Coming from the legendary John Draven, that was tantamount to a medal. And then, quietly, he’d added four words that had destroyed her newly gained composure.
“Eric would be proud.”
Her throat had tightened unbearably. At the time she had still been wondering if it would ever end, this ache, this agony. He’d been buried at Arlington for three years, she had told herself, furious at showing what she thought he would think was weakness in front of Draven, of all men. Surely she should be past this by now.
But now, at ten years after, she knew it truly would never end. It had changed, become something she lived with, as much a part of her as her dark hair and eyes. Taken for granted, like the small scar beneath her fringe of bangs, acquired on a rough landing by a fledgling copilot years ago.
And she knew Draven had never thought her weak.
“If the mention of his name didn’t move you,” he had told her much later, “then it doesn’t say much for your love for him.”
The unexpected support from this most unexpected source had been worth more than any of the many platitudes she got from others. In fact, she’d realized, the support from her Redstone family had been more helpful and genuine even than from some of her blood family, who had thought her foolish for marrying a man in such a dangerous profession in the first place.
Pinky walked past her, toward the cockpit. She felt the brush of a hand against her backside. It could have been accidental. She doubted it.
“You gonna do something, or just stare in there?” he asked, scowling down at Josh.
“Trying to figure out which wire to cut so the bomb doesn’t go off.”
Pinky jumped back. “Bomb?” he squeaked. “What bomb?”
Tess smothered a quick smile; as easily as that Josh had let Redstone know—for he knew as well as she did that they were listening by now—that there were no explosives involved.
“Joke,” Josh said wryly. “Strung a little tight, aren’t you? How long have you worked for Redstone?”
“I—uh—” Pinky stammered.
“Long enough,” Brown Shirt snapped.
And again Josh had managed to get across more in formation, that they were pretending to be Redstone. That had to be puzzling to Draven, she suddenly realized, because he didn’t yet know the most crucial thing that they did; that these men hadn’t recognized the shaggy, bearded “mechanic” as their quarry.
They didn’t even know their trap was sprung.
Chapter 7
“No explosives,” Tony Alvera said, as they all listened to the feed, sans St. John who was at the Hawk III controls, freeing Draven to plan. That was a surprise to most; only Draven had known he could fly. But with a simple lift of a dark brow beneath the old-fashioned driver’s cap he wore, he’d answered, “I’ve been with Josh for over twenty years, do you really think he’d let me get by without learning?”
“It’s going to be tough getting in there,” Draven had said as St. John strapped in. “It’s a small airfield.”
“I’ll get her down.” Then, with a grimace, St. John had added, “But with taking off needing about twice as much runway, no promise there.”
“I don’t care about getting it out,” Draven had said, meaning it. “Just get us there.”
They’d only been airborne a few minutes before Ryan had the audio running through the onboard system, and turned to the video feeds from the webcams on the Hawk V.
“That’s something, at least,” Sam said to Alvera’s observation about explosives. “They’re not bombers.”
“But there’s something weird going on,” Tony said. “Why did Josh ask the guy how long he worked for Redstone? There was nobody else on the plane, was there?”
Logan Beck leaned over and picked up a small, cell-phone-looking device that was actually much more; right now it was a direct link back to Redstone Headquarters. It was a stand-in for the Internet hookup that would have allowed them to use the webcam system to teleconference. But that function was dedicated to the feeds beginning to come in from Josh’s plane, under Ryan’s quick fingers at the keyboards. Draven considered Barton’s precious computers just another tool, only a bit more capricious. Just as semiautomatic pistols could jam, computers could glitch at inopportune moments, and he wanted all the available resources of that system working on only one thing—keeping that precious link open. So they had turned to the handhelds for direct communications with headquarters.
Lilith Alvera, Tony’s wife, answered at first ping.
“Have we confirmed the flight schedule, route and manifest?” Beck asked.
The answer came with typical Redstone efficiency. “Yes. Tess took off at the scheduled time, made the drop-off of the two prosthetics for the Veteran’s Hospital, met briefly with the head of rehab who took charge of the delivery at the airport. She then proceeded directly to the final destination. Touch down was at eleven-ten.”
“The rehab guy didn’t decide to tag along by any chance?” Sam asked over Logan’s shoulder.
Someone else answered, and despite the situation, Logan smiled at the sound of his wife’s voice. “No,” Liana said. “I spoke to him personally just after you lifted off. He was headed right back to the hospital for a big media thing scheduled about the donation of the prosthetics.”
“We have no permanent staff at that airport, right?” Sam asked.
“Not that we are aware of, but we’re still verifying.”
Draven frowned; given the thousands of Redstone employees scattered around the globe, that could take a few minutes. Then he realized they had access to a much quicker resource, and walked to the open door of the cockpit.
St. John, a fiercer expression on his face than Draven had seen since the man had come back from his hometown after having defeated his evil father, glanced over his shoulder as if he’d sensed Draven’s presence before he spoke.
“Any Redstone personnel at this airport?”
“No.”
