Sean was so drunk that he barely protested the indignity of being strapped into his chute then shoved into the tiny cabin of the beat-up, two-engine plane. Kelly's breathing was labored as they ripped the side seams of her long dress to enable her to wear the parachute.
"We're okay," he said, although he didn't believe a word of it. "We're almost home-free."
Everyone was deathly silent as the plane barreled down the runway then shot into the air. Max thought of giving them a lesson in the use of a parachute but figured that would only make things worse. The last thing they had to worry about was jumping out of the plane.
Kelly touched Max's leg. "Something's wrong," she said as the plane leveled off over the coastline.
"The engines are supposed to sound like that," he comforted her. "I know it's not like our jet--"
She looked up at him and forced a smile. "I'll never forget the past four weeks, Max."
"It's not over, Kelly. I swear to you, it's not."
It couldn't be. He refused to believe he could find love only to lose it so quickly.
They heard a noise from the cockpit and Kelly tilted her head to the right. "That wasn't the engines, Max. I tell you something's wrong."
The pilot was separated from them by a thin brown curtain which hadn't been pulled all the way across. Max glanced over at him. Everything looked fine. He was about to turn back to Kelly to reassure her again when he realized the pilot was paying more attention to them than to flying the plane.
Instinct brought Max to his feet as Kelly screamed, "Max! He's got a gun!"
Sean was galvanized by his daughter's scream and while Max shielded Kelly with his body, her father threw himself at the pilot.
Max pushed her under the bench as the plane went into a slow roll. Clutching at the back of the other seat, he pulled himself toward the cockpit.
"I've got him," Sean yelled. "I've--"
The gunshot screamed through the tiny plane and blood spurted from Sean's right shoulder, spreading across his immaculate white shirtfront. Max turned back to make certain Kelly was safe and in that instant Sean staggered then managed to grab the gun and turn it on the pilot.
Which left them with one more problem.
The plane was going down fast and any second it would go into a spin that not even Chuck Yeager could pull out of.
"Listen to me!"His adrenaline was pumping so furiously that he could barely hear his own words. "We're jumping."
"Oh God, Max!" Kelly moaned. "Please, no--"
"It's the only way. Now listen to me, both of you, if you want to live!"
He went through the drill twice, as calmly as he could manage considering the circumstances. The countdown. The pull. The rolling, soft-boned fall.
Kelly would go first.
"I'm terrified, Max," she said as he hugged her close. "What if--"
"You'll do it," he said fiercely. "You'll do it for me." He touched the tiny gold chain visible through the thin fabric of her dress. "Nothing can happen to you."
"I love you," she said. "Never more than now."
He opened the door. "Godspeed."
She jumped, arms and legs flailing as she hit the wind. His gut twisted violently and he thought he'd vomit from fear until the big candy-striped chute rose up into the dark night.
He turned to Sean, hatred eating away at his sense of duty. "Now you."
Sean stumbled toward the door. "...don't feel too well, son..."
"It's either this or crash, old man. Take your pick."
He had no pity in his heart for a man who'd sell his soul the way Sean Ryan had.
"...need to sit down..."
"Forget it. There's no time. You're going to jump."
"...in a second...just want to sit..."
Sean lowered himself toward the edge of the doorway, swaying dangerously as the plane's gentle glide turned again into the start of a tailspin.
Cursing under his breath, Max hung onto the bench and grabbed for the door.At least if he could pull it shut, Ryan wouldn't tumble out before he'd been instructed.
He grabbed the handle. Sean tripped over his shoe lace. The door swung inward.Sean pitched forward, cracking his head against the metal.
The door swung back out and Sean Ryan followed right behind.
Sean's arms and legs drifted with the crosswinds. His head was flung back against a current of air. He was unconscious, out of control, unable to pull the ripcord.
He was going to die and if he did Kelly's problems, and her shame, would be over.
Max hated Sean. He hated the way Kelly had paid time and time again for her father's sins.
Let him go, a voice said. The situation was beyond redemption. The chances of being able to do anything to help the man were next-to-zero.
He saw Kelly's face as she looked at him before her jump. Saw her love and her trust and knew if he would ever be worthy of sharing her life, he would have to give this his best shot.
He rolled out the door, buffeted by the dynamic force of the wind, then fell through the skies, that powerful living entity he'd always loved.
Sean crossed under him. He was probably going in excess of 150 mph.
Max took stock of their relative positions then went from a flat fall into a no-lift dive.
Tucking his head into his chest, he turned his body into an arrow and aimed it at Sean Ryan at almost 200 mph.
Wind screamed in his ears as he lifted his head to check position again, making adjustments with tiny infinitesimal movements of his legs and shoulders.
The ground was coming up fast and he knew he was running out of time to grab Sean, pull the rip cord, and get the hell out of the way.
How he would find time to pull his own cord was something he didn't have time to worry about.
There'd be a way.
He couldn't believe he'd come this far and found so much to lose it now.
