by Andrew Mayne
I wonder how many other people there are like the man who has captured me. It’s a scary thought.
“We’re almost there. I’d like to climb and cut the power and glide, really soar on the wind, but I think I’ll have to save that for later. Or at least until I lighten the load.”
The volcano looms. We’re on a path to go over the collapsed edge. I hear his fingers flip a few switches and then the sound of his seat belt unbuckling. He leans over to my seat. I can feel his breath on my neck. His hand slips across my waist and touches the seat belt. It pauses for a moment. A finger caresses my abdomen. He lets go of the seat belt and grabs the door handle instead.
I’ve only got seconds. I watch his wrist turn the handle. He pushes it open and the air rushes into the cockpit. One hand grabs my bound hands while the other unfastens my seat belt. He has me tightly. I can’t slide my hands free. I can’t get loose. I’m being lifted off the seat.
I can see the caldera below the wing.
Wind rushes past my hair.
The plane is tilting me out of my seat.
I feel my balance slipping.
64
MY FINGERS TOUCH his waist. He’s trying to shove me out of the plane. I grab the leather of his belt and hold on. He pushes me forward and feels me clinging to him.
“You bitch!”
He lets go of my hands and punches me in the back of the head. I see stars. My fingertips touch metal. Instinct takes over. I grab his gun behind my back, slip off the safety and squeeze the trigger, hoping to hit flesh. I keep firing it until all the rounds have been spent.
The turbulent air rushing through the open door is punctured by the loud explosions.
He lets out a groan. Blood trickles over my fingers. He slackens his grip on me and falls back into his seat. He pulls the gun from my fingers, shoves it to my head and pulls the trigger. It’s empty.
I twist my body away from the open door and use my hands to grab the seat belt. He’s staring down at his leg. The bullets have gone through his side and part of his thigh. There’s a lot of blood, but I don’t think I hit an artery.
I speak in a calm voice. “Land this plane now and you’ll live.”
He’s still looking at his body in a state of shock, trying to assess what to do. The plane is spiraling downward. I must have hit the control panel too. The lights are flickering. His pilot instincts take over and he puts his hands on the stick and fights to bring the plane back under control.
The interior light strobes on and off, then goes dark. The engine dies. The only illumination comes from the red light of the camera and the sun rising over the horizon. For a fleeting moment, I think I see something glowing in the caldera.
The pilot turns the stick to the left and tries to bring us into a shallow descent.
His face is twisted with rage. “You bitch! You bitch! You’ve gotten us killed! Now is not my time! He said now is not my time!”
He tries to shove me out the open door again with his right hand, but he’s too weak and he knows he has to bring us in for a landing. As soon as he puts both hands on the control I slide my hands around to the front of my body. I’m vulnerable for just a moment, but I don’t want to give him another chance to push me out.
The plane passes between two tall trees. He tries to keep the nose up, but we’re still falling. I slip my seat belt back around me.
He speaks through gritted teeth as he concentrates on bringing us down. “You’re still going to die.”
“Not if you bleed to death first.”
“Goddamn you! There’s no place to land!”
He tilts the plane to the side and banks us between another cluster of trees. Ahead of us is a tiny road that only goes a few hundred feet before twisting behind a ridge. He shoves the stick forward and brings us onto the narrow ribbon. The plane shudders horrendously. I’m thrown against the restraints. If I hadn’t put them on, I’d have been tossed out the window.
The plane skids down the road and twists to the side. We spin around and slide off the edge and fall backward down the other side of the ridge the road is on. A tree trunk clips the wing outside my door and rips it free. The plane keeps skidding and pinwheels again.
The left wing hits a tree and is broken off. The wing flips over the top of the plane. The tail section hits a log and crumples as we come to a jarring stop. My back feels like I just fell off a building and my head is rattled.
The pilot looks like he passed out. Damian’s drugs and my adrenaline have kicked in. I unbuckle my belt and leap out the open door and start running up the side of the ridge. It’s a hard climb up the dirt and gravel. I keep falling and have to use my bound hands to stop myself from slamming my head into rocks.
The plane has made a deep furrow in the dirt. I try to climb it and reach the road. I steal a glance back and see the man stumbling from the airplane. He’s got one hand over his side and another on this gun. He staggers and aims it toward me.
The gun clicks on an empty chamber. I turn away and keep climbing. Behind me I hear the sound of metal on metal. I ignore it until I realize it was the sound of an empty magazine being tossed at the plane. I hear the clicking of another one being slammed into place.
I see the edge of the road above me. I take two more strides and pull myself up to the asphalt and roll over. On flat ground, I hope I can outrun him in his injured condition. If I’m lucky he’ll bleed out.
I sprint down the road and away from the mountain. I hope to find help, but I know a road like this can seesaw back and forth for forty miles down the side of the mountain before reaching a town.
There’s a gunshot behind me.
I run.
65
I MAKE IT ANOTHER hundred yards before my legs feel like they’re melting through the road. All the drugs in my body and my exhaustion are starting to take their toll. I try to keep jogging. It’s hard with my hands still bound. The corners of my vision fade while my body resists the urge to black out.
