by Diane Capri
Wilcox paused, looked at Vega on his knees on the pavement and up into the Sikorsky. He looked back toward the gawkers on the other side of the windows. He shrugged. He helped Vega to his feet and guided him up the stairs.
Flint concealed his weapon and climbed quickly behind them. Inside the Sikorsky, he shoved Wilcox toward a seat, pulled the stairs up, and closed the door. “Let’s go!” he shouted to Drake.
The Sikorsky began to rise from the helipad. The riskiest part of the plan was done. Flint had been careful to shield his identity from the diners. It was possible that someone saw Flint’s face and might identify him later, but not likely. When presented with a situation like this, eyewitnesses were notoriously fallible. They’d have focused on the famous faces they recognized. He’d deal with any blowback later, if he had to.
He pointed the Glock at Wilcox. “Buckle up.” He patted Vega down and removed two handguns, one from his shoulder holster and one from an ankle holster. He jerked Vega into one of the passenger seats and strapped him in.
“What about you, Wilcox? Are you armed? Because you don’t want to shoot off a gun in here, believe me.”
Wilcox shrugged and stuck out his right leg. Flint pushed his pant leg up and removed the pistol from its holster.
“Got another one?” Wilcox shook his head and held his suit coat open to prove he wasn’t wearing a shoulder holster.
Flint held his gun steadily pointed at Wilcox while he pulled out the second syringe and plunged it into a dazed Vega’s neck. The third syringe was in his fist. He turned to Wilcox. Wilcox shrugged again, but didn’t bother to resist. Flint repeated the sedative administration.
Flint’s heart pounded with exertion and adrenaline. When Wilcox’s chin fell to his chest, Flint found the two sets of handcuffs he’d brought along and shackled their wrists. Then he moved to the copilot’s seat and donned his headset.
Drake said, “Everybody comfortable back there?”
“They’ll be out for a few hours.” Flint made the call on his satellite phone. “Execute.”
Drake watched the air traffic. Using visual flight rules, he’d filed no flight plan and was not in touch with local towers. He flew up and out toward the Pacific to give the patrons a clear view of the helo’s path, but once he was out of view, he immediately turned away, effectively hiding the helo.
From this altitude, they could see the decoy helicopter flying over the Pacific. The second Sikorsky from the airstrip. An old training helicopter. Painted exactly like the one Drake piloted, electric neon yellow with bold red stripes on both sides. Remotely controlled from the ground.
They watched the decoy break up and plunge into the ocean.
The decoy bird went down hard. Witnesses would have seen its destruction. Rescue teams would be on the way in minutes.
The plan was like a magic trick. Sleight of hand. Draw attention to the fake while the real one slips away.
The restaurant patrons would quickly report that Wilcox and Vega were in the helicopter. Connection to the crashed Sikorsky would be established with a few phone calls. Flint’s contacts were happy to have the old bird as a water rescue training exercise. They’d be on the way now to collect the dummies from inside the downed helo.
There would be negative fallout when authorities learned about the hoax. But by then, if all went according to plan, he’d have found Josh Hallman. Veronica Beaumont’s money, and the lack of any actual harm to anyone, would take care of any problems. The real Sikorsky would return, its passengers would exit unharmed. All would be forgiven. Or, should lingering issues arise, they would be resolved with a few well-placed phone calls to the right people.
It wasn’t a perfect plan, but what plan was?
When Drake turned east toward Red Maple Lake, Flint relaxed a bit in the copilot’s seat. “What’s our ETA?”
“On schedule and under budget,” Drake replied.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Red Maple Lake, California
Thursday
The reports of the Sikorsky crash began almost immediately after it went into the water. Rescue efforts to retrieve the five bodies presumed aboard were doomed from the start because the decoy helo was piloted remotely and no bodies would be found inside. As expected, Mark Wilcox’s celebrity status, both on his own and as Boyd Wilcox’s brother, drove the story to trending everywhere around the world in less than thirty minutes.
