The Stefan Mendoza Trilogy Boxed Set, page 88
part #1 of Stefan Mendoza Trilogy Series
Ease off the pedal.
I shout into the data device, trying to drown out Allan’s voice. Some people never change. He never took responsibility when we were kids and now it’s all James’s fault that an investment went sour, as if Allan didn’t know how to simply say no to a crazy idea. Beachfront reclamation in New Jersey after another hurricane? How could there be money in that? The weather is crazy anymore. Only the millionaires have the wherewithal for the insurance, and they’re gun-shy now. Allan tells me he’s through with James, through with me. No. I’m through with you! Disconnection. Tears. Why do these men I love have to be so crazy? Was I seeing my father in everything? Did I just need the drama in my life?
Tears. It felt like I was crying. She was fading. I had to get us down before I lost her and her complicated life.
What was the situation?
Banking. We were banking left. Pull out of that. The ailerons. Still sluggish. Something wrong. Hydraulics leak?
I fought it. Felt a twinge in my shoulder, at the point where human and machine met. I leveled us off, but it was a strain.
Hills. Trees. They shot past below us, then it was the carpet of sand again.
I had to descend. I glanced at her, saw the pain in her eyes, the regret. I wanted to talk to her, to make promises I’d let James know she loved his crazy ass, give Tricia and Grant a kiss for her, tell Allan not to be like Dad and to grow the fuck up and accept some responsibility in life.
She smiled.
Oh. God. The regret and pain faded, like a mountain being pulled off of my chest.
And the light in her eyes went out.
Descent. How was that done?
I buckled in. Closed my eyes. Summoned up her memories. The headbands recorded, right? I had just done this.
Elevators. The elevators!
Nose down. Decelerate. Don’t stall out. The fighter jets are watching, though. It has to look like a believable crash.
Yoke forward, throttle down until our speed is manageable.
The plane shuddered, and screams came from the cabin.
Something else had gone wrong. Another missile? How? They were above us .
The airframe can only take so much. We’re lucky it’s still in one piece.
Wheels down. Just enough that the belly won’t get torn to shreds.
The ground so clear. It feels like running among cactus. Ripples in the sand.
Her thoughts. My thoughts.
Impact.
My hips and shoulders roared with pain. My head shot forward. The headband came off, slammed into the console, pinned below the frame of the windshield. Ruined? Good. No one else needed to feel what I’d felt.
We skidded across the sand, which dragged us like water.
A sudden lurch to the right. A wheel had gone out. A wing dipped. But we stayed upright. Whole, mostly.
Came to a stop.
I killed power, grabbed the headbands and stuffed them in my bag, then turned to go.
Stopped.
Brushed hair from her dead eyes, then closed them.
She’d saved us, but there was nothing more I could do for her.
There would be people at the wreck soon. SunCorps. EEC. Someone knew we were coming and had the Mexican government take us down. How crazy was the corporate influence already? Staying around was certain death.
I limped to the back. We had to go.
Chapter 25
Danny and Katy were out of their seats by the time I reached them. Ichi was helping Chan and Pitsamai out of theirs. Both Gridhounds were close to shock. I checked Du-ri’s team: only the middle-aged Vietnamese man was still awake, and he was staring into space. It took me a second to realize there was a chunk of metal sticking out of his head. There was no sign of Du-ri, but there was a gash in the skin of the aircraft back in the service area where we’d been talking.
No blood. I had to assume he’d been thrown from the plane. Could he have lived through that? Not likely.
Fuel vapors filled the cabin. Not heavy but definitely terrifying. I’d learned long ago that the biggest threat to wreck survivors was a spark igniting fuel vapor.
I pulled Pitsamai onto my shoulder; Ichi did the same with Chan. Danny had the door open when we reached him. The desert air was warm and still.
I set Pitsamai down, lowered myself onto my belly, and edged forward until the upper half of my torso was over the lip of the opening. “Danny, anchor me.”
His weight settled on my ankles, and he gripped my belt .
