“Drop it, Bronsky,” the slightly accented voice commanded. She looked into the expressionless face of the man who had tried to pick her up in Portland.
“This is an Uzi,” he said. “You won’t even get one shot off before it rips you to pieces. Put it down.” His men, guns at the ready, moved up to stand beside him.
She sighed and laid the gun on the ground.
“Kick it over here,” he ordered.
She complied, pointing to Jordan. “Do you realize who this is?”
Arlin Schoen smiled thinly. Two others were at his side, weapons at the ready. “Our esteemed acting Secretary of State? Of course. How are you, Jordan?”
“What?” Jordan replied as he winced in pain.
“Oh, come on, Mr. Secretary. As one of the directors of Signet Electrosystems, I’d think you would remember me. After all, we’ve talked many times.”
Kat looked from him to Jordan in confusion. “Jordan, you know this man?”
Jordan James took a ragged breath and looked at Schoen, ignoring the question. “So what are you planning to do, Schoen, kill us all?”
“Of course” was the reply. “What else can I do now?”
Kat knelt at his side. “Uncle Jordan, what’s going on here?”
“MacCabe? Doctor?” Schoen said, gesturing with the gun. “Sit behind Miss Bronsky, please. You people have been an extraordinary pain in the ass. You thought we were trying to kill you, when all we wanted, Mr. MacCabe and Miss Bronsky, was to retrieve a vital piece of classified research stolen from us by a man named Carnegie, whom I believe you knew.” He smiled a serpent’s smile at Kat and Robert.
No one answered.
“You two gained access to the disk we need. If MacCabe hadn’t been so efficient in getting away in Hong Kong, perhaps we wouldn’t have had to shoot down his flight.”
“So you’re admitting to mass murder?” Kat said.
He ignored her and continued. “Oh, by the way, I didn’t introduce myself. I’m Arlin Schoen, director of security for Signet Electrosystems Defense Research. I have the responsibility for keeping the vital American secrets away from irresponsible people such as Carnegie and you, Mr. MacCabe. Agent Bronsky’s involvement I can more or less understand. She thinks she’s catching crooks, and ends up stealing classified material. And Dr. Maverick, over there, has a big mouth.”
“What is Signet Electrosystems?” Kat asked, breathing hard.
“You’re insane, Schoen,” Jordan said suddenly.
“Possibly,” he replied. “But my job was to protect this project.”
“Uncle, what is he talking about?”
Her heart sank when she saw tears in Jordan’s eyes. He was in agony. “I tried to stop him, Kat.”
Arlin Schoen turned to the armed men standing beside him. “Go ahead and kill them. I’m not in the mood for confessions.” He turned and walked under the huge right wing, now broken and drooping.
“Schoen?” Jordan called out, summoning all his strength. “I’ve got the whole story on paper… and in the hands of… third parties, ready to blow up in your face. You hurt or kill any of these people, or me, and the whole thing will be exposed.”
Arlin Schoen turned around. “Clever ploy, Jordan, but I know you better than that. You’ve served ten presidents. You’d rather die with your reputation intact.”
“Can you take that chance, Schoen?” James asked with difficulty. “If I’m telling the truth, you’ll end up… in a gas chamber, and the project… as well as the company, are history. All of it’s there. The botched test firing, the cover-up of the MD-eleven shootdown, all of it. And there are four others out there… who know the details.”
“Bullshit. There is no document because you never expected this to happen, James. And we’ve already taken care of those other four witnesses, despite Miss Bronsky’s attempts to hide them.”
“What are you talking about?” Kat asked in alarm.
“I wrote fifty pages of details and… names and documents, Schoen,” Jordan began, and stopped to cough and gasp for breath, “… as soon as I realized you were trying to kill Katherine.”
“If you did”—Schoen shrugged—“we’ll find it.”
“Impossible. You’ll never be able to stop it.”
“Well,” Schoen replied, “I suppose we’ll just have to take that chance.”
“Or… you can let all of us live,” Jordan continued, “knowing that we’ll all keep quiet because you’re still out there.”
Arlin Schoen sighed and turned away, sidestepping a growing pool of gasoline under the wing. He laughed sarcastically. “I’m beginning to see why you’ve lasted so long in Washington, old man.” He turned back to Jordan. “Okay. Let’s see. I refrain from blowing your head off and you won’t talk because you go to jail if you do. I let MacCabe walk, and he’s going to refrain from blowing the cork on this because you asked him to? Give me a break. He’d have his super-liberal, Pentagon-hating national desk on the line in ten minutes and spill his guts. But how about this, James? I kill the rest of them, spare you, and you still have to keep quiet because you’re guilty as sin. In fact, let’s have some fun with this. You seem very fond of Miss Bronsky, there, so what if we start dismembering that cute little blond piece of ass in front of you? How far would I have to go before you’d tell me just where you hid such a document? Rape her in front of you? Cut off her breasts? Shoot her in the spine?” He glowered at Kat. “Nice hairdo, Bronsky. Had me fooled in Portland.”
“If you’ve killed the others,” Kat said quickly, “where were they? Where did I hide them? I think you’re bluffing.”
Thomas Maverick and Robert MacCabe had both been working to stem Jordan James’s bleeding. Ignoring Kat’s question, Arlin Schoen looked at them derisively and turned to walk back under the wing, gesturing for his men to join him. When they reached him, Schoen swung around and fastened his eyes on Jordan.
“No, I think you’re lying, James. And it’s a real shame you and these three were all killed in a plane crash in Idaho and burned beyond recognition. “Fire on my command. READY.”
“This is a fatal mistake, Schoen,” Jordan said, his voice raspy.
“Fatal for you, of course,” Schoen replied. “AIM.”
The gunmen drew a bead on the four of them. In her peripheral vision, Kat saw Robert’s right arm moving up.
“By the way, Bronsky,” Schoen added, “the name of the place is Stehekin.”
Kat felt her insides run cold. She opened her mouth to protest when a loud pop sizzled away from Robert’s direction and the phosphorescent streak of an emergency flare shot forward into the pool of fuel beneath the wing, igniting it instantly.
A wall of searing gasoline-fed flames erupted between the gunmen and their targets, surrounding them in seconds. The gunman on the right of Schoen let out a hysterical yelp as the flames ignited his pants. He stepped backward and tripped into a pool of burning gasoline, screaming for help as his body exploded in flames.
Robert scooped James off the ground in one fluid motion and yelled to Kat and Thomas Maverick to follow as he raced for the safety of a grove of trees.
Arlin Schoen heard his man’s scream and ignored it. He lunged for a small pathway along the fuselage not yet engulfed in fire, with his other gunman right behind him. Before they could reach safety, the trigger finger of the burning gunman involuntarily tightened, and a fusillade of bullets ripped through the fuel tank above.
The monstrous explosion fragmented the wing, the fuselage, Arlin Schoen, and the remaining gunman, spraying flaming shrapnel in all directions. Some of it whizzed harmlessly over the hollow Robert had found, followed by the staccato sounds of large shards of sheet metal and other assorted parts clanging and clunking their way back to earth. The stench of burned hydrocarbons stained the air.