by Trevor Scott
“That could work,” she said. “You could hit their fuel tanks. They would be forced to turn back.”
“Hang on. Here we go.”
With one smooth motion, she banked down to the right, but she went too far and came out on the other side of them. This could still work, Jake thought. As they went under the other aircraft Jake had a nice view of their belly but no shot.
“Do that again in the other direction,” Jake instructed. “But bank a bit harder.”
Just as she was about to do this a bullet struck through their windscreen and continued through, striking the window next to Jake’s gun hand. “Bank now,” Jake yelled, shoving his gun out the side window.
She did as he said, banking the aircraft at a tight angle. As they passed under the other aircraft, Jake continued to shoot his gun until the slide came back on his weapon. They had been so close that their right wing nearly hit the bottom of the other plane.
Now Elisa settled the Skyhawk into a cruising altitude again, her heading toward the northeast. “Are they still with us?”
Jake craned his neck around the side of the aircraft high and low, then toward the aft windows, but he saw nothing. “Not unless they’re directly above or below us.”
She let out a quick breath of air.
Glancing at Elisa, he noticed both of her hands tightly gripping the yoke. “You all right?” he asked.
“I’m fine. But that was close on our last pass. Our right wing tip nearly clipped their landing gear. I think you must have done some damage to them.”
He was thinking the same thing. The biggest question he had, though, was how in the hell they had found them. He had told no one of their intent to fly to Catania. And only Elisa’s agency knew of their plans. “What kind of flight plan was issued for us?”
Elisa stared at him, an expression of incredulity. “Are you serious? You think this is my fault?”
“That’s not what I said.” Yet, he was asking without asking.
Finally she said, “It was a bogus flight plan for a husband and wife named Conidi. Tourists. No passport or visa required. There’s no way they could have traced us through that.”
“Then how?”
They both sat quietly now, only the engine and wind to distract their concentration. Jake thought about the items he had been given by Rob Pierce, the Tunis cultural affairs officer, but it would make no sense for him to be tracking him or turning his GPS information over to anyone. Yet, that was their only option from his point of view.
●
Zendo sat at the stern deck of the massive yacht owned by billionaire Petros Caras, who was barely awake in the chair next to his. They had spent the evening drinking heavily to help Zendo soften the blow of his men failing to capture the American woman at the professor’s apartment earlier. But where they had first failed, they had also gotten a break finding out about the flight that Jake Adams and that Italian woman had taken from Malta to Sicily.
The night air had cooled somewhat but was still nice enough for shorts and a light shirt. Zendo’s phone rang and he looked at the number. It was their satellite phone. He didn’t expect to hear from his men until they got to Catania.
“Zendo,” he said after pressing the screen on his phone. He listened to the noisy call and simply shook his head. Finally he said, “I specifically told you to simply follow them in your plane. Was I not clear?”
Petros Caras leaned forward in his chair. “What’s going on?”
“Just a minute.” Zendo put the phone to his chest and said to Petros, “A little incident in the air over the ocean. Nothing important.” He went back on the phone and said, “Are you still behind them?” He listened and tried not to look at his boss, who didn’t tolerate mistakes well. “Good, good. Better yet, your aircraft is much faster than theirs. Can you get there before them?” Now he shook his head as he smiled and looked at his boss to bring relief. “Do that then. Pick up a car and keep track of them once they land. I’ll be flying there commercial and will catch up with you.” Zendo left it at that, turning off his phone. He had considered flying to Italy with them, and that would have been better all around, except he hated flying anywhere on small planes. He had crashed in them twice while with the Greek army, barely surviving each incident.
“What happened?” Petros Caras asked.
Zeno explained the incident, not mentioning who had taken the first shot. “But they are clear now and will make it to Catania before Adams and the woman.”
“Did you get an ID on her yet?” Petros asked him.
“No. But my men say she’s one helluva pilot. Nearly as hot as that Czech woman you have inside.” He was hoping to get a shot at Svetla Kalina after seeing her in Santorini. It was he who had done the background check on the former model, reviewing countless nudes along the way.
“Is everyone all right?”
Zendo thought about lying, but he guessed his boss would find out eventually. “Niko took a minor bullet injury after one shot came through the bottom of the fuselage, through his seat, and about an inch into his right butt cheek.”
Petros laughed aloud. “It serves that idiot right for not following orders. I’m guessing he was the one who took the shot in retaliation for his cousin’s death this evening.”
Simply shrugging, Zendo lied, “I don’t know. But they’re on the right track now. After talking with the Malta professor, they think they know where the American woman is going.”
Finishing off the last of his drink, Petros got up and said, “You need to get off the boat. Unless you want to cruise with us to Sicily.”
Not likely, and Petros Caras knew this about him. Zendo hated to fly in small planes, but absolutely refused to travel anywhere by boat. Trains, cars and big jets were just fine, though.
“I will catch the first flight to Catania in the morning,” Zendo said. “When do you leave?”
“As soon as our launch drops you off at the pier and gets back here.”
