by Cassie Miles
Maybe he would and maybe not. All these people were in shock, barely able to function. Their reflexes weren’t sharp. Their wits had been paralyzed by terror. Somehow, he needed to force them back into functioning reality.
After he was sure the lounge was safe, Quint pulled Natalie to one side. “We got a problem.”
“What’s that?”
“The passengers are acting like a bunch of zombies. They need to stay alert. They’ve got to be smart. To toughen up.”
“So sorry.” Her eyebrows arched. “Hijacking is most definitely not part of their job description.”
“Let’s give them something to do,” he suggested. “We need to set up an infirmary. Get everybody fed. Somehow, we need them to make the mental transition from hostages to warriors.”
A grin lifted the corner of her mouth. “Leave it to me.”
He’d seen her in action when the Quantum Building was evacuated. Natalie was a leader; she could whip her team into shape. “Fine. You take care of the strategy and planning. I’ll hunt down Nick Beaumont.”
“Consider it done,” she said.
While Natalie returned to the lounge to organize the group, Quint completed his search of the seating area. In the aft galley, he closed the hatch door leading down to the cargo hold and slid a galley module on top of it. It wouldn’t stop the hijackers if they made a concentrated assault, but it would slow them down.
The last place he searched was the private cabin. Nobody there. On the desk, the computer screen flashed a message: Received.
Quint reacted to a muffled noise from inside the lavatory. The door was pocked with bullet holes.
“Who’s there?” Quint demanded. He stepped to one side so he wouldn’t be directly in the line of fire from someone behind that door.
“It’s me. Jerome Harris.”
“Come on out, Jerome. Everything’s okay.”
The door creaked slightly open, then was flung wide. Jerome sat on the closed toilet seat. There was blood everywhere. At least fifty paper towels were streaked with red. Jerome’s white shirt was splattered with blood from a head wound, but his eyes were clear. He seemed charged with a new vigor as he bolted to his feet.
“I’m okay. It’s only a superficial cut,” he said. “But it’s going to leave a scar.”
Quint grinned. The little accountant seemed to have found his courage. “Women like men with scars.”
“Do you think so?”
“When you tell the ladies that you got scarred in a face-to-face struggle with a hijacker, they’ll be mighty impressed.”
“I suppose they would be.” His nose twitched as he grinned. Then he glanced toward the computer on the desktop. “I hope you cancelled the transaction.”
“What transaction?” Quint asked.
“Oh dear, ten million dollars.” Jerome ran to the computer and punched a series of keys. “There. Those hijackers will get nothing from us.”
The message on the screen now said “Abort.”
“Good work,” Quint said. “Come on out here with everybody else. We’ll get one of the ladies to take a look at that head wound.”
As they stepped into the hall, Natalie intercepted Jerome and directed him toward the makeshift infirmary at the front of the plane. She stepped back into the private office with Quint. “We’re trying to put together something to eat,” she said, “but it’s the strangest thing. There’s practically no food. The galley modules don’t even have trays.”
“That’s got to be how the hijackers got onto the plane,” Quint said. “They were loaded on from the catering truck.”
She nodded. “Except for that Smilin’ Jack character who was posing as a co-pilot. Here’s what I don’t understand. Our regular pilot knew him, and didn’t question his presence.”
Quint nodded. In every field of expertise, there were traitors who could be bought to perform a specialized task. “Smilin’ Jack probably is a real pilot with real credentials and history. If this hijacking had gone off as planned, he would’ve found a way to wiggle out of the charges against him.”
“How?”
Good question. Quint tried to put himself in Smilin’ Jack’s mind. If Smilin’ Jack received a gigantic payoff, he might disappear along with the other hijackers. On the other hand, there might be some twist Quint hadn’t yet figured out. If Smilin’ Jack landed the plane safely, he’d be acclaimed a hero. But how would the other hijackers escape?
“I’m missing something,” he said, thinking aloud. “If nobody died in the hijacking, it would be nothing more than simple extortion.”
Her eyes widened. “Oh my God, I’ve got to talk to my father. I need to let him know we’re okay.”
She raced to the office. Behind the desk, she punched numbers into the speakerphone. As soon as her father answered, she said, “Henry, it’s me. We’re okay. There are injuries but everybody is coming around. We have a little infirmary set up, and we’re fine.”
“Thank God you’re all right.”
