Henri raised his right brow as he gestured for Ellenshaw to go out before him.
“That, my dear Professor Ellenshaw, is just the thing that scares me.”
TWO HOURS LATER
Everett and Ryan had been standing beside the seaplane for what seemed to them half the night and now they were only two hours away from dawn.
Everett would glance at his watch and then look up and around the steep incline that held the trickle of water at bay in the L.A. River. The chain-link fence surrounding the river was high, and stopped all but the racers and drug dealers from venturing into the basin. Carl was getting an old and reliable feeling at the back of his neck.
Ryan walked around the right wing float of the Grumman and bent over to check the main landing gear. The tire pressure on that side was low, but there was nothing he could do about it. He remained in his position and acted as if he were checking other areas of the large wheel.
“Captain, I have the feeling we are—”
“Being watched,” Everett finished for him. “Stay where you’re at for a minute; keep a low silhouette.”
Up until this point in time, the large Grumman seaplane had only drawn casual lookers, and they had been lucky thus far that none of them had called the police to ask why there was an antique plane sitting under a bridge in the L.A. River. Everett thanked the heavens that everyone in L.A. kept to themselves: If it didn’t affect them, it was none of their business. But now the naval captain was beginning to wonder if their luck had run out.
Against the streetlights from above the river, Everett finally spied the watchers: at least two men, but he knew there were more. He shook his head as he recognized the windbreakers favored by the FBI field offices. To them, he thought, that was plainclothes.
“We have feds to the left and probably more behind us,” he said to Ryan. “Okay, Lieutenant, it’s Acting 101 time. I want you to laugh and then go around to the stairs and climb inside; I’ll walk to the tail section. When you hear the word, fire this damn thing up.”
“Okay, but what about the colonel. Shouldn’t we—”
“Gentlemen, this is the FBI. Please stand clear of the aircraft.”
Everett closed his eyes, knowing he had been snuck up on from behind.
Two agents came from the dark at the back of the plane. They had weapons drawn and pointed at both he and Ryan. He felt one of the agents remove his Berretta nine-millimeter from the back of his waistband. The other waited for Ryan to straighten up before attempting to take his.
“Your record is indicative of a good sailor, Captain Everett, I would expect you to come quietly. Then we’ll take Colonel Collins and the rest when they arrive.”
“Look, you know what we’re doing; why don’t you just turn around and leave,” Everett said as he felt the agent’s hand checking him for other weapons.
“We’re following orders, Captain. If we could let you go, we would. The president says you’ll be stepping on a lot of toes, so for now you have to step aside and let our office and the Canadian authorities handle this.”
“My friend, since you’ve read my file, you surely must have read about the man that is in charge here. Do you think this situation will stand?” Carl asked as he finally turned and saw for the first time that the FBI agent was young, possibly too young.
“Our bosses don’t like sending us out blind, Captain. We know enough about Colonel Collins that this entire basin is surrounded by fifteen other agents.
Everett looked around. He saw passing headlights on the old bridges in front of them and in back. The one they were under was quiet for the moment, and he suspected there was at least one team of agents up there.
Ryan came out from under the undercarriage with his hands up. He shrugged his shoulders in the false light of the streetlamps above them. “Captain, it’s your duty to tell these guys; if you won’t, I will.”
The agent holding Everett at arm’s length looked at Ryan over the large SEAL’s shoulders, but refrained from asking what Ryan was talking about.
“Tell us what?” asked the second agent leading Ryan to the front of the plane.
“Listen,” Everett said, lowering his hands, and then raising his brows as if to ask if it was alright. The agent nodded but stepped as far back as he could to keep out of range of Carl’s long legs and arms. “I’m a nice guy, hell, I know you’re only doing your jobs; even Ryan there has his moments of clarity, but the man we work for, he’s, well, how do I put this?”
“A prick when mad,” Ryan finished for him.
