by M C Rowley
Luciana shrugged and the guns twitched, taut fingers on triggers.
“Okay, okay. Hold on, Jean.”
I let go and moved to the right, my arms held aloft.
One of the men stepped toward me and I saw his arm raise and come down hard.
Just before I hit the ground, or maybe even before the gun butt hit my head, I heard Luciana say, “Get her down.” Then everything went silent.
I knew this feeling. Dozy, dazed, foggy. The floor was trembling. An earthquake?
No. Something else.
I was lying down. I tried to move my arms, but nothing computed in the way it should. My ears felt as though cotton had been stuffed deep into their recesses. My eyes were pasted together; my breathing rasped like an old smoker’s.
My head pounded.
I remembered the gun hitting me.
But why was the floor trembling? Was it me? Was I shaking?
I calmed myself. I was drugged.
I took relaxed but short breaths. And I concentrated.
I heard engines. Big ones.
The floor tremors increased and confirmed my deduction, as crude as it was, and I felt movement. I wondered why once again the drugs had failed to fully knock me out. Maybe it was something to do with my height; I was about two foot taller than their regular victims. Or maybe this was how Luciana wanted it and all of their captives were actually half-awake, living out the terror.
I guessed the latter was right.
The plane was taxiing now, the vibrations coming up through the floor and my mattress increasing in intensity every second. Then, a pause, and noise began to penetrate my inner ear. Engines roaring, propellers running.
Extreme movement. I felt my body shake back with the g-force as we hurtled along. Then lifted. This time my body weight flew back with the bed I was on, but something held it in place. Like we were chained up.
Noises began to flood my ears. I sensed people around me. Inert figures and fully conscious people. Luciana and her men.
Cool air entered my nostrils. I had a sense of the space, albeit only basic dimensions. A high roof, a large, open space. Stripped down: I could hear the motor props vibrating enormous amounts of energy into the wings and down through the hold.
I felt stable.
Our incline must have been forty-five degrees and decreasing as the hulk of a plane began to level out. Jean had said the name of this type of plane, a number?
It had drifted from my mind.
I felt stable still. I listened and focused on the weight distribution of flesh and bones and blood, and felt it becoming horizontal. Cruising altitude.
“Se abrirán las puertas en diez. ¡Appuranse!”
Doors open in ten. Move it!
“¡Sí!”
From what sounded like ten voices.
I willed my eyes to open but they wouldn’t respond. The drugs were still wreaking havoc on my body.
I could hear and I could smell. That would have to do.
“Aquí,” came Luciana’s voice. “Corta las cadenas.”
Cut the chains.
People were moving and I heard metal sliding against metal, then loud snaps. Chains being cut.
“Ya despierte las primeras,” said Luciana’s voice.
Now wake up the first ones.
I braced myself inside my flesh cocoon, waiting to see if I would be one of the first. No one came. Instead, a scream. A man’s voice, ratcheted up to the maximum, shrieking as if someone was tearing his arm from its socket. But it wasn’t pain in his voice I could hear, it was panic. Then he spoke, in Spanish.
“Please,” he said. “I’ll talk. I’ll tell you anything. Just don’t, please.”
His voice was drowned out by a new noise, something large and mechanical, paired with a giant gust of cold air.
The doors opening.
Other voices began howling, high-pitched, shouting over the tremendous din.
Luciana was snapping orders again. “Ahora,” she said. “¡Ya! ¡Ahora!”
I heard the man scream again, but this time it was cut off.
I didn’t have to be able to see to know what his fate had been. God only knew how high we were flying. I wondered how far into the drop he would have passed out, or how long it would take his heart to explode.
And that’s when my own blood started to thump faster. Being paralyzed made the fear ten times worse. They were dishing out adrenalin shots to bring the victims—to bring us—around right before they dropped us to a long and terrifying death.
I urged my body to feel, to move. Anything. But aside from the smells coming into my nose and the sounds entering my ears, I felt nothing.
