Absolution: The Clandestine Saga Book 4

by ID Johnson

  “Are you okay?” Aurora asked. She was at his side now, assessing the damage.

  Nodding, Jamie gestured at Alex. “Go… make sure,” he said quietly.

  With one more glance at her friend, Aurora hurried over to the other Hunter, knocking his gun out of his hand with her foot as she did so. She kneeled down beside him and felt for a pulse. “He’s dead, all right,” she said, glancing back at Jamie over his shoulder.

  “I knew you could kill him,” Aaron chimed in over the IAC, though the fact that he was even saying it let Jamie know that he hadn’t been positive.

  Jamie ignored the remark and turned his attention back to Aurora. While he was relieved to hear the threat was over, he took no pleasure in killing someone who should have been on their side. “I didn’t have a choice,” he muttered as Aurora came back over to him.

  “It’s okay,” she said, dropping back down next to him. “You did what you had to do. He was helping Sam.”

  “I know,” Jamie replied, pressing his left hand against the bullet wound, attempting to stop the bleeding with his healing powers, “but it never gets easy. This riff, it’s got to be over soon. I don’t think we can survive it, Aurora.”

  The redhead had no words in response. Luckily for her, Cassie and Truitt pulled up behind them, and she didn’t have to say anything. “Come on, let’s get you out of here,” she finally said standing and attempting to pull him up with her.

  “Give me a minute,” Jamie replied. “And when I do get up, I’m getting on that bike. This isn’t over yet.”

  Cadence finally had Sam in her line of sight. She had caught up to Christian and Meagan a few miles back, and promptly passed them. While Sam was still at least a mile ahead of her, she had a target now, and she could see where he was going. There was an airport ahead, and that annoying little crop duster that had been spewing chemicals all over the place for the duration of the chase was parked next to what appeared to be a re-fueling station. “Can he fly that thing?” Cadence asked, hoping Aaron, or someone, would have some idea whether or not Sam was a pilot in a past life.

  “I believe so,” Aaron assured her. “I think he may have had some experience flying way back around the middle of the century.”

  “I take it you don’t mean the twenty-first century?” Cadence clarified--one of the risks of dating someone over a hundred years older than you.

  “Right, as in World War II,” he confirmed. “And while that plane isn’t quite that old, it should be pretty similar to what he’s used to.”

  Cadence could see that she was closing the distance between herself and Sam, but he was just about to the airport. “Great,” she muttered and then back to Aaron and the rest of the team she said, “So I guess I need to make sure he doesn’t get in that plane.”

  “That would be ideal,” he replied, “but if he does, you’ll need to stay with him on the ground, and I’ll see what I can do from up here.”

  The idea of Aaron getting into a dogfight with Sam at three thousand feet was terrifying, so Cadence hit the gas. However, she did not see the pothole in the road until a split second too late. Before she could avoid it, she caught the corner, spinning the bike out in a storm of gravel and dirt. Thinking only of avoiding another injury, she held on for dear life as the bike screeched across the road, coming to rest in a ditch a few hundred yards away from the hole that had sent her sprawling.

  The wheels on the bike were still spinning as she paused to assess the damage. She didn’t seem to be hurt, though she had a mouth full of dirt and found herself choking. She cut the engine, righting the bike as she did so, flipped up the bottom of her helmet, and spit out as much of the debris as she could, wiping her hand on the back of her sleeve.

  “You okay?” Aaron asked, his voice indicating that he could see that she was.

  “Yes, just pissed,” she replied, hearing Christian and Meagan approaching.

  “He’s not in the air yet,” the pilot reminded her, and adjusting her helmet, she continued her pursuit, hoping the pothole was a one-time deal because she was not pausing to look for more.

