CHAPTER 35
KURT AUSTIN HAD SPENT SEVERAL MINUTES RUMMAGING around in the cargo bay of the plane. He’d bypassed guns and ammunition and the rockets he’d spotted earlier, much to Leilani Tanner’s bewilderment.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“A wise general forages from his enemy,” Kurt said.
“Again,” she said. “I really have trouble following you.”
“Sun Tzu,” Kurt explained. “The Art of War.”
“Oh,” she said. “Him, I’ve heard of.”
He pulled a set of zip ties from one crate, the kind used to bind the hands of prisoners.
Leilani stared at the thick plastic loops. “Seen those before.”
“Our friends are planning on taking more hostages,” he said, wondering once again where they were headed.
He slid a handful of the ties into his pocket and dug into the next crates.
“So what else are we looking for?”
“There are probably two or three guys on the flight deck. Two pilots and an engineer, if they have one. Maybe even a fourth in the bunk up top.”
“But we can’t shoot them,” she said. “So how do we fight them?”
“We don’t,” he said.
She pointed. “See, that’s what I mean, the confusion thing. I was with you and then … poof.”
Kurt couldn’t help but smile. He held up a single finger, the way he remembered the master doing it on old reruns of the show Kung Fu.
“To fight and conquer is not excellence,” he said. “But breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting is supreme.”
“Sun Tzu again?”
He nodded.
“Can you translate for me?”
“Make them too afraid to move and they won’t do anything stupid,” he said. “But to do that, we need something more deadly than a knife and more lethal than a gun, something so scary the pilots will do what we tell them to do and not even think about resisting.”
He pulled the lid off another crate and smiled. A look of fear came across Leilani’s face.
“I don’t know about this,” she said.
“Trust me,” he said, “this is exactly what we’re looking for.”
They heard the flaps extending, and the turbulent air began to buffet the plane.
“We’re coming in for a landing,” Leilani said.
Kurt looked out the window. The horizon was beginning to glow, the sky changing hue. He saw no sign of land. “Depends on your definition of landing.”
“What do you mean?”
“This is a seaplane,” he said, “more accurately called a flying boat. It lands on the water.”
Kurt was torn. One part of him was anxious to make his move before they got too close to whatever rendezvous they were heading for, the rest of him was curious as to where they were headed.
He remembered Jinn saying he needed to move to a more secure location. It would be grand if Kurt could report back and give that location to the powers that be.
But then he thought about the water tanks in the belly of the plane and the load of microbots he suspected they were carrying. He decided it would be better to move sooner rather than later.
He went to the seating area, pulled out his knife and began working on the item he’d liberated from the crate.
“I’m not even going to ask,” Leilani said, looking away.
When he was finished, he slid the knife back into his boot and covered it with the leg of his pants. Next he took one of the 9mm Lugers and popped the clip out. He quickly unloaded all the shells, including the one in the chamber, and then jammed the clip back in.
He handed it to Leilani with the safety off.
“I don’t like guns,” she said.
“Don’t think of it as a gun.”
“But it isa gun,” she insisted.
He was already moving toward the front of the plane. “Not without the bullets, it’s not. It’s just a big, crazy bluff, and you better wield it like Dirty Harry”—he saw the blank look appearing on her young face and changed references—“like Angelina Jolie, if you want them to believe you’re going to shoot it.”
“But I’m not going to shoot,” she said.
As he approached the ladder that led up to the flight deck, Kurt hoped his own bluff would be sufficient because he didn’t think Leilani quite had the concept down.
“Just stay behind me and to my right, and point the gun at them,” he said.
“Anything else?”
“Yeah. Try to look mean.”
Kurt climbed the ladder, which was canted sideways to the flight deck.
The pilots snapped their heads around at the commotion and saw Kurt. The captain shouted. The copilot reached for his seat belt release. And Kurt showed them what he was carrying.
They stopped in their tracks, staring at a pineapple grenade in Kurt’s hand. He pulled the pin in an exaggerated manner and held the safety lever, or spoon, down tight.
Leilani came up beside him, aiming the empty gun nicely. “Everybody freeze!” she growled.
The pilots had already frozen, but he appreciated the effort.
“That’s right,” he said. “Let’s just assume that the seat belt sign is on and you’re notfree to move about the cabin.”
The captain turned back to the controls, the copilot stared. “What are you talking about?”
“Hands on the yoke,” Kurt ordered. “Eyes forward.”
The copilot complied, but also mumbled something in Arabic to the captain.
“Are you trying to take her?” the captain asked. “To rescue her? You’re a fool to throw your life away for this puny woman.”
“Shut up, jerk!” Leilani growled. “Or, so help me, I’ll fill you full of lead!”
She looked at Kurt, smiling proudly. “How’s that?”
“We need to work on your dialogue a bit, but not bad.”
Kurt glanced out the window. The horizon to the east was starting to sharpen, but the sky was still inky purple, and for the most part it was hard to tell where it ended and the sea began.
He could see the other two jets ahead of them, but only because of their navigation lights. The closest plane looked to be a mile away and maybe a thousand feet lower. The lead plane might have been three miles out and a thousand feet below the other one. The whole squadron was descending. He heard no transmissions and assumed they were operating under radio silence.
“Where are you taking us?” he asked.
“Don’t say anything,” the captain ordered.
Kurt figured that was a dead end, he could hardly threaten to blow up the plane if they didn’t tell him. He checked the altimeter and saw they were dropping through eight thousand feet. Another ten minutes like that and they’d be in the drink. He strained his eyes forward but still couldn’t see a speck of land.
He decided they’d waited long enough. “Here’s the deal,” he said. “If you two want to live, you’re going to do what I say.”
“What if we don’t?” the copilot spat.
“Then I’ll blow up the plane,” Kurt said.
“It’s a bluff,” the copilot said. “He’s a weak American. He’ll never have the—”
Before the man finished his sentence, Kurt backhanded him across the temple. The man’s head snapped sideways, and he put a hand to the fuselage wall to steady himself.
“You think I want to end up back in Jinn’s hands,” Kurt said, “would you?”
The guy held the side of his face and looked back at Kurt like a scolded animal. The two pilots exchanged a look. Kurt was counting on the fact that both men knew what kind of a lunatic Jinn was. He guessed the bodies at the bottom of the well weren’t the only employees he had dispensed of in his day.
An argument broke out between them in Arabic.
Kurt backhanded the copilot again. “English!”
The man glared at him and slowly began to reach for his seat belt lock once again. “You’re right,” he said. “Jinn will make you beg for death if he catches you. But if we let you go, it will be worse for us.”