by Barry Reese
“So you thought I might be fantasizing about her because she’s white?”
“And attractive. From your reaction, I’d say I was right.”
Mortimer frowned, realizing that she’d just been playfully teasing him. His extreme reaction had not only confirmed her statement but had revealed the depth of his attraction. “I’d rather you kept this between us.”
“There’s nothing to keep,” Li answered with a shrug. “You think a girl is pretty. What’s the big deal?”
“She has a boyfriend. The last thing we need is jealousy driving a wedge between any of us.”
“It’s too late for that,” Li muttered and Mortimer noticed an uncharacteristic frown touch her pretty features.
“What do you mean?”
Li took a deep breath. “Cedric and I…”
“I know that the two of you are involved.”
“Involved. That’s a good way of putting it. We’re lovers. He wants to take that beyond the physical.”
“And you don’t?”
“It wouldn’t work.” She looked at him and he was struck by how intelligent her gaze really was. The way she played at being silly and flirtatious, it was easy to underestimate her. “We come from two different worlds. And if his friends found out about my past, it would hurt him badly.”
“Sounds like that’s his decision to make.”
“Not really. I can make my own decisions.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
Li threw her head back and laughed. She suddenly looked carefree once more. She stood up and whispered, “I know what you meant, silly. Don’t worry. Your secret’s safe with me.”
Mortimer was about to thank her when the entire cabin suddenly lurched. Debris of all kinds flew into the air as everything that wasn’t tied down began flowing towards the back of the plane. Mortimer grabbed hold of Li’s wrist, preventing her from losing her balance.
Cedric, seated alone in the rear, stood up and crept into the rear cabin. He found the exit door standing wide open and he yanked it closed with extreme effort.
“Something’s wrong,” he bellowed. He turned to find the rest of the team on their feet, looking in his direction. He scanned the area before adding, “I think our stewardesses and the copilot just took a flying leap. They didn’t bother leaving behind any parachutes for us, either.”
Charity and Mitchell exchanged a silent glance, prompting Mitchell to sprint towards the cockpit. He lowered his shoulder and drove the door open, revealing a horrible sight. The pilot was dead, the back of his skull having been caved in by some heavy implement.
Turning back to the others, the Englishman asked, “Does anyone here know how to fly a plane?”
PANDORA STEPPED OUT of the bath, enjoying the feel of warmth on her skin. She plucked up a soft white towel and ran it over her body, finally tying it just above her pert breasts. Locke’s body wasn’t quite as firm as she would like but it was far from being out of shape.
Pandora wandered into the bedroom and turned on the radio. Almost magically, the sound of music filled the room, bringing a grin to her face. She stared at her reflection in a mirror and began to dance softly. Her body swayed to the rhythm and for a moment, she was able to forget about the stresses of her existence, the years of imprisonment, the terrible weight of guilt that she carried upon her shoulders.
Then the song changed and so did her mood.
She remained standing, panting slightly, before dropping her towel. Nude, she began to do a series of stretching exercises, beginning the arduous process of hardening this form. When her new body began to shiver from exhaustion, she stopped and walked to the closet, which was filled with clothes bought for her by Hiroshi. She frowned at the many skirts and dresses, finally selecting a long green gown that she tightly cinched at the waist with a belt. Using a pair of scissors she found in a drawer, she cut the hem of the dress, shortening it. She wanted to be able to move freely, should combat arrive. Pants would have been preferable but she would not allow modesty to impede her, should danger present itself.
Most of the shoes were high-heeled but in the end she did find one pair of leather boots that ended calf-high. They didn’t really go with the dress but fashion was far from a concern.
Marching across the hall, she rapped firmly on Hiroshi’s door and, upon a verbal response from within, entered the room. She found the would-be Emperor staring out the window. The hotel he’d picked afforded an excellent view of the Washington Memorial.
“I need a weapon,” she said.
Hiroshi turned to face her, looking handsome in the crisp white shirt he wore. His black slacks emphasized the long, athletic shape of his waist and legs. Though Pandora considered Lust to be among the Seven Deadly Sins, she was not immune to the man’s good looks. “I knew you would say that,” he responded with a smile. He gestured towards a table, upon which lay two swords. One of them was Hiroshi’s own but the other was new to Pandora. It had a matching hilt and similar design, though it was somewhat smaller in size. “Even before you were freed from The Silver Skull, I commissioned a man to make you a blade.”
Pandora plucked it up and whipped it through the air, marveling at its craftsmanship. “It feels like an extension of my arm.”
“Of your soul,” he corrected. “By the way, you look absolutely stunning.”
“I doubt that I would conform to modern cultural ideals.”
“That doesn’t matter. After all, soon we will be the ones setting those ideals.” Hiroshi strolled over to a chair where his jacket lay across the back. He picked it up and pulled it on. “I have a meeting with Reginald Van Draught. He’s the Secretary of the Interior.”
“What is that?”
“He works very closely with the President of the United States. If I can get him under the sway of our ETD, then we can arrange a meeting with the President himself.”