Quint heard the tremor in his voice. This ordeal would be hell on a father. He leaned across the desk. “Sir, this is Quint. Have you been in contact with the Confidential office?”
“Yes. I spoke with Vincent and Dan Austin.”
“We’re flying back to Chicago,” Quint said. “Ought to be there within the hour.”
“Take care of my little girl.”
“I’ll try, but Natalie’s real busy taking care of everybody else.” He set his gun on the desktop, stepped back and folded his arms across his chest as he studied her. “Mr. Van Buren, you raised a hell of a fine woman.”
“And a darn good executive,” she said and sinuously walked toward Quint.
“Natalie,” her father said, “that sounds like you’re looking for a promotion.”
“Actually, I thought I might take some time off.” She gazed up at Quint. “I’d like a vacation, Henry. And I’ve never spent much time in Texas.”
Quint wrapped his arms around her. His hands rested on the small of her back, and he pulled her against him. He was ready to kiss her beautiful lips, but it didn’t seem proper while her daddy was on the phone.
“Don’t worry about a thing, sir. We’ll be back home directly.”
“’Bye, Henry.” Still in Quint’s arms, she leaned back and disconnected the call.
His hands slipped lower, cupping her firm buttocks. Already, he was aroused. “Someday,” he promised, “we’re going to use the bed in this suite.”
He kissed her hard, replacing his tension with a strong pure passion. Her breasts rubbed against him. He could feel the tight nubs of her nipples.
Lifting her onto the desk, he stepped between her legs. “When this is over,” Quint said, “you’re taking that vacation and coming to Texas with me.”
She wrapped her legs around him and looked up with a sly, sexy smile. “I hear everything is bigger in Texas.”
He laughed. “I’m going to make sure you have a long time to figure that out.”
“Maybe a week,” she said.
“Maybe a month.” Maybe forever. He kissed her again.
The door to the private suite flew open and Maria Luisa burst in. “Come quick. We have a problem.”
Moving fast, they untangled themselves. Together, they raced to the flight deck, where Gregory was still sitting in the pilot’s seat.
“What’s wrong?” Quint asked.
“I’m not sure.” Gregory gratefully relinquished his seat. “Colonel Roberts wanted to talk to you.”
Quint grabbed the cell phone as he sat in the pilot’s seat. “Yes, Colonel, what’s up?”
“You’ve got an escort. A wolf pack of F-14 fighter planes.”
Full protection from the United States Air Force sounded like the cavalry riding in to save them. “Why is this a problem?”
“They need to talk directly to someone on the plane, and you need to convince them that you aren’t terrorists.”
Quint reached for the headset before he realized thei
r problem. “Our communication is out. What happens if we can’t talk to them?”
“They’ll shoot you out of the sky.”
Looking through his left window, Quint saw the lights of the spear-shaped jet, a lethal shadow in the night.
Chapter Thirteen
For those few fleeting moments in the private cabin, Quint had felt he was in control. He’d held his woman in his arms. The hijackers had been trapped in the cargo hold. The injured were being cared for. Their biggest problem seemed to be a lack of haute cuisine. Now, they were safe no more.
The arrival of the F-14s initiated a whole new disaster scenario. In an atmosphere of heightened national security, Quint was well aware that the United States was willing to sacrifice the lives of a few Quantum employees rather than risk a targeted suicide mission with a modified Boeing 737.
Once again, the Quantum corporate jet flew on the razor’s edge of danger.
Speaking into the cell phone, Quint asked, “Why are the fighter planes with us? How’d they find us?”
“They’ve been tracking you ever since you went off the flight plan and turned back to Chicago,” Colonel Roberts said. “That was considered a suspicious maneuver. When you failed to respond to the calls from air traffic control, they sent out the guard.”
“I reckon we’re damn lucky they haven’t already shot us down.”
“We patched through and explained.”
Though the windshield, Quint watched the fighter plane in the night sky. With moonlight glinting off its sleek, sharp wings, the F-14 looked like a bird of prey, hungry to attack. “I wonder how long your explanation is going to keep us safe.”
Colonel Roberts cleared his throat. “Give me a complete situation update. I’ll relay the information and see what I can do.”
“I’m in control of the flight deck,” Quint said. “The hijackers are in the cargo hold. Most of them are injured.”
“But not apprehended,” the Colonel said. “They’re still able to move around and cause trouble.”
“Yes, sir.”
