You’ll eventually find their corpse. No, what she’s doing is watching for any break in security. Any pattern variation that might—”
The front legs of Holly’s chair thudded back down on the hard concrete.
“Oh, fuck!”
“What?”
“Ortiz. Big guy? Handsome? Leads with a smile?”
Ernie’s eyes went wide, confirming her worst fear.
“Shit! Shit! Shit!”
Holly raced from the room with Ernie Maxwell close on her heels.
51
Even though it was past midnight Pacific Time, no one had yet gotten any sleep on the flight from NAS Whidbey. Other than Andi, who had stayed in her bunk since they’d taken off eight hours ago. She hadn’t even moved through the refueling and crew change stop at RAF Mildenhall, northwest of London.
Miranda had asked, but there’d been little added information overnight about the Syrian crash of the Boeing 737 C-40B. Most of the official news had been about attempts to identify various remains, as if that was what was important. She did hope that they were recording the position and description of each body as at least that might contain some information relevant to the crash.
So, the team had gathered around the conference table to wait. All except Andi. Perhaps she’d been exhausted by her PTSD
episode on Johnston Atoll.
Miranda’s exhaustion was very deep—oh, that’s what “tired to your very bones” meant, she understood it now. But she could only envy Andi her ability to sleep.
With Jon gone, Holly flying over the Indian Ocean, and Elayne Kasprak on the loose again, Miranda’s mind simply wouldn’t settle.
For once, she couldn’t lose herself in Jeremy’s reports on the spectral analysis of the faked engine pylon shear pins. Nor the pilot interviews of the 757 freighter that had slid off the icy runway in Juneau, Alaska. Not even…
She sighed, closed all of the files on her computer, and turned to watch the others.
They were playing Jeremy’s newest version of his card game.
Per Andi’s earlier advice, he’d thrown out every other map card and scrawled two time zones onto each one. The map’s longitudinal pattern was strangely broken by missing every other card. Seattle abutted Chicago, the UK and Ukraine had become neighbors, and Japan was missing entirely. She knew he would fix that later, but it still looked strange.
Just as fractured as the team. Mike sat beside an empty seat.
Miranda considered going to sit in it. From there she could be Holly, tossing out Strine witticisms…exactly the kind of thing she could never think of. She considered trying out an Australian accent anyway, but still didn’t know what to say. Besides, that was Holly’s role.
The empty seat to her own left… Had Jon ever had a true role on the team? He gave them occasional access to military transport. He’d been her sporadic lover when a military crash had brought them together. There had even been a few holidays together. But she couldn’t think of what else he’d done that was useful for a crash investigation. He’d flown a Russian Condor, but any multi-lingual C-5 Galaxy pilot could have done the same.
Was her relationship with Jon like Jeremy’s game?
From the outside, it was a confusion of dice, three distinct types of cards, two of them in the same deck—which didn’t seem in the least bit logical.
From inside the game, well, she wouldn’t know as she hadn’t played it yet, but she could see that the others were following what was happening easily enough.
Havoc: a political technothriller (Miranda Chase Book 7) Page 17