“What’s wrong with your car?”
“Ed, please, no more questions. I can’t tell you anything. I just can’t.”
“You’re afraid of being tracked? Is that it? What’s going on, Tiff?”
Tiffany didn’t say anything in response to Ed’s questioning. She couldn’t.
Finally Ed crossed the room and entered the kitchen. Tiffany lost sight of him but heard the soft clinking of keys. When he reemerged, he carried a key in his hand. He approached Tiffany and handed her the key. “Just bring it back to me, okay?”
“Of course.”
“In one piece.”
“Without so much as a scuff mark.”
“That’s what they always say in the movies just before the car gets totaled.”
“Not even a scuff,” she said again, trying to sound as reassuring as she could.
Ed’s mouth stretched into a subtle smile. “You know you’re going to owe me after this.”
Tiffany dropped the key into her pocket. “Get those tickets for the symphony ordered.”
“When will you be back?”
Tiffany didn’t want to lie to Ed, but the truth was she had no idea. So she lied. “Tomorrow.”
• • •
Jed sat across the table from Karen. She glanced around at their fellow passengers, then forced a smile. Jed looked at the escort who had been eyeing him but diverted his gaze quickly. It was the lead, the tall guy. He had an unpredictability about him that hinted of danger. Most men in his position—hired bodyguards or personal security contractors—were ex-military and the majority had served in Special Operations. Jed shifted in his seat. He’d noticed the lead carried a Ka-Bar tactical knife attached to his belt opposite his sidearm. The others didn’t carry knives, only pistols.
Karen glanced at the lead, then lowered her voice. “We’re doing the right thing, honey.”
Jed still had his questions, his doubts. And he didn’t like the look of the man across the aisle. Something about him didn’t sit right with Jed.
The plane began to accelerate down the runway. Outside the windows, the night was dark and blank, a vast expanse of nothingness.
Jed turned and checked on Karen.
Karen smiled and nodded, reached her hand across the table to him. He took it and squeezed. She released his hand and turned her head to the window.
Again, Jed caught the lead escort eyeing him. This time the man did not look away immediately; he held Jed’s gaze as if challenging him. Slowly he shifted his eyes around the interior of the plane, pausing at each passenger, then turned to the window.
As the plane lifted off the ground, Jed’s palms began to sweat.
“It’s okay,” Karen said.
Jed shifted again. He looked around the cabin. The other escorts sat quietly behind him. Skinner had his nose in a news magazine. The lead stared out the window, but Jed could tell by the set of his shoulders that the man was not relaxed. A thin sheen of sweat glistened across his scalp, and his neck and lower jaw were flushed.
Jed’s internal alarm screamed at him. There was only one exit from the plane—the door—and at 450 miles per hour and a cruising altitude of 35,000 feet, there was no way that door was opening. They were trapped.
Karen must have noticed Jed’s distress. She unbuckled her belt and leaned across the table between them. In almost a whisper she said, “Jedidiah, everything is all right. Calm yourself, okay? Try to relax.”
Jed knew he needed to relax, but his instincts wouldn’t let him. He could almost feel the pressure in the cabin climbing, the temperature rising. He didn’t want a confrontation. Not here. Confrontations in planes rarely ended well. But he wasn’t about to just sit there and let the big guy across the aisle make the first move.
“Honey, it’s okay,” Karen said.
The lead unbuckled his seat belt and adjusted in his seat, turning more toward the window. His sidearm was on his right, toward the cabin wall, the knife on his left. The tension of impending confrontation was thick. Jed wondered for a brief moment if it was only his imagination, if his intuition had been altered by the ordeal he’d suffered in the prison. Why would Murphy take him 35,000 feet into the sky only to have him murdered? It didn’t make sense. Murphy seemed intent on using Jed to stop Michael Connelly. Why would he sabotage his own mission?
But Jed quickly decided it was a chance he couldn’t take. The tattooed escort might have no malicious intent, but Jed needed to be prepared in case he did. He shifted his eyes from Karen to Skinner, who was dozing behind his magazine. He should do it now, jump the big guy and subdue him. If he caught him by surprise, he could render him unconscious almost immediately. There would be the other men to deal with, but they wouldn’t think of using firearms in the cabin.