My mind swirled with the roaring wind and the scream of the engines. Would they throw Jairo out? Jean? I was done for. That was for sure.
Damn it! We’d failed. Failed miserably.
Luciana’s voice came closer.
“¿Que?”
What?
She sounded pissed. Then another woman’s voice.
“These three?”
Us three. Jairo was here.
Luciana spoke again. “Chuck ’em. We only need him.”
“Bueno,” said the other woman.
I felt an acute sting run deep into my arm, and just like that, my eyes opened and my body shivered with feeling as my nerves reactivated. I was in sensory overload. The noise, which had already been loud, was now deafening. My head pounded, but I managed to lift it enough to see in front. A big, open, obscure rectangle of night sky.
“Go on,” said Luciana. “Get rid of them both.”
Chapter Thirty-One
The noise as I drew closer to the open door was like a blowtorch by my ear. Luciana’s voice and those of the soldiers helping her faded away and a giant roaring replaced them. The wind whipped at my face and I felt the bed tilt as I neared the open rear loading ramp. I breathed deeply.
This was it.
In a moment, I would be flung into the Mexican night air, never to see any of my family again. And what had I achieved? Nothing. Eleanor lost in the States. Ditto for Jairo’s girlfriend and daughter. And our son, behind me, destined for a worse fate perhaps.
I had failed again.
A guy stumbled over to me, resisting the wind, and started to undo the straps over my chest and then my legs. In that same moment, I felt my legs and arms again; from the tips of my digits to my spine. Hope for a moment. The guy was dressed in military garb and would overpower me in seconds. There was no hope.
He stank of musky aftershave, the kind my grandfather used to wear, and he wore a pencil mustache, shaved at the top to produce a perfect line over his lip. His eyes were black.
“Your turn, asshole.”
I held my breath.
“Okay,” he said. “Ten seconds, nine, eight, seven…”
He paused and I looked back. Luciana was standing next to Jean, who was coming around from her own adrenalin shot.
Then, BOOM!
The plane dropped in the air. Everything flew up as we lost gravity for a split-second, and came down hard on the metal floor. My face smacked the hatch door on its return, and my arms came free, and I grabbed a tiny part of the door frame and held on with all my strength. The wind and noise were rampant. I looked around at the damage. Beds and people lay sprawled on the floor and Luciana and Jean, who remained strapped in.
I looked back toward the open hatch. The musky rent-a-soldier was hanging on for dear life, his head just above the rim of the plane, the purple-black sky behind him, utter terror on his face. I tried to move to him, to extend my hand, and I almost touched him, but then he juddered and slipped and disappeared into the night sky.
I turned back to the interior. Luciana was lying on her back, hurt. A chance. I rolled out of the open straps of the bed and onto the metal floor. I grabbed another part of the frame and dragged myself away from the open hatch, towards Jean.
As I did, the roar of the wind died down just slightly. I didn’t let up. I pulled with everything I had,
until I got to Jean’s feet. Luciana was still too hurt to see me or do anything. I held Jean’s leg and pulled myself up to reach her. She looked down at me. Her face was black around the eyes and her lips were bloody and swollen.
She had put up a fight at the wall.
“Jean,” I shouted. “Jean!”
Her face was slanted, like a drunk’s, still half-drugged or hurt or both.
“Get the shot to Jairo,” she said, mumbling through slug-like lips.
“What?”
“The shot,” she said. “Get to Jairo with the adrenalin. Wake him up.”
I rolled to Luciana. To her side lay the needle she had used to wake Jean up. I grabbed it and stumbled to my knees and scanned the plane’s hold.
An utter mess.
Five beds had tumbled over, and the soldiers helping Luciana—I had been wrong; I counted two women and three men—were also on the deck. Two were rolling around. Three were out cold.
I scanned the people strapped to the beds. All men. The guy second closest to me was Jairo. His large frame twisted against the restraints; his eyes were closed.
