Toward the Light

by Bonnar Spring

  On the Benavides’ rooftop, with explosives strapped around her chest, with Cesar dancing around and Bobby suspicious, she’d been able to keep this particular anxiety at bay. There’d be no helping hand this time. Luz shivered in the shadows.

  A slight gray-haired man strolled across the parking lot, just enough alacrity in his stride to skirt insolence. He stopped in front of Richard with an exaggerated middle-finger-extended salute.

  “Hey, Angel,” Richard said. “Long time, no see, ol’ buddy.” He slapped the pilot on the back, and they exchanged a complicated series of fist bumps. Dark glasses concealed the pilot’s eyes, but his smile was wide enough to display a gold molar.

  Evan held a grimy cloth to the abrasions on his cheek. Damn. He couldn’t expect any help from Richard’s old buddy. Another dead end.

  “Bobby give you instructions?” asked Richard.

  “Señor Roberto, he tell me we going to hit the commies again.”

  “Yeah, that’s the plan. Get us in the air, and then get on the horn and raise the forward base. Tell ’em we’ll be over their position in twenty minutes.”

  Then Richard pushed Evan toward the helicopter. “Get in the back,” he said. Gun in one hand and the other ostentatiously in the pocket where he’d stashed the detonator, he watched Evan struggle up the steps. The helicopter was luxurious, red and silver on the outside, black leather and chrome on the inside. Two seats in front, separated by a console, and two in back. A cargo area in the rear where a third row of seats had been folded out of the way contained a few boxes wedged in one corner, with a tangle of tarps on the other side. Evan dropped into the closer seat.

  Richard squinted into the cabin and bit his lower lip. Then he whirled and called, “Time to scramble.” Angel hurried over and climbed behind the controls.

  The rotors whipped up a whirlwind and muffled sound. Richard attached Evan’s seatbelt.

  “I’ve got the coordinates,” Richard called to the pilot as he bound Evan’s wrists together with a length of strapping tape. “The other choppers follow us. Tell ’em when we dip twice, hold their position until we clear the area, then spray three hundred and sixty degrees. Don’t hold back. This time we knock them out for good.”

  Richard clambered into the front to strap himself in. The doors slammed closed. Within minutes, they were hundreds of feet up. The men ignored Evan as the helicopter turned north toward the mountains. The running lights flashed in the early evening sun. One side of the helicopter in bright daylight, the other in shadow.

  Angel spoke into the mic a few times, but although it was quiet for a helicopter—he and Richard didn’t even need headsets to communicate—a monotonous thrumming of white noise smothered his words.

  Richard ignored him. Around Evan, the soft black leather seats were empty. The cabin enclosure was pebbled silver, all curves, no sharp edges to slice the tape on his wrists. Nothing that would serve as a weapon. The boxes behind him might contain something useful, but Evan couldn’t reach them unless he got his seat belt off, which wouldn’t happen until after he’d freed his hands.

  Even if he released his seat belt, he could hardly escape while in the air. His best shot might be to distract Richard and grab the remote. The tape was loose enough to permit him to wiggle his wrists. Evan could gradually stretch it out, but he didn’t know how much time he had.

  It sounded like Richard intended to lead others to an air strike on the guerrillas, then leave. If Richard meant to return to the U.S. like he’d said, they’d trade the helicopter at some point for a longer-range aircraft. With all Evan knew, Richard couldn’t possibly imagine it was safe to let him return. And Evan remembered his unlocked door.

  Trying to escape on the ground would get him a bullet in the back. It was now, up in the air, that killing him was problematic—a bullet ricocheting, someone squeezing the remote by mistake. There must be something he could do now. Think!

  But all he could think about was Luz. When he saw her face as they passed in the car, he’d gasped, too full of stunned delight to control the outburst. She’d done it! Richard glanced suspiciously—but at him, not at the other car.

  That she survived the firestorm at the Benavides’ suggested she was able to enlist their help. If only he’d kept Richard at his house, together they could have overcome him. Or if he’d gotten Richard away from the helicopter before Bobby Benavides showed up and ordered the pilot to take them. Together—Evan fought against a wave of loss that squeezed his gut into an aching fist.

