11
Jake waited patiently in the driver’s seat of their rental car just outside the Malta International Airport. He had convinced his newfound colleague, Elisa Murici, to contact her office in Rome for some help. There were only a few ways off the island — by air or by sea. And Sara Halsey Jones could not have been that far ahead of them. Now, she could just hang low and hide out in some hotel on Malta, but he didn’t think so. He guessed she was still on the move.
So Jake had enlisted Elisa to contact her office and try to track down any passport use, videos at the airport and ferry terminal, which would take a while, or manifests on airlines and ferries. Although Sara wouldn’t necessarily have to show her passport to the ferry operators, she would have to show some form of ID. And Jake had found in the past that they keep those records for at least 24 hours, just in case a ferry sinks. They liked to know who died and whose family would likely sue them.
Finally, Elisa got off her phone and glanced at him. “I’m glad you’re on my side,” she said. “She’s on the night ferry from here to Catania, Sicily. She used a Texas driver’s license. They’ve got her on video wearing all black with a scarf and dark glasses.”
“Great. So she knows someone is after her.” He checked his watch and figured the crossing time from Malta to Catania. “She should get in there around four a.m.”
Elisa shook her head. “How do you know this?”
“It’s about a hundred and ninety kilometers, or one hundred and fourteen miles from Valletta to Catania,” he surmised. “Based on an average speed of thirty kilometers per hour, that gets them in at four, assuming normal sea conditions.”
She simply stared at him.
“Plus, while you were on the phone with your people, I checked the ferry schedule on my phone.”
Hitting him in the arm, she said, “Not fair.”
“Let’s go,” Jake said.
“Wait. Where?”
“I do understand some Italian,” he said. “They have a plane waiting for you at the private section of the airport.”
Elisa shook her head and followed him toward the non-commercial air section.
This would work perfect, Jake thought. A private plane meant no security, so he could keep the gun he had gotten from the Tunis cultural affairs officer.
It took them just twenty minutes to get to the private airport section, where Elisa gathered a package from a man in his mid-forties who appeared more interested in Elisa’s physical attributes than her identification.
“All right,” she said to Jake. “You might want to go to the bathroom before we take off. Either that or hold it for an hour and a half.”
“What are we flying a biplane?”
She handed him her bag and the folder the man had given her. “Well I’m going to go.” Elisa headed toward the WC and Jake watched the man at the desk eye her fine posterior.
He thought about keeping his contact informed, but immediately brushed that thought from his mind. He wasn’t used to having a babysitter, and never liked it when someone tried to push him too hard for information.
Elisa came out and took her stuff from him and continued on toward the outer door. Jake caught a wide smirk on the man’s face, an approval of his apparent choice of women.
Out on the dark flight line, Jake finally saw the plane they would take to Sicily. It was a single engine Cessna Skyhawk painted white with green stripes. A man was standing by to help them step into the plane. When they got inside, Jake looked toward the cockpit and saw no pilot.
“Let’s hope we have a pilot who knows what he’s doing,” Jake said.
“Why do you assume the pilot will be a man?” she asked.
He shrugged. “Law of averages?”
Elisa shook her head, set her bag on the floor and climbed into the pilot’s seat.
Now he felt like a complete idiot. He sat in the front passenger seat and kept his mouth shut.
Finally, her quick preflight done and her headset on her head, she smiled and turned to Jake. “Are you all right with a woman pilot?”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know you could fly.”
“You didn’t check out my background?”
He shrugged. “Afraid not.”
“I was a pilot in the Italian Air Force in my twenties. I understand you also did some time in the American Air Force. Did you fly?”
“No. I was Intelligence.”
“You think highly of yourself.” She cranked over the engine and it immediately sprung to life and raised the noise level.
“The Intelligence field,” he explained loudly.
She pointed at the second headset, which he put on now.
“I’m messing with you, Jake. Buckle up. It’s been a while since I flew last. But what do they say in America? It’s like riding a bike?” She powered up and let off the brakes, shoving Jake back against the seat.
Moments later and they were up in the air and slowly turning over the capital city toward the harbor. Jake glanced down at all the boats until he saw a particularly large yacht moored farther out into the bay. He couldn’t remember ever seeing a personal yacht that big. Once they cleared the outer harbor they climbed fast to their cruising altitude, the lights of Valletta quickly fading beneath them.
Jake glanced at Elisa, who seemed quite comfortable behind the controls. “Good thing we stopped at the first bottle of wine,” he said into the headset mic.
“Actually I fly better after wine.”
He looked for any sign of a smile, but she didn’t seem to be kidding.
A half hour later and they broke through the darkness of cloud cover and into brightness of a near-full moon. Moments later and even the clouds below broke up, allowing them to see the moon shine off the ocean.
“It’s peaceful up here at night,” Elisa said.
She was right. For the first time in a few days, Jake thought he could actually fall asleep. But just as his head was starting to bob down to his chest, he heard a strange sound against the fuselage on his side.
“What the hell was that?” Jake asked.
The sound again, like metal hitting metal.
Elisa pulled her right earmuff off and listened. “I don’t hear anything.”
“It was like something struck us. Twice.” Looking outside the aircraft to his right, Jake finally saw flashing lights from another airplane — a green light on the left wing and a white light at the tail. “There’s another plane.”
Suddenly another flash startled him. This was followed by a thump on the door just in front of him and a bullet hitting the control panel.
“Are they shooting at us?” Elisa yelled.
Jake had his gun out in seconds. “Hell, yes.” He slid open the door window and a rush of air flowed in.
She added power and put the nose down to gain speed.
When Jake saw the other plane make the same move, he took off his seat belt, twisted in his seat to get a better angle, and aimed his gun out the window. He shot twice and thought he saw his bullets strike the metal.
“How fast does this crate go?” Jake asked.
“Not fast enough. From the quick look I got, that’s the Cessna Stationair I saw on the tarmac at the airport. He has thirty knots on us.”
Great. “Can you outmaneuver them?”
Elisa considered that. “For a while. But the faster we go and more vectoring, the more fuel we burn. They will have the same problem, though. We have equal range.”
“Okay. But they might have more weight, which should reduce range.”