I got to him, but the plane tilted heavily again and I swung back and slammed into the wall. It was like doing something serious while drunk. I couldn’t get my footing at first and had to hold tight to the wall as the pilots adjusted their course.
I gripped the needle in my right hand, pushed away from the wall, and landed on my knees next to my son. I undid the straps, which took an eternity, but after tugging and pulling, his frame came loose from the bed and he rolled flat in front of me.
I held the needle. Its barrel half full. How did this work? Any vein?
I remembered a movie from the nineties where the girl has an overdose and the hippy dealer slams the shot into her heart. Was that how it worked?
No. Couldn’t be.
The noise of the open door and the plane’s engines helped to focus me. I knew the soldiers were stirring, as was Luciana, and time had run out.
I looked at Jairo and went for his arm.
I put my forefinger on one of the thick veins running down his bicep and into his wrist, placed the tip of the needle there, and plunged it in.
His eyes sprang open and shock filled his face. His hand grabbed my arm so hard I thought he might snap my bones.
“Jairo!” I shouted. “Get it together. We need you.”
His face stayed stricken, but he rolled and adjusted his body to be facing down.
He was mumbling something, but I couldn’t hear him over the noise. His face was constricting, tightening, grimacing.
“Jairo,” I said.
And then he rolled, freed himself from the tangle of undone straps, and stood up. He had been changed into cargo pants and a white vest. His muscular frame was illuminated by the lights in the hold.
The plane tilted again and all the unconscious victims and beds rolled towards the wall. Jairo stayed still, his left boot braced against the side of the hold as he rode it out. I couldn’t see his face, but he was locked onto his first target. One of the soldiers was coming around right in front of my son. Jairo’s fists were clenched.
The soldier got to his knees and looked up at Jairo.
“Puto,” he said, right before Jairo’s right boot met his jaw with a speed and strength I had never seen before in real life.
The guy’s jawbone almost popped out of his skin as his head spun ninety degrees to the left with the force of Jairo’s kick. Before the solder’s inert frame had even touched the floor, Jairo was on him, his arms wrapped around his victim’s and pulling up.
“Tie him up,” I yelled over the noise, but it was pointless. Jairo was already grappling the half-awake soul to the open hatch. When they got to the edge, Jairo laid a mighty punch into the man’s stomach. His face came alive with agony, and Jairo pushed him hard, out of the hold, to a long and drawn-out death.
Then he turned and surveyed the scene.
His face was brutal. His facial hair, already a centimeter thick, just made his features all the more terrifying. He looked like a lion that had come home to find his pack slaughtered. Pure carnal fury washed his features.
Next was a woman soldier, who tried to draw her gun, but Jairo was too quick. He slammed his hand into her arms and lifted her clean off the deck and flung her out of the hole, just like that. I heard her scream fade.
He then walked to another male soldier, punched him square in the face, grabbed his legs, and dragged him across the floor. Once he was as close to the edge as he could get him, he pushed the soldier over with a single boot.
Now the others were gathering their wits, including Luciana, who scrambled quickly over to Jean, pulled her pistol, and placed it at Jean’s temple.
Jairo looked at the other soldiers. One guy and one lady. They looked like kids who had been caught stealing change from their moms’ purses. Maybe they had heard of the legendary Jairo. Maybe not. Maybe they were seeing this for the first time, like I was.
The girl went for the pistol at her waist and got to her knees, but Jairo was too fast. He stepped up the wall of the hold to the left of her and used it to launch a massive kick to her face. She was out before she even hit the floor. From there, Jairo used the momentum to follow through on her partner. His head cracked back like a crash-test dummy and he slammed to the floor too.
Jairo picked up the woman first and walked to the edge of the hatch and threw her out. Then he returned to the man and did the same.
He picked them up like they were dolls made from cotton.