  Luz must’ve seen him forced onto the copter. But however resilient she’d been, Evan doubted she could mobilize help for him now. His survival depended on turning the slight advantage of Richard’s being trapped with him on the helicopter into a plan. He had to do something soon.

  A burst of static. Angel grabbed the mic and barked into it.

  Angel. Perhaps Evan had been too hasty in discounting him. Richard’s buddy would be understandably jumpy if Evan managed to reveal the explosive belt. Angel might insist they land the chopper and get Evan off. The problems with that surfaced instantly: Evan wanted to stay in the air where Richard would think twice before pulling the trigger—or pushing that button.

  Off to the north, four huge helicopters rose above the trees, not fancy executive models like the Benavides’, but solid no-nonsense equipment with splotchy camouflage, twin rotors, and enough room for a dozen armed men.

  Something sticking out from under the seat scraped Evan’s ankle. He reached awkwardly, two-fisted, to push it out of the way. A hand grabbed him—small, warm, squeezing hard—and before he could react, yanked him farther down. Evan looked under the seat. Luz was tucked between two panels of gunmetal-gray equipment in the rear cargo area, her body hidden under sacks, her head on the floor between his seat and the door. She pushed her head close to his.

  “How did you get on?” This wasn’t a mirage. He smelled the lemony shampoo in her hair.

  Luz lifted her finger and mimed shhh. “When you distracted everyone.” She wriggled her hand forward and touched his cheek, sending a current of electricity through him. “That was brilliant.”

  It was the miracle he needed. Together—

  “Listen,” said Luz, “we have a bigger problem than you think.”

  Evan shook his head. Now that she was here, alive and beside him, his options had skyrocketed.

  “No, really. We have to get this thing turned around before we get where Richard is going. Are you still wired?”

  Evan nodded. Getting the bomb belt off was the first order of business. Luz squeezed her eyes shut as she mouthed a choice expletive.

  “Can you undo it yourself? Maybe while you’re doubled over like that?”

  “No.” Evan’s knuckles had been on the floor, bracing him. He squirmed in an attempt to show Luz his bound wrists. He couldn’t do it, but now he had Luz. Together—

  “What the hell are you doing?” Richard yelled. He’d turned almost a full one-eighty, his fingers gripping the seat back for leverage, glaring at him.

  Evan popped up. Blood drained from his face. “I—I don’t feel so good,” he said.

  “Well, you look like shit, but don’t you fucking dare puke in this helicopter. Angel would slit my throat. Right, Angel?”

  The pilot eyeballed Evan in the rearview mirror. He said something low to Richard, who laughed and then raised his voice. “Angel says to suck it up until we’re on the ground again.”

  “How long is that going to be?”

  When Richard didn’t immediately reply, Evan said, “I don’t think I can hold it much longer. I feel horrible, Uncle Richard.”

  “Another half an hour should do it.” They didn’t have long, then.

  “I have to lie down.” That would make it easier to talk to Luz.

  “Go ahead—but no puking.”

  “Thanks.” Evan made a show of gagging as Richard released his seat belt. He staggered to his feet and, without the use of his hands, dropped gracelessly to the cabin floor an
d lay on his back. His uncle surveyed the back-seat area through narrowed eyes before turning around.

  Evan glanced to the left. Luz had disappeared. “That’s better,” he said quietly.

  The edge of the tarp lifted. Only Luz’s eyes and a bit of nose were visible. The tarp inched forward. Luz eventually pushed so close to Evan her lips were almost touching his. It was by the pressure of her breath as much as by sound that he heard her say, “We have to get off the helicopter. They’re heading into a trap. We’ll all be killed if we get there.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  For Luz, a chain reaction of facts snapped into place with Richard’s words to the pilot as they took off: They were flying to a place Richard knew about by GPS coordinates, where he planned an aerial assault. Richard had tracked her to the mountains, then. And Evan had said Richard’s passport stamp indicated he arrived in Guatemala the same day she returned to the city—he probably led that first attack on Toño’s camp, too.

