The Gulf near Sarasota, FL,
Wednesday, 21 September, 1820 hours
Caitlyn banked the Jayhawk into the wind and squinted at the setting sun. They’d been flying a ten-mile grid for the last thirty minutes without a single sign of any boat, wreckage or bodies in the water. A growing suspicion took root in her gut. This would be the third false Mayday for their air station in two days. Anger boiled her blood. Every time a crew scrambled, there was the chance a real emergency went unanswered.
“Anybody see anything of note in the water?” Caitlyn asked over the intercom.
“Negative,” Clay said, followed by Joe’s disgusted “Zip-a-dee-doo-dah.”
Stillman had been quiet the entire flight, which suited her just fine. Confident Joe and Clay would instruct him in proper survivor protocols, Caitlyn scanned Fly Baby’s instruments. And made her decision. “Ryan, call it in. We’re heading home unless base has an update.”
While Ryan gave flight ops their on-scene assessment, she concentrated on the radar display. A storm was building to the southeast. Not a factor for their return to the base to the north. Stillman asked Clay a question over the intercom, and her senses went on immediate point, nerve endings suddenly sensitized as if awaiting a caress.
Last night she’d gone too far with her silly come-on in front of Stillman’s ex. She scanned the instruments even as she registered the deep voice that made her...want. Did he still love Hilary? She sighed. Hearts were notoriously poor judges of appropriate partnerships. Her attraction to Dr. Butt Head was a perfect example.
“May... Mayday! M...day!” a garbled, and heavily accented voice transmitted over the VHF radio brought her to full attention. Ryan flipped the radio to their headsets and responded.
“Mayday caller, give location and nature of emergency.”
Silence stretched for a full minute and he repeated his request. Another minute before a burst of static then, “Fifty miles... Punta Gorda.”
Ryan talked the caller through a lat/long fix and punched the numbers into the GPS receiver while Caitlyn split her scan between the blue-green of the Gulf below, the darkening sky outside and her instruments. The sun had settled below the horizon and flashes of lightning warned of intensifying storm cells to the southeast—the direction of the Mayday caller.
“Base, this is Coast Guard niner seven. We’re in the area and can respond to the distress call.”
The Mayday caller gave a disjointed report of a collision with another boat. Between his agitation and accent they had a hard time understanding specifics. Apparently, a go-fast had rammed his fishing boat and there were two or three men injured. Twenty tense minutes brought their Jayhawk to the coordinates and closer to the storm.
“I’ve got something,” Ryan said using night-vision binoculars to scan the water.
“Fire, fire!” screamed the voice over the radio. A ball of flames shot into the sky a quarter mile in front of them. Ryan swore, tearing the binoculars from his eyes.
Caitlyn immediately dropped the helo to fifty feet above the water and punched the throttle. “I need a swimmer ready for deployment,” she said over the intercom while Ryan radioed base about the explosion.
“Swimmer in position,” Joe announced.
Using the burning boat as the starting point, Caitlyn flew her search grid in ever-widening sweeps while her crew scanned the water for signs of life.
“Got one!” Clay yelled. “Starboard side ten degrees off the wreckage.”
Caitlyn dropped lower and flew in the direction Clay indicated, relying on her crew to spot the survivors.
“Slow. Slower. Down twenty and hover,” Joe called out. A few seconds later he called for her to drop lower and announced swimmer deployment.
Winds picked up and an odd feeling of déjà vu ruffled the hairs on the back of her neck. She scanned Fly Baby’s instruments. Normal. The atmospheric pressure from the storm probably had her nerves primed. Besides, the caller’s voice wasn’t the same as the two men they’d picked up the week before, even if the accent sounded similar.
She monitored Clay’s transmissions with Joe as he brought the first survivor onboard and confirmed two others were in the water. Doubly glad Stillman was on their flight to help, Caitlyn concentrated on holding the helo steady. It took twenty more minutes and one aborted hoist to bring the remaining two men to safety.