I signaled for Ichi to hand me Chan. There was sheer terror in the Gridhound’s magenta eyes. “D-don’t—” Chan’s voice broke.
“I’ve got you.” And I did. Down my shoulders, to my elbows, to my hands, gripped tight the whole way, hands on slender hips, ribs, then locked around the fingers that had probably saved my life a few times already. “Not that bad a drop now. Just go limp.”
Chan fell, hit with a stunned squeal, then rolled away.
Pitsamai was next. The terror on her face was the same, but she only blinked.
I said, “You’ll be fine. Just go limp.”
And she dropped away.
Ichi was next—tense muscle and confidence. I knew her well enough now; the feel of her flesh was fresh in my mind. “You know how to fall.”
She stared at me. “Hurry.”
“Planning on it. Get them away from the plane.”
She released my hands, fell. Graceful. No noise.
Katy handed me our bags, which I tossed away from the people on the ground. She scampered over me, then slid down. For once, she didn’t try to turn the moment into a sexual wisecrack. Danny followed her, and the two of them began dragging the bags away.
Time was running out, and I knew it, but LoDu had brought gear for the mission, and we needed it. I headed back to the storage area and popped the doors. Black bags. Unmarked. No time to dig through them. I grabbed two in each hand and threw them out onto the sand. The smell of fuel grew heavier, unmistakable; the heat greater.
Four more bags in the storage area—tossed out the door.
I jumped to the desert floor, wincing at the impact. Sand was never as soft you expected.
I scooped up the remaining bags and sprinted as best as I could. My back and joints complained bitterly.
The others were huddled about a hundred feet out.
I dropped the bags and unzipped them. “Get rid of anything in your luggage that isn’t absolutely vital. We’ll buy clothes. Check those black bags. Only essentials—guns, ammo, critical gear.” I kept my R60s, ammo, magazines, data device, a pair of underwear and toiletry bag.
Danny dumped his travel bag, salvaged a pair of underwear, his toiletry bag, his sniper rifle case, and pistol holster.
Katy held two tiny thongs up in front of Danny. “Which one?”
“Um, both.” He smiled, then he was into one of the black bags.
Chan kept the computing devices, a display, and Du-ri’s data device. Everything else was on the sand.
I tossed my bag onto the sand and said, “Put whatever gear you don’t intend to carry in there. Pitsamai, same thing. Put everything else back into your bags. Gather up whatever people have thrown out. I’ll get everything back into the plane.” Or the fire, if the plane went up.
I caught Chan stuffing the goofy cartoon cat backpack into my bag and let it go. Harmless, and it seemed to make the Gridhound happy.
From the black bags, I retrieved two carbines and ammo, NVGs, binoculars, knives, and what looked like a giant, deflated soccer ball. Rope, some devices that looked like they might be useful.
And the chameleon suits—I kept three. All of that went into one black bag.
We stuffed the remaining black bags full of our clothes and other items.
Pitsamai handed me her bag last, trembling and tearful. “What about Du-ri?”
I shook my head.
Katy squealed. “My data device! Dammit!” She sprinted for the plane.
Danny started after her.
I tackled him. “I’ll get her.”
The fury in his eyes told me I’d better.
I ran everything back toward the aircraft, shouting, “Katy, get away!”
She ran toward me, waving something. “My goddamn lucky—”
Something finally ignited the fuel.
The explosion blew me to the ground. Katy too. From where I was at, it was like standing next to a blast furnace. The fire climbed up in a column, chasing the vapor that had escaped the fuselage.
I dragged Katy clear, frowning at her crazy laughter.
She groaned softly and shook her data device at me. “See? Good luck.”
I pushed her back toward the others, gathered the bags, and ran in as close as I could, then hurled the bags at the open door. I missed, of course, but one of the bags caught fire, and before long, the things that had spilled onto the sand below the plane were burning.
Debris. Nothing more than junk tossed from the plane by the explosion.
We had some time now.