I hear another gunshot and something whizzes past my ear. The sound echoes through the ravine we’re in. I look back. He’s only a hundred feet behind me. He has the gun pointed straight at me. He’s still holding his wound, but it doesn’t seem to have slowed him down.
He shouts to me, “You’re not going to make it!”
“I already did! You failed him! You failed him big! And now you’re going to bleed to death out here,” I shout.
He falls to his knees and keeps the gun aimed at me. “At least I can take you out first.”
The gun is pointed at my chest. His hand wavers slightly, but he uses his other to steady his grip. He’s got a clean shot.
There’s a loud crack that echoes through the trees. His shoulder jerks back. Blood sprays from his arm and the gun drops to the ground. He falls on his face and screams.
I run over to the gun and pick it up with my bound hands before he can get back up. I point it at his head. He rolls over and looks at me. There’s a bullet hole in his shoulder.
“Goddamn bitch!” He tries to move but he can’t get to his knees.
I look around the trees to see where the bullet came from. There’s no one around. It sounded like a rifle shot.
In the distance I hear rotors. A moment later a spotlight pokes over the trees in front of me and a helicopter flies over the side of the mountain as dawn begins to break in the distance. The chopper hovers overhead sending a wash of air around us. Dust and dirt are kicked into a cloud. I keep the gun trained on the pilot.
My body wants to collapse, but I remain rock steady. I don’t even know if I have the energy to pull the trigger. I just stand there and keep it pointed on his head.
He writhes on the ground and tries to shield his eyes from the spotlight with his good hand. Under his breath he mutters curses. Some of them sound like they’re in another language.
The helicopter banks to the side and I see an FBI agent in tactical assault gear leaning out the side with an assault rifle. He leaps off and lands in the g
rass. He’s followed by another agent. They run over to me, keeping their guns trained on the pilot.
One of them shouts to me over the sound of the helicopter engine. “Agent Blackwood, is there anybody else in the area?”
I look at the pilot’s shoulder wound and back at the forest. “Nobody hostile.”
“Are you okay? Do you need medical help?”
I don’t know. I’m more worried about losing our one witness. “I’m not urgent. This man may be bleeding out. We need him alive.”
The helicopter lands on the road and two more in tactical gear climb out. They zip cuff the man on the ground and apply first aid to his wound. They tell me a medical chopper is ten minutes away.
I’m about to fall down, but I insist they take the pilot first. He might be our only connection to the Warlock.
The chopper takes him, and I fly to the hospital in a second helicopter. The last thing I remember before passing out is sitting between two other FBI agents as the helicopter climbs into the sky.
I catch a glimpse of the caldera. Someone gently takes the gun from my hand and places a blanket over my shoulders, then holds on to me as we fly.
I dream of nothing.
66
I WAKE UP IN a hospital bed in Portland, Oregon. Ailes is sitting in a chair reading a book. When my eyes open he gives me a smile.
“There you are, Blackwood,” he says. “Feeling a little more coherent?”
“I hope so. How long have I been here?”
There’s a row of empty paper coffee cups on the sill behind him. “Two days. They had to clean all that stuff out of your system,” he replies. “Your family is here.”
“My family?” The word sounds unusual to me.
“Your father and your uncle. They’re staying at a hotel. I’m not sure how things are with you and them, but I thought it best for them to be close by.”
I’m not ready to deal with my father just yet. Maybe when I have a little more strength. But I’m glad he came. Maybe ten years a little too late. But he came.
“What about the pilot?” I ask.
“He didn’t make it.”
“Damn.” If we could have gotten him to talk, who knows what he could tell us. “What about Haywood?”
“Still sitting there. Not saying anything. If the pilot had survived, we might have been able to play them off of each other.” Ailes’s eyes dart away for a moment as he hesitates.
I’m still cleaning the cobwebs from my head. “What?”
“If there’s one accomplice . . .”
I get it. “You think there might be more.”
“A cult. We still don’t really know what he was going to do in Colorado or Texas.”
“If he’s in custody he’s going to need help to pull it off,” I reply.
“Our mystery shooter who took out the pilot may have been doing Haywood a favor after all.”
I shake my head. I know it was Damian. I can’t come out and say that to Ailes—although I’m sure he knows. Damian tracked me down somehow and took out the pilot before he could kill me. Once again, his protecting me puts his actions under suspicion.
I sit up in my bed. There’s a bouquet of orchids on my nightstand. Orchids . . . a favorite I’ve only told a few people. I reach for the card.
“It’ll take some unconventional thinking to get them,” says Ailes.
I open the card.
Jessica,
Try not to miss me too much, darling. I have to go away for a while. Our devious little friend has started something we’d all be better off if he hadn’t.
I can’t always be there for you. So please keep safe. Lucky for everyone, we don’t all play by the same rules . . .
Love,
D.
I hand the card to Ailes. He reads it and gives it back to me. “What does he mean?”
“He’s going to try to find them before we do. Before they have a chance to get to me,” I reply.
“And do what?”
