The pilot now said over the intercom, “Our hydraulics are out, and the backup system is not responding. We have no control over the airplane except for the throttles. We are going down. Prepare yourselves to ditch at sea.”
Fear spiked through Cloe, threatening to blot out her reason and steal her ability to react correctly to the crisis. “J.E.!” she screamed. And suddenly, somehow, J.E. was in the seat next to her, tightening down his seat belt.
“Mom,” he yelled over the increasing din in the cabin from the plunging plane, “strap your seat belt down as tightly as you can. In this jet, there are life jackets apart from the seat bottoms.” He had grabbed two of them, and he wedged them between the seats as he tightened his belt.
The jet continued its fall toward the earth. The speed increased, and the angle became sharper. Cloe looked about wildly, but she knew at this rate and pace, no one could possibly survive the crash. The plane would be demolished on contact.
J.E. leaned over and pushed a life jacket to Cloe. She unwrapped it and began to put it on, seeing that J.E. was already wearing his. She struggled with the fasteners, and finally J.E. closed her up in the jacket. When she looked back from her seat near the cockpit door, she saw grim but determined faces all about her. Everyone had a flotation device on and was hunkered down. The priests had begun to lead prayers. Cloe joined them.
Through the door to the cockpit, which was now open, Cloe could hear the Mayday calls from the copilot as the captain fought the controls of the doomed craft. The flight engineer was on his hands and knees, trying to tear removable panels out of the cockpit floor. Cloe could feel the early tendrils of shock beginning to set in. She wasn’t sure she could move even if she knew what to do.
Suddenly, J.E. looked at her and said, “I love you, Mom.” Then he tore his seat belt off and dove to the floor of the plane, toward the cockpit. Almost weightless due to the free fall, he flew forward and slammed into the bulkhead near where the engineer was trying to dismantle the floor. He shrugged off the contact with the metal wall, rolled toward the engineer, and began to work furiously to tear off the panels to reveal whatever was beneath.
As he and the engineer got the first section off, thick smoke roiled out of the small opening, pushing them back. Both of them began to cough, and the captain donned his oxygen mask. The engineer reached back and under his seat and produced two small oxygen bottles and masks. J.E. and the engineer put them on and went back to opening the deck.
The acrid smoke now entered the cabin as the airplane continued its fall. Oh my God, we can’t have more than a minute or two before we hit the water like hitting a concrete wall, thought Cloe.
As the smoke filled the cabin, Cloe could smell burning hydraulic fluid and could taste an acidic rotten egg stench in her mouth. She could hardly breathe and began gasping and coughing. Suddenly, the overhead opened, and an orange mask dropped into Cloe’s lap. She pulled the mask on and breathed deeply. She felt reprieved if not paroled.
J.E. and his cohort had gotten a couple more panels up and were hanging over the edge of the now-open cockpit floor, looking at something beneath. The engineer had removed a flashlight from his nearby tool kit. Both of them reached deeply into the hidden area. Cloe surmised that the control lines were there, and whatever the damage was, it was there as well. The noise of the falling plane was beginning to sound like a rushing freight train.
The pilot screamed, “Hurry, the water is coming up!”
J.E. and the engineer were saying something to each other, but Cloe couldn’t hear. The engineer grabbed a fire extinguisher and sprayed it into the cavity. Smoke went everywhere, but when he was finished, there was less of it.
“Forty-five seconds to impact!” cried the captain.
The copilot left the controls where he had been assisting the pilot in trying to right the plane and dropped to the floor to see if he could help with the repairs. J.E. reached into the toolbox, pulled out a silver tool, and fell over headfirst into the cavity.
As he did, the engineer yelled to the captain, “Give us some slack on the yoke!”
A half dozen heartbeats later, J.E. jumped up from the hole and roared, “Now!” Then he ducked back into the space below.
The pilot grabbed the steering yoke, put both feet on the console, and began to pull back with all his strength. Nothing happened.
Cloe’s heart hammered in her chest. She could hardly breathe.
