“Wonderful,” Dar replied. “Where was it?”
“On I-10, about twelve miles east of Lake City. We’ve already got Navy and Air Force flying grids down the center of Florida, but NSA doesn’t think they’ll find anything.”
“Wait a minute,” Dar said, fumbling for pencil and paper.
“Let me save you the trouble,” said Unruh, his voice dropping slightly. “It’s just about equidistant between where you are, on the Atlantic coast, and the Gulf coast to the west. That makes it sixty miles to our shoreline either way you slice it, and a gentleman sitting across from me asked me to convey his deepest sympathy, with the reminder that the interagency agreement was seventy-five miles. I’m sorry to be the one who has to make it official, Hornet. Black Stealth One is now fair game for a kill, by whoever sees it first.”
TWENTY-FOUR
Corbett’s first awareness on waking was of dim light; his second, that it shouldn’t be. He ruined an armrest shoving up from it and came within an inch of stepping on the legs of Petra Leigh. She lay sleeping on the floor beside the old couch, one arm flung across the dirty linoleum, his leather jacket folded under her head. He stepped over her carefully and consulted his watch: nearly seven in the morning. Or the evening? Hard to tell. He heard the distant racketing thunder of a jet aircraft, realized that Black Stealth One lay fully exposed to anyone flying a search pattern, and bolted from the little store unsteadily, making no allowances for the early-morning twinges that time had begun to sift into his joints.
The hellbug was in costume. From his view it was easy to see, but its surfaces were mottled to match the ill-tended truck garden as seen from above. He had shut down all systems on landing, he was certain of it, but someone had energized the pixel program, probably hours ago. “Kid, you are a pistol,” he said aloud, then quietly stuck his head into the shed. Nasal masculine snores echoed softly in the little structure. Corbett returned to the store wondering why Petra had not shot the fool, yet somehow relieved. It took a lot of subtle gears to make the kid tick like thatand keep telling yourself she’s a kid, he thought. Isn’t twenty-two still a kid? Isn’t it?
She was in the bathroom. “Why can’t you just walk around like everybody else,” she said, emerging freshly scrubbed and radiantly irritated. “Scare a person to death,” she grumbled, and went straight to the upright cooler where she selected a quart of skim milk. She squatted before a wire rack then, studying the scant choices in cellophane-wrapped snacks.
Corbett shrugged and sought the bathroom himself, noting with some surprise that the pistol was still snug in his armpit. He used the throwaway razor lying at the sink, telling himself it was only to make himself feel refreshed, that it had nothing to do with Petra Leigh. Whatever her motives, she had taken charge while he slept, and he hadn’t awakened with his own gun barrel in his ear. He found that fact strangely unsettling as he returned to her.
He strode past the counter, pausing to open the cash register under the scrutiny of the implacable old Westclox. Nothing lay inside but small change. He glanced at her as he was choosing a quart of buttermilk.
“Fifty-seven dollars,” she said, patting her jeans. “Bobby owes me that much in wear and tear.”
The hum of an engine filtered in from the road, and the hum was not rising in tone but falling. Corbett heard the faint squeal of brakes and ducked down into shadows, seeing Petra squat behind the counter. They waited silently, trading silent eye contact as they heard tires on gravel. The engine stopped. A horn demanded attention it was not going to get. After an interminable thirty seconds they heard a starter, the engine’s thrumm, and then the vehicle pulled away again. Corbett eased up from the shadows, watching a Dodge van tow a flat-bottom aluminum boat out of sight. He rubbed his arms to rid himself of adrenaline and stepped over to the snack racks, swigging on buttermilk as he chose his breakfast. If she wasn’t going to mention that van, he wouldn’t either.
“Twinkies? Christ, how can you eat that stuff,” he said, wrenching open a bag of Laura Scudder’s potato chips.
“I was thinking the same thing about you.” She gave him an imp’s grin and opened another package of Twinkies.
He knew she was watching, waiting for him to start talking about important things as he nosed around, rummaging in shelves stocked for the Florida sportsman, hefting the twin of the five-gallon gas can he had bought the day before. Now she would be all right, no doubt about it. How long will she wait after I’m gone before she uses that telephone? And how much credibility will she have, especially on the Cuba ploy? Then he saw the coil of tubing with its fist-sized rubber bulb on a lower shelf, and began to chuckle as he brought it into the light. “Well I’m damned,” he said, inspecting the rubber for cracks.
Around a mouthful of junk food she replied, “What else is new?”
“A fuel siphon,” he said, elated. “I might just cobble up a” Then he stopped. “Nothing. Petra, I don’t know why you’re still here. What’s more, I don’t want you to tell me. You’re going to have to repeat it all later today. And your Uncle Dar might not be able to help you. He might not even want to; we’re not playing high-school fuckaround games. For the record, I’ve got a gun and I’ll use it if you try to go for help. I’ve already killed a man and that should’ve scared the hell out of you, maybe so scared you didn’t dare run during the night for fear I was playing possum. Do you understand?”
“Perfectly,” she said, wiping an urchin’s rime of milk from her mouth. “After that scum attacked me, I was half crazy with fear.” Her eyes grew round, serious. “I really was, Kyle. I’d been trying to get their help to catch you, but they were cutting counterfeit liquor stamps at the time.” A pause, and a headshake. Then, “Were you just trying to get me back in the airplane?”
He said, “Yes,” and saw that she did not believe him. “Why the hell else would I have landed?” She just looked at him, and then smiled the kind of smile that a younger man would fight dragons for. “God dammit, Petra, stop that! What do I have to do for a little credibility; beat up on you?”
“It wouldn’t help,” she said. “I saw you. You were so mad in that shed, you were crying.”
“I give up,” he snarled, snatching the fuel can and unlocking the store’s front door. “All I ask is, let me know before you use that phone.”
He was back in seconds, searching the place for the switch that energized the gas pumps, finding it on the wall near the cash register. He filled the gas can, feeling a humid morning breeze on his face and wondering how he might route a slender siphon hose from the cockpit of Black Stealth One to the tank. Hurrying back into the store he noticed that the “BEER” sign was lighted, and slapped the pump switch off. Relocking the front door, he saw that the lights were off again. In the ensuing silence he heard the distant drone of an aircraft. If they hadn’t spotted the hellbug yet, maybe they couldn’t. He might have plenty of time for some modifications.
As he was on his way out the back door, Petra followed. “Let me take that hose thing,” she offered.
“Don’t help me, Petra. They’ll make you sorry.” He kept walking toward the garden.
She kept pace. “I’m afraid not to,” she said, and took the siphon hose from him. “You might hurt me.” She ignored his whispered, blunt response.
Corbett needed two minutes to locate the fat polymer tube curving down from the filler neck of Black Stealth One to its tank; another five minutes with his knife to make a hole through the upper surface of the tube because he had to peel a plastic panel away behind his headrest. At last he inserted the end of the siphon hose into the hole and taped it securely with strips of his duct tape. With Petra’s help, he routed the hose so that the rubber bulb lay between the seats in easy reach, the hose’s lower end submerged in the fuel can. He tested the system by squeezing the bulb rapidly, listening to the faint sounds coming from behind his headrest. He topped off the plastic bag from the metal can and then made a preflight inspection, ignoring Petra until she walked back to the store alone. When she gets the full treatment, they’ll learn I have an extra ten gallons on board. Well, that’ll convince ‘em I can make Cuba easily, maybe Haiti. There’s going to be airplanes over Key West wingtip to wingtip when they’ve wrung this poor kid out, God help her.