The deception was an expensive play, but Veronica Beaumont had the money and she was willing to use it. Cooperation from Flint’s covert ops contacts was stellar. The entire world would believe Mark Wilcox had died in that crash within a couple of hours.
Unless Josh Hallman was living in a cave, he’d hear about the crash.
And when he heard, would he withdraw his money from the bank account that he hadn’t touched in almost seven years, before his hard-earned cash landed in government coffers?
Flint had set the traps. His contacts monitored the traps. If Hallman came out of hiding and took the bait, Flint would know it immediately. From there, Hallman would be traceable.
The ruse was a very long shot with significant downside potential. But it could work. Maybe. With luck. Wilcox might be temporarily outraged, but the publicity would only improve his TV ratings. He’d get over his anger pretty fast. Or he wouldn’t, and Flint would deal with that, too.
Flint watched the reports on his satellite phone until the signals stopped as they neared Red Maple Lake. Cell phone videos of the Sikorsky landing on the top of Stellar Tower and Mark Wilcox boarding the helo were already posted online and making the rounds of the broadcast stations. The plan was working as intended.
Drake set the helo down expertly on the helipad behind Wilcox Lodge. The three passengers were still out cold. Flint broke into the house. The locks on the back door were easily breached. No need for state-of-the-art security systems in the middle of nowhere.
He walked through the empty house and found bedrooms for his passengers. There were eight guestrooms and a master suite in the house. Plenty of space.
Lugging the unconscious Mark Wilcox into the house was a two-man job. He was big and heavy. Drake and Flint settled him onto one of the beds and handcuffed him to the bedpost before they brought the other two inside. They put Vega in one room and Hayes in another and secured them to the bedpost with handcuffs, as well.
Once the hostages were settled, he and Drake went back to the helo, unloaded their gear, and lugged it inside. While Drake tied the Sikorsky down for the night, Flint set up the long-range satellite hotspot and found a newsfeed for the laptop.
He tested the satellite phone with a quick call to his source. “Any movement on that bank account yet?”
“I’ll use this number to notify you and confirm with an encrypted text.”
“Perfect.”
“How long are you going to wait?”
“As long as it takes,” he said, and disconnected the call.
Drake had been poking around in the kitchen. The night lights flickered on. He’d found the generator outside and the circuit breakers inside. He’d turned on the electricity. He’d also turned on the water, located coffee, and started the brew. The aroma wafted through the lodge, drawing Flint from the dining room into the kitchen for a mugful.
Drake stood with the refrigerator door open. “Looks like they weren’t planning to come back for a while. Bottled water, beer, and not much else in here, and none of it’s cold.”
Flint rummaged through the pantry and found a few staples. The choices were limited, to say the least. He closed the door and frowned. “If we don’t find something to cook, we’re looking at the MREs we brought along. Unless you want to go out and shoot a squirrel or something.”
Drake could fly out for supplies, but every trip in and out presented a risk that they’d be discovered before the ruse had a chance to reach Hallman and spur him to action. Success depended on keeping the three hostages out of sight and presumed dead.
“Hunting is a poss
ibility. We can catch some fish, too, if we have to.” Flint had finished his coffee and set the mug down in the sink. “I’ll go see what I can find. Hayes said the freezers in the equipment cabin were well stocked. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”
“I’ll keep looking around. We should have things like rice and canned goods somewhere,” Drake replied.
Flint left by the back door. He walked across the patio and ducked into the cottage where Wilcox’s helo pilot had bunked. The cottage was exactly what Hayes had said. A studio apartment. One bed, a couple of sitting chairs, a small kitchen, and a bathroom. Nothing unusual. He looked quickly through the cabinets for food. No luck.
He continued to the larger second building, the one that Hayes said stored the generator and freezers and other equipment for maintaining the lodge. He turned the doorknob and pushed the door, but it was stuck. Humidity had swelled the wood. He leaned his shoulder into the task. With his body weight behind it, the second shove pushed the door free. It creaked on its hinges as it opened and he stumbled inside.