“Kill them. Kill them all.”
“One man?” asks Ailes.
“How many guards are here?”
“Two on the door. Another two watching the lobby. I’ve been here for a few hours. I dozed off for a bit. Why?”
“Did you see anyone place the flowers here?”
Ailes stares at the bouquet. His mouth opens to say something, but he’s speechless. He runs to the hallway to talk to the policemen guarding the door. Damian was in my room proving my point. Ailes runs to the hallway to talk to the police officers guarding the door.
I lie back and stare at the ceiling.
Damian’s kiss is still warm on my cheek. I’m bothered by how much it comforts me.
If I don’t stop him he’ll get them. I don’t doubt that for a moment. I can sit here and let that happen. Everyone will tell me I’ve done everything I could. I’ve gone above and beyond the call of duty. The Warlock is in jail. Maybe we haven’t proved it’s him, but I know.
Meanwhile, my obsessive sociopath is out there trying to protect me. He wants revenge, not justice.
Maybe it would be better if I let him do that. But I made an oath to uphold the law. I can’t let Damian fight my battles. I don’t need a protector.
I pull the IV from my arm. The floor is cold. It’s better than feeling numb.
I put on my clothes and go into the hallway. Ailes is dressing down a local police officer. “Jessica?” he says as he sees me standing, still a little unsteady.
“We have to stop them. We have to stop them all. It ends.”
“I know that. There’s nothing more we can do right now.” He gently grabs my arm.
“Yes there is.” I feel my knees beginning to buckle.
“We don’t know how many are out there. They’re fanatics. They think this man is God.”
My fingers dig into his forearm, more for balance than emphasis. “Then we kill their god.”
He relaxes his own grip. “I don’t suppose putting you in restraints will work . . .”
I fight back the urge to just lie down and let things wash over me. Things are clearer to me now. I see an end to this game. “Not a chance.”
67
THE MAN WE BELIEVE is the Warlock is sitting in a small room watching the television on the other side of a wire grid. The only sign of movement is his eyes flickering across the images on the news. His bound wrists rest on the metal table where they’re handcuffed.
A guard unlocks the door and lets me inside. Haywood, whatever his name, sees my reflection in the television. His spine snaps straight for a moment before he relaxes into his normal posture.
It’s the little reactions like this that tell me who he is. As a cop and a make-believe mind reader, you look for how people react when they don’t think they’re being observed. This shows you their true nature. I unsettle Haywood behind his mask.
We still don’t know his real identity, but in consulting with the DEA, we suspect he may have been someone on their radar for a while under another name. In the last ten years several new synthetic drugs appeared on the market, they suspect designed by the same person. Coming up with new drugs can be extremely lucrative. The designer never has to meet face-to-face with his clients. He never has to produce them in large quantities either. He gives them a formula and a process in exchange for a percentage of the profits. If they screw him over on the money, he takes the next new thing somewhere else.
As I walk around the table to the chair opposite of him, his gaze follows me. There’s the faintest of smiles at his lips. I sit down and stare back at him.
“This is a pleasure,” he says as he uses the remote to lower the volume.
“Is it?” We’d kept my disappearance out of the news. This is the first time he knows that I’m alive.
“Very much so,” he insists. “I was afraid . . .” There’s a hesitation in his voice. “I was afraid you weren’t worthy.”
“Worthy of what?”
He gives me a slim reptilian grin. I can tell he
’s trying to compose himself. He wants everyone to think things are going the way he intended. He’s still processing the realization that I’m alive, and that his attempt on my life through his accomplice was botched.
“Have you been traveling much?” he asks.
I ignore the question and ask my own. “Why?”
“Exactly.” He says it as a statement.
“I have to call the parents and loved ones of the people you killed. They’re all going to ask me why. What should I tell them? That nobody paid attention to you when you were little? Girls wouldn’t talk to you? That you have such low self-esteem that you decided that the only way to feel anything was make people think you were special? Any words I should pass on to them when I tell them I met with the person that murdered Chloe, Denise, Claire and Jeff?”
His eyes drift to the floor and the expression vanishes. “Yes. I feel for them. I don’t expect them to see the shape of things. But I took no pleasure in their deaths. They are very much loved.”
“They may not quite understand what you mean by love.”
“Love is sacrifice. Isn’t it, Jessica? It’s dealing with inconsistencies and hypocrisies. It’s seeing the good among all the bad. It’s why somewhere deep down you’re capable of love, even though you’ve been surrounded by, shall we say, some very complicated men?”
“I don’t think you know the meaning of love.”
“Maybe not. Maybe not. But I’ll leave you with this question. What was I feeling in my heart when I watched you sitting there in the darkness all alone in my warehouse in Michigan? Why did my finger never waver over the button that could have cratered you in an instant, wiping away every sad thought from your face?”
I don’t know what to say. We never told him we found the Michigan warehouse. All this time he knew? He saw me sitting there and never set off the explosion? It has to be a trick. Why else wouldn’t he?
“Did I strike a nerve?” he asks. “Tell you what, if you can answer me one question honestly, I’ll do the same.”