“I need help!” the pilot screamed.
He strained against all the g-forces aligned against him, and the copilot struggled up and climbed into his seat. He too gripped the steering mechanism and tore it back from the grip of gravity.
“Deploy the airbrakes,” called the captain.
“Capitan, at this speed the wings will be torn off!” cried the copilot.
“If we don’t slow this plane, we will be just a grease spot on the sea,” he yelled. “Airbrakes!”
The plane shook violently, and Cloe braced for the wings to come off. But the hurtling missile that the plane had become began to slow. Hope rang a small bell in her heart. Cloe could now see out the cockpit windows. The sea was rushing toward them like some massive tsunami.
“Full flaps … we need lift!” the pilot cried.
“Captain, the plane will come apart,” screamed the copilot.
“We’re dead anyway,” yelled the pilot. “We need to slow this monster!”
The flaps, apparently on a different hydraulic system, came down, and if it were possible for there to be more turbulence, there was. The jet shook violently and felt as if it would surely disintegrate. Still, the water rushed up.
“Brace for crash!” screamed the pilot into the intercom.
The jet began to pull up, slightly at first and then more, but it was too late. It hit the water hard, but it glanced and did not tumble. Again and again like a flat stone, it skipped across the water at a terrible speed. Finally, it stopped, and there was an eerie silence.
And then it started to sink.
CHAPTER 29
Miguel heard the knock at his door from what felt like a great distance. He had been in a dead sleep, sweating and tangled in the bed covers, dreaming of the boys as he had last seen them. The two boys, gangly and laughing, had rushed back to the car, now forever in slow motion in his dreams. Their smiling faces haunted him. Tears had washed down his cheeks.
He rolled over, turned on the lights, and said, “Come.”
Tomás strode into the room and whispered, “Sorry to disturb your rest, boss, but there is news. You said to let you know immediately, no matter the time.”
“Yes, what is it?” Miguel responded, shaking off the sleep and the dream.
“Yesterday, the group with the Lejeune woman and the priests finished whatever they were doing in the church and went back to their hotel,” said Tomás.
“You woke me for that?” said Miguel in a flash of anger.
“No, boss, the interesting thing was that this morning they all rushed to the airport, boarded a private Vatican jet, and flew out,” replied Tomás.
“Right, perhaps headed back to Vatican City to report to the pope on whatever they found, if anything,” said Miguel.
“Not unless they are going to the Vatican via Tunis,” responded the retainer.
“What? Tell me what you know,” said the boss.
“Our man on the scene is very resourceful. He bribed the clerk at the general aviation station, and we have the flight plan dutifully filed by the pilot of the plane,” said Tomás with a smile. “Sometimes, it does not pay to follow the rules.”
“And you are sure that Tunis is the destination?” asked Miguel.
“No doubt about it. Not only is that what the flight plan states, but we tracked the plane on radar and by satellite, and it is clearly headed for North Africa, most likely Tunis,” Tomás replied.
“Then that will be where we will find the one I seek.”
Tomás started to say something, but Miguel cut him off.
> “Pull our people together. We are headed for Tunis … right now.”
CHAPTER 30
Cloe dreamt of her mother and father. It was a simple dream, really. She was at the breakfast table in the Water Street house, and her mother was frying eggs and bacon. Cloe could smell biscuits and fresh dark-roast coffee. They were all together. But the color began to run out of the dream, and everything became darker until she could hardly see her parents. They were going, fading, and Cloe realized she was cold. She should not have been cold.
“J.E.!” she screamed, suddenly coming awake and realizing where she was.
The water rose up over her shins. Fear grabbed her heart. She looked around and saw that the plane had been virtually destroyed. Debris and wiring hung over her, sparks flashed in the water, and smoke filled what was left of the cabin. She looked back, and beyond a few seats, there was no airplane at all. It looked like the tail had been sheared off in the crash. Where there had formerly been the resolute faces of the Swiss, there was nothing. Where was J.E.?
