Michael thought that it was over. He could see that Joanna had suffered a nasty laceration to her forehead. As he watched, it dripped blood into her eyes and down the front of her jump-suit. But then, rousing herself, she blinked at him through the side window, which was hinged at the top and had been swung out a few inches. Enough for them to hear each other.
“Michael...?” Her tone wasn’t hostile.
Still, he kept his pistol ready just below the level of the window. “Yes, Joanna, let me help you. An ambulance is already on the scene.”
She grimaced but said matter-of-factly, “Don’t interfere again or the top of this prick’s head comes off.”
Rising slightly, he was finally able to see her left hand. With it, she was thrusting the barrel of the small pistol under the pilot’s chin. The man’s eyes bulging, but more tellingly his skin had turned slightly blue.
“Joanna,” Michael said, “this guy’s going cyanotic on you. How about easing up with the gun so he can breathe?”
She complied just enough for the pilot to gulp in a big breath through his mouth. His color began improving. His restraining belt had spared him the sort of injury Joanna had sustained, but both of them had to brace their knees on the instrument panel to keep from sliding off their seats, a tangle of headsets and cords around their feet.
At that instant, an F-18 Hornet thundered overhead. Michael used the distraction to snap the radio antenna off the roof of Cessna’s cabin. From now on, Joanna could communicate with the outside world only through him.
The jet flew down the length of the runway as slowly as it could and banked off toward the nearby base. The significance of this was not lost on Joanna, a long-time resident of the area: The Navy, forewarned now by airport staff here, wasn’t about to let a skyjacking succeed right next to one of its most sensitive test centers. Escape by air was no longer an option. “Is your car drivable, Michael?”
“No. And I can smell smoke out here. I can’t find the source, but I think all three of us should get away as fast as we can.”
She used the back of her forearm to try to stem the bleeding. Movement away from the wreckage would leave her vulnerable. It would be trickier for her to keep shielding herself with her hostage, and he hoped that she wouldn’t realize this. But then her face hardened with resolve. “We’re not going anywhere for the time being.”
“What about the fire?”
“Cop cars carry extinguishers. Get yours.”
“I don’t think I can pry it out of my cruiser, Joanna,” he said without really knowing. “It’s a wreck.”
She looked to the pilot. “Where’s yours? Quickly!”
“Behind your seat there’s a storage bin. I’m not sure. I just bought the plane.”
Joanna lowered her blood-smeared right forearm and reached back for the canister. She passed it through the window to Michael. He took it with his left hand, keeping his pistol out of view in his right. “Listen carefully to me, Michael—you have sixty seconds to deal with the fire,” she said, showing him her wristwatch. “That’s all the time you are to be out of my sight. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Get going.”
It was now apparent to him that the smoke was coming from the engine, a ruptured oil line, probably. There had been little threat of fire, but he’d hoped it would have been enough to get Joanna to leave the plane and momentarily shift her aim off the hostage. Kneeling painfully, he sprayed the retardant through the front cowling, then set down the extinguisher and stood again into the frame of her window. “How many seconds do I have left?”
He thought she came close to smiling at his minor insolence.
But then another spurt of blood made her clasp her palm to the wound. “I need you to do some things for me, Michael. If you intend to fuck with me, let me know, and we’ll end this right now.”
It was clear she didn’t mean to end this peaceably. And past history suggested that female hostage-takers were often deadlier than males—maybe it was the sudden empowerment. “All right, what do you need?”
“First, make sure all these cops showing up keep their distance...” At least two more sheriff’s units had arrived while Michael was dealing with the fire. They and the original responders had sealed off the runway to the north and east and were setting up an outer perimeter around the airport. “Next, I want another vehicle. An AEI Hummer will do. Gassed and ready to go.”
“I’ll have to check on that, Joanna. I don’t have the authority.”
“That’s right, keep to the textbook.” She winced. Obviously, her pain was increasingly with the swelling around the laceration. But if she’d sustained a concussion, it didn’t seem to be impairing her judgment. “Do you have a handkerchief on you?”