I froze, sure that I’d heard the thump of rotors. Maybe not now but soon.
I rushed back to the others, who had their bags slung and ready. My own weighed a ton. The black bag I’d kept weighed more. One to a shoulder.
Danny shaded his eyes and turned in a circle, scanning the horizon. “Where to?”
“Chan?” I pointed to Du-ri’s data device, now in Chan’s hand. “Anything near?”
Chan pointed. “About ten miles. West.”
Ten miles. Whoever had the fighter jets shoot us down would be in the area before we covered half of that. “Let’s go.”
I tried jogging, gave up, and settled for a fast walk. The others trailed behind me as I would have expected: Ichi close, Danny behind her, then Katy and Pitsamai. And Chan at the rear.
Ichi caught up to me. “Ten miles in the desert in daylight. Should we move so fast?”
“You see that column of black smoke coming off the plane?”
She twisted around. “How far out can they see it?”
“A clear day like this? Thirty miles. Maybe more. But they won’t need to. The pilots will give whoever sent them a nice little box grid of where we went down. The smoke’s just going to make it easier. ”
She hitched her travel bag higher onto her shoulder. “How did they know?”
“That we were coming? The flight was registered. How did they know we were on it?”
She nodded.
“That’s the real problem, isn’t it?” I glanced back at the others. “You can strike Du-ri from the list of suspects.” The stunned look on his face, getting sucked out.
“What about Pitsamai?”
“Pitsamai?” She was struggling with the sand. Except for Ichi and her skin-tight tank top, my team had been dressed in jeans and T-shirts. Katy had a light jacket tied around her hips. Chan had the hoodie up to keep the sun off tattooed, pale flesh. But Pitsamai wore white shorts and a loose cotton blouse—coral beneath a white satin jacket. Not a great choice for sneaking through the desert. Could she be who gave us away? “Maybe.”
“How did she survive the explosion?”
“She was in the bathroom.” On our side of the plane. What were the odds someone could fire a missile with the level of precision it would take to kill everyone but her? “I don’t think it’s her.”
“Because she’s pretty?”
“Katy’s pretty. Is that your only criteria for accusation?”
Ichi pursed her lips. “Should we trust Pitsamai?”
“I’ve told you before, you only trust yourself if you want to survive in this job. Always watch your back.”
She frowned. “Norimitsu-san trusted you. I trust you.”
“Fine. But you still need to watch your back.”
“I would rather you did.” She smirked and trudged ahead of me.
I obliged for a bit, but drifted back toward Chan, who was already breathing hard. “You going to be okay?”
“Yeah. It’s hot.”
“It’ll get hotter. Why don’t you take the hoodie off?”
A head shake. “Don’t want to get burned.”
“Sweat to death or get burned. Your call. A little sun won’t kill you. ”
Chan hunched down. “Don’t like being seen.”
“I’ve seen you. You’re not some kind of monster. You don’t have to imagine you are.”
Chan’s magenta eyes flashed to Pitsamai, who somehow managed to look elegant and sexy. “Not like her.”
“Not many are. And there’s nothing wrong with that. You see how there’s nothing around us?”
Chan twisted around. “Desert.”
“Yeah, desert. So, black hoodie or not, we’ll be easy to spot when the clean-up squad comes in to check for survivors.”
“Rescuers?”
“In this game, clean-up means eliminating loose ends.”
“Oh.” Chan picked up the pace until we were close to Katy.
I fought back a smile. “Hey, when you checked earlier, what sort of signal strength did you have?”
“Grid signal’s pretty good here. Must be towers somewhere in the clear. On a hill.” A shrug.
“Any chance there’s something out there we can call in to help us?”
“Police?” Heavy breathing. The exertion was getting to the Gridhound.
“I was thinking more along the lines of a remote-pilot vehicle.”
Chan’s head bowed, then Du-ri’s data device came out. “I can try.”
“Please. And see if there’s anything between us and our destination where we could hide.”
