Kurt realized he’d just dumped a bunch of Jinn’s bots into the sea, but it was the only weapon he had at his disposal. He circled to the right, spotted the wreckage and immediately began looking for the surviving jet lest he and Leilani suffer a similar fate.
Suddenly, a voice came over the radio. Kurt recognized it as Gamay Trout’s.
GAMAY TROUT SAT at the radioman’s console in Aqua-Terra’s communications room. The cold end of a pistol was pressed against the back of her head.
“Speak to him!” Zarrina’s harsh voice demanded. “Tell him to surrender or I’ll kill you all. Your husband dies first.”
Paul had been forced to lie down on the floor. Matson stood with a foot on the small of Paul’s back. He pointed a Luger-style pistol toward the nape of his neck. Otero stood close by with another gun.
“Speak!”
Gamay grabbed the microphone they’d placed in front of her. She held the transmit switch. “Kurt, this is Gamay. Do you read me?”
It took a few seconds, but Kurt’s voice came through in her headphones.
“Gamay, you’re under attack. Take cover. Have Marchetti activate the robots.”
“Tell him to surrender!” Zarrina ordered.
Gamay glanced out the window. She’d seen one of the jets go down, the other two were climbing and turning, one appearing to be stalking the other, but she had no idea which was which.
Zarrina shoved Gamay’s head forward with the muzzle of the gun. “I won’t ask again.”
Gamay grabbed the microphone but still hesitated.
“Kill him!” Zarrina said to Otero.
“Wait!” Gamay shouted. She pressed and held the transmit switch.
“Kurt, this is Gamay,” she said. “They have us already. They have us in the brig. They’re going to kill us if you don’t land the plane and surrender.”
Silence followed. Gamay stared out the window. One of the planes had stopped maneuvering. She guessed that was Kurt. The other jet was closing in.
She watched for a second and then pressed the switch again. “Look out!” she shouted. “They’re on your—”
She never finished the sentence because Zarrina knocked her from the chair. She tumbled into the wall, got up ready to throw a punch and took a kick to the stomach that knocked the wind out of her and dropped her to the ground.
Outside, she saw the two planes almost collide. They crossed paths, separated and then crossed paths again. A trail of dark smoke began to stream from one of them.
KURT REACTED TO GAMAY’S warning as fast as he could. He banked left and almost slammed into Jinn’s plane. He shoved the yoke to the right, rolled the plane over and heard the sound of shells tearing into the fuselage.
Jinn’s craft was matching his turn. Men were firing .50 caliber machine guns through an open cargo door.
Kurt cut back toward them. The two planes crossed paths and almost collided a third time. As Kurt peeled off and began to make a run for it, a bank of warning lights came on in the cockpit. He pointed the nose down to pick up speed, kept the throttles to the wall and retracted the flaps he’d never pulled in.
The plane accelerated, and Kurt turned to the southwest. Various warning lights continued to blink, but nothing seemed disastrous.
He juked to the left and then back to the right, remembering the rule he’d heard an old fighter pilot tell him once: He who flies straight, dies.
After several sets of these maneuvers, he still hadn’t seen Jinn’s plane.
He kept the jet on the deck and at full speed. He made a slight turn to the west. So far, so good. But still no sign of Jinn.
“Do you see him?”
Leilani was swinging her head around, doing everything she could to spot the other craft. Kurt turned to the right, hoping to give her a wider view.
“No,” she said. “Wait … yes. He’s behind us,” she said excitedly. “He seems to be falling back. He’s heading lower.”
That didn’t sound right. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, we’re leaving him behind. I think he’s landing.”
Kurt couldn’t believe their luck. He wondered why Jinn would be letting him go.
Zarrina’s voice came over the radio. “Kurt Austin, you will land and surrender or I will kill your friends.”
The line stayed open, and the sound of someone grunting in pain and then screaming reached his ears.
“You harm them and you’re a dead woman, Zarrina,” he said, returning a threat with a threat.
Kurt had no choice but to run. Surrendering wouldn’t stop them from murdering his friends. It would just mean there were no witnesses around to report it. But if he could escape, that turned the tables. It meant Zarrina and Jinn had to worry about being discovered and facing retribution. Sometimes those thoughts protected prisoners who were otherwise considered expendable.
“You harm them and there won’t be anyplace in this world where I won’t hunt you down.”
Above him, more warning lights came on. Static and feedback came through the headphones.
“I look forward to it,” Zarrina replied. A shot rang out, the transmission ended and the COM panel went dark. Kurt flipped the switch a few times and got nothing.
“Radio’s down,” he said.
“What are we going to do?” Leilani demanded.
“Head southwest and follow the original plan.”
He hoped he hadn’t just sacrificed the Trouts, but he had no choice. They had to make it to the Seychelles or at least to a vessel in the shipping lanes. They could signal a ship and ditch nearby, but either way they had to get away from Aqua-Terra.
THE FURY IN JINN AL-KHALIF’S eyes burned hot enough to melt steel. The distance between his aircraft and Austin’s continued to grow. Austin was escaping, and carrying with him both a woman Jinn desired to have and, more important, the secret of his whereabouts, a secret he needed to maintain.
“Why are they faster than us?” Jinn demanded to know.
“He dumped the cargo,” the pilot replied. “They’re six tons lighter than us. Thirty knots faster at least. If you want to catch them, we have to jettison our cargo as well. Otherwise we lose a mile every two minutes.”
Jinn considered this. He’d suffered a major defeat already. One plane down, another in the hands of an enemy he wanted to see dead. Two cargos gone, there was no telling what percentage of the microbots had survived either impact.
“Even if we dump the cargo,” the pilot said, “we’ll only be able to match his speed. We’ll never catch him.”
Jinn had a better idea. He unlatched his seat belt. “Land,” he said. “Immediately.”
CHAPTER 37
KURT HELD THE JET ON A COURSE DUE WEST FROM AQUA-Terra. He pulled back on the stick slightly, bringing the aircraft into a shallow climb, nursing every bit of speed he could from it. He was bitter, angry and oblivious to any thought beyond escape and informing the authorities of Jinn’s actions. A stinging sensation in his eyes snapped him out of it.
“Smoke,” Leilani said.
Kurt glanced around. The cockpit was filling with it. Banks of new warnings lit up. The plane began to shake, the controls got heavy. Kurt fought it for a while but it felt like the hydraulics were going out.
Stall. Stall. Stall.The computer voice was talking again, this time a warning instead of advice.
Kurt leveled off and the stall warning ceased, but the problems did not end there.
In a moment it seemed like every device in the cockpit was either flashing or beeping or chirping an alarm. Kurt had no idea what any of it meant aside from the obvious.
“Time to go,” he said.
He stabbed at the autopilot button and jumped from the seat. In a blink he and Leilani were down the ladder and racing through the cargo hold.
“Get in the boat!” Kurt yelled, pointing to the rigid inflatable near the tail end of the plane. With the plane shaking, he found a lever for the cargo hatch and threw it over. The ramp began to drop, the wind whistled in and around them. Smoke and kerosene fumes swirled in.