Then his BlackBerry chirped. A quick glance showed Gurt's number.
He fumbled for the Bluetooth earpiece, and put it in place. At first he heard nothing, then, "This van is uncomfortable."
He started to reply before realizing she wasn't speaking to him. She was verifying that she was in the van.
He heard a man's voice, but the words were indistinguishable.
"Can't one of the three of you…"
He missed the rest, but he got the message.
The van continued with the normal flow of traffic. Lang could only hope that a series of turns didn't betray the tail. Instead, the van entered 175-85, heading south. A few exits later, it turned onto the ramp for I20 West. Lang was trying to guess where they might be going.
Birmingham?
His answer came a few minutes later when the van turned off the interstate. Lang knew the exit well. It was the one for Fulton County-Charlie Brown Field, the place the foundation kept the Gulfstream.
As if in confirmation, Gurt's voice said, "Why are we going to Charlie Brown Airport?"
Again, the unintelligible response.
At the terminal building, the car took a right turn. Lang knew the road led to only one place: Hill Aviation, the only fixed-base operator on this side of the field. The asphalt was slightly above the level of the airport itself, giving him a view of the ramp area in front of Hill. A stretch Lear was taxiing on the tarmac. Nothing unusual about that. Except the identification letters, what would have been the N number on an American plane. Foreign countries, including all of Europe, used letters only.
Lang felt a jolt of panic. They were going to try to get Gurt and his son out of the country. If he was going to stop them…
The van turned off the road and down a slope to the FBO. Lang followed.
His turn must have alerted someone the van had been followed, for it spurted ahead to the gate in the security chain-link fence. Not waiting for someone inside to verify their identity, the van smashed through the fence as though the steel links were made of paper.
By the time Lang followed, the Lear was already moving toward the van, its clamshell door yawning open like the mouth of a predator about to feed. Helpless, Lang watched three men hop out of the van and herd Gurt, holding Manfred's hand, aboard.
The door closed just as the Mercedes reached the plane, already in motion. Lang was tempted to ram the fragile hull but knew that such action could rupture an auxiliary fuel cell, engulfing the Lear in flames.
Instead, he watched the plane lumber away like a waddling goose, slow and clumsy on the ground but a picture of grace and speed in the air.
Well, sitting here wasn't going to do any good, and he doubted the two cars with the flashing yellow lights of the airport's hired security were going to be a lot of help, either. By the time he explained what had happened, the Lear would be in the air, miles away. He didn't think the plane had the fuel capacity to cross an ocean without at least one stop, but where? The flight plan mandatory for flights at jet altitudes would reveal that information, a plan from which no aircraft in US airspace could deviate without risking attention from air force F-18's. But how long would it take to secure the information? The very fact he had followed the van through the pitifully inadequate security fence would cause the rent-a-cops to hold him until police arrived.
A half a mile away, a small Cessna lifted into the air from runway nine and gave Lang an idea.
He stood on the Mercedes's accelerator, pleased to find power under the hood proportional to the car's bulk. He sped after the slow-moving Lear, trailing two light-flashing cars behind on the taxiway.
Inside the Lear, Gurt and Manfred had been forced into two of the four forward-facing seats, two and two separated by a narrow aisle. Behind them, a pair of small sofas faced each other across a small table of plastic faux wood, their backs molded into the curving hull of the airplane. The interior had no personal touches. It was as cold as a hotel lobby. One of the pilots stooped to enter the cabin from the cockpit. He whispered something Gurt could not hear to the man who had identified himself as Haverly. Both men were looking at her.
Not a good sign.
Haverly squatted beside her seat. "Ground control tells us some idiot is following this plane in a car. I think we both know who that idiot might be."
Gurt said nothing, trying to hide her satisfaction.
Haverly handed her a cell phone. "Now, you call Mr. Reilly, tell him if he doesn't call off this absurd chase, the little boy will be dead before takeoff."
Gurt made a decision. She shoved away Haverly and produced her BlackBerry. "This you have heard, Lang?"
"You bitch!" Haverly snarled, grabbing for the BlackBerry. "They were supposed to search you! No wonder he tracked us so easily. I should have killed you and taken the boy."
Gurt wasn't listening. Instead, she was staring at the tiny screen of the BlackBerry. She read the two lines and deleted them just as Haverly snatched it away. As she knew he would, Lang had a plan.
The taxiway was too narrow to pass the jet, blocking its way. Lang had considered driving off onto the unpaved shoulder but discarded the idea for fear the Mercedes's weight might mire him in soft soil or mud. Now that he had been able to communicate with Gurt, he had a slightly modified course of action in mind. He ground his teeth in impatience waiting for the Lear to reach the end of the taxiway, the place it would have to swing wide to the right to align itself with the runway.
Haverly, or whoever he was, was still standing over Gurt when the plane began a slow swing to the right, just as Lang
had predicted. She pushed Manfred down in his seat, a move that attracted Haverly's attention. He drew her Glock from his belt.
"What th' hell you think you're…?"
Lang saw the plane begin its slow turn and slammed the gas pedal to the floor.
The most vulnerable part of any modern aircraft is the nose wheel. It is lighter than the other two gears so it can easily be moved as a steering mechanism by pressing one rudder pedal or the other. The landing, or main, gear are hardy shock absorbers, designed to take the impact of the worst landings while the pilot holds the delicate nose gear off the round until it can be lowered somewhat more gently.
That was Lang's target.
With a whip of the wrists, the Mercedes was around the front of the Lear, describing a semicircle. The arc came to an abrupt end when the steel of the German car smashed into the nose wheel strut, snapping it as though it were a dry twig.
Haverly had reached out a hand to steady himself as the aircraft began its swing onto the runway in anticipation of takeoff. Suddenly the plane pitched forward and down, throwing him off balance.
Gurt moved.
Pushing up from her seat, her left hand grabbed his right wrist, swinging the Glock harmlessly upward. Her right fist impacted just below his sternum with all the force of her full body and legs behind it. With a whoosh, Haverly doubled over. Still holding his right wrist, she yanked down, her left foot on his, tumbling him onto the floor between her and the other two men seated behind on the sofas and effectively blocking their line of fire.
She had to hope the two pilots were unarmed.
"Mutter!" Manfred screamed from somewhere behind her.
She whirled in the narrow aisle just in time to see one of the pilots lunge for her.
He was met with a smashing blow. Its impact was not quite as loud as the crunch of nose cartilage. Nothing is more temporarily disabling than a sudden, unexpected and severe dose of pain. He sat suddenly, his face puzzled, perhaps contemplating his sudden and involuntary rhinomycosis as a flood of crimson dripped from his chin.