Joe yelled something cut off by the sharp staccato pop of automatic gunfire from the back of the helo. Hijacking! screamed in her head as she banked hard right and keyed the microphone for an emergency transmission. Before she could speak, another short burst of gunfire took out her radio panel and half the instruments in an explosion of plastic and a shower of sparks.
The smell of burnt ordnance filled her nose while its oily smoke stung her eyes as she fought to steady the helo with shaking hands. Ryan’s muted cry was cut short, drawing a quick glance from Caitlyn. Her heart stopped. His helmet was gone and blood covered his chest and half his face. She couldn’t tell if he was dead or alive. A downdraft jerked her attention back to flying. Oh God, what about Stillman, Joe, Clay?
“You will do exactly what I say or your remaining crew dies,” a harsh voice said over the intercom.
“What do you want?” she asked, surprised she could form a coherent sentence.
A man leaned over the center instrument console from the rear cabin and slipped on Ryan’s helmet. He adjusted the mic then instructed her to, “Drop ten meters off the water. Fly a heading of one hundred sixty-two degrees. Do not attempt to signal anyone. Do not do anything to attract attention.” He nudged Ryan’s head with the barrel of a MAC-10. “Do not make me kill him.”
Her copilot’s eyelids fluttered. “Ryan!” Caitlyn reached for him and the hijacker grabbed her arm and squeezed her wrist until she cried out.
“Do as you are told or his death is on your heart.”
Caitlyn blinked rapidly to clear her vision and turned her attention to the sky, then scanned her partially destroyed panel. She gritted her teeth against a word her mother would have washed her mouth out over. First and foremost she needed to concentrate on flying. She’d worry about killing the bastards later.
* * *
Stillman held his hands up while he carefully inched his way sideways on his knees. He needed to see Caitlyn. To verify she hadn’t been shot. That she was still flying. That Ryan hadn’t taken over because she’d been killed.
After the hijackers confiscated his and Joe’s helmets, he’d lost all communications with the crew. The only way he’d hear much of anything over the wind and engine noise would be if they shouted at him. He caught Joe’s grim head shake and glance toward the blackness rushing past the open doorway.
After unhooking his strop from the last hoist, Clay had been shot and dumped out the door. Caitlyn’s wild bank almost succeeded in launching one of the three hijackers after him, but the asshole had grabbed Joe and hung on. The gunner’s safety strap was the only thing that had kept Joe and the hijacker from falling out. Stillman’s admiration for Caitlyn grew. No doubt she’d intended to empty the garbage into the Gulf with that unexpected maneuver.
Another couple of inches and Stillman caught sight of her left shoulder. Relief flooded over him like water through a breached dike. Her rigid posture telegraphed she was alive—and pissed as hell. God, honey, don’t do anything to set them off. He flicked a glance at the two men holding MAC-10s on Joe and him. Their eyes jerked back and forth, each movement transmitting inexperience and fear. A deadly combination when holding automatic weapons.
Near as he could tell, the one with a gun on Caitlyn, the skinny one with ratty beard, was their leader. He seemed more controlled, but no less lethal than the two keeping Stillman and Joe under guard.
The shorter of the two in the back of the helo pointed his gun at Joe. “Close, close door and tie him!” he sho
uted and gestured with the gun. After Joe yanked shut the sliding side door, the other hijacker threw several zip ties at Joe. Stillman’s gut clenched. The only way out of those restraints involved a sharp edge, preferably a knife.
Stillman held his arms out, wrists together, trying to be helpful, but hoping like hell to avoid getting stuck with his hands behind his back.
“No, no, turn!” his captor ordered.
Still on his knees, he scooted around and held his hands behind him. Joe leaned in close to his ear while he zipped Stillman’s wrists together.
“Ryan’s hit. Don’t know how badly. Caitlyn’s okay. Clay was alive when he went out the door. Couldn’t tell where he’d been hit—”
“Stop talking!” someone yelled, then Stillman was hit from behind. Without his hands to break his fall, his head bashed into the aluminum framed jump seat and he slid onto the metal floor of the helo. Black nudged consciousness into a corner, but he didn’t pass out completely.