  Chapter Four

  Sam could see where the AgCat was refueling as soon as he pulled into the small, overgrown, nearly abandoned airport. While he could hear the rip of the motorcycle engines behind him, they didn’t seem quite as close as they had before, and he slowed as he approached the plane, not wanting to scare the pilot into taking off again. He saw a young man dressed in overalls and another man, a bit older but still young, who appeared to be the pilot, leaning against the side of the plane talking as the fuel pump did its job. Before he jumped out of the driver's seat, he grabbed the Glock out of the glove compartment, hopeful he wouldn’t need to use it.

  The two men looked at him, confused expressions on their faces, as he approached, walking hurriedly. “Howdy there, fellas” he said in his gruff voice. The gun was in his waistband out of sight, but he wouldn’t hesitate to use it if he needed to. “How are you this mornin’?”

  The man who appeared to be the pilot glanced at the other young man before hesitatingly saying, “I reckon we’re all right. Can I help you with somethin’?”

  Sam nodded sharply, coming to a halt a few steps away from them. “Gonna need to borrow your bird,” he replied, an earnest expression on his face.

  “Well, I don’t think…” the pilot began, turning to face him. However, as Sam pulled the gun out of his pants and pointed it at his head, he was suddenly incapable of speech. The other man took off running in the direction of the closest hangar while the pilot raised both hands in the air. “You can have it,” he assured the assailant as he turned and began to walk away.

  “That’s what I thought,” Sam nodded. As the pilot also turned to run, he checked the fuel gage and saw that it was only about half full. “That’ll have to do for now,” he muttered, removing the nozzle and tossing it on the ground, fuel still spilling out the end. Shoving the Glock back into his pants, he pulled himself up onto the lower wing and into the pilot’s seat, shutting the canopy and surveying the control panel, unsure that he could remember exactly what he needed to do. However, with a few seconds of intense study, it all came back to him; he had flown planes like this before. The keys were still in the ignition, and the runway was clear. There wasn’t another plane anywhere to be seen--except for that annoying Cessna. As Sam began to taxi out to the runway, he knew he’d have to find a way to evade that plane and make his way to Mexico. Otherwise, he’d die trying.

  Cadence watched from a few hundred feet away as the AgCat took off, swearing under her breath but not slowing. Aaron had insisted she stay with him, and that was her intent, even though she could clearly see that he was on Sam already like white on rice. While Sam was flying fairly low, apparently attempting to avoid radar so that Aaron would have a harder time tracking him, Aaron was directly above him, slowing his speed to stay with the less powerful aircraft. Cadence had no idea how this was going to end, but she knew it wouldn’t be pretty; there was no way Aaron was going to let Sam get away, even if that meant it ended in a fiery crash.

  And she vaguely recalled Christian mentioning there were no more parachutes.

  She couldn’t think about that now as she sped ahead, hoping to stay on Sam’s trail somehow, which would be harder since he could go where she couldn’t; he wasn’t exactly following any roads now. Though she knew cutting across fields would be dangerous, she decided that was her best course. “Christian, Meagan, stick to the roads, and I’ll try cutting through the fields,” she ordered.

  “You’re going to kill yourself,” Meagan warned.

  “Watch out for cows,” Christian chimed in.

  “I’ll be fine,” Cadence assured them, though she wasn’t sure it was true. “Just stick with him.”

  “We will do our best,” Meagan replied as Cadence lost sight of her, turning into a pasture while Meagan took the road out of the airport.

  Cadence was already having a hard time watching where she was going and keepi
ng an eye on Sam at the same time when Aaron said, “Cadence, I need you to keep a close eye on him. I can see him, but he’s not on my radar, which is making it harder to see exactly where he’s going.”

  Muttering a curse word under her breath, she replied, “Okay. But why don’t you just drop down and get behind him.”

  “He’s dangerously close to the ground,” Aaron explained, “and I’m not sure he realizes he’s about to enter a tower farm.”

  “A what?” Cadence asked, but even as the words came out of her mouth, she could see what he was talking about. Off in the distance, she could see almost a dozen towers sprouting out of the ground like giant metal trees. Sam was headed directly for them, too. “That doesn’t look safe at all,” she muttered, slowing slightly to ascertain the situation before realizing she needed to keep pace and hitting the gas again. She felt really bad for whoever’s crops these were she was tearing up, but she didn’t have time to think about it as she gunned her engine again. “You be careful,” she added, realizing Aaron was just as susceptible to hitting them as Sam.

