“That’s better,” Lopez said, then headed to the steps that led up to the plane.
Davidson helped Levont load the rest of the gear, then joined Brandt and Rebecca in the tight cockpit. The thing was built for four, but they were going to have to make do for six. Make that five. Talli wasn’t with them. Not that Davidson was grieving all that much over the loss of their “sniper.” The other men seemed to have barely blinked at the loss, either. Was this how they had felt after his betrayal? Had they just moved on like this?
Brandt rose and went to get into a jury-rigged jump seat. Apparently, the sergeant thought he was going to cram his large frame into that tiny chair.
“Sarge, I got it,” he said, shaking off his concern. They had a mission to complete.
Brandt looked to argue, but Davidson held up the video camera. “Lopez has already asked me to tape his beating the airspeed record for a four-seater.”
“No way we can beat that,” Levont said, settling into his copilot seat. “We’ve got five people, plus all the gear.”
“You doubt me?” Lopez asked.
The point man laughed. “Hell no.”
“All right. Let’s go make history.”
Brandt shook his head but rose, taking the seat next to Rebecca.
As they rolled out of the hangar and onto the tarmac, Davidson pointed the camera toward the front window. “Guinness Book, here we come.”
* * *
Frellan walked down the gangway. The spices of Morocco filled his nostrils. Despite the late hour, the airport was still filled with gamblers trying their hand at slot machines, desperate to win back some of what Morocco had taken.
Benedicto stopped mid-stride, though, looking to his phone. “The child is not with Brandt.” Frelland waited as the priest read the rest of the text. “She was taken by a British agent.”
Another turn of luck. Brandt was the bane of the Disciples. This British agent did not know what hurt he had invited upon himself. “Then they head north?”
Shaking his head, Benedicto reread the text. “They head east. Their flight path appears to be directed straight at Jerusalem.”
The Holy Land? Could God truly smile down upon them?
Then a man trotted up to Frellan and handed him a slip of paper. His joy dashed by the note. “Brandt is not on the train to Lourdes.”
Monnie’s smooth skin creased at the brows. “They must have found something in Cuellar that indicated where the British would take her.”
“We must hurry,” Benedicto stated, heading back to the plane.
Frellan, though, simply sat down in one of the chairs, opening his phone.
“What are you doing?” the priest asked. “We are hours behind.”
“You are not the only one with contacts,” Frellan reported, dialing his Russian brethren.
* * *
Bunny had given up trying to keep track of the alarms. A cacophony rang around them. Some were breaches, others were earthquake alerts, while still others were based off facial-recognition programs at every major airport, train station, or port in Europe. Hence the variety of buzzes.
“Can we turn some of these down?” Prenner asked.
Stark just waved him away. “This high-speed plane must be Brandt’s team,” the tech said, showing a flight path nearly identical to Vanderwalt’s British jet. Better yet, they were catching up with Vakasa.
“Where are the Disciples?” Emily asked.
“I picked them up in Morocco, but they fell off the map after that.”
Another alarm rang.
Bunny tensed. “Is that another breach?”
“Nah,” Stark answered. “The eighth wall is holding strong.” He flicked through several different screens until he finally found the one sounding the alarm. “It is the earthquakes…”
“What’s wrong?” Prenner asked.
Stark shook his head. “They’ve diverted from a straight path to Jerusalem, heading ten degrees north.”
“Why?” Bunny asked.
The tech shrugged, sorting through a variety of screens, finally settling on an air traffic control feed. “Yep, the plane is heading north. They informed Atarot Airport that they are not landing there but haven’t registered a new flight plane.”
Bunny picked up the sat phone. “We’ve got to warn Brandt.” Even as she dialed, she knew it was futile. Davidson must have removed the small crystalline battery from the sat phone. It rang and rang with no answer.
“We’ve got to figure out another way,” Bunny said, slamming down the phone.
Before Stark could answer, the room filled with the sound of klaxons as the lights blinked out and red flashing strobes replaced them.
