“The map is gone. I gave it to your mum.”
“He’s not looking for the map,” Jimmy said, coming up beside them.
“He’s right.” Mitch opened yet another secret compartment inside the first one. “I was looking for this.” A mini flash drive about the size of a dime slid into his hand. “This is what Bautista and Albatross have been looking for.”
“What’s on it?” Sophie asked.
He held the tiny square up and squinted at it. “I have no idea. I didn’t have a chance to check it out, but I image whatever it contains is something they’d be willing to pay a pirate’s ransom for.”
Jimmy swiped it from his hand. “Too bad it’ll be in the authorities’ possession.”
Crossing his arms, Mitch sighed with resignation and nodded.
Bemused, Sophie said, “I had it around my neck this entire time?”
Her father winced. “I’m sorry I put you in so much danger, baby girl.”
“You didn’t.” She caught Jimmy’s gaze, too. “Neither of you did. I wanted to be here. If I had it to do over again, I wouldn’t change a thing.”
Jimmy turned away from her and his reaction, or rather lack of one, pinched her heart. She didn’t have time to linger over it. Mitch squeezed her arm gently to get her attention.
“Come on,” he said, guiding her toward the airplane. “We need to get this bird in the sky. Panama, help me get the chocks out of the way. Jonas, you warm this baby up.”
Jonas dashed up the airstairs and entered the plane. Jimmy leaned his Uzi against a wooden crate near the door before he went around to the far wheel to remove the wedge of wood holding the aircraft in place, while Mitch took care of the closest wheel. When Jimmy came back around, he stopped short, raising his hands in supplication.
“Sophie, look,” Tulio said, tugging on her arm. He pointed at the gaping hole in the wall and the man standing just inside of it.
Florez. And he had Jimmy’s Uzi. The one he’d set aside just a moment ago. A fiendish smile twisted Florez’s face and insanity gleamed brightly in his dark eyes. He shook with rage as he slavered the words, “Vaya al diablo, amigo.”
Sophie raised her gun, closed her eyes, and squeezed the trigger. The semiautomatic weapon lurched in her hands, but she held onto it tightly and squeezed the trigger again. Then once more for good measure. A burnt odor drifted to her nose. She opened her eyes half expecting to find Florez’s gun turned upon her, but he lay sprawled on the ground, a single bullet hole between his eyes.
Sophie flung the gun away. “Dear God, I’ve killed another one!”
Mitch moved beside her. “What do you mean another one?”
“You didn’t kill him, Duchess. I did.”
She noticed the revolver in Jimmy’s hand. It hadn’t been there a moment before. She stared at him blankly. He closed the distance between them in three strides. His arms came around her, strong and warm despite the fact he was still soaking wet, and he hugged her hard.
“All three of your shots went wide,” he explained, “but you distracted him long enough to let me grab the discarded revolver off the ground. You saved my life.”
“Another one?” Mitch said again. “Who else did she shoot?”
Jimmy shook his head. “Long story. The wound wasn’t fatal, though.”
“That doesn’t reassure me in the least.”
“It’ll have to do for now. Help me get that body out of the way. We need to roll. The fuzz is coming in fast.”
The Mamba X-4 was purring like a kitten when Jimmy replaced Jonas at the controls. The engine was unnaturally quiet, not much louder than a household box fan. He settled back in the pilot’s seat next to Mitch, put his headset on, and checked the gauges. The fuel tank was full. That was a relief. They had a long flight ahead of them and they couldn’t fly on fumes.
He looked back to make sure Sophie and Tulio had followed his orders and buckled themselves in. They had. Sophie’s arm was around the boy’s shoulders. When she looked down and smiled at him tenderly, a warmth spread through Jimmy’s chest like a spring sunrise after a long, cold winter.
“Rigoberto’s death was an accident. Jimmy would never willfully hurt someone he loves.” As he had moved in on Florez back there on the dock, he’d heard every word of her passionate defense of him. She had forgiven him for Big Rig’s death when he couldn’t forgive himself. She had led him out of the darkness and made him feel like a glimmer of the man he used to be. Despite all he’d done to her, he was amazed to realize his beautiful, righteous Duchess still believed in him.
