by Matthew Rief
The plane picked up speed rapidly, but I managed to reach the side door just as the big guy was trying to manhandle it shut. He glanced back at me, his big eyes bulging. Maybe he’d thought we wouldn’t catch up. Maybe he’d thought we’d been struck.
Wrong on both accounts.
I dove, launching my body through the air, and slammed a right fist across his jaw. His head jerked sideways and he grunted. Not a knockout blow, but enough to get him out from the entryway.
I slammed hard into the edge of the opening, my upper body inside and my feet just a few inches off the grass. Grabbing hold of a metal seat leg off to my right, I hoisted myself up into the cabin.
The big guy recovered from the blow just as I came to my feet. He yelled out and lunged toward me. In my peripherals, I spotted movement to my right. It was Dante. He had one hand gripping tight to Scarlett’s hair while the other raised a Browning Hi-Power pistol straight at me. They were just a few rows back and moving down the aisle toward me.
Just as the big guy threw a meaty fist at me, I sprang toward him and slammed my forehead square into his nose. The fragile bones cracked and blood flowed out as he yelled in pain and rage.
As Dante aimed his pistol at me, I grabbed the guy by his vest collar, pulled him in front of me, and dropped down. Two rounds exploded from the chamber like cracks of angry lightning in the small cabin. The bullets tore into his vest just as I hit the deck.
With my right hand still gripping my Sig, I took aim under the two seats beside me. Dante was keeping Scarlett in front of him, but his legs were easy targets. I pulled the trigger, sending a round into his left shin. The bone splintered and the leg flew out from under him. He fell hard, nearly knocked unconscious as his forehead hit an armrest and he tumbled to the aisle.
I was just about to redirect my aim and fire off a second round, this one through his forehead, when the big guy intervened. He’d recovered from the blows to his vest and slammed his massive boot down onto my hand, sending excruciating pain crawling up my arm and causing me to let go of my Sig.
As I turned around to engage the big guy, he dropped down and punched me hard in the chest. I tried to retaliate, but he was much bigger and stronger than I was. And he had me pinned down.
He yelled and wrapped his massive hands around my neck. His muscular fingers dug in and I heard a terrifying crunching sound. I clawed at him with my good hand. Tried to gouge his eyes. To bite his hands. Anything.
Just as my vision began to blur, I heard a thump to my left. I could barely see Ange holding onto the side of the plane. Somehow, she’d managed to grab hold of the speeding plane and pull herself up.
She aimed her Glock straight at the big guy.
He glanced at her, loosened his grip, then dove toward her.
Ange fired two quick shots.
The big guy’s head exploded and he collapsed into her. I gagged for precious air and rubbed my eyes. Rolling over, I crawled to the door and peeked out. There was no sign of either Ange or the big guy.
The cabin shook as the plane picked up speed. We were about to take off. I could feel it. Could feel the powerful gusts of wind gushing in through the side door.
Ange is fine, I told myself. The big guy’s dead. She’ll be banged up from the fall, but she’s a tough girl. As tough as they come.
My mind shifted to Scarlett, and Dante.
I sprang to my feet and darted toward the aisle. Dante was still on the ground, clutching his bleeding leg with one hand and scrambling for his pistol with the other. Scarlett kicked Dante’s gun away. She turned and strode into my arms, her body shaking in fear, tears streaking down her face. I squeezed her tight.
Peeking over my shoulder, I saw the dark field passing by in a blur through the open side door.
We’re moving way too fast to jump for it.
Less than a second later, I felt my stomach sink as the plane angled back.
The plane jerked, throwing both of us into the closest seat as the angle shifted back even more.
I struggled to my feet.
“Stay here,” I said to Scarlett.
Grabbing the tops of the seats for support, I moved back a few rows to where Dante was lying on his back. Blood soaked his right pant leg. He wailed and gripped the wound. His body was shaking, his eyes filled with rage.