No equivocating, no pause to think, to remember. Yet Draven didn’t doubt the answer for a moment; Josh’s mysterious—well, not anymore, since what had happened was well-known now—right-hand man had a knowledge of Redstone that sometimes surpassed even Josh himself.
Draven simply nodded and came back. The others had heard, accepted with the same confidence and moved on.
“Last contact?” Logan was asking.
Lilith again. “Shortly after landing. Tess reported a safe arrival, and said she was settling in to wait for Josh. He’d given her a two-hour window since they were hiking out and ETA could vary.”
Draven noticed a muscle along Tony’s jaw tighten, and knew he’d heard the undertone beneath Lilith’s brisk, businesslike report. While others, including himself, had worked for Redstone longer, Lilith Mercer Alvera had known Josh longer than any of them, known him since she’d been a young teaching assistant barely older than the brilliant, restless teenager she’d tried to guide. She’d sensed his potential from the first day she’d met him. She’d done her best to help him find the path that would fulfill that potential.
And years later, when she’d needed help herself, Josh had been there for her, bringing the full power of the by then huge entity of Redstone to bear on her behalf.
“Lilith, get me the personnel info on the local sheriff’s office, will you? I’m sure we’ll be dealing with them before this is over.”
“Looking for connections?”
“Exactly.”
I do like that woman, Draven thought. He wondered how the world outside Redstone survived with having to explain every little thing to everyone.
“Got it!”
Ryan’s exclamation came as the feed from the last of the three webcams came up on the wide-screen monitor. Now they could watch them all simultaneously. Ryan had arranged them from cockpit to galley and work area to main cabin so they were seeing a sideways slice of the plane’s interior. Josh had drawn the line at cameras in the stateroom, and given how often Redstone’s own had ended up sea
ling their own very personal futures in that room, there were some on board this plane right now that were glad of that.
They all went utterly silent, watching, and Draven knew that beneath all the assessing, the planning, all the quick thinking that he was certain was taking place in the agile, well-trained minds of his team, was the fear that this would blow up before they got there, that somehow they would fail simply because they hadn’t been able to get there in time. Not because of their own speed, he knew St. John was milking every knot from the powerful Redstone jet, but simply because situations like this were inherently volatile, and could go sour at any moment for any reason.
Draven studied the images. Saw the shorter, almost pudgy man in the oddly colored shirt, saw the semiautomatic pistol—it looked like a Browning GP—jammed into his waistband as he held what looked to be a sandwich in one hand and a bottle of something in the other. Alcohol? Would they be dealing with a gunman with impaired abilities, and worse, judgment?
But his attention, as was everyone else’s watching, he was sure, was centered mainly on the woman in the galley, and the tall, lanky man kneeling on the floor of the cockpit, staring into the hole created by the removal of a section of the flooring.
“Hill to Airborne.”
Taylor Hill’s voice crackled over the handheld. Logan still held it, so he answered. “Airborne here.”
That would be their designation until they landed, and would become the Ground Team.
“Getting the feed Barton routed. The wiring schematic of the Hawk V was accessed from the onboard computer.”
“When?”
“Within the last twenty minutes. And it was still open when the duress alarm was sent.”
“Copy,” Beck said, looking at the others to confirm they’d all heard.
“Now, why would they want access to the wiring? No bomb, Josh already established that,” Draven muttered, never taking his eyes off the screen.
“I’m thinking of quitting this job.”
Tess Machado’s sudden words over the speakers had them all flicking glances at each other in silent query. No one registered knowledge, and in a split second they were all refocused on the screen. With the webcam’s angle they could only see Tess’s right side as she fussed with something in the galley, but her voice had been crystal clear.
They saw Josh, still kneeling beside the opening in the flooring, go very still.
“Flight attendant jobs are overrated,” she said then.
This round of glances was accompanied by raised eyebrows. Flight attendant? The best pilot at Redstone, short of Josh himself?
“What the hell is going on?” Tony murmured.
I wish I knew, thought Draven, and leaned in closer.
Josh’s mind was racing as he fiddled beneath the floor, as if he were looking for something specific amid the spaghetti-like mass of cables and thinner wires. Tess’s words echoed in his ears. He knew what she’d been trying to relay, he just wasn’t sure yet what it meant. Or more important, how to turn it to their advantage.
Tess knew as well as he did that by now they were under observation, and that Draven and the rest were watching every move, and listening, as well.
“I’ve never felt valued, you know?” she said, and Josh realized she was aiming her comments at Pinky. “I’d like a perk now and then, an extra day off, a flight to see my family on one of these fancy jets, maybe even a raise.”
“That’s how they are, those fat cats,” Pinky said, as Josh pondered the fact that Tess had had all of those things, and within the past month. The first two to visit her sister, Francie, who had just made her an aunt, and the last just because she deserved it.
“I’d like to get treated like he treats his pilot.”
Josh fiddled with the plastic clip that held several of the smaller wires separate from the bigger cables, but his attention was fastened on Tess’s odd conversation. Why was she even talking to these guys, let alone as she was?
“I’ll bet he treats that guy with some respect,” Brown Shirt said, glancing at her.