With that, Zendo nodded and got onto the waiting launch. Just like his men on the airplane, he had also dodged a bullet tonight. Somehow he had managed to not get his ass chewed by Petros Caras.
12
It was less than an hour since their encounter with the other aircraft and what Jake could only assume was the same Greeks who had messed with him on the ferry and shot at him in Malta. Somehow they had caught up with them, and he wasn’t taking any chances now. Once he got cell service off the coast of Italy he was able to call an old friend of his and get clearance to divert the airplane to another location.
Now, still dark and their only indication of civilization the lights of Catania ahead, Jake got off the phone and turned to Elisa. “We have clearance to land at Naval Air Station Sigonella.”
“How did you pull that off?” she asked.
“Friends in high places.” The only reason Jake hadn’t thrown his cell phone in the ocean after their encounter with the Greeks was to make contacts like this. He wasn’t a Luddite when it came to high tech gadgets, but he also knew they could work against him as much as for him.
She got on the radio and within a minute confirmed clearance to land at the air station. They flew in low over the coast of Sicily toward the Catania airport and with that airport in view, she banked hard to the west and Jake could finally see where she was heading.
“Have you landed here before?” Jake asked.
“Yes, during my time with the Italian air force. We conducted joint exercises with our NATO allies.”
Elisa landed with as much precision as she had throughout the flight. They taxied and came to a stop outside the base operations building, where a man in a flight suit waited with a flashlight. He was talking with someone on his headset by the time Jake and Elisa collected their bags and got to the tarmac.
“Jake Adams?” the man said as he approached and offered his hand to shake. “Lieutenant Max Stevens.”
They shook and then Jake introduced his friend as simply Elisa.
The naval
officer said, “We picked you up on our system as soon as you requested to land. You know you had a tail, right?” Then he shone his flashlight beam onto the side of their airplane. “Jesus, what happened here. Looks like bullet holes.”
“Good eye,” Jake said. “What can you tell me about the tail?”
The naval officer’s eyes kept shifting from Elisa to the holes in the plane. “Well, they followed you until they must have realized you were landing here. Then they turned around and landed at Catania a few minutes ago.”
“Can you get on the horn and have them detained? They tried to drop us out of the sky over the Med.”
“Yes, sir.” He got onto his headset again and watched as Elisa walked past him toward the operations building. He turned and smiled at Jake. “Nice. You two a couple?”
“Easy sailor. She’s armed and dangerous.”
“A spook like you?” He nodded his head, obviously turned on by this new fact.
Jake ignored the inquiry. Instead he simply walked into the operations building after Elisa. Inside he found a chair and went through his backpack, checking again to make sure there was no tracking device. He was clean. But while he looked he realized he was getting short on 9mm ammo.
“Everything all right, Mister Adams?” the Navy officer asked him.
“I could use some nine mil rounds. Any way of getting some from your security folks?”
“I’ll see what I can do.” He started to leave and stopped himself. “Still waiting to hear back from the Polizia at the Catania airport.”
“Thanks.”
Just as he turned, the naval officer almost ran into Elisa, who was returning from the restroom.
“Everything all right?” she asked, taking a seat next to Jake.
“He’s heading out to get us some nine millimeter rounds.”
“I could get some from the local Carabinieri,” she said.
“Let’s try not to get them involved.” Jake had a few negative experiences with that law enforcement agency, and he wasn’t in the mood to have them look too deep into his background, even though he could show them fake identification. “Besides, we need to get moving to catch up with the ferry. It should arrive within the hour.”
“What about the Greeks from that other plane?” she asked.
Just then the naval officer showed up with two boxes of 50 rounds each of 9mm ammo, which he handed to Jake. “Got a call back from Catania airport. By the time the Polizia went to the airplane on the tarmac at Fontanarossa Airport the men were already gone.”
Jake let out a breath. “Great.” Now they’d have to keep looking over their shoulder. And the Greeks might actually know the destination of Sara Halsey Jones.
The naval officer smiled and said, “Turns out their airplane was also hit by a number of bullets. Strange coincidence. They also found some blood on one of the chairs in the back. Said a bullet came right up through the bottom of the fuselage, through the chair, and probably into the posterior of someone. Someone will have a sore ass for a while.”
“Any way we can get a ride down to the main ferry terminal in Catania?” Jake asked as he reloaded an empty magazine, keeping his prints off the brass casings.
“I can drive you,” he said.
Shaking his head, Jake said, “Not in that flight suit.”
“Understood. But I can change in less than five and take you in my personal car.”
“All right. Let’s do it.”
Naval Air Station Sigonella was just a short drive to downtown Catania and the waterfront, especially between three and four in the morning. The officer dropped them a couple blocks from the ferry terminal, so Elisa and Jake could walk in and make sure they were not under surveillance.
Outside on the sidewalk, the officer’s car driving away in the other direction on Via Cristoforo Colombo, Jake said to Elisa, “Let’s split up for a while so we can cover more ground. There has to be two hundred people on that ferry and it might be tough to catch her in the crowd.”
