by Dom Testa
“You know, it doesn’t even matter what your name is. But I’m sure you must’ve been good friends with the late Ryan Thomas. Your other partner, the bleeding one over there, isn’t carrying identification, and I’m assuming you’re not either. You may be with the government, or you may be working for a private business interest. Both would explain why you’re so curious about what I’m doing. And you know what?”
His eyes turned cold. “You’re going to get a front-row seat to everything. Would you like that?”
“Jason,” I said, “somebody once told me there’d come a day when you went too far. That you’d be too bold for your own good. So maybe you should just stop right now. Our backup is on the way. You can still make things worse for yourself by doing something really stupid tonight.”
“But I’m leaving,” he said. “And there won’t be anything here when your backup arrives. Just an empty cabin.”
I looked around the room. Other than the five of us, there was nothing, other than a few pieces of old furniture. He’d emptied it of anything that might link to him.
“In the plane,” I said. “The containers. You’ve loaded everything.” Turning back to him, I said, “Why are you clearing out?”
“It’s done all it needs to do for now. After our little field trip tonight we’ll take it all back home and wait for the offers to roll in. And, trust me, there will be many.” He called over his shoulder. “Doctor Stone, are you ready?”
A door opened down the hallway and a moment later Jaclyn Stone appeared. She carried a tablet in one hand and had a large handbag slung over the other shoulder. She barely wasted an effort in looking at me and completely ignored the bleeding man on the floor. She walked past us and out the door.
I glanced down at Fife, whose eyes were closed. I didn’t know how he managed to remain upright on his knees with his hands behind his head. He looked ready to topple at any moment.
Deele looked over my shoulder at Conor Wood. “Take both of them to the plane.”
Then he got right in my face. “Mystery man, you’re going for a ride.”
31
The rear compartment of the Amy Leigh could accommodate four people under normal circumstances, but the large containers took up a fair amount of space. Conor and Tyler handcuffed Fife and secured the cuffs to a metal ring on the bulkhead beside the left rear seat. The same was done with me on the right side. Then Conor buckled himself into the seat facing me.
In the front, Jason Deele took the pilot’s seat, adjusting the headset with a sort of glee one usually saw on the face of rollercoaster fanatics just before the cars took off. Jaclyn Stone, always the stoic, sat in the co-pilots seat, clearly dialed in to the forthcoming activity in the air, while completely disinterested in the two prisoners in the back.
The man I’d belted during my surveillance of the plane was dragged back to the cabin where he and Tyler would clean up the place before leaving it deserted. The only sign anyone had been there recently would be the fresh spatters of Fife’s blood on the floor.
There were times in my career when things couldn’t be more grim. This was one. Grim and frustrating. Just as I had that thought, Fife slumped over to one side. He’d passed out.
Deele, satisfied once he had the engine revving, looked back over his shoulder at me and indicated his headset before pointing above my seat. I found another set there. My hands, although secured to the bulkhead, had just enough give for me to slip the headset on.
The tinny voice of Deele came through over the roar of the engine. “Hey, Bug man. We have two destinations on the itinerary tonight. Since you and your late partner, Mr. Thomas, have been so curious about my work, you’ll get to see firsthand how it works.”
“Great,” I said. “And you’re probably not going to be checking in with any of the commercial or military airfields during this little adventure, right?”
“Not tonight. Just a little joyride out of restricted airspace and away from commercial routes. We won’t be a bother to anyone, except maybe a few folks we might awaken as we buzz overhead.”
“And what poor farmer in Iowa is going to suffer for your profits this time?”
There was pure delight in his voice when he answered. “No poor farmer in Iowa is going to suffer anything tonight.” With that he killed the communication in order to concentrate on the control panel.
His words tumbled around in my head. What exactly did he mean by No poor farmer in Iowa is going to suffer? Had we struggled to reach a conclusion that was off target? What was the point of this flight if Stone’s killer fungus stayed bottled up?
And why was she on the flight anyway? Her end of the partnership started and ended in a laboratory. I could understand Deele’s childlike enthusiasm for not only watching the distribution of her product, but also for physically throwing the switch to send the poison cascading down onto someone’s land. It was totally in line with his villainous personality.
But Stone? She was the deadly Ice Queen who preferred to hang back and quietly concoct the deadly poison behind the protective walls of her lab.
If I’d guessed wrong, and Deele wasn’t going to dust crops with the fungus, then everyone in this play was out of place.
Goosing the throttle, Deele taxied the plane across the short grass until it reached the dirt road. Then I was pushed back into my seat as we accelerated, barreling down the road, building enough speed to lift off. It’s one thing for a plane to race down a runway, but it’s disconcerting to be in a small, homemade aircraft tearing down a dirt road. It’s even more unsettling when your hands are handcuffed to the bulkhead.
I threw a quick glance at Fife to my left, but he was out. I hoped he was still alive, but how much longer could he hold on? Across from me, his eyes locked onto my face, Conor Wood sat impassively, unbothered by anything.
Building up speed on a dirt road involved a lot of bouncing and jolting, and I found myself holding my breath. Then, after one serious bang that shook the aircraft, the wheels came up and everything smoothed out. The engine sang a song of sweet release as we roared upward into the starlight.