  But Toño’s suspicions had led him to take the bag with her stuff to a place where ambush was easy. Without a doubt, this was the maneuver for which Toño had appropriated her belongings.

  When the choppers came this time, the guerrillas would blow them out of the air. Toño wouldn’t know she was in one—even if he did, he’d still give the order to fire. He was family, a loyal man, and he’d once saved her life, but Toño had been fighting too long, and this time, while he’d mourn, he’d accept her loss. She’d never even had a chance to tell him she wasn’t dying.

  What Richard said also began to make sense of Luz’s earlier confusion when he greeted Bobby so warmly by the helicopter. Richard wasn’t working to destroy the Benavides drug network. He was working to destroy Martin Benavides and devastate the guerrilla opposition in order to give Bobby free rein—politically and financially.

  Bobby was Richard’s someone else inside the Benavides’. He’d known Luz’s real mission all along, and he’d guarantee she—and her insurgent comrades—got the blame for killing his parents. Luz was on her way to thwarting their plan, but she’d heard Richard say thirty minutes, too. They didn’t have much time.

  “That was quick thinking, getting him to let you out of your seat belt,” she whispered, “but now we have to get this thing off you. How is it attached?”

  “It’s like a belt, looped around my waist, fastened in back.”

  “Taped?”

  “No, only tied.”

  Good. Luz hadn’t seen how Richard had bound the explosives to Evan. She ought to be able to free him. “Roll so you face the front. That should make them feel confident you aren’t trying anything. I’ll untie you.”

  “Then what?”

  A tentative edge to Evan’s question worried her. Trauma or not, she needed him sharp. “Let’s both think about it while I undo you.”

  Luz wormed her hands up under the back of Evan’s shirt. The heat of his body startled her. His panicky, erratic breathing matched hers. With one hand on Evan’s feverish skin and the other above the layers of cloth, her fingers moved slowly along his back. A strip of canvas about six inches wide was cinched between Evan’s ribs and his hips. Stiff cord, knotted at the bottom and top, wound through big metal grommets. She felt the shape of the knots and began to work the cords, loosening them, straightening the kinks, so she could begin untying.

  Evan lay on his right side. Luz’s fingers, like small birds feathering a nest, plucked at the knots holding the explosive belt around his waist. Freeing his wrists was the first step in helping her, so Evan stretched his hands beneath Richard’s seat, probing the underside. Lots of round bars, but nothing useful until his fingertips found the smooth curved end to a bar under the seat. It wasn’t sharp, so he couldn’t abrade the tape, but if he slipped his bound wrists around it, he could use the rod as a lever to loosen the binding.

  Better than nothing.

  Evan strained his chest and shoulders forward and slid his bound wrists over the bar. Now his arms were hanging from the fitting. While Luz fiddled with the knots, Evan threw all the strength he could leverage into the ends of his arms.

  Bits of conversation from the front seat floated back. Angel, with his nasal delivery, was easier to hear than Richard. He was talking about another excursion they’d taken, making it sound like a jaunt in the country. The story had the ring of familiarity, as though he’d heard it before. Of course, he hadn’t, but Evan quickly registered the emotional similarity, lying in the dark, eavesdropping on his father’s friends as they drained beer after beer and regaled one another with tall tales of machismo.

  “He never saw it coming,” said Angel.

  Richard’s reply was lost in static.

  “What an idiot. I mean, you take the asshole under your wing, train him, finance his pathetic revolution, and he thinks he can walk away?”

  Richard laughed, a sharp staccato bark. Into a momentary gap in the blanket of white noise, Richard said clearly, “I hated to lose Emilio, but he never should have threatened me. Huge fucking drain of time and money, getting Benavides up to speed afterward—” and then the mic buzzed, static filled the cabin, and the rest of the conversation was lost.

  Evan was left with the dangling phrase. But he knew that story. Richard had told it, when Evan was a kid hiding in the dark. Richard had bragged to his buddies about taking out the double-crossing guerrillas and making an alliance with an up-and-coming group who knew better than to stab him in the back. It was Luz’s story.

