If only they had found it . . . But wait . . . He thought for a moment. Calista didn’t know that, did she? What if they bluffed? Threatened to destroy it? No. It was a stupid play. You couldn’t trade what you didn’t have. Especially when you didn’t know what you didn’t have. All they had was the plane itself.
Suddenly, Gibson sat up straight. We have the plane.
“Jenn,” he said. “I might have an idea.”
The C-130 landed hard, bouncing on one wheel. A strong gust lifted the plane off the runway and tried to turn it sideways. Jenn compensated as best she could, but the big aircraft fought her all the way back to the ground, as if the C-130 were even more reluctant than they to land there. Once she wrestled the wheels down, Jenn powered down, and the aircraft settled into the earth. They decelerated down the runway.
It was a small airfield with two runways side by side. At the far end stood three small hangars, all of which would fit easily inside one of the Dulles Air Center hangars. The center hangar was open, and lights were on. They taxied toward it. Jenn made a tight turn so that the tail of the aircraft faced the hangar. As the aircraft turned, he saw Calista’s limousine inside the hangar. Behind it, her henchmen’s SUV idled. He didn’t see Cools, Sidhu, or anyone else, but they would be there, out of sight. Waiting.
“Go,” Jenn said as soon as it was safe.
Gibson and George hustled back to the hold to prepare. Jenn had wanted George to stay in the cockpit out of harm’s way, but he wasn’t having it. Not while Calista had Hendricks. Gibson admired him for that. They worked quickly, no time to set up anything elaborate. When Jenn joined them, she looked at what they’d jury-rigged and whistled.
“I don’t know if that will work,” she said.
Gibson didn’t disagree but said, “You have a better idea?”
She did not. It would have to do. He handed her one of the three controllers.
No one knew what to expect when they lowered the ramp. They readied themselves as best they knew how. Jenn swapped a full clip into her MP7. George stood a little ways off and tucked the gun that Jenn had handed him out of sight. Gibson popped the clip from his Glock and checked it. It hadn’t been fired, but he did it anyway to steady his hands.
They looked one to the other.
“This reminds me of a story,” George said.
They waited for him to go on, but he didn’t appear inclined to share it.
“What do you think?” Gibson asked Jenn.
“Let’s not get killed.”
“Solid plan.”
George said, “If it’s me she wants, we make the trade.”
Jenn looked aghast. “She wants Eskridge’s cargo as a bargaining chip.”
“And if there is no bargaining chip?”
Neither Jenn nor Gibson had considered the possibility that it was another of Calista’s inventions. That George had been the target all along.
“Why would she want you?” Gibson asked.
“Who can say? But I think that if I’ve proven anything, it’s that I’m not the best at anticipating Calista’s motives.” He gestured to his scarred face.
Gibson laughed despite himself. George joined him. Jenn stifled a smile. It was a morbid joke, but gallows humor was the only kind left to them. Gibson would have happily stayed in this moment. This was where he was meant to be. The people he was meant to be with. He wanted to remember this feeling so he could hold on to it afterward. He would need it.
“Why are you so happy?” Jenn asked.
“I’ll tell you later.”
“You are certifiable,” she said.
He didn’t argue.
Jenn activated the ramp, and the hydraulics whined into life. The ramp descended. Gibson would have wagered that Calista would be nowhere in sight. That she would be safely tucked away while her men secured the aircraft. He would have lost that bet.
Calista Dauplaise stood at the foot of the ramp. She wore a sable coat that fell to her ankles, and an oversized fur hat. A tsarina come to view the war. Her limousine now idled behind her, broadside to the aircraft. Cools stood behind it. The cold had worsened in only a few hours. His nose was an angry red, and the bags under his eyes had turned a sickly pork-chop gray. He rested a shotgun on the roof of the limo, pointed at no one.
Each side stared at the other for a long moment. As if they had all somehow expected to end up here, but now that the moment had arrived were uncertain what came next. Calista watched Jenn intently. Chances were she’d never had a gun pointed at her before, and you never forgot your first time. Especially when the person holding it was someone like Jenn Charles. Cools eased the stock of the shotgun to his shoulder and trained it on Jenn. Calista put out a gloved hand, fingers spread wide, and when she spoke, her voice did not carry its usual authority.
“Jennifer. I assure you that is not necessary.”
Jenn looked unmoved by her appeal and held up the green controller.
“And what would that be?” Calista asked.
Cools knew. “A claymore detonator.”
“That’s right,” Jenn said. “We each have one.”
“So you have a couple antipersonnel devices,” said Cools. “What’s that going to do?”
“They’re attached to the wing root. Aimed at the external fuel tanks on the wings,” Jenn said.
Calista glanced back at Cools, who no longer looked sure of the situation.
“Your point?” Calista asked.
“I figure there’s still enough fuel left to turn this plane to slag. That and whatever it is you want so badly.”
Calista regarded Jenn coolly. “If I am not mistaken, you are standing inside said aircraft.”
“I’m aware. Are you ready to die?”
“Not quite yet,” Calista replied.
“So let’s all keep our heads. I want Dan.”