Twenty seconds before impact he pulled up next to Sean, angling his body against the wind. Reaching over the unconscious man, he yanked the reserve cord then spun out of the way, praying someone was watching.
Two thousand feet above the ground he finally yanked his main chute and settled back to enjoy the ride.
Chapter Thirty
Moonlight played off the black water.
A pale crescent of beach hugged a quiet cove.
If it weren't for the fact that it was all rushing up toward Kelly faster than she could think, it would be a magnificent sight.
For those first terrifying moments as she tumbled head over heels toward the ground, her one constant--her one tiny piece of security in a world gone mad--was the look of pure love in Max's eyes.
Fear pushed everything else from her mind but survival. She pulled the ripcord exactly as Max had told her to and almost wept with relief when the huge red and white canopy blossomed overhead, taking her up in a dizzying rush of power beyond her control.
Don't panic...don't panic... The earth was coming closer every millisecond. Cushion the fall...soft bones...
There was nothing soft about her landing.
Who would think a gentle beach could feel like a concrete driveway beneath your bottom? Her right hip and shoulder took most of the impact and, for a moment, she ached so badly she couldn't draw breath.
The evening breeze tugged at the chute, pulling her off her feet. She quickly gathered it up then unbuckled the harness and stepped out of the leather straps. Her heautiful dress, seams ripped clear to the waist, swirled around her in a flutter of ivory. All that remained of her stockings were wisps of tan silk that stuck uncomfortably to the scrapes on her knee and flank.
She bent low to slide them off but was knocked back to the ground as a loud explosion echoed through the mountains just past the beach. Tongues of fire leaped toward the sky.
The plane. Dear God, she had lost sight of everything but saving her own hide.
Max...her father...
Her mind became a frozen block of fear.
And then she saw it. On
e blessed red and white parachute drifting lazily through the red-streaked sky toward a point about a half-mile up the beach.
Just one parachute...
She got up and started to run, her feet sinking into the soft wet sand, long legs eating up the beach with giant strides and not once as she ran did she dare think about which man she was running toward.
Or which man she had lost.
#
Sean groaned as he cleared a swirl of sand and water from his nostrils. He could feel the blood seeping from the hole in his shoulder; the sting of salt water in the wound burned like a hot knife.
He was alive.
What an ironic sense of humor the Almighty had considering the fact that everything else was over. The last joke of his life had been played out and now, at last, they couldn't ask any more of him.
No more black nights or endless days at Viktor's command, no more memories salted by his daughter's tears.
The last scene.
His last act.
The one time he could be writer and director and producer.
Lowering his head once again, he let the water fill his nose and mouth and welcomed the darkness.
#
Hair the color of silvered moonlight. A slender, still elegant male form lying half in-half out of the water lapping against the shoreline.
A sob tore from Kelly's throat and bounced off the mountains looming over the beach. Max was gone. Dear God, it couldn't be true. Max was strong and powerful and young--he couldn't have gone down with that plane.
She couldn't imagine a life without him; he'd brought a joy into her life she'd never believed possible beyond the fairy tales she'd grown up with.
Don't think about it...you can't think about it now...
Her father lay there, blood seeping from his shoulder in a steady stream, his form as still and quiet as if he were--
"No!" Her voice was strong, powerful enough to reach the heavens. "I'll be damned if I lose you, too."
With sure movements she flipped him onto his back and dragged him onto the hard-packed sand. Clearing sand from his mouth and nostrils she placed her ear against his chest and her elation was boundless when she heard the faint but steady beating of his heart.
"Wake up," she said, tapping his cheek. "You're not going to get off this easily, Sean."
His eyelids fluttered then opened. His dark blue eyes were bloodshot and glazed but he zeroed in on her almost immediately.
"Let me go..." His voice was no more than a rush of air. "...there's no hope..."
"I won't let you go. For once in your life you're not going to take the easy way out."
"...not supposed to be this way, princess...only wanted to help you...a good life..."
"I needed you, Sean," she said, tears sliding freely down her face, "not the the schools and the dresses you thought were so important."
"...mistakes..." His eyes closed. "Sorry...so sorry..."
She couldn't let him slip back into unconsciousness. If she did it would be too simple for him to give himself over to death.
"We have a lot to talk about, Sean," she said, forcing him to sit upright against her. "I need some answers."
"...let me go, princess...never was a good father..."
"You're right," she said, her heart aching with emotions she'd thought long dead, "but there's one problem, Sean: I love you and I'm not going to lose you now."
She'd been powerless to save Max and that pain would follow her every day of her life.
No matter what else he may be, Sean Ryan was her father and, at the moment, that was all she needed to know.
#
If a student had landed head-first in the water, Max would have recommended a remedial course in Parachute Jumping 101.
Tonight he considered the fact that he'd landed at all to be a triumph of the highest order.
A thousand images of his time in Vietnam had buffeted him as he fell toward earth. That incredible vulnerability as he swung crazily from the chute, a living human target for anyone with a rifle and halfway decent aim.
Add to that the airplane spinning past him on its way into a Brazilian mountain and the small chopper closing in and it would have been enough to push the old Max clean over the edge.