“Thank you, Mr. Ryan. You see, it’s not just me, Colonel Collins has his mind set on something and—”
There was a thud and a grunt from above them on the bridge. Then there was a clatter of metal and the sound of something sliding down the steep slope of concrete.
“Never mind,” Everett said. “Too late.”
The first agent frowned and then relaxed, he still looked around nervously, but then he cowboyed up and tried looking confident.
“Nice try,” he said as he reached for his radio. “Two and three, this is one, sit-rep.”
There was only static. The agent looked a little different than he had just a second before. “Units two and three, sit-rep,” he said just a little too loud, telling Everett and Ryan that he was becoming more than just a little concerned. Carl just grimaced mockingly and shrugged. The agent brought his own weapon up and made sure Everett knew he was covered. Carl just shook his head. That was when they heard footsteps, a lot of them. As they watched, three groups of men were slipping and sliding down the concrete slopes of the river. They were followed by others, and one group had what looked like a white long-haired scarecrow of a man who fell on his butt, but popped right up and kept following the others.
The agent couldn’t help it; he turned when he saw the three long parades of men coming down from above. At that moment, Everett easily reached out and took the agent by the wrist and simply twisted the gun from his hand. Ryan wasn’t as adept at disarming a man as the captain—he raised his boot into the air, stomped on the agent’s right toe, and clipped him on the neck, freeing the gun with Ryan catching it, juggling it and then finally securing the weapon.
“Are we clear down there, Mr. Everett?” a voice called from the dark.
“Clear, Colonel,” Everett called out as he ejected the ammunition clip from the nine-millimeter and then the chambered round, he eased the gun back into the agents hand. Jason Ryan did the same.
Finally, out of the darkness marched eight FBI agents, looking mad and very frustrated. One of the men looked at the man Carl had just disarmed and shook his head.
“They were on us before we knew anyone was there.”
“You should have remembered your training from Quantico far better than you did,” Jack said as he stepped up from behind the agents. “There is no such thing as a secure perimeter in an open civilian area.” Collins looked at the agent in charge. “Your men became too complacent with passersby; they were more concerned about being seen than securing any hostiles”—he leaned into the agent—“we, sir, are the hostiles.”
Farbeaux, standing next to Sarah and Ellenshaw and still covering three of the agents himself, smiled and knew Collins was the most worthy opponent he had ever come across. It took Jack only moments to smell the ambush as they passed by the bridge, and only another few seconds to figure the plan of taking the agents without anyone getting hurt.
“Colonel, I told them after reading your unclassified army file that we didn’t have enough men, but you know how Washington can be.” The agent in charge looked down at his feet, and then he shrugged and looked at Collins once more. “Well, you have us, but as one former soldier to another, I’ll ask you to reconsider and let others handle this situation. Give over the information you have and let us go after the Russians; we have friends up there.”
Jack looked at the agent after nodding at Ryan to get the aircraft preflighted. “We have a friend here and I think he even speaks Canad
ian.”
Punchy wanted to laugh, but he figured Jack was only trying to make a point.
“Then, Colonel, we tried.” The agent held out his hand. “Good luck, and I hope you get what it is you are going after.”
Collins looked at the hand in front of him, and then shook it.
“Oh, this is very touching, but we may want to think about getting the hell out of here, Colonel. The L.A. police may not be so cooperative,” Farbeaux said as he waved for Mendenhall to bring the supplies down, as he turned to assist. “In case you have forgotten, we left two of their brethren tied up at the Chavez house.”
Jack closed his eyes in frustration. He had forgotten.
“Don’t concern yourself, they were found an hour after you left the house,” the FBI agent said. “Colonel, I’ll give you two hours; after that, I have to tell them you’re heading north,” he said releasing Jack’s hand. Then he smiled, “I believe I overheard north of Toronto if I’m not mistaken.”
This time Jack did return the smile, “Yes, Toronto.”