“You gonna keep making googly eyes at my daughter, or are you going to get us the hell out of here?” The outraged father act Mitch had put on for Bautista and his crew wasn’t just a show. Jimmy had the marks on his throat to prove it, and Mad Dog was still royally pissed.
“Is that door secure, Jonas?” Jimmy shouted over his shoulder.
“Good to go.” Jonas gave him a thumbs-up as he slipped into a seat one row behind Sophie and Tulio.
Jimmy steered the plane out of the hangar. The quiet hum of the engine was freaky. He could actually hear the wail of sirens, and it sounded as if the entire police force was on the airport access road and closing in fast. Soon they would be at the bridge and then on the runway, blocking their escape. “Wish we could do something about that,” Jimmy said into his headset microphone.
“Your brother’s got it covered,” Mitch replied.
A harvest moon hung low in the clear, starry sky, illuminating the joke of a runway. Jimmy maneuvered past a crater-sized pothole and the plane bounced over some jagged cracks in the road. They were almost to the far end of the runway when he turned the plane around and positioned it for takeoff. He was worried about chipping the edge of that crater on the run, but he was going to need the full length of the strip to make it into the air. Otherwise, they’d crash and burn in the craggy cove.
“About Sophie—”
“Are you really gonna go there right now, Panama?” Mitch didn’t look away from the knobs he was adjusting on the control panel.
Jimmy stared at his profile. “I just want you to know I’m in love with her.”
Mad Dog’s flinty gaze shifted his way finally. “Then you better quit your yapping and focus on getting her home in one piece.”
Jimmy nodded once before he got down to business. He juiced the throttle and a soft, whining sound filled the cabin.
Mitch called back to Jonas, “Get ready to let her rip.”
“Package engaged,” he replied. “Detonation in ten.”
That was Jimmy’s cue. He took off down the rutted airstrip like a bat out of hell.
“Nine, eight, seven…” Mitch picked up the count.
The wheel caught the edge of the crater just like Jimmy had feared it would and the plane jerked sharply to the left. They started to drift toward the hangar, but the tip of the left wing clipped the corner of the building, shoving them back on course.
“You’re one lucky son of a bitch, Panama.”
“You think?”
The craggy cove was nearly upon them when the nose rose in the air like a champ.
“Three, two, one, engage.”
An enormous explosion took out the rickety bridge. The shockwaves rolled over the aircraft, making it vibrate wildly and Jimmy’s teeth clank, but he managed to keep the nose steady until they were clear of the blast. He hadn’t believed the stories he’d heard about the Mamba X-4, but as he made a wide circle, taking in the dancing flames and the frustrated police officers examining the damaged patrol cars on the access road, he became a believer. The mirrored hull was doing its thing—a magician’s trick that made the plane blend in with the sky. No one was pointing up or firing weapons at them. What better way to make a getaway than in an invisible, virtually silent, radar-defiant aircraft? Talk about truly bitchin’ technology. No wonder Bautista had been hot to get his hands on it.
Jimmy called Angela Garcia shortly after takeoff to assure her Tulio was s
afe and on his way to the States. She was waiting for her boy at Sue and Oscar’s house in Key West. Jimmy also called the captain to arrange a ride for them. And Jonas phoned one of his CIA contacts and told him all about Bautista, the flash drive, and the stolen aircraft. He left Mitch and Sophie out of the story at their request.
They entered US airspace just after two o’clock in the morning. The plane was burning fumes when Jimmy circled the highway waiting for an eighteen-wheeler and a sedan to pass. Alligator Alley connected the Naples-Ft. Myers area with Metro Miami. For decades, it was just a desolate, gator-infested two-lane road slapped down on top of a swamp. As Southwest Florida began to boom in the early 90s, the old hubcap collector had been upgraded to a major six-lane interstate known to visitors as I-75. It may not have been the most deserted place to land a sizable aircraft, but it was a lot roomier than the A1A. At any other time of the day, landing a plane on the Alley would have been an impossible maneuver. In the wee hours of a Monday morning, there was next to nobody on the road. So Jimmy lined up the nose with the northbound lane and put the Mamba X-4 on the ground without a hitch.