I put him out of his misery with a strong kick across the side of his face. His head jerked. His body went motionless, curled up at the base of the seat beside him.
“Logan!” Scarlett screamed suddenly.
I looked up. The cockpit door was opening.
I moved as fast as I could down the aisle, then darted for the cockpit door just as one of the pilots appeared. He looked pissed off and was holding a subcompact pistol in both hands.
He stared me down, but just before he was able to aim his handgun around the door, I jumped and slammed my left shoulder into the door.
The heavy metal door slammed into the pilot. He groaned and fired off a few sporadic rounds into the overhead.
I grabbed hold of his wrist and held it up as he kicked the door back open. It nearly knocked me down, but I regained my balance and forced him back into the cockpit.
With his finger still on the trigger, he fired a few more rounds as I struggled to knock the gun from his grasp. A handful of bullets tore through the controls, shooting up sparks, causing the panels to smoke and blink and annoying alarms to go off.
The gun finally rattled from his hands as we fell to the floor between the two seats. As fast as I could, I reached behind me with my left hand, grabbed my dive knife, and stabbed it through the pilot’s heart.
The copilot suddenly let go of his yoke. The plane leveled out from its previous incline, nearly causing me to topple forward into the damaged controls. He yelled something in Spanish that I didn’t understand, then lunged for the dropped weapon.
He was short and skinny, and he clearly lacked fighting experience. It was a good thing. My right hand was nearly useless and my body ached.
I grabbed him by his shirt collar and slammed his head into the seat behind him. He went out like a light and slid down in his seat.
With all my assailants down, I was tempted to take a few seconds to catch my breath. But I didn’t have a few seconds. With the damaged controls and with no one holding the yoke, the plane was already starting to shake.
I leaned over the copilot and found the switch for the autopilot. It didn’t work. The nose continued to slowly dip down.
I heard footsteps behind me. I glanced back and saw Scarlett appear in the narrow doorway.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
Her mouth dropped when she looked at the two guys. One was soaked in blood, the other unconscious.
“We got a bit of a problem,” I said, trying my best to control the plane.
The sparks caused a small fire to burn under the paneling. Smoke filled the cockpit. I tried the throttles and even they wouldn’t work anymore. We were dead in the sky, soaring in a bird that didn’t want to fly anymore.
“I thought you were a pilot,” she yelled.
“I am. But this plane’s going down. The controls are all shot up to hell.”
I tried my best to stabilize us, but it was no use. We were angling down and there was no stopping it now.
I turned around and started opening gear lockers like a madman.
“What are you doing?” Scarlett asked.
“Parachutes,” I said. “We’re gonna need to jump.”
“Did you say jump?”
I ignored her while rapidly slamming open and peering into lockers. No dice. I moved out of the cockpit and checked an overhead compartment. Bingo. A row of parachutes.
I grabbed two of them and strapped the first onto Scarlett, who was looking at me like I was crazy.
“I’ve never skydived before,” she said.
“Well, this is your first lesson.”
I gave her as extensive a tutorial as time would permit, then strapped the secon
d one onto my back.
“Jump out as far as you can,” I said. “And you’re gonna have to pull the chute quick. We’re only a few thousand feet up.”
She stared with frightened eyes out the open door. The wind was blowing in violently, the damaged plane swaying back and forth and angling downward in the pitch darkness.
“Hey,” I said, grabbing her hand. I pulled her close and wrapped my arms around her. “It’s going to be okay. You can do this, Scarlett.”
I looked her in the eyes, then told her again that she could do this. She nodded and brushed the loose hairs from her face.
I held on to her and we inched toward the open door. With one hand gripping the back of her harness and the other the door frame, she stayed right at the edge.
“Wait for the roll,” I said. “We don’t want to get hit by the tail.”
I timed the movements of the plane as best I could. My mental clock ticked down dangerously. We had precious little time before the plane would crash into the ocean.