I took some calming breaths and tried to analyze the situation. Fife was at best unconscious, but probably had no chance if he wasn’t taken to a hospital in the next hour or two. My hands were cuffed to the side of the airplane. A complete madman was at the controls of a plane that was experimental to begin with, while his armed henchman appeared to be counting down the minutes in his head until he could put a bullet into my brain. And nobody who could help even knew where we were.
Other than that, things were peachy.
We banked left. Gazing ahead through the plane’s windshield I saw the constellation Ursa Major, the Big Dipper. Polaris burned brightly to the side.
We were flying practically due north, and Deele kept that heading for quite some time.
Now his words came back to me. No poor farmer in Iowa is going to suffer.
“All right,” I said into my mouthpiece. “So Iowa is not your target tonight.”
Deele didn’t look back; instead he held up his right thumb.
Dammit. It’s not like he had a case of conscience. He was just spreading the destruction around.
“Wisconsin, I assume?”
Now he answered. “Look at it this way: It’s their turn.”
I let a minute pass before responding. “Tell me why.”
He shrugged. “Very simple. I’ve already given the hard-working farmers of Iowa something to think about. Once the same fungus shows up in another state, it’s no longer an isolated incident. Now the whole country—hell, the whole world—gets a news flash that this particular disruption can take place anywhere. It’s a disruption they’re not prepared for.” Then he looked back at me. “Yet.”
The bastard was right. He was brilliant, psychotic, and right. By seeding the deadly fungus in multiple locations, he would put a scare into the growing community, forcing them to act. And act quickly.
I sat back and stewed on it fo
r a bit. What stung the most at this very moment was the fact that I was acquiring all this information during a lights-out period. If and when Conor Wood put me down, I’d wake up in a new body with no memory of this conversation. Of course, by then the desolation would’ve begun.
There was no choice: I had to survive this night and prevent Jason Deele from wriggling off the hook.
Through the headset I heard Deele and Stone talking. Actually it was an argument. It became clear she was—as I’d suspected—very unhappy about being along for the ride. At one point she told Deele, “I don’t need another demonstration, Jason.” He laughed.
They were a horribly mismatched team of killers.
Soon I felt the plane begin to drop in altitude. I looked into the cockpit to see if anything was amiss, but Deele had the stick forward. He was bringing the plane down, then banked it slightly to the right. I saw him point out something to his disgruntled partner. Probably the target fields.
He glanced back at me for just a second, then said, “Bug man, watch how this is done. It’s actually a lot of fun.”
After he circled some crops from a height of just a few hundred feet, he dropped even lower before straightening the plane out. He flicked a couple of switches, then held a finger over one, hesitant. As soon as he flipped it down, I heard and felt a whoosh from under my feet. It was the canisters beneath the plane, disgorging their killer contents. In just a few days all of the soybean plants below us would turn brown and start to decay.
And I’d done nothing to stop it.
Counting the two passes we made over the same crop, the spraying lasted less than a minute, combined. That would be enough.
Deele took us back up and flew for another few minutes, before dropping down and repeating the procedure over another set of crops. He was killing more than one this time, gunning for maximum terror within the farming community.
“That,” he said with a chuckle, “is how it’s done. I may have to write a book.” He used his right hand to highlight imaginary words in the air: “How to make a billion dollars in one night.” Then he laughed again.
I rested my head back against the seat. Now that the show was over, I began to wonder what was in store for Fife and me. It most likely would be a bullet. And yet Deele wouldn’t want a shot fired inside his plane; bullets often passed right through a body.
The plane banked again, this time to the east, and rose to an altitude of about two thousand feet. I sat quietly, gazing through the darkness ahead, trying to watch for landmarks.
Then I saw one. A really big one. The moonlight was faint, but enough to glisten off a large body of water.
We were flying out over Lake Michigan. I began to wonder if Deele would put the aircraft down somewhere in Michigan, or perhaps Illinois. There was no way he’d venture back into Iowa. Not until the time came to accept very large checks.
“Doctor Stone,” he said. “Would you please switch seats with the agent who is not bleeding all over my airplane? I want to show him something. Oh, and be careful. I’m fighting some extra turbulence right now over the lake.”
If she’d been irritated before, Stone was infuriated now. She had to unbuckle, remove her headset, and squeeze back into the rear compartment. She waited long enough for the delay to register her anger, then went through the process of climbing back into the crowded space in the back.
“Careful you don’t kick the console,” Deele said, adding salt to her wound. A moment later she was hunched over, just in front of me.
And yet Conor Wood made no move to release my handcuffs. He sat immobile, watching as the scientist looked back and forth between me and Wood.
“Well?” she finally said, thoroughly pissed off.
Wood pushed himself out of his seat, and, with a movement so fast I barely saw it, clubbed Jaclyn Stone across the head with his fist. She dropped with a cry. As I watched, unable to do anything, he struck her again, twice, until she lay moaning on the floor of the compartment.
Then he leaned to his left and did the unthinkable. He unlocked the large door, and pulled it inward. The howl of the wind was deafening, drowning out the sound of the engines and the sobbing of the woman whose blood now mingled with Fife’s.