Captain Tom pulled up right on schedule, and Sophie and Tulio were nestled inside the cab, while Jimmy, Mitch, and Jonas hopped into the bed of the old red pickup truck.
The captain slid the rear window aside and spoke over the top of Tulio’s curly head. “You bastards really did it. You landed a mother-humping airplane on the Alley. I thought I’d seen it all, but this here beats the shit.”
“Good to see you too, Tom,” Mitch said.
Sitting on the driver’s side, Jimmy bent his head toward the open window. “Thanks for the ride.”
The captain turned the pickup onto the grass median. They bumped along in silence until he reached the smooth pavement of the southbound lane. “There’s a stocked cooler back there. Thought you boys might be thirsty.”
Jimmy pulled five beers out of the Igloo and shared the wealth. Sophie accepted his offering with a small smile. When their gazes met briefly, his pulse leaped and his skin tingled with awareness. He sat back with a grin and popped the tab on his beer can.
The captain raised his can in a toast. “To landing a Boeing 747 Short Body in the middle of the friggin’ Everglades. Another I-kid-you-not moment in South Florida history.”
Jimmy leaned toward the open window again. “I hate to break it to you, but that wasn’t a Boeing aircraft.”
“Son, for the purpose of my story it was.”
Everyone in the truck laughed, even Jonas.
Jimmy was taking a deep swig of the brew when the first two Florida State Highway Patrol cars flew past them on the northbound lane with their roof lights flashing. Captain Tom wasn’t the only Floridian who was gonna have one hell of a story to tell his friends.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
April stared at her reflection in the white cheval mirror in the corner of her bedroom. She looked like Homecoming Queen Barbie, all blonde hair, tits, and legs, and she even had the bored plastic expression to go along with it. She’d been in a funk ever since Mr. Rios had banished Damian to his aunt’s house in Tampa to finish out his senior year. She was actually looking forward to the dance tonight. Dressing up made her feel good and she enjoyed the fuss her friends usually made over her. She could use the ego boost right about now.
She and Courtney were back to pretending to like each other again. They’d reached an understanding behind the garage. They’d gone shopping together today and her stepmother had picked out the glittery purple satin dress April was wearing to the dance.
April stroked the bare spot on her neck above the sweetheart neckline. She knew the perfect necklace to complete the outfit. The diamond-studded heart her father had given her mother for her thirtieth birthday. It had been willed to April, but her father still kept it in the master bedroom safe, along with the rest of his late wife’s jewelry.
Smoothing the front of her dress, April turned sideways to make sure the hem of the layered ultra-miniskirt wasn’t caught in her underpants. She couldn’t have everyone at school figuring out what a phony she was this late in the game.
Dorito followed her down the hall, past the grand stairs to the opposite end of the house. She knocked on the master bedroom door. When no one answered, she pushed it open and went inside. The white marble bedroom furniture matched the decor throughout the rest of the house. A white comforter covered the white king-sized post bed. April’s bedroom was the only room in the house with color.
Her father kept her mother’s jewelry in the safe inside his closet. April would have asked for the necklace, but she’d been avoiding him ever since he’d made her call Sophie and trick her into revealing where she and Jimmy Panama had gone after Jamaica. Something still didn’t sit right with April about that. Her dad claimed he only wanted to locate Sophie’s father, but she didn’t understand why he had to be so sneaky about it. April could have just asked Sophie to pass a message to her father.
April entered the walk-in closet and moved her father’s suits aside. She studied the front panel. The safe required a six-digit numeral code. It used to be April’s birthday, so she gave it a shot and punched in the month, day, and year. The lock emitted three short beeps as a row digital red X’s blinked across the screen. She frowned and reluctantly tried Courtney’s birthday. The same thing happened.