The water continued to rise. Some of the windows had burst. The plane was sinking back end first, creating an air bubble toward the front of the jet where she was. She knew it would not last long. Sea water gushed in. She had to get out.
She fumbled with her seat belt, but it would not open. Cloe tugged on it and pounded on it, but the belt held fast. She struggled violently against the strap. The water rose and was now chest high. Soon she would not be able to breathe and would drown strapped to her seat. How deep were they? Could she make it to the surface even if she could get out of the seat belt?
“J.E.!” she screamed one last time before the rising water rushed over her. The water ran up her body and rolled over her face. She knew it was the end. Cloe prayed to God to help her and her son. She asked her mother to pray to the Virgin to save her and J.E.
As the cold water engulfed her, she felt someone tugging at her seat belt. The water sought to drag her down, and the force at her waist countered to lift her up. The battle was close and in doubt. But suddenly, she was free of her seat. A strong arm grabbed her, and they fought the hanging wires and debris for freedom.
Cloe kicked for all she was worth, but the world began to go black just before she and J.E. burst through the surface of the water and gasped for breath.
They hugged each other and thanked God for their deliverance. A life raft had automatically deployed and bobbed to the surface not too far from them. They swam for it.
After falling into the raft, Cloe said, “J.E. we have to look for other survivors.”
J.E. secured the oars from the craft, and they paddled around the crash site. “Helloooo!” they heard someone yell. Paddling in that direction, they soon came upon a survivor clinging to some wreckage.
“J.E., Cloe, your faces are like heaven to behold,” said the monsignor as he bobbed in the sea. They helped him into their raft and continued to search but found no other survivors.
“But what about Father Sergio, Father Anton, and the Swiss?” asked Cloe, scanning the surrounding sea. “Surely, we haven’t lost them all!”
“We may not know for a while,” responded the monsignor. “It looks like the tail broke off a distance from here on the second or third time we hit the water. There may be survivors there.”
“But right now, it looks like we are it,” concluded J.E., studying the horizon. “Our friends may take more time to be rescued.”
The monsignor removed his shoes and stood in the raft, reconnoitering 360 degrees around them. The day was bright and clear. Sitting back down, he said, “Nothing. I don’t see anything. Visibility is good for a long way, but there’s nothing out here but us.”
The monsignor bowed his head, and Cloe knew he was praying for their friends. She watched J.E. join in, and she did likewise.
“Mom, help is on its way,” said J.E. after a bit. “When I was helping the engineer rip up the floor to get at the control lines, I could hear the copilot calling Mayday and our position. The Mediterranean is not the Pacific. We’ll be found before you know it.”
Cloe took heart from this, collected her thoughts, and asked, “J.E., what were you and the engineer doing?”
“We were trying to see why the jet had no control with either the main hydraulic system or the backup mechanical system,” he replied. “The hydraulic system was hopeless—the lines were damaged, and all the fluid had leaked out.”
Cloe shivered as she listened and then realized that she, J.E., and the monsignor were not only all wet but also covered in jet fuel. The smell of the fuel was overwhelming, and she thought she might be sick. Her stomach turned over but then settled down. As the adrenaline began to wear off, she became more uncomfortable and more tired. She now realized why she had been so cold in her dream. Wide awake now, she was trembling from cold and the fright of the near-death experience.
“How did you fix it?” asked the monsignor.
“We didn’t. We focused on the mechanical system, which consisted of control cables. They had been severed, but I used a locking wrench to overlap the cables and clamp them. The orientation of the pilot’s yoke was off, but it worked to get the nose up enough so we hit the water with only a glancing blow. That’s it … saved by a wrench in the engineer’s tool kit.”
“Saved by the quick thinking, improvisation, and heroics of J.E. and the crew is more like it to me,” said the monsignor with a smile.
“It’s strange for both the primary system and the backup system to fail like that,” suggested Cloe. “It had to take a rare series of accidents to put us here.”