In one fluid movement, Conor Wood grasped her by the neck and, as if he were discarding a bag of trash, hurled her body out the open door.
It takes a lot to stun me, but this qualified. I stared up at the sedate, dispassionate face of the killer. He returned the stare, unblinking.
Shit, I thought. I knew what was coming. On this assignment I’d already experienced death by multiple poisonous spiders; the thought of plummeting thousands of feet into the middle of a Great Lake sounded even worse.
I chose to speak with Deele over the roar of the wind. “Why in the hell would you do that, Jason?”
He shrugged again. “I got everything I needed from Dr. Stone. It’s no more complicated than that. Keeping her around would only create an extra security threat I just don’t need.” He looked back at me, wearing a grisly smile. “You and your buddy pose that same threat.”
Conor Wood had turned to watch his boss, awaiting a sign. He got it with a curt nod.
My mind raced, but Wood gave me no time to work out a solution. He leaned over and delivered another punch, this one across my jaw. At the last moment I’d seen it coming and went with it, enough to alleviate some of the power, but not enough to make him think he’d come up short. He followed it up with a solid blow to my gut, and another to my chest. My headset flew off, clattering to the floor.
Air rushed out of me and the cuffs dug into my wrists, drawing blood. I coughed and let my head fall forward onto my chest. With about five inches in height advantage on me, Wood must’ve felt he’d dominate. But this new body of mine didn’t just look like a gymnast’s body; it had the strength of one. While my lungs clamored for air and my head rang like a bell, I understood that I wasn’t completely disabled. I kept my eyes closed and let out a low moan. It sounded believable to me.
I felt the handcuffs being released from the bulkhead. They were still firmly clasped to me, but at least my arms were free from the plane’s side. I waited for Wood to lean and grab me by the neck.
He did. And I slammed my head forward into the bridge of his nose as hard as I could. I heard it crack, and his hands fell away from me. I pulled my head back, gauged his distance, and fired a hard kick into his gut. Then, pushing off with all the strength I could summon, I lunged at him, driving him back into the seat across from me.
But Wood was damned good. Blood streaming from his nose, he recovered and began trying to land blows. I blocked one, but another landed solidly on the side of my head, knocking me backwards and to the side, so that I fell against the unconscious figure of Fife.
Deele was yelling, but without the headset and against the howling of the air racing past the open door, it was a jumble of sound. He may have been trying to look back to see what was happening, but the open door created turbulence, the small plane jumping this way and that, and the controls demanded all of his attention.
Wood got to his feet and came at me. Another shot aimed at my head became a glancing blow when I ducked to my right. I brought my foot up into his groin, which hurt him, but didn’t stop him.
That’s when I realized the handcuffs weren’t entirely a handicap.
I kicked him backward against the heavy containers and followed after him. Just as he looked up, ready to pummel me, I threw everything into a backhand, aiming with the metal cuffs. They landed hard on his cheek, gashing him open. For the first time I heard him make a noise, the sound of an injured animal. He had time to look up at me, surprise and fury blazing from his eyes. I didn’t give him time to recover more. I repeated the blow, this time connecting near his temple.
His eyes rolled back, and I knew this could be the only chance I’d get. With his hands down, I landed a hard kick to his jaw, snapping his head back. Then, grabbing him by the head, I slung him as hard as I could toward
the open door. His lower body slipped out, and his instincts kicked in, grasping desperately at the side of the opening. Just as I began to walk over and finish the job, he lost his grip and disappeared into the night air.
For a few seconds I caught my breath, then turned to face Deele.
He had his left hand on the control stick of the plane.
The other held a gun. Pointed at me.
Well, I’d taken enough gunshots over the years. What was one more? The only thing that pissed me off was that I wouldn’t be able to finish the job. At least for now.
“That was a good try,” he yelled over the rush of the wind. “And I’m not completely upset about Mr. Wood. He would eventually have become a security threat, too. Better to start fresh every so often when it comes to the hired help, wouldn’t you agree?”
“You don’t really want to put a hole in your fancy airplane, do you?”
“Meh,” he said. “If it doesn’t patch perfectly, I’ll just have Benjamin build me another one. Or ten.”
He laughed and began to center the gun barrel on my head.
At that moment the plane hit another patch of turbulence and his arm jerked upward. Before he could bring it back down, I lunged. I heard the gun fire, but felt nothing.
I dove into him, knocking the gun out of his hand, and he rocked forward into the control stick, sending the nose of the plane down. Bracing myself against the sudden plunge, I used the same backhand move, connecting with the side of Deele’s head. He let out a yell, then landed his own blow with an elbow. I felt a tooth snap off and the taste of blood filled my mouth. Deele swung again, but I managed to dip out of the way and the punch grazed the top of my head.
He had to save his hide, however, which forced him to cut short his attack so he could try to bring the plane level again. I used the time to my advantage.
I spun to my side, still lying across the center console, and fired the best punches I could, given the handcuffs. Deele wasn’t a lightweight by any stretch, and he took the blows pretty well. But a moment later I saw him look down to his left, and before I could react he’d reached down and come up with a screwdriver.