But before he could move, the lead adjusted in his seat, moved forward, then in one clean, smooth motion, dipped his shoulder, withdrew his knife, and lunged across the aisle at Jed.
THIRTY
• • •
For as tall and lanky as he was, he moved incredibly quick. With the knife in his hand, he lunged at Jed before Jed had a chance to get out of his seat. Jed leaned to his left, and the blade, glistening in the overhead lighting of the cabin, slid past his right ear and punctured the leather upholstery. Jed drove his knee up and into the abdomen of his attacker, but the man was solid and Jed had a terrible angle for generating any force.
In a blink the knife pulled free and slashed at Jed again. He blocked the blow with his forearm and, digging his shoulder into the man’s abdomen, pushed forward to create space between himself and the big man. As the lead staggered back, Jed noticed movement in his peripheral. The escorts in the rear of the plane had unfastened their belts and were on their feet. Jed didn’t know if the lead had acted alone in his attack or if it was a team effort. He turned quickly and glanced at the men, but their wide eyes were not on Jed; they were on his opponent. He’d caught them off guard with his maverick attack.
Jed stood and filled the aisle. The men behind him hollered for him to get out of the way, but there was little room to maneuver and even less time. In one catlike movement, the big guy grunted and lunged again, sweeping the knife to the side. His intent was not to kill Jed with one blow but to slash him, open a wound, get some blood flowing.
Jed sidestepped again and leaned to his left. The area was so cramped he thought he hadn’t moved enough and would soon feel the burn of the sharp blade, but the razored edge only caught his shirt, slicing through the fabric as if it were tissue paper. With the big man’s right side briefly exposed, Jed saw his opportunity and, swiping the man’s arm away, caught him in the head with a solid punch.
The man grunted and stumbled, nearly falling onto Karen. Jed didn’t wait for the man to regain his balance and mount another attack. He followed the lead’s momentum and drove a fist into his side, near the right kidney. A burst of air escaped the big man’s mouth; he collided with the chair in which Karen sat, spun, and caught himself against the cabin wall.
Eyes wide and on fire, mouth in a vicious snarl, the man sprang again. But Jed had anticipated his move and blocked his advance with both hands. He stepped forward and head-butted the big man in the nose.
The lead dropped the knife and staggered backward, nearly losing his balance completely. But he managed to stay on his feet and draw his sidearm. Blood streaming from his nose, he hollered something unintelligible and lifted the gun to shoulder height.
Jed saw his move before the big guy completed it and, ducking low, charged the man and drove his shoulder once again into his abdomen. The gun discharged once, twice, three times. The concussion in the tiny cabin was deafening, but Jed did not allow it to startle or slow him. He continued driving the man backward just a few steps until he had him pinned against the cabin wall.
The gun discharged again, followed by the loud whistle of air being sucked from the cabin. He’d hit a window. An alarm sounded, an eerie, harrowing wail. Lights blinked.
Jed knew the
pressure would drop in the cabin and with it the oxygen content of the air. He needed to disable his attacker quickly and get to an oxygen mask. Standing upright, he forced his own bulk into the man’s torso and lifted his arm to displace the man’s arm in which he held the gun. With his left hand, Jed drove a fist into the man’s throat, then spun to grab the lead’s right arm with both hands and bring it down over his own shoulder. The movement was quick and forceful, and almost immediately he felt and heard bone break. The man hollered in pain and dropped the gun. Jed drove an elbow into the man’s face, then a fist. Now unconscious, the man slumped to the floor, his right arm bent at a sickening angle.
The alarm continued to sound. Oxygen masks dangled from the ceiling compartments of the cabin. One of the escorts and Skinner lay on the floor, motionless. The other two escorts attended to them. By her seat, Karen also lay on the floor. She wasn’t moving.
Breathing hard, Jed pushed past the seats and dropped to his knees before Karen. He took her head in his hands, hoping, praying she hadn’t been hit. She moaned and opened her eyes but didn’t say anything.