J.E. scoffed. “Accidents? That was no accident! Someone rigged and then triggered, probably by cell phone, a small container of acid near the control lines. When it detonated, it showered the lines with acid, which ate them through and almost killed us all. This was intentional. Someone tried to kill us.”
“Is there no end to this?” cried Cloe, now sick from grief, salt water, and fear. Cloe huddled in the bottom of the raft as J.E. put his arm around her.
“Albert, it had to be someone in the Kolektor’s organization,” said J.E.
“Yes, but it’s strange,” said the monsignor thoughtfully. “They were watching us in Lyon to see what we would do and where we would go. They must have thought we were at least one link to the cave. Now they don’t care. Sabotaging the plane means whoever this is thinks we no longer have anything to add to the search for Thib’s cave. We have somehow become expendable.”
CHAPTER 31
The Karik lifted his satellite phone as he flew toward Tunis. “Yes?” he said.
“Karik, the Lejeune woman and her cohorts are all dead,” reported his servant Noosh. “As you directed, we triggered the acid bomb, and they must have hit the water at over five hundred miles an hour. No one could have survived.”
“Are you sure?” asked the Karik, realizing his plan had come off perfectly and beginning to enjoy his success.
“We heard the distress call from the plane’s captain. There is no question he had lost control of the aircraft, and they were preparing to crash,” replied the servant. “We followed the doomed jet until it fell below our radar capability. A search has been organized, but nothing has been found. They are gone.”
“Well, this is a fine moment. The obdurate woman and her pesky friends who saw the end of the Kolektor and who have bedeviled me are finally finished,” responded the Karik, smiling with satisfaction. As he reflected on his success, he realized that he felt less conflicted than he had been before. The rush of power ran through his veins.
“We have our forces prepared to follow the Sicarii map to the cave,” said Noosh.
“Tell them to await my arrival. I want to be there when we enter the cave and retrieve the biblical riches that must lie there,” ordered the Karik. “This will be a great day of glory and one to be feared by all the world’s religions.”
CHAPTER 32
Miguel sat on the terrace of the Les Berges Du Lac Concorde hotel. T
he view of Lake Tunis was magnificent. The old hotel had more stars than most galaxies. Service like this simply did not exist except here in Tunis, the jewel of the Mediterranean. He sipped a frozen vodka, straight up in a crystal stem. It was rather warm here, but there was a gorgeous breeze off the lake. “Boss,” said Tomás, entering the terrace, “we have some news.”
“What is it?” asked Miguel somewhat reluctantly.
“You told us to stake out the airports and look for inbound private jets that might be suspicious,” replied his number one. “Our men at the Tunis airport report that a plane inbound from the east, maybe Turkey or Armenia, has landed.”
“Yes?” asked Miguel. “Was there something special about it?”
“Well, boss, we have seen a lot of inbound pleasure planes, but this was all business,” said Tomás. “First, it was larger than the usual private jet, and the men who got off had a military look to them. They had rucksacks, duffels, and backpacks rather than suitcases and briefcases. They were all dressed in black in spite of the heat. Their leader was a small man dressed in traditional Bedouin robes and headdress. He looked like something out of Lawrence of Arabia.”
“Yes, of course, that would be the servant who has become the master,” replied Miguel. “I have heard he has always had a secret flair for the dramatic. I look forward to meeting him. Where are they now?”
“Boss, they rented a couple of vans and traveled across town to the old Maison Blanche hotel,” replied Tomás. “They have checked in and, from what we can tell, are seeking local guides for an expedition into the mountains.”
“Very interesting. I know the Maison Blanche well. Traditional, but without the breeze of the Les Berges. Tomás, you have done well. Please keep up our surveillance, but make sure they do not know we are watching,” ordered Miguel as the sun began to set behind the hotel.
“That we can do, boss,” replied the retainer. “What’s our next move?”
“Right now they are our best lead to find the cave. We wait. We watch, and at the right time, we even the score.”
The Last Sicarius Page 10