This building was twice the size of the guest cottage. There were two generators, a smaller one to power the freezers and a heater inside the cabin, and a big generator for everything else on the compound. Both were probably fueled by a propane tank, most likely behind the building. Both generators were running now because Drake had fired them up.
The walls of the cabin were lined with floor-to-ceiling wood cabinets. He opened the doors and glanced inside. Two of the cabinets contained shelves of food. Canned goods and anything that might freeze when the heat was off in the big house were stored here. He’d carry an armload back with him. At least they wouldn’t be eating freeze-dried MREs tonight.
He looked inside the other cabinets. He found chemicals for the hot tub, lawn equipment, water hoses, flower pots, and the like. Hanging from hooks on the interior walls were pruning shears, hatchets, hammers and other small tools, and several long blades, probably for dealing with the overgrown vegetation around the property. At the very back of the last cabinet, hanging from hooks by leather thongs, were several rakes and shovels, and a sword with a leather-wrapped handle. The kind he’d seen commonly in the Middle East when he’d served there.
There were two big chest freezers. Each was at least sixty inches wide and thirty inches deep. He guessed each was about twenty cubic feet in capacity and would hold big game like deer and elk that hunters might find around here. One freezer was propped open and empty, cleaned out for the season, he supposed.
He pushed the lid up on the second freezer. A blast of air hit his face, so cold that it drew tears from his eyes. He stepped back for his vision to clear and then looked through the frosty air swirling inside the big open cavern.
Packages wrapped in white freezer paper were stacked neatly along the interior walls of the freezer. On the left side was a wire basket that held smaller packages, also wrapped in white paper. Everything about the freezer was white. Inside, outside, and contents. It resembled an igloo.
The packages were labeled with heavy black letters to identify the contents. Meats, grouped together by type, filled two-thirds of the space. Potatoes and other vegetables filled the last third. The basket held a few prepared dishes, labeled “Pasta—Mark,” “Eggplant—Boyd,” and the like.
At the bottom of the basket was the smallest package. It was labeled simply “Aludra.” Seeing the name, black on white, jarred him. He remembered the grisly severed head found in the Las Vegas dumpster. Why would Mark Wilcox have kept this package all these years? He’d never seemed that sentimental to Flint.
Flint pulled packages labeled “Steaks” and “Potatoes” from the freezer. He grabbed the one marked “Aludra” and added it to the pile.
He closed the lid on the freezer and left the building, pulling the swollen door firmly into place behind him to keep nocturnal animals outside. He returned to the main house with the frozen food to find Drake still foraging in the kitchen.
Flint held up two of the wrapped packages, one at a time. “Steaks. Potatoes. According to the labels.”
“Sounds good. What’s the third one?”
“That’s where it gets interesting.” He held the small package to display the label.
“Aludra?” Drake frowned. “I don’t get it.”
“Mark Wilcox’s dead wife.”
Drake’s eyes widened. “What’s inside? Not food, surely, after all this time.”
Flint pulled out a drawer looking for a sharp knife to open the package without damaging it. “We’re about to find out. You don’t have a pair of latex gloves in your pocket, do you?”
“In the emergency kit in the helo. Want me to get them?”
Flint nodded. “While you’re gone, I’ll check on our guests.”
Drake went out the back door toward the helipad and Flint went down the hallway to the bedrooms.
When Flint reached Vega’s door, he turned the knob and pushed the door open wide enough to see inside. Vega’s bed was empty. The bedpost to which he’d been handcuffed was broken off at the base, leaving a jagged stump.
Flint reached for his Glock with his right hand. With his left, he pushed the door open wider. He stepped over the threshold into the room.
Out of the corner of his left eye, he saw movement. He whipped his head left.
Vega stood behind the door, arms raised over his head, holding the bedpost like a club, prepared to strike.
Vega screamed and brought the club down hard and fast.
Flint feinted right.
Half a moment too late.