Vibration from the helicopter and grit biting into his cheek kept his brain marginally functioning. And allowed guilt to get in a few good kicks while he was down. Why hadn’t he noticed the way the first two survivors had been hiding small, but deadly MAC-10s in their pant legs? Or figured out their odd behavior hadn’t added up to accident victims?
The sudden change in engine noise broke through his rambling flagellation. What the hell? He struggled to a sitting position as the engine noise grew to a protesting whine. He glanced at Joe and saw the flight mechanic tuck his head between his knees. Shit, they were descending too fast, meaning a crash landing was imminent.
He bent into a defensive position against the bulkhead. If they hit water, they’d only have a minute or so, if they didn’t shatter on impact, before the top-heavy Jayhawk would roll over and sink like seven tons of scrap metal.
* * *
Caitlyn decided to take back control when the jackleg ordered her to land on a private island in the middle Keys. Whatever these gun-toting thugs wanted involved her helicopter. Obviously, the best choice was disabling Fly Baby without killing her, or her crew. After a quick prayer to Johnny—uncle, hero and her first flight instructor—she abruptly cut power and prepared for her first honest-to-god crash landing.
Practicing the maneuver endlessly didn’t mean much when she was in the middle of a damn squall fighting twenty-knot winds and slashing rain. She ignored the screaming accompanied by the wildly gesturing gun next to her head and scanned the few functioning instruments. What the hell, she excelled at flying the impossible.
She hadn’t considered how difficult it would be to deliberately crash her helo. Wanting to correct their too-fast descent came automatically and she had to force her arm forward when every cell in her body screamed to bring the collective back. To slow their fall toward the dimly lit island landing site before it was too late.
The altimeter wound down like a backward running clock and Caitlyn held her breath. When the impact came, it jarred from butt to head, feeling as if every vertebra compressed like a Slinky, only to spring apart when Fly Baby bounced off the landing zone. The upward bound was cut short by wind slamming them sideways off the concrete pad into palmettos.
The combined forces of storm and crash landing sent her bodyguard headfirst into the windscreen then onto the instrument panel where he came to rest. His gun flew onto the floor by Ryan’s feet. Stunned, Caitlyn sat a moment then scrambled to unclip her shoulder harness. Before she freed herself, someone grabbed her helmet and yanked her head back against the seat.
Awareness engulfed her like the stench of sulfur surrounding the devil. In the dim light she saw soulless black eyes staring back at her, glowing with the same hatred she remembered from her last stormy rescue.
His grin looked as out of place as the bright yellow Disney poncho he wore. “Ah, beautiful woman. We meet again,” said the ghost of her nightmares.
Chapter Five
Middle Keys, FL,
Wednesday, 21 September, 2030 hours
Warm water flooded Stillman’s eyes and ran down his face. What the hell? He squinted into darkness, trying to piece together where he was and why his head felt like it was on fire. Shouldn’t water cool the burning?
“Get up!” someone yelled and the pieces rolled into place with ugly precision. Helicopter. Crash landing. Well, hell, that explained the crazy tilt to the surface he lay on. Not that he remembered flying. He took a cautious breath. Probably explained the bitch of a headache he had too. He sat up, only realizing his hands were tied behind him when he fell forward onto his face. Shit, that hurt.
“Move!” The order came with a sharp poke in his ribs. A new memory bubbled up and Stillman jerked his head up. “Caitlyn!” He surged to his feet. Fu—pain slapped his brain around in his skull like a new kind of handball.
“They already took her out,” a familiar voice said to his right.
Stillman wiped his face on his shoulder, vaguely aware it was blood and not water, then focused on the man leaning in through the gaping doorway. Joe. Coast Guard hoist operator. New memories coalesced with the existing ones and he remembered everything that had happened. Or at least he hoped he did.
He shuffled forward, mindful of his iffy balance after the head bashing. “Is Caitlyn okay? Ryan?”
Joe reached up and helped him climb down from the Jayhawk’s doorway.
Stillman eyed Joe’s hands. “How come you’re not tied?”
“They released me so I could help carry Ryan and the guy who did a face-plant into the windshield. I think Queen B outdid herself with this landing.”
