“What the hell is going on out there, and who are those guys shooting at us?” asked Jody Glickman.
Thomas and Christian leaped into the river, leaving their Forest Service guide behind with her questions unanswered.
Vince never got a chance to see his brother dive off the riverbank, his attention completely concentrated on staying afloat and keeping Andrew Chapman in sight. It was as the current continued to pick up speed that this latter chore became increasingly difficult, Vince getting only an occasional glimpse of the VP’s wildly bobbing head.
The water itself was numbingly cold, and Vince didn’t know how much longer they’d be able to survive in this frigid torrent.
Unlike the Eleven Point, there were no log snags to grab onto.
It was also impossible to see more than a few feet ahead, the only illumination being a faint luminescent glow emanating from the crystalline stalactites that hung overhead.
The resounding roar of crashing water signaled their imminent arrival at the next series of rapids. The channel narrowed, and Vince was soon cascading on his back, down a chute of frothing white water. He tumbled over a low rock shelf and plopped down into a deep pool, where he began gagging from all the water he had just swallowed.
At the same moment, an excruciating pain shot up his left side as his muscles began cramping. He was unable to stay afloat, and he swallowed yet more of the river when his pain-racked body began helplessly sinking.
He desperately flayed at the water with his arms, but nothing could reverse the pull of the depths — except the firm grasp of Andrew Chapman.
“It’s payback time, Kellogg,” said the VP as he pulled Vince to safety on a shallow gravel bar at the edge of the pool.
Vince rolled over onto his stomach and retched. Once he had purged the last of the river from his system, he reached down to massage the cramped muscles of his upper thigh and lower back.
“I guess that does make us even,” he grunted to Chapman, who sat shivering beside him in the shallow water.
“Now how are we ever going to get out of this infernal place?”
“You’re not. Sergeant Spit and Polish!” proclaimed Dick Mariano from the left side of the ledge, where a flat rock outcropping projected into the current.
Vince all but forgot about his cramp, his gaze locked on the leering eyes of the bearded ex-SEAL.
“Nice try, com padres Mariano remarked with a smirk.
“But no fucking cigar!”
Mariano’s green-faced associate also appeared at the left side of the rock shelf, and together they dropped their canoe into the calm waters of the pool. Neither one of them bothered to board the vessel, preferring instead to jump off the five-foot-high ledge to the gravel bar below.
“Richy,” said Mariano, “I believe we’re just about to lose our hostages.”
Before he could raise his submachine gun to carry out this threat, yet another voice sounded from a rock outcropping on the other side of the ledge.
“Drop it!” ordered Thomas Kellogg, who, along with Jay Christian, had his specially adapted tournament pistol trained on the two startled kidnappers.
Vince’s eyes opened wide with utter amazement upon spotting the familiar figure of his brother. Yet before he could acknowledge him, Mariano yanked up the stubby barrel of his MAC 10 and swept the ledge with an intense volley of 9mm bullets.
Captain Christian had seen this coming, and he selflessly jumped in front of Thomas, taking slug after slug. By the time the MP’s bloodstained, bullet-ridden body dropped lifelessly into the pool below, both Mariano and Richy had grabbed their hostages from behind, and had the hot barrels of their weapons jammed up against their necks.
Thomas still had his Caspian .38 Super pistol raised before him. He peered down the C-MORE electronic sight, alternating the passive red targeting dot from the furrowed forehead of the bearded kidnapper, who held the Vice President, to the green painted forehead of the man holding Vince.
He knew he’d have time for only a single T-zone shot to end this standoff. But the dilemma he faced was whether to attempt saving the life of Andrew Chapman or that of his own brother.
“Come on, cowboy. Come on!” shouted Mariano.
“Save the Man, Thomas!” Vince urged.
Thomas had already made up his mind, and he sucked in a deep breath and pulled the trigger.
The .38-caliber slug hit its mark on the bridge of his target’s nose. As the bullet penetrated the bone, it further expanded, creating a wound path one and a half inches in diameter. This destructive path led directly to the all-important cerebellum and medulla areas, instantaneously severing communication from the brain to the spinal cord, and effectively preventing any physically contractible response from the limbs below.
In other words, Dick Mariano never had a chance to execute the Vice President. And as the bearded ex-SEAL slumped to the ground dead, Thomas desperately swung the red dot to the right in a frantic effort to save his brother.
Long before he could center his aim, a shot rang out. Thomas flinched in horror, and he looked down onto the gravel bar, expecting to see Vince’s body lying there. But strangely enough, it was the green-faced kidnapper who was in the process of falling to the ground, a neat bullet hole smack on the bridge of his camouflaged nose.
“Hoo-ah!” exclaimed Ted Callahan from the other side of the ledge, the still-smoking barrel of his pistol held close at his side.
“Not bad shooting for a desk-bound fast-food junkie, if I do say so myself!”
Chapter 63
“Nightwatch six-seven-six, this is Shuttle Landing Facility tower.
We have you on visual. Emergency equipment standing by. Good luck. Over.”
From his copilot’s position inside the cockpit. Lucky acknowledged this transmission, while beside him. Coach addressed Jake over his chin mike.
“What’s the status of number two hydraulic system?”
“It continues dropping toward critical. Coach, with pressure just barely in the green.”
Coach looked to his right and briefly caught Lucky’s concerned stare before redirecting his line of sight back out the cockpit window. The Shuttle runway’s approach lights had just come into view. He could also make out the long line of halogen centerline lights, which were set into the entire length of the runway at two-hundred-foot intervals.
“Let’s do it, gentlemen,” said Coach, firmly grabbing the steering yoke.
“Lucky, take us down to nineteen hundred feet at one hundred forty-five knots. Jake, it’s time to tap the alternative electrical system and lower the flaps to twenty degrees.”
“One hundred forty-five knots. Nineteen hundred feet,” Lucky reported.
“Flaps coming down… and holding at twenty degrees!”
added Jake, his relief obvious.
In the distance, the bright lights belonging to the Shuttle launch pad could be seen. Coach couldn’t help but derive additional confidence knowing that the runway they were currently approaching was designed to service the most advanced flying machine on the planet.
“One hundred forty-three knots. Eighteen hundred ninety two feet,” informed Lucky.
“Let’s go ahead and lower flaps to thirty degrees,” said Coach, who knew that this was a critical adjustment. If the flaps didn’t properly deploy, they’d touch down at too high a speed, causing the already damaged wing landing gears to most likely collapse.
Thus when Jake reported that the flaps were holding firm at thirty degrees. Coach realized that a major hurdle had just been cleared.
“Lucky,” he said to his copilot with a bit more certainty, “take us down to two hundred feet at one hundred thirty-three knots. Jake, inform our passengers to prepare for landing.”