“Alright, on three we jump,” I yelled over the howling wind. I timed the plane, waited for us to tilt toward the right. “One…two…three!”
Just as I let go of Scarlett’s harness, a hand grabbed me hard from behind and pulled me back. Scarlett was already falling forward. There was no stopping her momentum, and she was just out of my reach. She looked back with petrified eyes just as she flew out of the door. She vanished into the windswept night air in an instant.
I jerked my body around and saw Dante. He’d staggered to his feet and was holding tight to my pack with one hand while his other gripped a switchblade.
“You son of a bitch,” he snarled, staring me down with the eyes of a rabid beast.
He stabbed the long narrow blade straight toward me. Just as the tip was about to bite viciously into my flesh, I grabbed his forearm. He yelled and fought to press it harder toward me. I yelled and fought to press it harder away. For what felt like an eternity, but was only a second or two, the blade shook just inches away from my chest.
With the plane tilting dangerously forward, it was clear that this was do or die. Whether I took Dante down or not, we’d both be dead soon regardless.
I yelled, slammed my forehead into his face, then jerked his hands down. As he wailed, I managed to twist the blade 180 degrees and pressed with all my remaining strength. The blade stabbed through Dante’s body, just under his right collarbone.
He yelled louder, fiercer, all of his rage boiling over.
I buried the blade deeper, until the tip protruded out his back, then knocked him across the face again.
“Before you die, know this,” I yelled, holding his limp body up and keeping the blade lodged. “I killed your uncle. I killed Benito Salazar.”
I let go and took a shaky step backward. Stabilizing myself, I jumped and kicked him across the cabin. The force launched my body backward and I flew out the open side door. Tucking my body, I flew into the loud roaring haze of the night and felt a strong whiplash as the plane’s tail rocketed right past me.
I spun wildly. A dark frenzy. I couldn’t see anything. Couldn’t tell up from down.
I felt myself losing consciousness but forced my mind and body to stay alert.
You’re low, Dodge. You’ve got… to… open… the…
In the chaotic freefalling spin, my right hand found the ripcord. With the air howling around me and the dark ocean getting closer and closer, I grabbed it tight and jerked it away from me.
THIRTY-SIX
Jack Rubio stood on the bow of the decrepit-looking trawler. He held a pair of binoculars up to his eyes and scanned over the northwestern shores of Cuba.
The scene was mostly dark. A few distant flickering lights here and there. Hotels, houses, a few restaurants maybe. There was also a handful of distant fishing boats, most heading in after a long day.
“No sign of a freighter, boy,” he said, petting Atticus with his free hand.
The Lab sat patiently, every sound and smell causing his head to swivel back and forth.
Jack performed another scan of the horizon, then lowered the binos and glanced at his dive watch. It had been forty-five minutes since Logan had called. The trip over had been quick, and he’d been idle for fifteen.
Jack stretched, then sat beside Atticus, his back against the front of the pilothouse.
He didn’t mind waiting. He loved the ocean. Everything about it. He could sit and stare out over the water for hours, letting his mind drift with the current. The fresh sea air, the lapping waves against the hull, the sound of the wind. He’d always considered himself a simple man. A boat, the ocean, a good cup of coffee. Anything beyond that was just a bonus.
He rose to his feet and took another look-see. Nothing out of the ordinary.
He headed inside, refilled his mug with coffee, then plopped down in the cockpit. He switched on the radar and leaned back into the cushioned seat. Though an eyesore, it amazed Jack how fancy the trawler’s electronics were. Top-of-the-line from the sonar to the coffeemaker. Easily costing the original owner more than his entire boat.
He took a sip of coffee and glanced at his watch again.
Where are you, bro? he thought.
He grabbed his phone from the dash. Nothing. No missed calls or messages.
Just as he slid the phone into his boardshorts pocket, Atticus stirred. He lifted his head and stared out the port side of the windscreen.
