“It doesn’t matter, it flies,” spat Williams.
He said something in Spanish, and the driver raced across the taxiways and main runway as fast as the SUV would go. The vehicle slammed to a stop just in back of the running aircraft.
Renee recognized the plane. She realized it was the Ford Trimotor. The one the old Tuskegee Airman had been telling her about. A short line of passengers stood at the gate. Renee was forced out of the SUV at gunpoint, and the group began walking towards the old aircraft. Three loud external motors, each the size of a man, sputtered and rattled, their propellers spinning, angled upward.
The crowd in line for Ford Trimotor rides looked alarmed as the menacing group walked towards the plane. Some noticed that they were carrying weapons, and someone yelled, “Gun!”
A police officer wearing a bike helmet and a neon-yellow-and-black uniform shouted and began to draw his weapon. Ian Williams lifted his pistol and shot the man twice in rapid succession, the dark red holes appearing in the neon yellow uniform as the man fell backward.
Renee cringed and let out a yelp, the crowd around them screaming, running away.
As she was marched towards the plane, she saw the assassin get on first and point a gun towards the pilot. She walked up a short staircase and ducked through the entrance. Renee was made to sit in the front of the cabin. The rear door slammed shut, barely audible over the noise, and Williams and Syed sat in the seats behind and next to her. Then the engines roared louder, and she could barely hear a thing. She looked up at the cockpit of the plane, high up another set of stairs, bright white daylight from outside the cockpit windscreen contrasting with the dark cabin. The assassin stood there, pointing a gun at the head of the pilot in the right seat.
She realized the man in the left pilot seat was the little old Tuskegee Airman. For a brief moment she thought she was hallucinating, yet there he was, his wrinkled face looking up at the assassin’s eyes and then down at his gun.
Renee felt a jolt as the aircraft’s engine power overcame the friction of its own chocks, and they began moving slowly forward down the taxiway.
Max’s vehicle raced across the runway as the Ford Trimotor began taxiing.
“We’ve got to stop them from taking off.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. The plane’s passenger door is on the rear right side. See if you can get me on board.”
Trent glanced at Max quickly. Maybe seeing if he was kidding. Then he looked forward, gripping the wheel tight, the gas all the way to the floor. “Roger. Get in the backseat.”
Max hopped in the back-left seat and lowered the window.
Trent kept the speed up and stayed wide, maneuvering his vehicle around the aircraft’s tail and then pulling in left, slowing and getting snug up to the aircraft.
Because the aircraft rested on a tail wheel, the fuselage angled up sharply. The cabin windows were just forward of the rear passenger door. Trent had the car positioned in a blind spot, just aft of the passenger door. Right now, Max and Trent couldn’t see any of the passengers, and the passengers couldn’t see them. But the vehicle would need to come forward in order for Max to reach the door.
“Get ready,” said Trent. Max saw that he had his silenced pistol in his right hand, relying on his left hand to drive.
Max stood on the rear seat and prepared himself to exit out the window. They were only going about forty miles per hour, but looking at the pavement below, it still seemed fast. But they were running out of time. Max’s best guess was that they had about twenty seconds before the plane turned sharply left onto the active runway and he missed his chance.
He stuck his head out the window and the wind met his face. Max looked forward along the length of the plane and could make out the pilot’s eyes through the reflection of the aircraft’s right side-mounted mirror. The pilot’s mouth opened, and then closed as he saw the car driving along next to them and recognized what was happening.
Max continued climbing through the window, grabbing on to the car’s “oh shit” handle with his right hand, balancing himself on the door frame and reaching with his left hand for the door latch of the Ford Trimotor.
Trent began moving the vehicle forward. Here it came. The leap of faith. Hot exhaust and deafening noise all around him. The taxiway pavement whizzing by below. A two-foot chasm waiting to break his bones.
Remarkably, the door opened from the outside without much effort. But keeping it open as the wind pushed against it was a challenge.
Then the gunshots sounded. The passengers had seen Trent. He was firing with one hand on the wheel.
Shattering glass and muffled yelling.
Time to commit. If any of the gunmen were looking back this way, he would be a dead man. But this was his only chance to save Renee.
Max pulled open the door with his left hand, reached out with his right, and dove forward. He landed with a sharp pain, his chest now on the floor of the aircraft cabin, then felt the terror as his legs began to fall, their weight starting to pull him back out the door.
Max dug deep and swung his legs up, pulling his body over the precipice. Then he used his arms to wriggle forward the rest of the way through and onto the aircraft cabin floor.
He was on board, heart pounding in his chest.
Max looked up to see one of the gunmen standing over him, aiming a submachine gun at his face. Then the man’s chest popped with two red holes and he fell backward toward the cabin wall.
A burst of gunfire forward and a lurch as the aircraft veered left and Trent’s vehicle slid away.
Yelling and cursing in Spanish. Max realized Trent had shot several of the men on board through the windows. Max reached across the aisle and picked up the weapon of the now-dead sicario from the floor. Then he craned his neck around the seat that had been concealing him from the front of the plane.
Max took a mental snapshot of the aircraft interior, then hid back behind the rearmost row.
The aircraft had a narrow column of seats. One seat on either side of the aisle. Five rows, ten seats total. An incredibly steep incline up toward the cockpit. No door between the cockpit and cabin. Max guessed he was looking at a twenty-foot ramp towards the bright white light of the cockpit windows. A difficult length to ascend.
Renee sat in the forwardmost left cabin seat, looking unharmed. Williams stood in the center aisle just aft of her. He was holding his hands to his face, bright red blood dripping through the cracks in his fingers. Glass from the window, or a graze, maybe.
Max saw two men on the ground, injured or dead, he couldn’t tell which yet. But one looked like Abdul Syed. There was a white guy gripping the back of the right-side pilot’s seat, holding a gun to the man’s head.
Now all Max had to do was get past the gauntlet and tell the pilot to halt his takeoff.
Max felt the aircraft make another sharp left turn onto the runway. Then the engines roared to full power, and both of the remaining men in the cabin — Ian Williams and the man holding the gun to the pilot’s head — tumbled backward along the steep aisle as the aircraft accelerated forward on its takeoff roll.
Renee felt her head press back into her seat as the aircraft throttle was moved to takeoff power. She felt like she was launching in the space shuttle the way she was angled up so sharply.
The assassin who’d been pointing his gun at the pilot hadn’t been prepared for the force of the acceleration combined with that steep an angle. His only grip had been one hand on the pilot’s seat, his other hand holding a pistol. The man fell backward through the air, landing on his back halfway down the aisle, rolling and then sliding towards the aft end of the aircraft. Renee saw the flying pilot look backward, the aircraft still rumbling through its takeoff roll.