Ten minutes later, the FBI agents held flashlights at the bridge that was four hundred feet in front of the idling Grumman. The plane was filled to the brim with men and equipment. Sarah was squeezed into a seat that included two backpacks, one rifle, and Farbeaux. Every time she looked around, she saw that crooked smile of the Frenchman and the bobbing up and down of his brows.
“Don’t worry, my little Sarah, you may only have to bear my advances for a very few moments, I don’t expect this antique to get off the ground—I don’t think she was made to carry this much of a load.”
“Thanks, Henri. Between you or the bridge, either way, this is going to suck.”
Ryan, with Jack sitting in the copilot’s seat next to him, reached up to the overhead console and jammed both throttles all the way to their stops.
“When I say so, Colonel, you pull back on that wheel as far as possible and as hard as you can,” Ryan said over the noise of the roaring engines as he released the brakes.
Jack looked very uncomfortable taking the three-quarter steering wheel of the Grumman. He touched it gingerly at first, then grabbed on tightly. “Is it supposed to vibrate this much?” he asked, his eyes wide open and staring at the fast-approaching bridge and the agents holding their flashlights.
“How in the hell should I know, Colonel? I’ve only flown a propeller-driven trainer three times in my life!” he shouted and then roared with laughter as he pulled back on the wheel, “Now Colonel, Now!”
The seaplane bounced once, scattering the agents before it. Then it bounced again.
One of Alice Hamilton’s contributions to the upgrade of the old seaplane was to incorporate a flight computer that not only projected a holographic image of the approaching bridge, but also carried the voice trait of the Europa computer back at the Event Group complex. It was she who started warning Ryan of the encroaching danger straight ahead.
“Warning, obstacle detected. Warning, max weight overload. Warning, obstacle detected in aircraft path. Divert! Divert! Divert!” said the sexy female voice just as the Grumman bounced hard off the concrete.
“Are you going to hop over the damn bridge?” Collins asked loudly.
Finally, the nose of the Grumman lifted free of the riverbed and rose. “Come on, old girl, fly, damn it, fly!” Ryan screamed while everyone in the back of the plane prayed and waited for the sudden impact that would tell them the bridge was old, but built well.
The Grumman climbed and as it barely screamed over the railing of the overpass, they felt the impact of the rear wheel as it slammed into one of the old streetlamps that lined the bridge. The glass and steel and the seaplanes wheel careened off onto the pavement of the bridge, causing several cars to spin out to avoid the flying debris. Then the seaplane suddenly took a nosedive back into the river, but Ryan quickly compensated with full flaps, pumping furiously at the old hydraulic system. Finally, the plane rose into the night sky, flying barely above the power lines and over houses. Ryan relaxed when he felt the centerline of the plane level off and the weight factor lessen as the Grumman rose. He slowly started to pump the flap handle once more.
“Where to, Colonel?” Ryan asked as he finally got the nerve to take a hand from the wheel and wipe his sweating brow.
“We’ll refuel at the mouth of the Columbia River in Oregon, and then we’ll push into Vancouver, and just pray the Canadian authorities don’t shoot us down. We’re not on speaking terms like we are with the FBI.”
“Amen to that.”
Collins finally made his own body relax as Ryan made his turn north over the Port of Los Angeles. He swallowed and finally spared a thought for his sister, praying she was still alive.
“Hang on, baby girl, just hang on a little bit longer,” Jack mumbled to himself as he stared at his reflection in the side window.
The few members of the Event Group had made it out of the first phase of a mission that for the first time had no plan at all, other than to search—and in the case of Jack Collins, to destroy, if that search failed.
60 MILES SOUTHEAST OF DEASE LAKE,
BRITISH COLUMBIA (THE UPPER STIKINE
RIVER BASIN)
Lynn Simpson had to hand it to the two Russians and their small army of employees and guides. They had arranged everything from food and rest stops to refueling areas on the long and arduous helicopter ride from the town of Wrangell, just below the Tongass National Forest in Alaska, to the Stikine River, sixty miles south of Dease Lake, British Columbia. Lynn was surprised that Sagli and Deonovich had been so free with the information about the expedition they were on. She guessed they figured she wouldn’t be coming back with them at any rate, so why not allow her full access to their immediate plans.