“Are you okay?”
She nodded. She must have gotten caught with an errant elbow or fist. Her eyes rolled back in her head.
Jed tried to think of what to do, but his mind was in a haze now. Thoughts became incoherent. Behind him, someone spoke, a man, but he couldn’t tell who it was or what he was saying. Karen was here, on the floor, but why?
The alarm continued to scream. The whistling persisted. Jed’s brain stuttered past fading thoughts. Fire. Gunfire. The plane.
Still on his knees, he placed his hands on the floor. Suddenly he was tired. He felt someone pulling him from behind. He wanted to fight, to protect Karen, himself, but he couldn’t even lift his arms now.
Death. That’s what this was. Death.
• • •
It sounded like a hurricane was blowing through the cabin. Debris—paper, clothes, small pieces of plastic and cardboard—swept around the confined area like shrapnel. His body rocked back and forth on the floor as the plane shuddered so terrifically he feared the cabin would be torn to pieces.
An oxygen mask clung to his face. He tried to sit, but the rolling and bouncing of the plane was so severe he couldn’t maintain any kind of balance. Finally he managed to roll to his side. Karen was on the floor beside him. She wasn’t wearing an oxygen mask. In the rear of the plane the escorts and Skinner lay on the floor also, draped over one another as if some giant claw had lifted them each and dropped them like pick-up sticks.
The partition to the cockpit was partially open and both pilots slumped in their seats.
He was the only one conscious. Quite possibly, the only survivor.
Groping at the floor like a man descending the craggy face of a mountain, Jed picked his way to the cockpit, protecting his face from the airborne debris. Once there, he pushed the accordion partition aside and wrestled the pilot from his seat. The plane jerked and bounced like a life raft in the middle of a stormy sea. It was losing altitude quickly.
Steadying himself on the seat, he climbed into the pilot’s position and took the control. Instinctively he knew how to fly the plane. He had no idea how or when he’d learned, but he knew exactly what to do. Pulling back on the yoke, he fought the downward pull on the plane as it accelerated toward the ground. The altimeter appeared out of control. Numbers changed quicker than his eyes could register. He pulled harder but it did nothing. His heart thumped against his chest so hard it hurt his ribs. Could the horizontal stabilizers have been ripped off, destroying the elevators and robbing the plane of any control?
Sweat stung his eyes now. He leaned back, straining against the forward pull of the steering yoke.
When the altimeter flipped past a thousand feet, Jed knew it was too late. They would all die. They were diving much too fast to pull out of a fall at this altitude.
He leaned to his left, then to his right to look out the window and check the wings. The left wing dangled by a few rivets and flapped like a shredded sheet of paper. The plane would be ripped to pieces before it even hit the ground.
There was nothing he could do. It was over.
• • •
Jed awoke with a start. He’d been dreaming. He was on his back in the plane, oxygen mask firmly in place, but no debris swirled around the cabin. The whistle was there, but no howling of wind, no jerking and bouncing. One of the escorts knelt beside him, a mask on his face too.
“We’re fine, Patrick. The pilot is bringing us down to land in Kansas City.”
Jed turned his head and found Karen also kneeling next to him, her hand on his chest. She, too, wore a mask and smiled at him. He put his hand on hers and patted it.
“Where is he?” Jed said.
“The attacker?”
Jed nodded. He still felt groggy, but the fog had lifted quickly from his brain.
The escort motioned toward the front of the cabin. “Subdued. Cuffed. We’re fine.”
Moments later the plane touched down. When it had come to a stop, the remaining escorts helped Jed to his feet and led him and Karen out of the plane. They were at the far end of the runway, hundreds of yards from the terminal. They walked to a nearby small hangar, and once inside the building, Jed and Karen were taken to a small, windowless room that had a table for four and a counter with a sink and microwave. In the corner sat a small refrigerator and a vending machine.
Before he left, the escort said, “You thirsty?”
Jed nodded. “Yeah.” He glanced at Karen. “Two.”
