“In theory. Their engine can handle the payload.”
All right, Jake thought, so he would have to shoot the pilot or hit the engine. Before they did the same to them. He put the gun out the window and saw two flashes just as he shot his gun twice also. They had at least two shooters, and who knew how many rounds to fire. They had two guns and one shooter. Him.
“Elisa, when I yell stop, let up on the throttle and vector toward them simultaneously.”
“Are you crazy? They’ll run right into us.”
Jake looked back at the aircraft to their right. “Can you get under them?”
“Maybe. Why?”
“I want you to get underneath them and then bank to your left. As you do so I should have a good shot of their belly.”
“That could work,” she said. “You could hit their fuel tanks. They would be forced to turn back.”
“Hang on. Here we go.”
With one smooth motion, she banked down to the right, but she went too far and came out on the other side of them. This could still work, Jake thought. As they went under the other aircraft Jake had a nice view of their belly but no shot.
“Do that again in the other direction,” Jake instructed. “But bank a bit harder.”
Just as she was about to do this a bullet struck through their windscreen and continued through, striking the window next to Jake’s gun hand. “Bank now,” Jake yelled, shoving his gun out the side window.
She did as he said, banking the aircraft at a tight angle. As they passed under the other aircraft, Jake continued to shoot his gun until the slide came back on his weapon. They had been so close that their right wing nearly hit the bottom of the other plane.
Now Elisa settled the Skyhawk into a cruising altitude again, her heading toward the northeast. “Are they still with us?”
Jake craned his neck around the side of the aircraft high and low, then toward the aft windows, but he saw nothing. “Not unless they’re directly above or below us.”
She let out a quick breath of air.
Glancing at Elisa, he noticed both of her hands tightly gripping the yoke. “You all right?” he asked.
“I’m fine. But that was close on our last pass. Our right wing tip nearly clipped their landing gear. I think you must have done some damage to them.”
He was thinking the same thing. The biggest question he had, though, was how in the hell they had found them. He had told no one of their intent to fly to Catania. And only Elisa’s agency knew of their plans. “What kind of flight plan was issued for us?”
Elisa stared at him, an expression of incredulity. “Are you serious? You think this is my fault?”
“That’s not what I said.” Yet, he was asking without asking.
Finally she said, “It was a bogus flight plan for a husband and wife named Conidi. Tourists. No passport or visa required. There’s no way they could have traced us through that.”
“Then how?”
They both sat quietly now, only the engine and wind to distract their concentration. Jake thought about the items he had been given by Rob Pierce, the Tunis cultural affairs officer, but it would make no sense for him to be tracking him or turning his GPS information over to anyone. Yet, that was their only option from his point of view.
Zendo sat at the stern deck of the massive yacht owned by billionaire Petros Caras, who was barely awake in the chair next to his. They had spent the evening drinking heavily to help Zendo soften the blow of his men failing to capture the American woman at the professor’s apartment earlier. But where they had first failed, they had also gotten a break finding out about the flight that Jake Adams and that Italian woman had taken from Malta to Sicily.
The night air had cooled somewhat but was still nice enough for shorts and a light shirt. Zendo’s phone rang and he looked at the number. It was their satellite phone. He didn’t expect to hear from his men until they got to Catania.
“Zendo,” he said after pressing the screen on his phone. He listened to the noisy call and simply shook his head. Finally he said, “I specifically told you to simply follow them in your plane. Was I not clear?”
Petros Caras leaned forward in his chair. “What’s going on?”
“Just a minute.” Zendo put the phone to his chest and said to Petros, “A little incident in the air over the ocean. Nothing important.” He went back on the phone and said, “Are you still behind them?” He listened and tried not to look at his boss, who didn’t tolerate mistakes well. “Good, good. Better yet, your aircraft is much faster than theirs. Can you get there before them?” Now he shook his head as he smiled and looked at his boss to bring relief. “Do that then. Pick up a car and keep track of them once they land. I’ll be flying there commercial and will catch up with you.” Zendo left it at that, turning off his phone. He had considered flying to Italy with them, and that would have been better all around, except he hated flying anywhere on small planes. He had crashed in them twice while with the Greek army, barely surviving each incident.
“What happened?” Petros Caras asked.
Zeno explained the incident, not mentioning who had taken the first shot. “But they are clear now and will make it to Catania before Adams and the woman.”
“Did you get an ID on her yet?” Petros asked him.
“No. But my men say she’s one helluva pilot. Nearly as hot as that Czech woman you have inside.” He was hoping to get a shot at Svetla Kalina after seeing her in Santorini. It was he who had done the background check on the former model, reviewing countless nudes along the way.
“Is everyone all right?”
Zendo thought about lying, but he guessed his boss would find out eventually. “Niko took a minor bullet injury after one shot came through the bottom of the fuselage, through his seat, and about an inch into his right butt cheek.”
Petros laughed aloud. “It serves that idiot right for not following orders. I’m guessing he was the one who took the shot in retaliation for his cousin’s death this evening.”
Simply shrugging, Zendo lied, “I don’t know. But they’re on the right track now. After talking with the Malta professor, they think they know where the American woman is going.”
Finishing off the last of his drink, Petros got up and said, “You need to get off the boat. Unless you want to cruise with us to Sicily.”
Not likely, and Petros Caras knew this about him. Zendo hated to fly in small planes, but absolutely refused to travel anywhere by boat. Trains, cars and big jets were just fine, though.
“I will catch the first flight to Catania in the morning,” Zendo said. “When do you leave?”
“As soon as our launch drops you off at the pier and gets back here.”
With that, Zendo nodded and got onto the waiting launch. Just like his men on the airplane, he had also dodged a bullet tonight. Somehow he had managed to not get his ass chewed by Petros Caras.
12
It was less than an hour since their encounter with the other aircraft and what Jake could only assume was the same Greeks who had messed with him on the ferry and shot at him in Malta. Somehow they had caught up with them, and he wasn’t taking any chances now. Once he got cell service off the coast of Italy he was able to call an old friend of his and get clearance to divert the airplane to another location.
Now, still dark and their only indication of civilization the lights of Catania ahead, Jake got off the phone and turned to Elisa. “We have clearance to land at Naval Air Station Sigonella.”
“How did you pull that off?” she asked.
“Friends in high places.” The only reason Jake hadn’t thrown his cell phone in the ocean after their encounter with the Greeks was to make contacts like this. He wasn’t a Luddite when it came to high tech gadgets, but he also knew they could work against him as much as for him.