Only this wasn't the old Max.
The old Max lived alone and drank alone and expected to spend the rest of his days alone.
The old Max had never met Kelly Madison or been held by her or loved by her or imagined a future with her right there at the center.
The old Max sure as hell had never imagined a baby with blonde curls and midnight blue eyes.
And so he'd landed and dogpaddled his way to shore, trailing his chute behind him. He shed his dinner jacket and tie and fancy Italian shoes and, abandoning the chute, he took off down the beach toward where he remembered seeing Kelly land.
The beach went on forever, curving in and out around the shoreline, and only adrenaline, pumping hard and fast through his bloodstream, kept him going.
Around the next bend, he told himself. She'll be there...she has to be there... He couldn't imagine a world without her.
And then he saw her kneeling on the sand, cradling her father against her shoulder, her blonde hair tangled and glittering in the moonlight and he knew that no matter what else happened, whatever else the fates had in store for him, he would carry this moment with him the rest of his life.
#
Who said miracles didn't happen?
Kelly had only to look at Maximilian Steel--aka Max Brody--to know miracles were alive and well and living in the latter part of the twentieth century.
She'd felt his presence even before she turned and saw him standing there, half-dressed and exhausted and blessedly alive, watching her with those beautiful green-gold eyes that had captured her from the very start.
In an instant he was next to her and she was in his arms, enveloped in that strong embrace she thought she'd never enjoy again.
"Is he--?"
"He's fine," she said. "Weak but fine." She'd torn a strip from her beautiful dress and used it to bandage Sean's shoulder to stem the bleeding and, since it was a night of miracles, her makeshift method had worked."Your driver--I mean, your friend Ryder--"
"I don't know. It didn't look good."
She touched his cheek. "Oh, Max, I'm so sorry."
"No need for sorrow."
Her body jerked in surprised at the sound of a male voice--with a splendid British accent--right behind them.
"Alistair Chambers," Max said as they turned to face a distinguished white-haired man. "Do you have radar?"
Chambers laughed and crossed the beach toward them as if it were the ballroom at Buckingham Palace. "I have one of Ryder's tracking devices. It's better than radar."
Kelly turned to Max. "Your chauffeur?"
"Dear girl," said Chambers with a shake of his head. "Ryder is many things but a chauffeur is not among them."
She listened in amazement to a list of wiseguy Ryder O'Neal's achievements that rivaled the "begats" in the Bible.
"Are you certain we're talking about the same man?"
Max laughed. "Shaggy hair? Bad attitude?"
"That's the one."
"Same one," said Max. He turned to Chambers. "You're sure he'll be okay?"
Okay? She glanced at him. Since when did cultured Brazilians say okay?
"Sick as the proverbial dog but he'll live--even though he doesn't believe it at the moment." Chambers bent down and looked at Sean. "Don't worry about your father," he said kindly. "We have medical help on the chopper."
"Chopper?" Kelly glanced around. "Where?"
Chambers motioned behind a grove of trees. "Specially adapted for noise suppression. A PAX specialty."
Information was raining down on her like a summer storm.
"PAX? What on earth is PAX?"
They told her.
She didn't believe them.
Then Chambers showed her a nifty trick with a laser beam hidden inside
his wedding band and she suddenly saw the light.
"James Bond will never seem the same," she said. "First you tell me O'Neal is a genius and now you tell me you're both in some super-secret organization." She gestured broadly. "Are you sure this isn't a movie set smack in the middle of Hollywood?"
"This is the real thing," said Max. "I'm the one who's not."
The other shoe.
Why hadn't she seen it dangling overhead, ready to drop?
"Meaning?" Her heart pounded harder than it had when she was falling toward the ground.
"Meaning your Max did something few people would ever do," said Chambers as a team of medics hurried across the sand. "He gave five years of his life to a higher cause." He outlined a pretty unbelievable chain of events that had climaxed at the party just a few hours ago.
"And my father?" She closed her eyes against the truth she knew was coming.
"He's tried to make amends," said Chambers. "It will count in his favor."
"He saved your life," Max said in a suddenly all-American voice. "That bullet on the chopper was meant for you."
"I don't understand any of this," she said. "It's like a B-movie."
Chambers patted her shoulder. "Well, my girl, whether you understand it or not, this is classified information. We're going to have to hold you two for debriefing."
"Together?" asked Max, holding her tight.
"Of course," said Chambers with a smile. "We would hate to break up such an effective unit."
"We're a unit?" Kelly asked, turning toward Max.
"You got a problem with that?"
"No," she said, looking into his eyes. "Not a one."
Epilogue
The next few days were a whirl of briefings, debriefings, physical examinations, and endless soul-searching conversations with both Max and Sean that somehow banished the last of the darkness inside her soul.
PAX went out of their way to inform the U. S. authorities that Sean had tried time and again to break away from his eastern bloc connections and to tell Kelly that only her father's fear for her safety kept him caught up in a web of love and lies.
Fine Madness Page 20