“What is it, boy?” Jack said, leaning forward in the seat.
The Lab was listening intently, his gaze zeroed in and focused. Most of the side windows were cracked open. Jack switched off the radar and listened as well.
It took a few seconds, but he soon heard a distant humming noise.
He set his mug on the dash, grabbed the binoculars, and headed back out onto the bow. Atticus jumped to the deck and followed right beside him.
The humming sound grew louder and more distinct. After years on the water, Jack’s ears were incredibly sensitive. He could differentiate the different brands and horsepower of engines from miles away. He didn’t even need to see it to know that what he was hearing wasn’t a boat at all. It was a plane. A plane engine and rotors slicing through the air far in the dark distance.
He stepped up to the edge of the bow alongside Atticus and directed his gaze toward the sound. He spotted the flashing white lights far in the distance. The plane was flying low, just a few thousand feet, and was on a northwest trajectory, sweeping out over the ocean.
Jack watched the plane intently. There was something off about it. Not only was it flying too low, but it was shaking. Like there was a mechanical issue of some kind.
There clearly weren’t any airports nearby. He hadn’t seen any other planes on the horizon since he’d arrived.
He lowered the binos but kept his eyes on the plane. Atticus stood beside him and barked.
“Yeah, something’s wrong, boy. I feel it too.”
He was just about to head back into the cockpit to call in the mysterious aircraft to authorities when the plane took a sudden turn. It angled side to side, then shifted its nose downward. Jack wasn’t an airplane guy, but it didn’t take one to see that the plane would crash into the ocean within a minute if it maintained its speed and suicidal angle.
He sprinted into the cockpit and fired up the engines. Keeping his eyes glued on the distant aircraft, he hit the throttles and quickly brought the trawler up to forty knots. A smooth tilt of the helm put them on a direct course for where Jack was certain the plane would crash if its pilot didn’t do something drastic soon.
He watched as the shaking craft flew closer and closer to the water below. Suddenly, he spotted something. A solid black figure set against the evening sky. After just a few seconds, he realized what it was.
A parachute. Somebody just ditched.
He shifted his course. Taking the wind into account as well as the jumper’s angle, he predicted where they would land.
An open chute slows a freefalling
person’s speed to roughly seventeen miles per hour. The person had jumped from fifteen hundred feet up, meaning they’d reach the ocean in just under a minute.
Jack closed the distance as much as he could in that time and watched as the silhouette of the jumper splashed into the water. The chute followed, blown by the wind and spread over the sea just beyond them.
Jack eased back on the throttles, brought the jumper right off the port bow. Stepping out and peeking over the gunwale, he realized that it was a girl. He stepped back to the helm, idled the engines, then stepped out and tossed her a life ring.
She grabbed hold of it and he pulled the rope, reeling her in. When she was within twenty feet, Jack realized who she was by the light of the moon.
“Holy crap, Scarlett?” he gasped, his mouth agape.
She coughed up a mouthful of seawater and nodded. He pulled her to the stern, then reached down and grabbed hold of her harness. She pulled herself up as well and managed to reach the top of the transom and slide down onto the deck. Jack went to work on the harness, unclipping it and securing it to a rod holder.
“Are you alright?” he said, looking her over.
She was shaking, her eyes big, but she didn’t appear to be injured.
“Where’s Logan?” she said, her voice filled with desperation. “Where is he?”
Jack shook his head. How the heck would he know? He hadn’t seen his friend since earlier that afternoon.
He was just about to ask what had happened when a second splash filled the evening air. It was far off and came in the direction the plane had flown.
Scarlett struggled to her feet and stepped toward the starboard gunwale. Jack followed right behind.
“That’s him,” she gasped. “That has to be him.”
They were too far away to see anything but the distant collapsing parachute over the surface of the water. Jack turned and darted for the harness still resting against the transom. He quickly pulled up the chute, Scarlett helping, then dropped it in a pile on the deck.