“What the hell is going on back there?” said Captain James, coming up behind them.
Back in the rear cabin of the luxury aircraft, the door to the lavatory suddenly opened.
Then Dawn Warner started screaming herself as she saw what was coming out of the doorway.
116
Coming on an hour later, Barber and Gannon sat in a McDonald’s on the strip just north of the airport.
“How’s your joe there, Mike?” John Barber said. “You look like you’re really enjoying it.”
“This coffee here? Let’s see,” Gannon said, lifting the golden-arched paper cup from the other side of the plastic booth they were sitting in.
He made a moaning sound and rolled his eyes as he took a sip.
“Nice mouth coat. I’m getting notes of Hamburglar, a hint of clown sweat. Why, I think happy Ronald must have handpicked the beans himself.”
Gannon smiled as his buddy burst out laughing. With all the traveling and shooting and racing around and no sleep, they were both running on nothing but pure adrenaline and were punch-drunk out of their minds.
Gannon jumped up as his phone rang.
“Hey, Kit,” he said.
“You can come back now.”
“Are you sure? We passed one hell of a lot of cops on the way out of Dodge. Maybe it might be better if we just got lost.”
“No, it’s okay. You’re good. I smoothed things over. In fact, you have to come. This is something you really have to see.”
They left the stolen Mercury in the parking lot of the McDonald’s and took an Uber back to the private aviation lounge. Kit met them at the front door.
“What’s going on?” Gannon said as he looked through the lounge window and saw the 7500 private jet still stuck way out on the tarmac. It looked like personnel in white Tyvek suits were climbing out of it.
“You’ll see,” Kit said, leading them in past the receptionist’s desk into the back.
In the hall were the two Customs agents they had argued with. Beyond them in a small conference room, there were a half dozen FBI agents. They were watching a wide screen on the wall that was showing a plane cockpit.
“Now pan back,” one of the agents said into his phone.
Gannon watched as the camera showed the luxury jet’s cabin.
On the floor lay people. Motionless people with their eyes open.
Gannon looked at the Chinese men and women. At Alex Novak. Dawn Warner was there, too. As was Ethan Weber. All side by side.
“No!” Gannon said. “Dead?”
Kit nodded.
“All dead except one of the pilots. He managed to open the door but he’s still messed up. He probably won’t make it. They took him away in an ambulance.”
“What happened?” Gannon said.
“Fentanyl,” Kit said.
“Fentanyl?” John Barber said.
“Uh-huh. Courtesy of the Chicoms. Must have had some in a carry-on. Airborne high-concentration fentanyl is deadlier than a nerve gas. See the Chinese guy with the gas mask beside him there? He pulled the plug on them. On all of them. Then he took off the mask to do himself.”
“But why?” John Barber said.
“Because of Alex Novak,” she said. “This artificial intelligence thing is very much like the nuke buildup during the Cold War. Once they panicked and saw they were about to get busted, they must have figured if they couldn’t have him, then neither could we.”
Gannon shook his head.
“Look at them,” he said. “So clever, right? MIT and computer science and even private jet planes. Oh, my!”
“Yeah, exactly,” John Barber said. “Guess not, you stupid suckers. All your deep-thinking moves led you right into a pine box. Woops!”
“Exactly,” Gannon said, laughing. “Your computer models indicated a zig when you should have zagged. So close though. Oh, well. Maybe next time we’ll plug in pi at a further decimal point. Oh, that’s right. They’re won’t be a next time.”
“Hey, what’s this?” John Barber said, going across the hall into what looked like a little kitchen.
He opened the door of a fridge. Inside there were bottles and bottles of champagne for the well-heeled jet-setters.
Before they knew what was happening, he had the foil off one and its wire twisted off and the cork out.
“To Owen,” he said and took a swig and passed it to Kit.
“To Dennis,” she said as she followed suit.
“And to large, highly visible luxury jet tires,” Gannon said as the cold green bottle was placed in his hand.
Then he tipped the champagne up to his lips and closed his eyes and drank.
* * *
ISBN-13: 9781488075896
Run for Cover
Copyright © 2021 by Michael Ledwidge
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
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