“George,” Calista said. “A word, if I may?”
“No, you’ll talk to—” Jenn began.
George started down the ramp toward Calista, Jenn barking at him to stop. When he didn’t, she followed him halfway down the ramp and stopped, unwilling to surrender the cover of the aircraft. Gibson dropped to one knee at the top of the ramp. He scanned the nearby hangars. He didn’t see Sidhu. Or anyone else, for that matter. Not exactly the overwhelming display of force that he’d anticipated. In some ways, he would have preferred it. At least then he would have known Calista’s intentions.
George stopped outside arm’s reach. The two old friends, business partners, and enemies looked each other over.
“Hello, George,” Calista said.
“Calista,” George answered.
George’s face was serene, and from his voice, Gibson wouldn’t have known that this woman’s betrayal had resulted in two years of brutal imprisonment. Getting her first good look at George, even Calista’s practiced detachment couldn’t quite mask her shock. Despite her many atrocities, she’d rarely had to look one in the eye.
“It’s different up close, isn’t it?” George said.
“Yes. It is. I am, however, pleased to see you.”
“I’ve no doubt,” George said. “You have one of our people.”
“He is unharmed. I assure you.”
George chuckled. “I have always appreciated your sense of humor.”
“Let us not resort to unpleasantness. I am here in good faith. No one is threatening you, and your Mr. Hendricks is hale and hearty. I had an arrangement with Jennifer. I wish for it to be honored and to be permitted to board my aircraft.”
“Not until we see him,” George said.
“We do not have a lot of time for all of this. Eskridge is tracking his aircraft. Cold Harbor is already en route. It would be wise to be elsewhere when he arrives.”
“Then you had better hurry.”
With a put-upon sigh, she turned to Cools, who spoke into a microphone clipped to his sleeve. “Bring him up.”
In the hangar, the headlights of the SUV came on. It drove toward them slowly.
Cools sneezed violently.
Jenn’s weapon jerked up at him, reacting faster than her mind could interpret what it had heard. Cools swung up the shotgun in self-defense.
The SUV rolled to a stop fifty feet away.
“Mr. Cools, lower your weapon,” Calista said.
“Not until she does.”
The only sounds Gibson heard were the wind and his heart.
“Mr. Cools. Do as you are told.”
“Hell no,” Cools said. “Tell her to put it down.”
Still on one knee, Gibson tightened his grip on the Glock but didn’t draw it. For a moment, the tentative truce seemed poised to unravel over a sneeze. As good a reason as any to kill each other, Gibson reckoned. The danger of brinksmanship was that no one could afford to be the first to back down. It set a bad precedent.
Then something wholly unexpected happened.
Calista Dauplaise stepped between Cools and Jenn. She held her hands out to them, poised like a conductor before a symphony. Slowly, she brought her hands down. “Both of you. Lower your weapons.”
Stunned, Cools and Jenn both complied.
Calista produced a handkerchief and thrust it across the limousine. “Blow your nose, Mr. Cools.”
He took the handkerchief sheepishly.
“And for God’s sake, bring up the car.”
Chastened, Cools called back and then blew his nose while the SUV made a wide, lazy arc and came to a stop behind the limousine. Sidhu got out and circled around to the passenger door on its hangar side. He opened it but looked to Calista for confirmation before reaching into the limousine and pulling Hendricks out of the car. Hendricks’s arms were bound behind his back. He looked irritated, but then again, that was his natural state. In the two years since Gibson had last seen him, the white vitiligo spots had expanded across Hendricks’s face. It made him appear older than Gibson’s memory of him.
Dan looked across the two car roofs at George. “Hey, boss,” he said as though they’d seen each other only the day before.
“I’m sorry for this,” George said.
“My own fault.”
“You all right, Dan?” Jenn asked.
“I could use a cigarette.”
Sidhu put a hand on top of Hendricks’s head, forced him back into the limousine, and slammed the door.
“What happens now?” George said to Calista.
“How many ways do I have to say it?”
“Maybe just once more.”
“I have an arrangement with Jennifer. I have honored my commitments. It is time for her to honor hers. The aircraft is mine. You are all free to leave. There is your transportation as agreed upon, fueled and ready to depart,” Calista said, extending a hand toward a Gulfstream IV parked a hundred yards away. “Take it and go in good health.”
“And you think we would let you have whatever is on board?” Jenn said.
“You have won a great victory today, Jennifer. This is the price to secure it. Or you can wait for Eskridge to arrive and lose everything,” Calista said, then called out, “How far away are they?”
“Twenty-two minutes,” Cools answered.
“How do we even know that plane is safe?” Gibson asked of the Gulfstream.
Calista turned to George. “The boy has a point. We find ourselves in a predicament, you and I. I require your trust, and you would be fools to give it.”
“That is a fair assessment,” George said. “So what now?”
“You already know the answer.”
“Do I?”
“If you stay, you will all die in approximately twenty-one minutes. That is a certainty. Whereas if you go, there is a chance that I have tampered with your aircraft and that you will die while airborne. So which do you prefer? The chance or the certainty?”
“You should’ve been in politics,” George said.