“So you need for me to be close by,” she said.
“You’ll be in your room across the hall. Prof. Potter thinks you’re so powerful that you could be on the other side of the hotel and still be able to affect our target but there’s no need to take chances.” Hiroshi reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a photograph of Van Draught. “You’ll want to concentrate on this picture. Wait until you can get a signal from Dr. Craig. I’d like to have a polite conversation before we unleash you on him.”
“What emotion do you want him to feel?”
Hiroshi grinned. “Fear, of course. I want him shaking in his boots. He’s going to do whatever I want… for fear of his very life.”
“I’LL ASK AGAIN, anybody here know how to fly a bloody plane?” Mitchell’s words were somewhat humorous but the tension that lay behind them was clear to everyone.
“I slept with a pilot once,” Li offered. She gave a slight shrug of her slender shoulders. “We were in the cockpit but my back was to the controls.”
Mortimer reached out and took Charity’s elbow. “You have the muscle memory of all the previous Gravediggers. Was any of them a pilot?”
“I don’t know.”
“Think! Dig deep if you have to!”
Charity frowned. Her ability to call upon the skills of her predecessors was something that functioned best on an unconscious level. She would grip a new weapon, for instance, and suddenly have the ability to wield it with tremendous skill provided that one of the prior Gravediggers had been an expert in its use.
Mortimer had the same ability but it would have been restricted to the Gravediggers who preceded him and all of them had existed before the creation of aircraft.
Thankfully, Mitchell snapped his fingers and grinned. He looked like he’d just won first prize in a radio contest. “Josef!”
Cedric blinked in confusion. “What about him?”
“Josef was a pilot during the Great War. He told me that he often flew into enemy territory on Gravedigger missions.”
Charity pushed past her lover, reaching out to shove the dead pilot’s body to the floor. His c
hair was filled with smears of blood and brain matter but she ignored it as she took his seat.
She studied the dials and buttons, pleased that some of them did seem familiar. Though Josef’s experience with planes dated back nearly two full decades, the basics appeared to be the same.
Behind her, Li and Cedric were discussing the betrayal that had put them into this situation. She felt somewhat flattered by their apparent faith in her ability to save them all. It was obvious that they were more concerned with the fact that Tamaki had foreseen their pursuit and paid off the airport clerk, making sure that the only plane available to them was going to be mostly crewed by assassins.
“You can do this.”
Charity felt Mitchell’s reassuring touch on her shoulder. “Josef’s piloting experience isn’t going to be much help. They sabotaged the fuel tank,” she whispered. “We’re running on fumes.”
“Is there anyplace where you could land us?”
Charity’s eyes were already scanning the countryside. “They timed this just right. We’re almost to D.C., we’re out of fuel and there’s not a safe place to land anywhere. I don’t want to set down in the middle of a street if I don’t have to.”
Mitchell heard a loud clunking sound and looked around. “That can’t be anything good.”
“It’s not. The engines are cutting out.” Standing up, Charity raised her voice and shouted, “Everyone, get to the exit! Now!”
To their credit, everyone did as she asked, questions unasked. By the time they were all assembled next to the door, the entire plane was dropping like a rock and they could all feel it as the air pressure began to change.
“Now what?” Cedric asked, eyeing the door. With no parachutes, it would be certain death to jump now.
“Wait here,” Charity said. She moved past them all into the rear part of the plane. It was here that their luggage was stored along with emergency supplies. As Cedric had said, there were no spare parachutes to be seen. Her eyes came to a rest on an emergency life raft which was wadded up into a huge yellow pile. Snatching it up, she returned to the others.
“We’re going to need to form a human chain. Mitchell, get behind me and hold on tight. Li, you do the same to him. We keep doing that until everybody is hooked on to the person ahead of them – and for God’s sakes, don’t let go!”
Cedric kicked open the emergency exit and the wind whipped inside, buffeting all of them. Charity held the wadded up canvas in front of her, holding it protectively.
“This is the craziest thing I’ve ever heard of,” Mitchell whispered in her ear. “We’re falling from the sky, not drowning in the water!”
“Trust me,” she replied and the tone of her voice gave him hope. If she believed in this crazy plan then that was good enough for him.
Leaning out of the doorway, she saw the ground below rushing up to meet them. She wanted to wait as long as she could because if her plan didn’t work, the higher the distance, the more pain they were going to be in for.
“Let’s go!” she yelled, leaping from the plane. She held on to the raft with all her strength, aware of the chain of people behind her.
Thirty feet to go. Twenty. Ten.
She couldn’t wait any longer. She grabbed hold of the inflation cord and yanked.
The raft billowed open to its full size, bulbous and unwieldy. Charity heard screams coming from above her – Li and perhaps Cedric, too. But the plan seemed to be taking on its proper shape – the raft was acting as a spoiler, pushing back against the rushing air, slowing their descent.
Still, they were falling fast.
The plane from which they had escaped flew past, slamming into the middle of a busy road heading into the heart of the city. Drivers yanked their vehicles off the street but several of them failed to get enough distance between them and the oncoming aircraft. A tremendous fireball engulfed those poor souls, sending them on to the afterlife.