Vega’s heavy bedpost arced down. It missed Flint’s head, but landed a solid strike on his left shoulder.
Sharp pain seared through his shoulder toward his chest and his back and down his arm all the way to the fingers of his left hand. But Flint was still standing and he heard no sickening splinter of bones.
Vega screamed again, a look of pure fury on his face, as he lifted the club for another blow.
Flint pivoted on his left foot, raised the Glock in his right hand. “Stop! Ruben, I’ll shoot!”
Vega didn’t even blink. Momentum carried him forward and before Flint could squeeze the trigger, Vega swung the club hard and fast again.
The blow landed across Flint’s back on the left side. Flint staggered and fell to the floor. He landed almost face down and rolled to the right, lifting his gun in his right hand as he moved.
Vega stepped forward. He raised his arms overhead for the third time. He aimed to bash Flint’s head in with the next blow.
“Stop!” Flint yelled again, but Vega was enraged beyond rational thought. He started his downward strike.
Flint fired twice.
Both rounds landed solidly in Vega’s torso. The impact pushed him away as his arms fell downward.
He plopped onto the floor on his ass, back resting against the wall, club still held in both hands, resting between his legs.
Dead in that instant.
Flint rolled over on the floor and winced as his weight pressed against his back. Searing pain in his left shoulder stole his breath. He raised his right hand to feel the bedpost’s point of impact.
Nerves in his left arm and hand still pulsed shooting pains from fingertips to shoulder, but the sensation had subsided. He’d have a hell of a bruise on his shoulder and another on his back. He’d be sore for a good long while. But nothing was broken. No blood to mix with Vega’s.
Drake came running into the room, weapon drawn. He slipped through the partially open doorway. In one glance, he took the situation in. Vega was dead on the floor. Blood pooled around his body. The silence was all-consuming.
He reached out a hand and pulled Flint to his feet.
“What the hell?” Drake asked, lowering his gun.
“He came at me. My left arm’s almost useless.” Flint grimaced as he felt around the shoulder, pressing the pain point, confirming the bones were still in place. “Let’s check Hayes and Wilcox.”
Weapons drawn, Flint in th
e lead, they raced down the corridor to the two bedrooms where they’d left Hayes and Wilcox unconscious two hours before.
“No one in here,” Drake said, coming out of Hayes’s bathroom.
Flint checked Wilcox’s bathroom to be thorough, but he knew he’d find nothing. He met up with Drake in the hallway. “Check the rest of the guestrooms. I’ll take the common rooms.”
Flint returned to the great room and made his way to the kitchen. From the window, he saw Hayes struggling to open the quick-release mechanism on the Sikorsky’s webbed tie-downs. He’d already removed the wheel chocks.
“Outside!” Flint yelled back to Drake before he ran to the back door and rounded the corner to the helipad.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Red Maple Lake, California
Thursday
Wilcox was inside the Sikorsky, seated in the pilot’s seat. His attention was focused on the cockpit and he’d begun preflight procedures. The sedative Flint had pumped into his system would have lingering effects. His reaction times would be slowed. Thinking processes and vision impaired. He wasn’t fit to pilot the Sikorsky now, and probably hadn’t been qualified in the past several years. He’d hired a pilot to fly in and out of this place, which was a good indication that he knew he couldn’t do it himself, when he was thinking clearly.
Now that he was closer, he saw that Hayes was carrying a weapon. It looked like a Glock 19 Gen4 from this distance. The same reliable pistol Flint carried.
He shouted, “Hayes! Come on, man! You can’t fly out of here until that sedative wears off. You’ll crash and burn. You know I’m right. Mark’s in no shape to fly.”
“Stay back, Flint. I’ll shoot you if I have to.” Hayes waved the Glock in Flint’s general direction, but he was crouched under the tail section of the Sikorsky, struggling with the tie-down release. He was unsteady on his feet.
Drake ran up behind Flint. Quietly, he said, “That tie-down lever was tough to close when I engaged it. He won’t get that one open without a tool of some kind to move the lever.”