“Yes.”
“Clean?”
“I think so.” With deliberate slowness, he took it from his Levi’s and passed it to her.
“Get me a compress bandage from your first aid kit,” she said, using the handkerchief in the meanwhile. “No excuses. I’ll give you two minutes to contact the other cops with my demands and get me a compress. And some duct tape. Bring me some duct tape.”
Michael stutter-stepped backward toward the rear of his cruiser, just in case she impulsively decided to loose a quick shot at him out the side window. There was no guessing as to when her breaking-point might come, and it was easy to misread the signs.
Sitting on the bumper, he radioed as quietly as he could: “Ridgecrest, be advised—suspect is Joanna Wallace of AEI...” He provided her physical description. “She has a hostage at gunpoint. Repeat, the pilot of the Cessna is being held at gunpoint inside the cabin. I’m the fool outside the plane in the Hawaiian shirt. Copy?”
“Affirmative, David-Four. Are you in the clear for further info?”
“Momentarily, go ahead.”
“SWAT’s ETA is about twenty, though some elements should arrive earlier.” The designated shooters, she probably meant.
“Will they be operating on this channel?”
“Negative, and can you get off CLEMARS and go to one of our encrypted channels?”
“Sorry, this is all I have to talk to you. Wallace wants a vehicle from the institute’s motor pool ASAP, but I might be able to stall her on that. Will advise.”
“Ten-four.”
Michael raised the glass lift-gate for his first-aid kit in the cargo area. Her request for a compress was reasonable, but the need for duct tape had him concerned. Her left arm had to be getting tired and maybe she intended to rig something to tie her semi-auto to the pilot’s throat, relieving her of the constant effort. There was duct tape in his tool bag, but he didn’t reach for it. Instead, he grabbed the gauze wrap and ripped several feet off the spool and discarded them, until only enough remained for her to secure the compress to her head. And he would eat up all the time she’d given him to complete these chores. Time was his friend and her enemy. Bleeding as much as she was, Joanna had to be fading.
He re-approached the cabin with the same hope as before: that she had lost consciousness. But she was sitting upright, doggedly alert, still training the pistol on her hostage with one hand while keeping pressure on her wound with the other. Sometime during Michael’s absence, she’d allowed the pilot to lower his arms.
The handkerchief was soaked with her blood.
“Joanna, you’ve got to get medical attention.”
She flung the handkerchief out the window. “Give me the compress and the duct tape.”
“Here’s the bandage and some gauze wrap. I don’t have duct tape.”
“In Death Valley heat, you don’t carry any?” she asked sarcastically, taking the compress and wrap. She instructed the pilot how to fasten the bandage to her head.
He worked awkwardly around the continued threat of the pistol. Noticing Michael’s eyes on his trembling hands, the man tried to salvage a little dignity by asking, “Who’s going to pay for the damage to my aircraft?”
“I had the righ
t of way,” Michael said. The man’s jaw would have dropped if not for Joanna’s gun. “Just kidding, sir. How’re you doing?”
“Okay,” he said, but with a quaver in his voice.
Blood still oozed out from under the compress, and she hissed, “Shit!”
“I tried the best I could, lady.”
“Shut up,” she told the pilot.
Michael’s next goal was to free him, if and when possible. But he had to broach this without setting her off. So far, she had been unbelievably cool. Composed. Always thinking three steps ahead, something he wouldn’t let himself forget about her most trivial-seeming request.
It struck him how cramped and uncomfortable the cockpit must be. There was barely enough space for two adults to sit side-by-side without their shoulders brushing. The midday sun was beating down through the windshield, and the pilot—an overweight man in his forties—was soaked in his own sweat. Joanna wasn’t perspiring. In fact, her skin looked clammy. She was in shock, but he’d almost given up on the expectation that she’d cave anytime soon. The gauze-wrap with its red circle of blood suggested a kamikaze pilot’s headband. “Did you warn the other cops off?” she asked.
“Yes, through the Ridgecrest dispatcher.” Then he added, inventively: “She assured me nobody in their department wants to hurt you, Joanna.”