The escort gave Jed a sidelong glance, but he fed the machine a handful of quarters and punched the buttons for two Cokes. He tossed them to Jed.
“Why are we here?” Jed asked.
The escort said nothing while he moved toward the door.
“Wait.” Jed stopped him. “What’s going on?”
“Mr. Murphy is on his way. He should be here in an hour or so.”
Jed stood, but the escort was already out the door. It locked behind him.
Jed turned to Karen. “Are you okay?”
She nodded. “Yes. Just shaken up. Are you okay?”
Jed’s shirt was ripped and he had a headache, but other than that he was unharmed. “Yeah, I’m fine. We need to find a way out of here. This mission is no good.”
“What do you mean?”
“Murphy is trying to kill me.”
“What makes you think it’s him?”
“This isn’t the first time I’ve been attacked. First there was Denver, the shooting, then on the way to San Francisco I was attacked by two different men. Murphy tried to pass it off as my fault, that they were just scouts trailing me, but now I’m not so sure.”
Karen sipped at her Coke. “But why would he try to kill you on the plane? He could have had you killed in Alcatraz if he wanted to.”
Jed didn’t welcome the irritation that quickly surfaced. “Are you siding with him? We can’t trust anyone. You of all people should know that.”
Karen put the Coke bottle down on the table and stood. She crossed the room to where Jed was standing. “I’m not siding with him, Jedidiah. I just don’t think he’s behind this. He needs you. We all do.”
“Right. To deal with Connelly.”
“Yes. Connelly. The man scares me. You saw the videos. Is that the man you want running the country our daughter grows up in? This is about more than you and me. Our whole country: freedom, democracy—that’s what’s at stake. Including Lilly. Her protection. Her future. We need to stay focused on what’s important here.”
Jed turned to face her squarely. “You’re important. Lilly is important. Staying alive is important, Karen.”
She put a hand on his chest. Her touch was light and always sent a buzz of electricity through him. “I know. But if Connelly gets his way, none of that will matter anymore. The world as we know it will be gone. The world Lilly will live in will be a broken facsimile of what we know now.”
Jed sigh
ed deeply. He didn’t want to trust Murphy. For all the man’s talk and the proof he had to back it up, Jed couldn’t find it in himself to trust the man. Not completely. The only thing he could trust was his own eyes, his own feelings, his own intuition. And Karen. He could always trust his wife.
Jed turned from Karen and returned to the table. He downed a huge gulp of Coke. “I can’t believe a word that man says.”
Karen stayed where she was. “You don’t have to trust him. Trust me. I know what he’s saying about Connelly is truth.”
“How do you know?”
“I just do. I can tell. Connelly is evil. I could see it in his face in the video.” Now she walked toward him. She stood inches from him and met his eyes with sadness in hers. “Do you trust me, Jedidiah?”
Of course he did. He trusted her with his life. Since getting his life back, she and Lilly had become everything to him . . . again. Jed put his hand on her face and ran his thumb over her chin. “I do trust you.”
She smiled. “Good.”
Jed sat and Karen took the chair next to him. For the next thirty minutes they said little to each other. Jed got up and paced the room, studied the vending machine, tried the faucet, checked the refrigerator (which was empty). Karen paged through a stack of magazines on the table.
While he paced, Jed’s anger grew. He was being used again. Murphy might have a good reason to employ Jed’s service, but Jed did not want to be a tool. The government—his government—had done enough to him, manipulated him, used him, scarred him. Jed would go along with this mission because of Karen, because he trusted her; he trusted her judgment. And because of Lilly and what Karen had said about the world they wanted their daughter to grow up in. But as for Murphy . . . Jed refused to put any stock in him. The attack on the plane still had him rattled, and he knew Murphy was behind it. Somehow, someway. Jed had convinced himself that Murphy had orchestrated the attack. Maybe as a test or maybe he’d lost confidence in Jed and wanted to abort the mission and needed to get rid of any evidence. His mind turned over and over with possible explanations until he suddenly felt an unrelenting urge to get out of the hangar.
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