“That,” Stark stated, “was the eighth firewall coming down…” He fussed for a few more moments, then threw up his hands. “All right. That’s it.” He turned to Bunny. “Go get Mom.”
“I’m sorry?” Bunny said.
“Oatmeal-and-raisin cookies,” Prenner stated, “no matter how good, are not going to get you out of this mess. We need to move on.”
Emily nodded. “Agreed.”
Stark ignored the other two and addressed Bunny directly. “Get. My. Mom.”
Not knowing exactly what else to do, Bunny obeyed.
* * *
Rebecca held on to the armrest as her seat shook from the airspeed that Lopez was attempting to achieve.
“Sorry, dude,” Levont reported. “Only two hundred and fifteen knots.”
Only 215 knots? That meant they were traveling around four hundred miles per hour. No wonder the seat was shaking. Rebecca would put up with the annoyance. They were less than an hour out of Israel. They would start descending as they passed the coast and head inland. At that point, Lopez would have to cut speed, but clearly he was not willing to give up the record just yet.
“The wind is against you,” Davidson stated beside her. “With our weight and that headwind, you just aren’t going to be able to overcome the air resistance.”
While Lopez didn’t argue, he certainly did frown.
Rebecca let the men’s discussion flow over her. She knew that they really didn’t care about their airspeed—well, Lopez might. No, the others, even Brandt, had taken part in this race to keep their minds off of Vakasa. Rebecca wished she were as adept at blocking out the fear and pain.
She’d replayed the scene in the Cuellar cloister over and over again. Should she have let Vanderwalt take the girl? Should she have let Brandt try to shoot it out? Or would they have had a high body count and still no Vakasa?
“Whoa!” Levont yelled, pointing ahead.
Lopez squinted. “What the…?”
Rebecca looked out the window, to find the Mediterranean water roiling, bubbling, churning. It was pretty far down there, but something massive was happening to the usually calm Mediterranean waters. Then a plume shot up from the sea, creating a wall of water in front of them. An undersea volcano.
“Crap!” Lopez yelled, diving them nose down.
They streaked away from the plume, the plane shaking violently. Rebecca looked over her shoulder. The water turned to steam as ash sailed high above them. Volcanoes could shoot debris twenty-five kilometers into the air. They weren’t safe until they were outside of the plume radius.
“Another one!” Levont shouted, pointing ahead.
Only, this one wasn’t just shooting water and ash. Lava burst from the cone, nearly taking out their wing.
“Turn south!” Rebecca yelled. “Due south.”
Lopez banked the plane hard as wind screamed around them.
“We aren’t going to make it,” Rebecca moaned. Lopez was good, but he wasn’t that good.
“Make a—” Brandt started to say, then stopped as a third volcano erupted in front of them. It was twice the size of the others. The blast slammed into the wings, sending them reeling to the right as if they were nothing more than a paper plane.
They were flying straight over the Aegean Arc. A set of four ancient volcanoes. T
he increased seismic activity must have destabilized the mantle cap. As the fourth exploded directly under them, lava splattered against their underside as the rest of the molten-hot spray coursed around them.
“Hang on!” Lopez shouted as he laid them over ninety degrees, cutting through the eruption.
They cleared the lava, then the smoke, then the steam, exiting out into the clear evening sky.
“Just like dodgeball!” Lopez announced. “Only, with lava.”
Rebecca looked over to Brandt, who wore the deepest frown she’d seen yet. She reached her hand out. He didn’t take it.
“The end of days.”
For a moment, Rebecca didn’t know what he meant, but then realized he was putting together the earthquakes and now the volcanic eruptions. If Vakasa truly was the Messiah, would she fulfill other prophecies? Prophecies like the apocalypse?
Apparently, Brandt’s faith that Vakasa was not the Messiah seemed to be wearing a little thin.
“We’re looking pretty good,” Lopez said, easing them down in altitude, getting ready to make the approach toward Israel.
“Um, except we are kind of on fire,” Davidson noted.
“Well, yeah, there’s that.”
“And we’ve got incoming!” Levont yelled over the sound of the inferno behind them.