From under the hood of the compress, she gave him an odd, almost amused look, which she didn’t explain. Instead, she asked, “What about a goddamned vehicle?”
This had him puzzled. What made her believe that she had half a chance of fleeing by ground? She had to be aware of the ever increasing number of emergency light bars on the fringes of the runway and the sheriff’s helicopter that had just set down somewhere behind the AEI hangar. She did nothing without figuring the chances. How did she see a way out of this? “You know the drill, Joanna—I only pass your demands along. I’m not the sheriff of Kern County.”
“Then you tell the sheriff of Kern County he has thirty minutes to get a green Hummer out on the tarmac or this fat prick dies...” The pilot appeared to stop breathing again. “I’ll give further instructions as we go along.” When Michael hesitated, considering another plea for sanity, she bawled, “Just fucking do it, Long Shore!”
“Do it, please,” the pilot begged.
Michael realized that she assumed he was using the radio in his cruiser to make these transmissions. So, again he would take advantage of the privacy in which to discuss the situation with the sheriff’s office here. Once more, he walked backward to his unit, concealing his pistol behind him and keeping tabs on her as best he could through the side and rear windows of the cabin.
Safely behind the Ford, he transmitted, “Ridgecrest, David-Four, can your incident commander hear me?”
“Affirmative,” the dispatcher said.
Michael checked his watch. “We’ve now got a deadline of twelve-nineteen hours to produce an AEI Hummer on the tarmac. Otherwise, she threatens to kill her hostage.”
A male voice came over the air. “Any chance she’ll let us drive the Hummer all the way up to the plane?”
Michael could see where that was headed: The assault SWAT team would be crouching inside out of sight, ready to gang-rush the Cessna and end the stand-off in one fell swoop. “Negative,” Michael said firmly, “razzle-dazzle won’t cut it. Standby for further instructions from her regarding the vehicle.”
“Can resolve this on your own from close in? The target has already shot one subject, in case you don’t know.”
“I was there when it happened, for Christ’s sake.” Michael had to take a moment to hold down his temper. “She can wear a hostage like a glove, so let’s string this out until we’re sure our move will work.”
“Copy. Tell her we’re considering her request. Be advised SWAT has arrived at your location.”
Among the team, most certainly, would be the sheriff’s department sniper, who would take the high ground, like one of the roofs in the hangar complex. The incident commander had quite accurately just referred to Joanna as the target. From now on, she would be in the cross-hairs of a high-powered rifle scope, every blink and twitch being read for a change in her intentions toward her captive. Of necessity, Michael would have to stand inside that same kill picture.
Inserting the earpiece in his left ear, the side facing away from Joanna, he advised the incident commander, “I’m wired to receive you but won’t transmit on my handset unless I absolutely have to. I’m returning to the plane now.”
“Good luck.”
He got back just as the pilot whined to Joanna, “I got to crack my window, lady. I’m dying in this heat.”
Her face twisted up with exasperation, but she said, “Do it slowly. And if you try to run on me, I’ll drop you dead in your tracks before you get ten feet.”
The pilot swung out the glass, and the sudden draft carried the iron smell of Joanna’s blood to Michael. It was amazing that she was still conscious, let alone so calculating. She turned her face and greeted him with a smirk. “Don’t tell me, Michael, the sheriff says he needs more time to get me a vehicle out of my own parking lot that is no more than sixty seconds away from here.”
“I didn’t know you owned AEI.”
She glared dully at him.
“I didn’t talk to the sheriff, Joanna. All communications go through the incident commander. No choice about that.”
“And where is he in the cop food chain? Two rungs above the meter maid?”
”David-Four,” the commander under discussion said, hushed, in Michael’s ear, “if you can, move two feet to your right.”
Michael had no doubt that the request had come from the sniper, who was lining up a shot on Joanna’s head.
“David-Four, if you can read me, give me two clicks...”
With his left hand, Michael reached down and depressed the mike button twice.
“Okay then, what’s your problem...?”
