“Isabella, are you buckled in?” Kaplan asked.
“Aren’t we a little low, Gregg?” Hunt asked. “I don’t know much about flying but we look like we’re too close to the water.”
“We are low. It’s going to be close.” Kaplan said. “Hold on tight.”
Once again Kaplan was staring ahead at a glide path that was too shallow — too low. He noticed the shoreline as they approached the landing site. The black sand ended abruptly several feet from the water’s edge then leveled out. Covered with vegetation and small rocks, the landing site was far from ideal. That is, if he could even make the landing site.
He kept the glider lined up on the same line Wiley used. The black sandy beach rapidly approaching. The water even faster. Wiley had incorporated a three setting flap system, each signified by a catch when the flap handle was pulled. Kaplan pulled on the first notch of flaps.
Better.
The glider slowed and the glide path angle improved. Kaplan pulled on the second notch of flaps.
Much better. We might just make it.
Kaplan relaxed a little. He hadn’t realized until that moment just how tight his grip was on the controls. He wiped his sweaty palms on his pants.
He pulled out the last notch of flaps. His glide angle improved again. Momentarily. Drag caught up and his airspeed slowed. Kaplan lowered the nose to compensate and kept his airspeed just above a stall, that moment when airflow over the wings was insufficient to maintain lift, and the aircraft stops flying.
That moment came as Kaplan’s glider was twenty feet from the black sandy beach. The glider skipped on the shallow water and onto the beach where it dug in nose first. Water and black sand sprayed across the canopy. The four-foot lip from the beach to the plateau that Kaplan was aiming to clear was approaching faster.
“Hold on.” Kaplan yelled.
The glider dug into the black sand deeper as the glider slowed. The nose of the glider caught the lip with too much forward speed.
Kaplan heard Isabella Hunt grunt as the glider came to an abrupt stop. He felt the pain of the harness straps digging into his chest, shoulders, and waist. Then came a feeling he didn’t recognize. The glider was still moving, rotating forward. And upward.
“Whoa.” Hunt screamed. “We’re going over.”
The glider stood on its nose. Kaplan stared at the ground, harness pulling against the weight of his body. What seemed like an eternity to Kaplan, was only two seconds. Then the glider fell backward onto the beach.
“Remind me never to fly with you again.” Hunt said.
“Any landing you walk away from is a good landing.”
Jake was the first person to reach Kaplan’s glider. By the time he opened the canopy, both crew and medics had arrived.
“Another nice landing, I see.” Jake said. “Will you give me lessons?”
“Very funny, smartass.” Kaplan reached his arm out to Jake. “Give me a hand, will ya?”
Jake pulled Kaplan out of the glider while both medics attended to Isabella Hunt.
“We need to get her to the boat.” One of the medics said.
The two crewmembers gently removed Hunt from the glider and carried her to the nearest skiff. One of the medics walked up to Kaplan. “Are you injured?”
“Only my pride.” Kaplan said. “Go. Take care of Isabella, please.”
Jake helped Kaplan unload Wiley’s equipment from the glider. One of the two crewmembers returned to the glider after the skiff left with the medics to take Hunt to the larger boat anchored three hundred feet from shore.
After everything was removed from the gliders, Jake, Wiley, and Kaplan loaded the remaining skiff and were taken to the larger boat. The Toymaker was a one hundred twenty-five foot yacht that resembled a live aboard dive boat in every way. The dive deck was equipped with a full complement of tanks, wetsuits, masks, and fins.
“The Toymaker?” Jake laughed when he read the name painted on the transom. “Seriously?”
“What?” Wiley grinned. “I’ve been a certified scuba diver since I was thirteen. This is a very versatile vessel with many uses above and beyond just a dive boat. Inside you’ll find all the comforts of home along with some ‘specialized’ equipment. I designed the hull myself. In the right conditions, she’ll do forty-five knots.”
“Why am I not surprised?” Jake noticed the men onshore tying the two gliders together with ropes, one behind the other. “What’s to become of your sailplanes?” He pointed toward shore.
“I can’t allow them to be retrieved.” Wiley explained. “They are unique and the technology is classified. We’ll be boarded in Djibouti and I can’t run the risk of them being discovered and us being tied back to the explosion in Yemen. There is a trench in the sea floor about five hundred yards south of here. We’ll tow them to the trench and scuttle them to the bottom.”
“A trench?” Jake asked. “How deep?”
“I’ll drop them at about 600 meters.” Wiley said. “About two thousand feet.”
“Two thousand feet.” Jake said. “The Red Sea is that deep?”
“You did see the volcanoes?” Wiley said. “There are spots that are over ten thousand feet deep. Now, let’s go check on Ms Hunt and find out what she knows.”
Jake and Kaplan followed Wiley down below deck to the medical bay. The medics had Isabella Hunt already hooked to an IV. Her face was pale and Jake could see she’d lost a lot of weight.
“How is she?” Kaplan asked
“She lost consciousness as soon as the IV started working.” One of the medics said. “She’s dehydrated and they’d been drugging her for days. I drew a blood sample to see what’s in her system. She’ll need to sleep for now.”
“As soon as she’s conscious, I want to speak to her.” A familiar voice said from behind them.
Jake turned around.
CIA Director Scott Bentley.
CHAPTER 37
Collins learned patience from the beginning of his life as an assassin. As a hit man for the Irish Republican Army, his first assignment required him to remain stationary for over twelve hours before his prey and the right opportunity to kill came his way.
It was cold in Ireland the night of that assignment. Wet snow bit at him for hours, chilling him to the point of shivers. Yet he waited. Waited and watched until his target drove up after a long night of ‘pub hopping.’ The explosives Collins had planted in the man’s detached garage were enough to bring down an office building, overkill for the small garage. But he accomplished the kill. Along with the garage, the man’s entire home was demolished by the explosive device.
Technology had come a long way since those days. And so had his expertise. He’d learned the tricks of the trade, far superior to others in his line of work. He learned tragic accidents do happen and he used that to his advantage. The more a target appeared to be a victim of random misfortune, the less attention it garnered from the authorities.
Collins calculated the response times from the local fire and police departments. He knew exactly how long he had to incinerate the home, return to his vehicle, and flee the scene before local authorities arrived.
Now was the time.
Collins removed the wireless device from his backpack and toggled the switch. If all went according to design, there would be no initial explosion, just a massive flame fueled by the owners’ gas line. The explosion would come later, after the fire was fully involved, the home ablaze, and he was far from the scene. He knew the heat from the pyre would destroy any evidence of arson.
He picked up his binoculars and studied the rear of the home, the kitchen below the master bedroom fully visible from his vantage point. A flicker of light grew larger. Flames shot upward from behind the stove engulfing the cabinets above. He smiled. The device had worked as planned.