“I have always been in politics.” Calista gave her men a signal. Sidhu brought Hendricks back out and this time uncuffed his wrists. “Good-bye, George.” She took off a glove and put out her hand, palm up.
After a moment, George placed his detonator in it. “Be careful with that,” he said and started to limp toward the Gulfstream.
Jenn looked uncertain but followed George’s lead and came the rest of the way down the ramp and handed her detonator to Calista too. Calista held them both daintily until Cools came and relieved her of them. Gibson was last. He handed his detonator directly to Cools. Calista gave him a meaningful look but said nothing. They backed away from the C-130, and Hendricks circled around to join them. He put George’s arm around his neck as they broke into a hobbled jog. Hendricks grunted at them in greeting. A more fitting reunion would have to wait. They had a plane to catch.
Most of them anyway.
Gibson wanted badly to have second thoughts. To forget the name Damon Ogden and get on board with Jenn and George and Hendricks. He dreaded the thought of giving this up, this sense of belonging. He could flee with them and give the CIA Ogden’s location from a safe distance. But it would be selfish. Ogden wasn’t the bygones-be-bygones type. Eventually, the CIA would come for Gibson, and he couldn’t be anywhere near Jenn or George or Hendricks when they did. He wouldn’t subject his new family to that risk.
They were at the gangway now. Hendricks helped George up the airstairs and into the Gulfstream. Gibson slowed to a stop and called out to Jenn.
She stopped and came back to him. “You’re not coming, are you?”
“I want to. You have no idea.”
“Whatever it is, we can handle it.”
He held out the Glock. “I know, but you shouldn’t have to.”
“What is it?” she asked but took the gun.
“Thank you,” he said. “For letting me help.”
“Couldn’t have done it without you. Even if you are certifiable.”
“I’m aware of that.”
“You waited until I couldn’t talk you out of it, didn’t you?”
He nodded.
“Dick move, Vaughn,” she said and handed him a claim check printed in German. “If you change your mind—”
“I won’t.”
“If you change your mind, fly to Frankfurt, Germany. Go to luggage storage in Terminal One, Concourse B. You got all that?”
“Yeah. What’s there?”
“I have a go bag. It’ll be there for the next three months. There’s some travel money inside. A phone with one preprogrammed number. Call it. When it answers, say any three words, but only three words. No matter what the voice on the other end says or asks. They will put you in touch with me no matter where I am.”
“Should I be wearing a pink carnation?” Where he was going, he knew it would be far longer than three months, but he pretended in the moment. It was a pleasant self-deception.
“Couldn’t hurt,” she said.
She put an arm around his neck, kissed him on the cheek, and hugged him. They stood there in the cold dawn until Gibson broke away.
“You have to go,” he said.
They were out of time.
“I hate this. We made it,” Jenn said. “Come with us.”
“I wish I could, but I can’t. You have to leave me.”
Grudgingly, Jenn went up the airstairs. At the top, she looked back at him. It took everything in him to keep his feet planted. After she closed the hatch, George appeared at one of the windows. He put a palm to the glass. Gibson raised a hand in farewell, then stood and watched the Gulfstream taxi out to the runway.
They’d pulled it off. How about that? The stuff of legends.
Bear stood beside him. “You did it. Amazing.”
“They’re going to be okay.”
“Because of you. You should be proud.”
“I guess I should be.”
“Are you okay?” Bear asked, watching him carefully.
“I’m scared.”
“I know. Are you ready?”
He thought he might be.
He put on the Phillies cap, shie
lding his eyes from the sun at the horizon.
“It really does suit you,” Bear said with a smile.
This time he didn’t argue with her. He liked the way it fit him. It meant something to him, even if it was a strange thing for your life to be summed up by a beat-up old cap.
Together they turned and walked back toward Calista. What were the chances she might give him a ride out of here?
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
“I thought perhaps you had suffered a change of heart,” Calista said. She stood by the open door of her limousine, warming herself. Cools had been banished to a safe distance, where he coughed into the back of his wrist.
“Just seeing them off,” Gibson said.
“That must have been difficult, I am sure.”
Sidhu emerged from the aircraft with a three-ring binder that looked like the flight manual from the cockpit. Calista took it and snapped through the pages impatiently. When she found what she was looking for, she popped the hinges and removed a laminated sleeve. The discarded binder fell to the ground, and a gust sent paper dancing across the tarmac.
“That’s where it was?” Gibson asked.
“Sometimes plain sight is the best hiding place.”
“And you knew what it was all along.”
Calista gave him a pitying look for having ever thought otherwise. “May I ask what your intentions are now?”
“I’m going to turn myself in to him. Work out a deal if I can.”
“I see.” She paused as Cools whispered something to her. “And how do you foresee that conversation will turn out?”
Gibson didn’t have any idea and didn’t care to discuss it with her. “I’m hoping for the best.”
“Yes,” Calista said. “Wouldn’t that be novel?”
Gibson grimaced but said nothing.
Calista said, “Before you go, would you do me the courtesy of lending me a few minutes of your time?”
Cold Harbor (The Gibson Vaughn Series Book 3) Page 26