Michael stood his ground, not budging an inch.
“Be advised,” the incident commander explained, “this is not in relation to a green light, if that’s what is worrying you.”
At last, Michael shifted to the right the requested two feet. He felt that he’d made his point. Closest to the scene, he would know best when the moment came to drop the hammer on Joanna Wallace.
In the meantime, she’d become suspicious of his silence. “What are you thinking?”
“Hot out here.” Michael would try to keep it all on a human level. He was beginning to lose the shade of the wing. “Are you thirsty? I can ask for some water.”
“No thanks, a Hummer parked on the tarmac in...” She tilted her wristwatch toward her. “...sixteen minutes and ten seconds will do just fine.”
“Look here, lady,” the pilot blurted, “I’m the biggest manufacturer of novelty gifts on the West Coast. I bought this little Cessna from a guy here in Inyokern this morning. For my kid, who wants to learn how to fly. Actually, I got a Lear and my own strip outside my plant near Temecula, so see my point? If money and a jet can clear this all up, that’s no problem. All I have to do is—”
“Shut the fuck up, you bug!”
The man flinched as if he’d been slapped.
Yet, her pistol slowly sank from his chin. Her left arm had finally cramped. Michael waited, poised with his finger tensed around his own trigger, for her aim to stray off the pilot, for even a split-second.
But she kept the muzzle tight to his ribcage as she transferred the weapon to her right hand.
“Two clicks, David-Four, if everything’s still cool,” the voice in his ear said. Undoubtedly, the sniper had just reported to the incident commander his own observation of the changes in the cabin. He too had probably been tight on his trigger.
Again, Michael hit his transmit button twice, even though the situation felt anything but cool.
Joanna cradled her left arm in her lap as she held her hostage at bay with her right hand. The relief must have been exquisite, for she sighed w
ith half-shut eyes. The seat upholstery beneath her was saturated with red. “Wise up, Long Shore,” she said drowsily.
“About what?” Keep her talking. Otherwise he might miss the signal that she was giving up hope. That is when she’d turn most dangerous, the point she rounded the corner from visualizing a future to seeing nothing ahead.
“You’re risking your life, all your potential, for a moron who makes gag gifts.”
“And what did you risk everything for, Joanna? A geothermal plant, an empty house and some Humvees?”
“Survival. It’s always been about survival. My grandfather ran the biggest sugar mill in Cuba. He wound up parking cars at a hotel in Miami.”
“Like Nastour Razin,” Michael interjected.
But she didn’t take the bait. “Survival,” she repeated, keeping to her theme. “That’s all it was in San Francisco for me, seventeen years old and no place to sleep, nothing to eat. Survival.”
“But what happens if you manage to survive? What next?”
“Freedom,” she said, almost a growl. “Others did what they did for greed. In the end, I just wanted to be free.”
“From what, Joanna?”
“From whom.” Then she added, bitterly, “Carl Kincannon was no friend of mine.”
Michael waited for her to go on about Carl. But, with a possible eye to court, she turned hesitant about saying too much. She gave him a sultry chuckle, although her eyes were now dull and glazed. “Come on, Investigator Long Shore, satisfy my curiosity, humor me a little while trying to entrap me—it had to be more than my getting a Hummer muddy on May seventeenth to get your analytical gears going.”
“That was the clincher. The gears started grinding a few days after I phoned to tell you I couldn’t make dinner that evening after we first met at Coso.”
She scrunched up her nose. “What does dinner...?”
“It was a slow process of elimination, Joanna. Only three people knew I was going to Los Angeles that afternoon and could’ve tipped off a guy calling himself Carson that I was on my way down there to meet with the FBI. First, Higgins, the counterintelligence agent who was expecting me the next morning. Carson, or whatever his real name was, told me he’d been with the bureau years before, which made it possible Higgins was an old pal. Carson also dropped hints that he worked for the governor of Nevada. But that was bullshit too. Truth is, the man worked for you, Joanna...”
Under the Killer Sun: A Death Valley Mystery Page 23