“Incoming?” Lopez asked. “Who in the hell—”
* * *
Brandt felt the sonic boom all the way down to his marrow, and it didn’t let up. They must have been in the jet’s sonic carpet, feeling every last molecule displaced by the other plane. Then the tail boom, which nearly jarred him out of his seat, restraints and all.
Lopez banked them to the left. “How did the Disciples get a supersonic jet?” When no one answered him since they were too busy holding on for their lives, Lopez continued. “Seriously? How? I want one.”
Finally, they came out of the sharp bank, but the supersonic jet wasn’t idle. They were making a tight turn to come back around for another pass. If the jet got close enough, the force could shake the bolts holding their little plane together.
His concern nearly made Brandt miss the minor detail that Lopez was heading back toward the volcanoes. “Lopez…”
“What?” the corporal asked, never wavering from his course. “Nobody is stupid enough to follow me in.”
“That is kind of what I am worried about.”
Lopez rolled his eyes. “Please.”
And then they were back into the smoke plume. The world contracted down around them as ash and airborne lava shot past them.
“Levont, find me one ready to blow.”
“Lopez…” Brandt growled. There was courageous, and there was suicidal.
The corporal leaned forward as he took them low enough to get out of the plume. The four fiery volcanoes each looked prepared to erupt again. Their molten core bubbled and spewed.
“Last time I wasn’t ready. This time—”
“There!” Levont didn’t get the word out before Lopez slid them over to the second volcano, just in time for a huge steam plume to shoot out of the cone.
The plane shimmied but rode the column of superheated air. The metal around them became hot to the touch, but still, they climbed in the sky. Finally, the eruption ended, and they flew out of the blast zone, far above where they had entered.
The jet had slowed considerably to circle the volcanoes. And now their plane was above the Disciples. Lopez angled them downward.
“Now let’s see how you like it!”
Brandt wasn’t quite sure what Lopez had in mind, but it wasn’t going to be pretty. They approached fast and hard on the jet. Someone on board must have spotted them as they tried to accelerate, but not even with a supersonic jet could they outrun Lopez, at least not in time.
The corporal aimed them straight at the jet. It wasn’t until the last moment that Lopez had no intention at all of waving off.
“No!”
* * *
Brandt’s order was too late. Rebecca braced for impact, but she couldn’t be prepared for the actual impact. Lopez slammed their landing gear on top of the jet’s back. Both planes lurched. Their vehicle bouncing up. Lopez wasn’t done, though, as he hammered the plane back down. Then again.
“Lopez!” Brandt barked. “They’ve got way thicker steel.”
“But a way higher stall speed!” the corporal countered, pounding down again.
It took one more time, with each of the planes falling out of the sky. Then it suddenly got a whole lot quieter as the Disciples’ engines cut out. Lopez still wasn’t satisfied, though. He brought their landing gear down again, shoving the jet’s nose downward to the Mediterranean Sea. Only then, as the supersonic jet hurled toward a crash landing, did Lopez pull them up. But not quite as far as she had hoped. Then she saw why. Their left wing was engulfed in flame. Make that both wings. Make that the tail too.
“Lopez!” Brandt shouted.
“Jeez,” Lopez said, working the controls. “Calm down.”
Calm down? They were on fire. Fire. Oh yeah, and about to crash land.
Then the plane jerked, and it sounded like a rip cord was running out directly above her. They were suddenly pulled up. The draft was so quick it brushed the lava flames off the wings.
Rebecca craned her neck to see out the window. Above them, a huge plane-sized parachute had opened. Lopez cut the engines and let the plane drift down toward the water.
“There,” the corporal said. “Happy now?”
* * *
As the plane gently landed on the water, Davidson popped off his restraint and made for the hatch. There were still smoldering fires all over the hull of the airplane. The lava had tagged them nearly everywhere.
Davidson opened a storage compartment, grabbed a fire extinguisher, then undid the hatch. They were lucky the winds had shifted. The parachute, still filled with air, tugged them along toward Israel. Even without his scope, Davidson could make out the coastline.