  There was a pause, and Cadence saw Aaron dropping altitude quickly, coming up behind Sam rather abruptly, before he finally said, “This ends today.”

  Cadence realized that remark was to her, and only her, and it made her catch her breath. She didn’t like the sound of that. There was no time to argue, nor was there any chance of talking him out of taking unnecessary risks, which was obvious as he began to cut around Sam, as if trying to keep him headed in the direction he was pointed, towards the towers. Cadence knew she needed to find a way to get there as quickly as possible, thoughts of how depleted Jamie would be by the time he got there, and how that was her fault, filling her mind as she raced to what she could only assume was about to be the scene of the “accident.”

  Aaron knew Sam was not familiar with the airspace or else he would not have headed directly toward the towers near Cedar Hill. It was pretty clear that he had spotted the towers a bit too late to avoid them, especially with Aaron cutting him off every time he attempted to change direction. Sam began to curve to the left, and Aaron pulled around to give him two choices: straighten out or experience a mid-air collision. As he ducked back the other way, Aaron countered. If he was going to get out of this situation, he would have to show some true piloting skills and find his way around the towers--and their guide wires.

  Sam had not flown a plane in decades, and clearly his reflexes were nothing compared to the pilot behind him. When the towers came into view in front of him, he did his best to try and steer completely around them. However, with Aaron on his ass, he couldn’t find a way to negotiate the airspace without flying right through them. He managed to make it past the first one with no problems, making a wide arch to his left, rolling up so that the plane was almost vertical; however, as he neared the narrow space between the next two towers, his left wing didn’t quite clear the guide wire that secured the tower in high winds, and before he even realized what was happening, the wing ripped from the fuselage, sending the AgCat into a tight spiral.

  From her viewpoint on the ground, Cadence could see the wing come off of the plane, hitting Aaron’s plane, which had already begun to pull up as he attempted to get out of the way. It looked to her like the Cessna didn’t sustain any trauma as he continued to fly over the top of Sam’s spiraling deathtrap. She pulled up, unsure of exactly where the debris may land and watched as Sam clearly tried to fight gravity, a battle he would surely lose.

  In the AgCat, panic began to set in as Sam realized he had no control over the aircraft. He attempted to use the ailerons to level the wings, but since one of them was missing, it was useless. Looking out the window, he could see the ground rising up to meet him and instinctively covered his face to protect himself from flying glass. The plane hit the ground with a jolt and skidded several feet before bursting into flames. Sam hit his head upon impact, and he could feel his skull crack just before he lost consciousness. However, the heat from the building flames brought him back around pretty quickly. He found himself hanging upside down from what was left of the fuselage, held in only by the five-point harness of the safety belt. He tried to unclip himself, but one of his arms was clearly broken. Blood was streaming down his face from his head injury and several lacerations across his forehead, eyes, and nose. He was certain he had a multitude of internal injuries as well, as he could hardly breath. As the flames grew closer, he was finally able to unbuckle, the drop to the ground aggravating his already grievous injuries. Just as he began to pull himself out of the burning vessel, he felt hands on his arms, pulling him away from the wreckage. He looked up to see familiar brown eyes and muttered the only words that he could possibly even consider at this point, “Cadence, dear God, please shoot me.”

  Cadence had been glad she had pulled up as the spiraling plane passed right over her head and landed just a few yards in front of her. She had come to a screeching halt, cowering down behind her motorcycle to protect herself as she watched the aircraft burst into flames. Despite the possibility that she could also be burned, she had ran as quickly as possible to pull Sam out of the plane; she wanted him alive.

  As soon as she had him clear of the wreckage, she was able to turn her attention elsewhere. Christian and Meagan were coming into view now, having cut across a field from the highway nearby. She could also see that Pam wasn’t too far away in the SUV. And then she turned her attention to the other plane and realized something was very wrong.