The four brand-new Sikorsky helicopters skirted the river as low as the trees would allow. They had almost run headlong into a small Bell Ranger of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police an hour before, but the expert pilots on the Russian payroll had avoided them nicely by dipping below the small range of mountains that flanked the Stikine. The helicopters were loaded with men and equipment that had been waiting for them in Seattle, undoubtedly the staging point for every murderous operation since they killed Serta, the lumber magnate a week earlier.
As Lynn watched the Stikine Mountain Range looming before them, she was approached by a man who had been introduced to her as the expedition’s doctor: Leonovshki something or other—she couldn’t keep all of the names straight, which told her she wasn’t doing her job right. If she got out of this mess she had every intention of bringing every one of these bastards to justice. The doctor unceremoniously grabbed her hand and started to unwrap the bandage that covered the area where her index finger used to be. He looked it over, poked the inflamed skin around the wound once or twice, and then grunted his satisfaction. He rewrapped the amputation with a fresh wrapping and then rummaged in his black bag and brought out a syringe.
“Antibiotics,” he said as he leaned forward.
“Why bother? I mean, it’s not like they’re going to let me go after they find what they want.”
“I do as I am told, young lady. What my employers plans are, do not concern me; just what they are paying me.”
“Spoken like a true mercenary.”
The doctor gestured for her to stand up and lower her denim pants that had been supplied to her a day ago. She did, not exposing as much as the young doctor would have liked. He punched the needle home. As she looked around, several of the other killers for hire were admiring the upper portion of her ass.
“In the end, aren’t we all just mercenaries? Even you with your agency masters?”
Lynn wasn’t about to get into a philosophical debate with the doctor, so she just buttoned her pants and then sat down, staring at the others until they turned away. The doctor reached up and pulled down a plastic bag and handed it to her.
“I believe this should be about your size. The days are still warm here, but the nights can get cold.”
<
br /> Lynn opened the clear bag and pulled out an expensive, bright yellow down jacket. She looked back at the doctor and frowned.
“This would make for a good target in the woods.”
The doctor ignored the comment and walked away, using the tied-down equipment to steady himself as the helicopter rose and dove over the trees below.
Lynn placed the jacket beside her and watched as the large helicopter started to descend after smoothing out. They were near some sort of small settlement that looked almost deserted. She spied a few small fishing boats, not more than fifteen feet in length as the helicopter she was riding in circled the settlement. The pilot finally sat the transport down in a small clearing about three hundred yards from the thick forest that lined the base of the mountains. As she watched, the other helicopters did the same, spacing themselves far apart as their wheels touched down on the rocky soil.
Lynn didn’t move and was soon approached by Dmitri Sagli. He was wearing expensive hiking boots, denim jeans, and a bright red shirt. He looked ridiculously like a lumberjack of old. He even had suspenders on. She couldn’t help but smile, although she hid it behind her hand.
“We are at the Wahachapee Fishing Camp. It is small and is populated by Tlingit Indians. If you make one attempt at either escape, or to relay your predicament to the locals, we will not only shoot you, but everyone here, children included. Do you understand?”
“I’ve understood you since you first opened your foul mouth in Virginia.”
“Then you do understand—it won’t be us killing these people, but you.” Sagli turned and made his way to the lowering stairs as his ten men started unloading the supplies and equipment.
Lynn shook her head and then grabbed the coat she had been given and followed Sagli out of the helicopter. As she stepped onto the rocky soil, she was amazed at the raw beauty of the area. With the mountains behind and in front of them and the river coursing through the center, the spot was an ideal location for nature lovers. However, as she saw that the area was void of people, her enthusiasm quickly diminished.
Primeval: An Event Group Thriller Page 21