A nod, then Chan was caught up in the search. I stayed close, put a hand on the small of the Gridhound’s back every time the pace seemed to drop off, watched the sky. And listened.
Chan pushed the hood back and shook out black hair, then pointed northwest. “There. About two miles. A construction site, looks like.”
Construction. Some sort of new development? In the desert? Connected to the compound somehow? “Find a vehicle?”
“A few. Nothing remote-pilot capable. A cab?”
“Keep searching. I’ll get our course adjusted. ”
Katy called back, “You looking for a vehicle? What about delivery trucks? Lots of those are remote capable.”
I ran to the front and adjusted Ichi’s course. “New destination. Two miles out. Any cover is good cover.”
She picked up the pace even more.
I fell back to Danny and the others and jabbed my hand toward our objective. “Northwest. Two miles. Follow Ichi. We can get to cover if we hurry.”
Danny waved for Katy and Pitsamai to follow and called out, “Come on!”
I let Chan catch up to me. Two miles was twenty minutes if we pushed. Chan wasn’t making that feasible. Katy wasn’t doing much better. There were probably people scrambling into helicopters already.
Chan peeled the hoodie off, tied it around slender hips. “Delivery van.”
“What?”
“There’s a delivery van.” Chan pointed at the data device. “Getting into the system now. No one’s using it. Hackable.”
Ahead of us, Pitsamai took her jacket off and began almost jogging.
We were being left behind.
I stopped, shifted the bags around to my chest. “Chan, we need to pick up the pace.”
“Trying.”
“I know you are. But I need you on that data device, too.” I patted my back. “Climb on.”
Chan hesitated. “You’re carrying…”
“Yeah. Get on.”
The weight was more than I had expected. It was easy to forget that Chan was tall, so slender or not, I almost immediately regretted the idea. Chan’s weight was on my back, not on my cybernetics.
I took a step. Another.
“I-I’ll get off.” Chan wiggled.
“No.” I gripped Chan’s thighs right below the butt. It felt dangerously intimate given how the Gridhound felt about me. But there was nowhere else to get a good grip.
A third step. A fourth. Five, six. Seven, eight. A rhythm. The sore back protested, but I was turning that rhythm into a pace.
I lost count of the steps.
We closed on Katy. “What’s your hurry, you two? Got something nasty going on?” She was struggling but still had time for her innuendo.
Chan giggled. “Maybe we do.” Whispered so only I could hear.
Then came Pitsamai. She smiled as we jogged past.
Danny turned and waved. “Heart’s gonna explode! Remember your age!”
My heart was beating dangerously hard. Back, abs—running used more than the legs. Chan’s arms curled around my neck. I felt breasts against my back—soft, small.
Then I remembered what Jacinto had done to Chan. Bloodied. Gasping in horror. Lips bruised, twisted. Trying to shout for help.
How could I think of someone who’d suffered like that in a sexual way? How could Chan ever see another man in a healthy way after that?
I pushed forward, using my disgust and loathing for Jacinto as fuel.
Ichi turned, smiling at first, then frowning. “You are red, Stefan-san.”
I sucked in the desert air. “Sunburn.”
Her frown deepened. She glared at Chan. “You will hurt yourself.”
“Better than being blown up by a plane.” I was gasping. Sweat trickled down my face.
She kept up with me, cheeks barely flush from her exertions. “There are trees ahead. We are nearly safe.”
“That’s not a hallucination?” I squinted, shifting the filtering on my eyes to cut down on the glare. There really were trees. A tractor and another piece of machinery. Standing irrigation pipes—a center-pivot system. My heart was like a locomotive piston. The pressure was in my throat. “Another hundred yards.” One step at a time.
I made sixty steps, then dropped to a knee, gasping.
Chan got off, hand on my shoulder. “You okay? ”
“Go.” It sounded terrible, a dying man’s last gurgle. I pushed Chan in the back. “Go.”
Ichi wrapped her arm around Chan’s back, and the two of them continued on while I started round two with Death, wheezing, ready to puke up every last bit of human still inside me.