At that same moment, the life raft skidded across the grasslands on the side of the road. It bounced and flew, nearly toppling over as Charity and her friends crashed into the middle of the makeshift craft.
With a string of curses and groans, the heroes held on for dear life, knowing that at any moment they could be tossed off, suffering the loss of limbs or worse.
The life raft finally slowed, coming to a stop less than thirty yards from the burning wreckage of the plane.
Charity turned to face her friends, making sure that they were all okay. She found that Cedric was staring at her with a slack jaw. “Cedric? Are you okay?”
“How the hell did you know that would work?”
“I didn’t,” she admitted. “But Josef told me a story about a friend of his named Doctor Jones. He escaped from a similar situation using a life raft and, well, we didn’t have a whole lot of choices at the moment.”
“If I ever meet this Doctor Jones, I’ll know he’s just as crazy as you are.” Cedric’s grin took the punch out of his words and promptly set everyone to laughing.
It was Charity who brought them all back to the seriousness of the situation. She had looked over to the plane, which was burning terribly, and had realized that at least a half dozen people, maybe more, were now dead. Those that had survived the near disaster were gathering in small groups, some of them venturing towards the flames to try and help anyone who might be trapped within.
To Mitchell, she said, “Scour the area and look for our supplies. If you find any, collect them.” Looking at Mortimer and the others, she ordered, “The rest of you come with me. We need to see if there’s anybody over there who needs help.”
The team jumped to their assigned tasks and Charity swore that Hiroshi would pay for this. It was one thing to attack her and her allies but to bring about the deaths of innocents? That was unforgivable.
In all, the injury toll would end up numbering close to thirty. Charity’s initial estimation about the number of people killed – a half dozen – was actually slightly below the real tally, which ended up being ten.
Thankfully, most of the group’s luggage had somehow managed to survive the inferno. While the men would have all been fine with replacing their clothing at a later time, Li found her wardrobe to be of much greater importance. Charity, of course, was concerned only with the arsenal that she had brought along still being functional.
After helping as much as they could, the majority of the group took off into the countryside. Cedric stayed behind since he’d been the one to charter the plane and the authorities would understandably wonder where he had gone.
An attempt at murder had failed on the part of Hiroshi Tamaki and The Gravedigger was now even more dedicated to bringing about his downfall!
REGINALD VAN DRAUGHT was a distinguished looking Southern man with silver hair and horn-rimmed glasses. His gray pinstripe suit fit him perfectly and helped cultivate an air of upper-class gentility.
Sitting in a chair across from Hiroshi, Van Draught seemed very pleased with the cognac he’d been offered. “I have to say, Mr. Tamaki, that I almost didn’t accept this invitation of yours.”
Looking surprised, Hiroshi set down his own glass and leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees. “And why was that?”
“Your reputation… Shall we say, it’s less than sterling?”
Both men laughed and Hiroshi gave an understanding nod. “Great men make many enemies, as I’m sure you know. There are those who would accuse me of a great number of things.”
“Are they true?”
“Some of them.”
Van Draught smiled. “I’ve had dealings with men like you, Mr. Tamaki, so I understand how all this works. If it’s okay with you, I’d like to just skip to the chase.”
“I like a man with that kind of attitude. Let’s do that.”
“I assume you want to curry some sort of favor with The President,” Van Draught continued. “But I have to be honest, this isn’t the kind of President for whom that sort of thing comes easy. Franklin believes in the stature of the
office he holds. He goes out of his way to not only appear a certain way but to actually be that kind of man.”
“Very honorable.”
“I suppose but also damned stupid at times. You wouldn’t believe some of the lengths he goes to in the hope of appearing strong to the American people.”
“I can imagine.”
Van Draught finished his cognac and held the empty glass out for more. “That’s not to say it’s impossible. We just have to be sly.”
“I’m never anything but.”
Accepting his newly refilled glass, the crooked politician sat back and asked, “What is it that you do want, by the way? Special concessions to help your business? Loan approval from a bank? What is it that I can help you with?”
“I want to become Emperor of the United States.”
Van Draught exploded with laughter. “Hell, boy, you’re barking up the wrong tree. We don’t have Emperors in these parts. We have these things called Presidents and I’m afraid you aren’t eligible for that position!” Wiping the corners of his eyes, he added, “Why don’t we stop with the jokes, son. I thought we were going to be playing straight here.”
“I meant what I said.”
The pleasant expression began to fade from Van Draught’s face. “Maybe you should go back to Japan, then. Hirohito has a firm grip on the throne but there’s where you’d get that Emperor title you’re lusting after.”
“He is a fine man though somewhat limited in vision,” Hiroshi replied. “Eventually he will bow down before me but I plan to cement my power in this country before I ask him to do that.”
“Are you insane?”
“No, I am not. I am speaking to you now because my people tell me that you’re corrupt. If you help me willingly, all the better – for you and for me. I need a face-to-face meeting with the President. You can get me that.”