  Once the knots were untied, Luz unlaced the stiff cord one inch at a time and peeled the canvas aside. Finally, with a small but satisfying thunk, it slid to the floor. “Got it.”

  Evan flopped onto his back. He looked years older, weary and grieving, like her father and his companions. Resolve, however, had replaced struggle and doubt. “Look.” He rotated his arms to show Luz the abraded tape.

  “That’s great.” The loosened loop of tape, Evan’s steelier body language, the way he flexed his arms, gave Luz an idea.

  “Time to get the bastards,” said Evan.

  “Right.” A shiver of disquiet at Evan’s implacable tone made the tiny hairs on her forearms prickle. “Does Richard still have the gun?”

  Evan nodded infinitesimally.

  Damn. They’d better get it first. “Where is it?”

  “Not sure,” Evan whispered.

  “Last time you saw it?” Luz nudged.

  “In his hand when we first got on board.” Evan squinted, thinking. “Yeah, and then he stuck it in his jacket pocket to attach my seat belt.”

  “Which side?”

  Evan closed his eyes. “Right. The remote’s in the left pocket.”

  “Evan, we have to do it now. We have to get the pilot to turn around.”

  “I’m going to kill Richard.”

  Evan violent was an unexpected, but welcome, metamorphosis. She needed him ruthless for this. “Okay, how’s this? Get to your feet, slowly, non-threateningly. You’ve created enough play to slide your arms around Richard’s neck, and the tape around your wrists will keep your grip secure. While he’s arguing with you, I’ll grab the gun.”

  Evan’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. He lumbered to his feet and cleared his throat, a thick deep noise. Then, loud, above the whine of the engines, he said, “Whew, that’s better.” One foot staggered forward, like someone off-balance on a moving aircraft, but his other foot stayed planted to give him a wider stance. Then his arms were over Richard’s head, around his neck, and Evan pulled up sharply. Richard’s head snapped back.

  “What the fuck are you doing, you stupid shit?” Richard slapped at Evan’s arms.

  The pilot’s attention was split between flying the helicopter and the scene playing out at his elbow. On hands and knees, Luz squeezed along the right side of the helicopter.

  Richard struggled and bellowed. “You idiot. You’re asking for trouble.”

  Luz reached into his pocket. She wrapped her hands around the cold steel barrel and lifted it out. Time sl
owed to freeze-frames: The whump of each blade of the propeller. Drops of spittle, lit by the instrument panel, flying from Richard’s mouth. The cold sheet of metal vibrating between her and hundreds of feet of cold air. The equally cold piece of metal heavy in her hand.

  Richard’s hands were up, pushing Evan’s arms out, away from his throat. Richard shouted for Angel to do something.

  Luz stood, gun in hand. “Freeze,” she yelled. Just like in the movies.

  And they all did. Her unexpected appearance gave Luz a second of total surprise.

  Richard recovered first. “Sneaky little bitch.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  While Luz lay on the scratchy gray floor covering, the sensation of motion hadn’t been much different from a car on a bumpy road. Standing, the expanse of open sky was disorienting—gray and purple clouds all around, looking solid as islands but giving way to cotton-wool as they flew into them, glimpses of green-black treetops hundreds of feet below. A smear of orange atop the western mountains told where the sun was setting. There was no road, only the blinking lights of the dozen or so gauges on the control panel to indicate their location.

  For stability, Luz wedged herself into the narrow space between the back seats and the exterior wall. Luz pointed the gun at Angel. “You’re flying into a trap. We have to turn around.”

  He looked from her to Richard, back again, assessing. “I won’t abort the mission unless he says so.” Angel jerked his head in Richard’s direction.

  “And I say don’t listen to her, Angel.” Richard swatted at the gun, but Luz had stayed out of his reach. “She won’t shoot you. Not only is she chicken, she knows you’re the only one who can fly this baby. Without you, she’s as good as dead.”

  “And so are you,” Luz retorted. They had to persuade Angel; he was the key.