April had a similar safe in her room. One more mistake and a backup lock would engage, requiring a key in addition to the code to open it. Her father would know she’d been poking around in his closet and that just might make him mad enough to send her away for rest of her senior year.
She was taking a huge chance.
She nibbled on her bottom lip. Inhaling a deep breath, she let it out slowly, and then she tried her mother’s birthday.
The safe emitted one long beep. She looked over her shoulder, half expecting her father to come barging into the closest. When the beep stopped, the safe opened with a soft click.
The thought of her father using her mother’s birthday to lock away his precious valuables made her smile. No matter how hard Courtney tried, she would never replace April’s mother in her father’s heart.
April reached inside the safe for the vintage jewelry box and accidentally pulled out a white folder along with it. The papers inside nearly spilled out when it hit the floor. April abandoned the jewelry box and bent to pick up the folder. She paused when she saw the logo on the cover. It was a white bird with a broad head, wide wingspan, and webbed feet. An albatross.
Goose bumps rose on her skin as she opened the file and skimmed its contents: shipping schedules, statements from a bank in the Cayman Islands cataloging large monetary transactions, and an inventory sheet for a long list of coded items all dated within the last few months.
Nausea rolled through April’s stomach as the cold, hard truth bitch-slapped her in the face. There was only one reason someone would call her father’s phone asking for Albatross.
One reason.
“Oh God!”
“Phillip?” Courtney’s voice came from the bedroom.
April scrambled to her feet, stuffing the papers back into the folder as neatly as possible. Then she shoved the file inside the safe, along with her mother’s jewelry box, and reset the lock.
“I thought you were going down for a swim.” Courtney was almost to the closet.
April stepped through the open doorway and smiled at her stepmother. She prayed her nerves didn’t show because inside she was shaking. “Hi, Courtney! I was just looking for my mom’s jewelry box. I wanted to wear one of her necklaces tonight. I was hoping it would be on the shelf, but it looks like it might be locked up in the safe.”
Courtney closed her gaping mouth and blinked at her. Then she shook her head. “Probably. I wouldn’t know. Your father is very protective of his ex-wife’s things.”
“Late wife, you mean. They weren’t divorced when she died.”
“Right.” Courtney placed her hand over her nonexistent baby bump and
stroked her stomach. “Did you want me to ask him about the jewelry box?”
“No. It’s okay. Greenlee will be here any minute and I promised I’d be downstairs.”
April made it to the bedroom door when Courtney shrieked.
For a second, April feared she’d forgotten to put something back in the safe. She debated making a run for it, but sucked it up and turned around.
“Get that cat out of this room!”
Dorito sauntered out of the closet and blinked at the woman like she was cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.
“Your father will freak if he finds cat hair on his suits!”
“Bad kitty!” April scolded. “Come here.”
The cat ignored her. Plopping down in front of Courtney, he pointed his back leg to the sky and proceeded to lick his butt.
Courtney shrieked again.
April scooped up the cat before her stepmom had an aneurysm and headed for the door.
“That filthy creature is not allowed in this room. Do you hear me?” Courtney shouted.
“Yes, I hear you.”
“Lock him up before you leave.”
“I will.”
“And have a good time.”
“Thanks,” April muttered. As if that would be possible, after what she’d just learned about the father she once adored so much.
Philip Linus was the international arms dealer known as Albatross.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
It was slightly after six o’clock in the morning and still dark outside when Sophie, Jimmy, Tulio, Jonas, and the Captain arrived at Dixie’s Bar and Grille. A “closed” sign hung on the front door, but the lights were on. A woman whom Sophie could only assume was Sue based on Jimmy’s terse description of a “freckle-faced flower child in combat boots” came forward and greeted them when they entered the bar. A Latina woman stood a few feet behind her. When Tulio saw her, he broke away from Sophie and ran into the woman’s arms.
“Mamá!” he shouted.
“Mi vida. Mi corazon.”
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