  It was evident Sam was going to clip the guide wire before he even hit, and Aaron had instinctively pulled up to avoid any debris coming off of the AgCat. However, he also had to be leery of the towers and guide wires himself, and that extra danger had kept him from pulling up quickly enough. The sound of metal being sucked into the intake of the engine was followed quickly by the deafening silence of a cut motor. He didn’t have time to think about filling the rest of the team in on his predicament as instinct took over, and he began to survey the area for a safe place to put the plane down.

  It was imperative that he do his best to keep air over the wing of the plane by keeping the nose down so that it would continue to glide. He could see a field on the other side of the next tower, and so he carefully threaded the wounded aircraft around the obstacle, as the motor continued to grind in an attempt to bring itself back to life. He was rapidly losing altitude and knew he needed to make a decision immediately if he was going to avoid the same predicament Sam currently found himself in.

  Cadence watched from the ground as the Cessna began to drop. “What’s happening?” she asked. She heard footsteps behind her and knew that Christian and Meagan had arrived. There was no initial answer from Aaron, and so they waited, holding their collective breath.

  “He doesn’t have a parachute,” Christian reminded her.

  Cadence turned around and glared at him, not bothering to say, “I know.” She asked her question again. “What’s going on?”

  Finally, his familiar voice came across the IAC, as calm as ever, “Lost my engine.”

  She waited for further explanation. There was a row of trees looming, and she realized the plane was about to disappear on the other side of them. “What are you going to do?” she asked, fighting the panic that was rising up in her throat.

  Tree branches brushed the bottom of the plane, and Aaron knew he needed to make a decision. Without responding to Cadence, he turned his IAC off (there was no reason for anyone to see what might be about to happen) and followed his gut, hoping that he had made the right choice.

  Once the plane disappeared over the tree line, Cadence began to count. She wasn’t sure why--it just seemed like the right thing to do. “One, two, three,” she thought to herself. For the second time that day, she heard the jolt of an aircraft making hard contact with the ground, followed by a plume of smoke beyond the trees. “Ten, eleven, twelve….” She felt Meagan’s hand in hers, absently listened to Sam begging to be shot on the ground behind her. “Fourteen, fifteen, sixteen
…” heard Pam’s vehicle coming to a stop not far away. “Twenty.” It had been twenty seconds, and nothing. She felt tears at the corners of her eyes, and slowly began to walk in the direction of the downed plane.

  Aaron jumped just seconds before the plane hit the ground. He estimated his speed to be at about fifty knots when he bailed, which is about sixty miles per hour. Unlike his fiancée, he had remembered not only to bend his legs, but he had also tucked and rolled, trying to avoid the obstacles on the ground, those raining down from the plane, and the explosion that was sure to happen when the aircraft made impact. Hitting the ground had been painful, but he was fairly certain he was all right. When the plane made contact with the ground, there was a burst of scorching air and smoke, which left him gasping for breath. Instinctively, he had pulled himself up off the ground and ran toward the cover of the trees. Once the smoke began to clear, he was able to ascertain that he was actually okay. In fact, he wasn’t able to find a single scratch. Apparently, those superhuman Guardian powers brought on by the double dose of Transformation Serum Cadence had given him in Ireland allowed him to jump out of airplanes. He stood looking at the ruined aircraft in disbelief, shaking his head for a moment before turning around and beginning the journey back to his teammates, turning his IAC back on as he did so. The whole thing was over in about twenty seconds.

  She hadn’t gone too far when she realized Aaron was back with her. Stopping in her tracks, she surveyed the damage as best she could from his own vantage point. “Are you okay?” she asked, even as he was explaining to all of them that he was fine. She wasn’t sure how that was possible, and she didn’t want to believe him, but she could see him with her own eyes now, making his way back to them, and all she could do was shake her head and thank God that he really did seem to be okay. “I believe you owe me one,” she said just to him.