“Stop talking. Cut him loose.”
Stillman peered through the rainfall. A man wearing a yellow poncho, not one of the original three, stood with an AK-47 aimed in their direction. He said something to the shorter one in a language that sounded suspiciously like Arabic. The man hurried to comply. He yanked Stillman’s bound hands and sawed at them with something pointed, stabbing him in the back with every forward thrust.
“We’ll need the medical supply kit,” Joe said.
Another rapid one-sided conversation took place and the man pushed Stillman into Joe before jumping back into the Jayhawk. With Joe steadying him, Stillman got his first real look at their surroundings. He rubbed feeling back into his tingling hands.
The rain had slacked off in the last few minutes to little more than a sprinkle. The temperature hadn’t dropped but wind gusts rattling the palms made it feel cooler. The concrete landing pad was no more than forty feet in diameter, the perimeter ringed with low vegetation for another thirty to forty feet or so before scrub pines and palms obscured his sight. Hell, they hadn’t left much room for rotor clearance. Probably built for smaller civilian helicopters.
The Jayhawk sat half-on, half-off the concrete pad, its right wheel sunk into muck almost to the skid plate. He couldn’t make out any structural damage in the dim light cast by a lone spotlight. A small block building squatted at the edge of the clearing as if hiding. He doubted the helo would be taking off anytime soon.
He angled his head toward Joe and spoke in a low murmur. “How many are there?” He scanned the area looking for landmarks, working on an escape plan, forcing his brain to concentrate beyond the friggin’ pain of what was certainly a mild—he hoped—concussion.
“Four so far. Two of them we’ve rescued before. The night we met you. There’s a huge house with outbuildings, pool and from what I could make out in the rain, dock and boathouse.”
Stillman catalogued this information along with every other impression he’d had since the nightmare began. Experience told him part of his brain would work on a solution while the rest of him reacted to more immediate concerns.
The shorter man jumped out of the Jayhawk with a nylon bag hooked over his shoulder. He glanced at Yellow-Poncho as if wanting approval for his accomplishment. Gr
eat, an insecure terrorist.
“They took Caitlyn to the main house and we put Ryan in a newly constructed storage building. Looks like it’s set up for us. We put the injured guy in a spiffy apartment off a detached garage.”
The air in Stillman’s lungs bailed when Joe mentioned Caitlyn’s separation. Muscles bunched across his shoulders. Shit. He knew what could happen to her. He’d seen it in Iraq. And Afghanistan. Female prisoners were routinely raped. God damn it.
The leader barked out more orders. Stillman definitely made out “prisoners” and “doctor” in Arabic. “You told them I’m a doctor?” he asked Joe.
“Yeah, figured that was safe.”
“Stop talking!” The man poked the barrel of his gun into Stillman’s back and shouted, “Move!”
It only took ten minutes to walk the graveled path leading from the landing pad to the garage apartment that housed the injured hijacker. The grounds surrounding the home and half-dozen outbuildings were immaculately landscaped. Spotlights illuminated numerous fountains and tropical plantings, probably more for security than aesthetics. The rhythmic roar of surf convinced Stillman they were on an island. Or at the very least a narrow peninsula.
Stillman and Joe were led into a plush apartment where the injured hijacker lay atop a double bed. A towel had been wrapped around his head and his shirt unbuttoned.
“Doctor. As soon as you’ve assessed his condition, we’ll take you to your own wounded pilot.”
It took a stunned moment for Stillman to realize he wasn’t referring to Caitlyn, but Ryan. His heart started beating again. “I’ll need to wash up,” Stillman said, holding his bloody hands up for inspection. He fixed a glare on the man giving orders. “If you want my help you can begin by explaining what the hell you want with us.”
* * *
Caitlyn prowled her room once more, looking for anything she could use to escape or overpower a guard. The bedroom with attached bath were deceptively benign. The furnishings were overly fussy and expensive looking. And bolted to the floor. Heavy damask drapes with filmy sheers and room-darkening shades hid tightly battened-down hurricane shutters.
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