Then he grabbed one of the fallen beds and dragged it to the hole and pushed.
“Stop, Jairo,” I said. But he ignored my protests.
I shouted, “Why kill them?”
Jairo glanced at me but said nothing. Luciana, still pushing the gun into Jean’s head, watched too.
Jairo went through the hold one by one, pushing each victim—bed and all—into the night sky to drop to his death. It must have taken minutes but it felt like seconds. Finally, he stopped, panting, with sweat glistening on his face.
“Are you done?” Luciana shouted, gripping the gun.
Jairo stared her down. His eyes burned with an evil fire. I could tell he enjoyed killing. It terrified me to the core. He wasn’t saving us. He was quenching his bloodlust.
He shrugged at Luciana and walked to the front of the plane and opened the cockpit door.
I looked at Luciana and saw, for the first time, real fear on her face.
We heard a scream and two thuds from the cockpit. Then Jairo came back, dragging from the cabin an unconscious pilot.
“No,” I said. “Jairo! Stop!”
Jairo was a man possessed. He dragged the pilot to the edge and rolled him over too. Then he went back to the cockpit, went in, and returned with what I guessed was the first officer.
“Jairo,” I shouted. “Please!”
But he repeated the act, pushing the hapless guy overboard.
I closed my eyes. We were saved, by a psychopath.
And that wasn’t safe at all.
Luciana sat still, huddled next to Jean, gun to her head.
Jairo walked to the edge of the hole and punched a button and the door began to close. After ten seconds everything went eerily quiet, the sound of the motors now insulated by thick steel.
Luciana was staring at Jairo, fuming.
“You idiot! What did that achieve? We’re all dead now.”
Jairo smiled. “No,” he said, “we just need a pilot.”
“What?”
“A pilot,” he said.
“I don’t want to state the obvious,” I said, drawing their attention to me. “But I think they’re just about hitting the ground right now.”
Jairo smiled again and looked at Jean. “She can fly,” he said.
Luciana and I looked at Jean. She nodded slowly.
“You see?” said Jairo. “Now let her go and shut the hell up.”
Luciana was at pains as to what to do. But that
instinctive human desire to live won out. It was her only choice.
“Do it now,” said Jairo.
And Luciana followed his order, releasing Jean from her grip. Jean scrambled up and, holding the wall, started on her way to the cockpit.
Jairo moved to Luciana quickly, took her gun, and began strapping her down on one of the beds, leaving it turned over.
I came to his side.
“Where now?”
Avoiding my gaze, he said, “Now we go find Mr. Reynolds. Now we finish this.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
In the cockpit, I found Jean settling into one of the pilot seats, checking controls, and strapping in.
“You can really fly this thing?”
Jean ignored my question but puffed out a short, sharp scoff as she eyed the dials and needles and levers.
“You need help?”
“Yes,” she said. “Sit down. One of the engines has a problem. Not sure how far we can get.”
I realized I had been avoiding actually looking out of the cockpit window until now. I felt terrified. I had never loved flying, but it had never stopped me getting on a plane. I just didn’t like the takeoff or the landing very much. I had once been in an old Russian Fokker over a desert in North Africa and a sandstorm had hit. We’d bounced a hundred meters at a time until we finally touched down. That had been scary. That had been frightening.
But at least there had been pilots.
This was a whole different level of shit-your-pants scary, and my infantile way of dealing with the pounding pulse in my neck had been to pretend the situation wasn’t true and avoid looking out the window.
But now I couldn’t avoid it.
What met my eyes was actually a thing of beauty.
Black clouds filled the bottom half of the three panes of the windshield, but the top half was awash with stars, sparkling down upon one plume of white cloud far in the distance. Thick gold tendrils of light marked the separation point between the clouds and what was essentially space.
“Pretty calming, right?”
Jean was looking at me taking it in. “Glad it relaxed you there. Now help me.”
“Right,” I said. “Sorry.”
“Take this.”