“Absolutely,” Tess said. “That’s the best job in the world. To that pilot, Josh Redstone is the best there is. The best boss…the best man. That pilot would do absolutely anything for him.”
Josh froze. He barely managed not to look at her. He wasn’t sure what she was trying to do, but there was no doubting the absolute sincerity of her words. He knew Tess, cool-headed, unflappable Tess, and there had to be a point to all this gushing.
Was it gushing if she meant it?
Josh shook off the thought. Tess was his rock, the person he could always turn to, the person he depended on for his personal grounding the way he depended on St. John to keep Redstone grounded. He couldn’t afford to lose that in some tangle of emotion she wouldn’t want.
“Thanks for the warning,” Brown Shirt said, sounding thoughtful. “When’s he supposed to get here, the pilot?”
There was the briefest pause during which Josh guessed Tess was thinking fast.
“Oh,” she said, almost airily, “he doesn’t have to show up until the big man does.”
“They stick together, those kind,” Pinky said with a sneer Josh was all too familiar with, the expression of the perpetually offended.
And belatedly he realized that both Pinky and Brown Shirt were focused on Tess. And that that had been her plan all along, to distract them. Swiftly he reached under the floor board, swiped his right thumb over the miniature scanner, heard the faint click of the lock releasing. He grabbed the pistol, secured in the box with a quick release clip, and with a glance to be sure the two men were still looking at Tess, he pulled it free. Quickly, he slipped it into an inside pocket of his jacket, a deep pocket normally reserved for flight logs.
He dived back into the wiring, his actions apparently unnoticed as the men focused on Tess.
That he could understand; he couldn’t imagine a man breathing who wouldn’t rather look at Tess. The brightest moments of the sometimes long, work-laden flights were when she would try to cheer him up with some unexpected quip or a complete non sequitur of trivia injected into a serious conversation, just to see his startled blink.
Tess was, in fact, the only person who could consistently make him laugh. Others made him smile, some could bemuse or amuse him, but it was Tess, with her quick wit and wry humor who made him throw back his head and laugh out loud. They were moments he treasured not just because of their rarity, but because he treasured her.
In the beginning, he’d simply appreciated her skill with anything that flew, and admired her quick, adaptive mind. And he’d liked that she and Elizabeth had bonded so quickly. Later he realized he himself had come to depend on her, on her way of giving things a slight tweak, making him look at them a little differently, usually giving him clarity if not the actual answer he’d been seeking.
An odd flash of memory shot through his mind, vivid and sharp. A night just a week ago, in his office at Redstone Headquarters, when Tess had done just that, said one simple thing that had turned the entire problem he’d been pondering just enough that he saw a different facet of it, a facet he knew instantly was the way to the solution. He’d been on the phone to St. John and point man Noah Rider in seconds, the path to resolving the materials issue clearly lit now.
When he’d finished, Tess had been gone. She instinctively seemed to know when he needed the space, just as Elizabeth always had.
He’d leaned back in his chair, his gaze straying to the portrait that hung on the opposite wall. The image of the lovely woman with the warm brown eyes was as familiar as the back of his hand. No collection of oil colors could truly capture the lively vivacity that went along with the down-to-earth wit and gentle, kind heart, but the artist had done a decent job. The glint of humor was in her eyes, and the beginnings of that wide smile on her face.
“You’d be proud of her, El,” he’d murmured to the image that was all he had left of the woman he’d once loved so deeply. “She’s become everything y
ou always said she would. A force to be reckoned with, our Tess.”
He knew it was true. Elizabeth had had a blood sister, but they’d never been close, and there couldn’t have been two more different women; where Elizabeth had been kind, generous and good-natured, Phyllis was cold, calculating and, he had to admit, greedy. And had unfortunately raised her son in the same mold.
But Tess had been, in Elizabeth’s words, the sister of her heart, the one she would have chosen if it were possible. When she knew the end was close, she’d instructed Josh to always look out for Tess. He would have anyway, for her own sake, but he’d promised nevertheless.
“And she’ll look out for you,” Elizabeth had said, her voice already weak. “In due time, you’ll realize. I trust you both to find your way.”
The oddity of those words hadn’t struck him until much later, when it was over and the woman who had been the sun in his life was long gone.
He shook his head sharply; this was hardly the time to get lost in memories. If he knew Draven, and he did, they were already mobilized and on their way. And when things started to happen, they would happen fast, and they’d better be ready.
Brown Shirt had turned his attention back to Josh, and was watching his every move. If not for Tess’s quick thinking and diversion, he never would have gotten to that weapon. And he nearly smiled inwardly; she’d once again shown her cleverness in playing into the apparent perceptions of these men. If they thought they were dealing with some not-too-bright, helpless female, they were in for a big surprise.
Because outside Redstone Security, there was no one he’d rather have at his side in a fight than Tess.
Chapter 8
It had seemed like a good plan. Playing into the very mistaken preconceptions these men seemed to have about Josh could only help, Tess thought, and would cement the fiction that he was yet to arrive. But even knowing what was at stake, she found it hard to talk about him so negatively.
“The opposite,” she had said, “that’s what I’d like.”
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