He let her go ahead and he followed a respectable distance behind her. As Jake got to the ferry terminal, he saw that Elisa already had a large cappuccino in her hand from a small kiosk. Needing the same jolt to get him to wake up, Jake ignored Elisa and got himself a large also and then walked off toward a position along a wall near the restrooms. Elisa found a chair across from him. From those locations they should be able to cover the entire offloading of passengers.
Better yet, Jake knew, he could see if anyone else, specifically the Greeks, were anywhere to be seen.
The ferry arrived on time at 4 a.m. Slowly the weary passengers strolled off like a group of zombies. There were families, couples, groups of youth, which Jake only viewed to make sure Sara Halsey Jones had not globed onto, and finally he saw the woman he had been seeking for days, and who had been on the run for weeks in Europe. She was still wearing all black, with a black scarf over her head, as if she were a much older woman in mourning. Jake threw his empty coffee cup in the garbage and caught the eye of Elisa, who also saw their target. It had been agreed that he would make contact with Sara and Elisa would watch to make sure they were not followed.
Sara Halsey Jones seemed to wander aimlessly about the small terminal, as if looking for something, her eyes scanning signs. This was the perfect opening for Jake. He simply walked up to her and asked, “May I help you find something, ma’am?” He threw in a slight Texas accent.
She startled at first and then said, “No, thank you. You’re an American?”
“Guilty.”
“I didn’t see you on the ferry,” she said.
“There were a lot of passengers.”
“I would have remembered you.” She took a slight step away from him.
“Sara. My name is Jake. I was hired by your brother to find you.”
She walked away from him and he quickly caught up, grasping her arm. “Let me go,” she said loudly. “I don’t have a brother.”
Jake loosened his grip slightly but still maintained control. “Listen to me very carefully. Your brother is Senator James Halsey. You are Sara Halsey Jones, professor of history from Rice University in Houston. You just came from Malta, where you spoke with another history professor. That man is dead.” He put great emphasis on that last word.
“He’s dead? Why?” A tear streaked down her cheek from her right eye.
“Because there are men who either want you dead or want you for some other reason. The same men who have been after you in Athens, Rome, Venice and Istanbul.”
Sara wiped away her tear but now the waterworks came from both eyes as she sniffled and almost lost her breath. She took deep intakes of air. “I don’t understand,” she finally forced out.
Jake glanced at Elisa, who pulled out a tissue from her purse as if offering it up from across the room. He took the hint and found a tissue in his jacket pocket and handed it to Sara, who accepted it and dabbed her eyes.
Jake said, “Why are these men after you?”
She seemed to settle down somewhat. “I honestly don’t know. What was your name again?”
“Jake. Jake Adams.”
“Another man came to me and told me the same thing,” Sara said. “That he had been hired by my brother. But then he went away.”
“In Rome?”
She shook her head. “In Athens.”
He didn’t want to frighten her any more than he had to, but she needed to know the truth. “Your brother sent two men and both are now missing. Could this have something to do with your family money?”
Sara shook her head emphatically. “I have nothing to do with that. I’m simply a college professor. By the way, I also teach mathematics.”
He did know that. “Could it have something to do with your research?”
Shaking her head, she said, “How could it? I’m just researching for a book I plan to write.”
Time to bring it on home. “It’s most likely something to do with your research,” he postulated. “Something you looked into must
have aroused someone’s interest. Did you tell the professor in Malta where you were going next?”
“Not really. He just knew Sicily, since he’s the one who gave me my next direction.”
“He recommended Catania?”
“Among others.”
She was holding back on him. That was obvious, and Jake didn’t blame her for not trusting him. “Well I was hired to find you. I told your brother’s people that I wouldn’t drag you back to Texas unless you wanted me to escort you there.”
“Can’t you just tell him you found me and I’m fine?”
“That would be a lie, Sara.”
“But I am fine right now.”
“I won’t split the baby like that.”
“Wow, a Biblical reference. Are you trying to impress me?”
“Now that I’ve found you, I feel obligated to keep you alive.”
“That’s very noble, Mister Adams. . .”
“Jake.”
“Right, Jake. But I don’t need a babysitter.”
“I had to shoot a man in Malta,” Jake explained. “A man who had just tortured the professor by binding him, burning his skin with cigarettes, and then finally strangling him with his own guitar string. Then, on our flight here in a private plane, the rest of the men tried to shoot us out of the sky. We barely escaped.”
“We?” She glanced around. “You’re not alone?”
“I’ve had some help along the way.” Deflection might be the better way to go right now, he thought. “Your brother has gotten the State Department involved. If I don’t contact his people soon, he’s likely to send the Royal Canadian Mounted Police after you. Now, are you going to continue this quest of yours? Or would you rather stay alive?”
The professor sobbed again, as if this was the first time someone had actually yelled at her. Perhaps he’d come off too harsh.
“What do you want me to do? I still have research. Important research.”
“With this Polybius fellow?”
Her eyes widened. “What do you know of Polybius?”
“Not a damn thing,” Jake said truthfully. They stood there at an impasse for a moment, neither wanting to continue. Finally Jake looked around the room, which was clearing out and making it easier for them to stand out. “What do you want to do, Sara?”