All in all? Not too shabby, he thought as he climbed out of the cabin and onto the back of the plane. He hit a few flames with the extinguisher, dousing them, as Brandt and the rest joined him. Then the wind shifted and the parachute collapsed. Brandt and Levont rushed over, grabbing the sagging material before it hit any of the flames. The last thing they needed was the thick material catching fire.
Lopez detached the chute from its anchor, and they threw the material over the side.
Dousing another bit of lava that was about to cut into a fuel line, Davidson scanned the horizon. The Disciples’ jet seemed to have sunk completely. Just as well.
“Um,” Rebecca said, scooting her way toward the nose of the plane, “are we sinking?”
Levont nodded. “It’s all the gear in the hatch. It is dragging the tail down.”
“Shark!” Lopez announced. Davidson looked over as a dorsal fin cut the surface.
“Of course there’s a fucking shark,” Brandt rumbled. “But somebody’s got to dump the gear out of the hold.” The sergeant began stripping, but Davidson stepped forward.
“I’ll do it.”
Levont also stepped forward. “I’m an excellent diver.”
Lopez, though, shooed them all back. “Maybe but each of you is like a bloody Come Eat Me sign to the sharks.”
No one could argue with that as Lopez pulled his shirt up over his head. Davidson’s neck bandage was oozing as they spoke. Levont’s shirt was saturated in bright red and Brandt…Well, he had a litany of cuts and scrapes.
“Be careful,” Brandt ordered as Lopez took a knife from his leg holster. “I mean my kind of careful, not your kind.”
“Come on,” Lopez scoffed. “I’ve pearl-dived off of Sri Lanka.” He waved his hand over the water as a shark came in close, then darted away. Not just any shark, but a bull shark. “This is nothing.”
“Just film it!” Then Lopez gripped the knife in his teeth and dove off the side.
* * *
Brandt rushed to the side, but the plane
tipped with his weight. Rebecca screamed behind him as one of the sharks got a little impatient waiting for them to sink and all. It threw itself halfway up the side of the plane, snapping and thrashing. Brandt only had time to grab Rebecca by the waist and swing her around, out of danger.
Levont leveled his weapon, but no one fired. With Lopez down there, they couldn’t risk a feeding frenzy. Actually, once the bags were out of the hold, Brandt wasn’t sure they could stay afloat. No need to get the natives too agitated.
The bull shark clamped his jaw one last time, then thrashed its tail, sliding back down into the water. His eyes, though, his eyes said, We’ll meet again.
Fucking bull sharks. Great whites usually accidently bit you. They wanted seals. Once they took a bite and figured out you tasted bad, they were more than likely to spit you back out, giving you a chance to survive.
The bull shark? No such luck. They bit and held on—tight. If they did happen to let you go, it was only for a moment. They latched right back on. They were ferocious and committed to eating whatever they had caught.
Not a good combination.
“It’s working!” Levont announced, and sure enough, the back of the plane wasn’t quite as underwater as a moment before.
But then the water churned as several dorsal fins cut the water. Rebecca clung to Brandt as Lopez’s head popped above the waves. Just as a shark lunged for him, Lopez hit the shark square in the nose with a pack. The beast reeled away as Lopez tossed the bag onto the plane.
Brandt rushed over to help Levont haul the corporal out of the water, while Davidson filmed it all, of course.
Lopez pulled a string of life vests after him as well. “I’ve got four vests that—”Another shark jumped out of the water, snagging the last vest, cutting the line, taking his prize with him. “Make that three vests.”
“Ricky!” Rebecca chided him, helping him climb farther up the plane.
Lopez shook off all the help. Instead, he dropped to his knees and opened the gear that he’d salvaged. It was a pack of two rather large lifeboats. He pulled the cord and they began to fill with air.
“What the…?” Levont said, dancing back from the inflating rafts.
Lopez shook his head, spraying water on all of them. “Please, these experimental planes crash as often as they land. They’ve got the most sophisticated emergency rescue equipment on the planet.”
The Betrayed Series: Ultimate Omnibus Collection Page 121