Therein lay the problem. The hijackers could easily screw up avionics. Quint himself had already done the painstaking work of removing the safety cover, making it easier for them. The plane could be sabotaged in the air.
But that wasn’t the worst possibility. Quint knew that the people on the ground and in the fighter jets were considering that there might be a bomb on board. Nick Beaumont had shown himself to be mighty proficient at creating incendiary devices. He’d blown up a building in Reykjavik. He’d set a controlled explosion in Natalie’s office. Maybe his initial hijacking plan hadn’t included an explosion, but he was no fool. He seemed to have prepared himself for nearly any complication.
Quint decided not to remind Colonel Roberts of Nick’s bombing expertise. Instead, he said, “They aren’t terrorists, sir. They’re hijackers, working on an extortion plan. All they want is money.”
“But you foiled their escape.”
“Yes sir, I did.” And he couldn’t predict how the hijackers would take their revenge.
“I’ll coordinate with Air Force and get back to you. Over.”
Quint sagged back in the pilot’s seat, staring blindly at the multitude of dials. Had his interference been a terrible mistake? If he’d allowed the scheme to carry through, would all the hostages have been delivered safely?
He looked over at Natalie, who perched on the co-pilot’s seat with her legs tucked under her.
He said, “I stuck my nose where it didn’t belong.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“If I let the hijackers have what they wanted, we might not be in this danger.”
She held out her hand, and he reached across the center panel to grasp it. She squeezed hard.
“You did the right thing.”
He shook his head. “They could’ve landed safely, let the hostages go, refueled and taken off. Neat and simple.”
“Think again, cowboy.” There was steel in her voice. “If they’d taken off without hostages, the plane would be subject to attack. They couldn’t have released everyone, and I know who would have been stuck on board. Me.”
What she said made sense. In the back of his mind, Quint had drawn the same conclusion. The person least likely to survive was Natalie. The minute she left the plane, the hijackers would be vulnerable.
“And here’s another issue,” she said. “Where do you think they could’ve landed after they released the hostages? Nick Beaumont planned to double-cross the person who financed him—perhaps it was Zahir. He was going to keep the ransom money for himself.”
Quint digested this bit of information. “He must have another connection on the ground.”
“Definitely,” she said. “Somebody facilitated the money transfer from the other end. But how powerful is that somebody?”
“Could be just a broker,” Quint said. “All the hijackers seem to be pulled from different backgrounds. There isn’t a common thread.”
“Or a common nation. Which presents another problem. What nation would allow hijackers to land without immediately taking them into custody?”
She made a good point. Even if somebody unfriendly to the United States, like Iraq or Libya, allowed the plane to land, they had no investment in keeping the hijackers under protection. “That means they must have been planning another escape route.”
“Parachute,” she suggested.
“Like D.B. Cooper,” he said.
“Who?”
“The original skyjacker. Must have been twenty-five years ago. He took over a plane and demanded a ransom. After the plane took off again, he strapped the money to his chest and parachuted through the cargo hold. They never found him or the money.”
“Our hijackers,” Natalie said, “could have planned the same thing. They might still jump.”
“Not at this altitude,” he said. “Some of them are wounded. There’s not enough oxygen and they’d probably freeze to death. We’d have to be under fifteen thousand feet.”
Any kind of jump from a jet with a cruising speed of Mach 0.82 would be nearly impossible. Even when they slowed for approach, they’d be going over a hundred and fifty miles per hour.
If Smilin’ Jack had been at the controls, he might have made a jump easier. He could have circled and slowed and dropped to an appropriate altitude. It all made sense to Quint. The hijackers would jump, and Smilin’ Jack would land the plane. He could claim that he’d been forced to do what they instructed and could point to the rescued hostages as validation for his actions. More than likely, he’d get off with little more than a slap on the wrist. And the hijackers would be long gone.
“Their plan is still possible,” Natalie said. “When we come in for a landing, they could use parachutes to escape.”
“If it was up to me, I’d let them try it.”
But the decision wasn’t Quint’s. Those F-14s wouldn’t allow them to approach a landing with hijackers on board, especially not after they figured out there was the possibility of a bomb on the plane.
Another explosion. The old familiar dread crawled over him. Still holding Natalie’s hand, he closed his eyes, expecting to see the nightmare flashback of white Texas skies and a sweet little Cessna bursting into a ball of flame. He waited for the memory of violence to rock his soul. And he waited. But the vision didn’t come.
Instead, he saw a black sky—dark as velvet and dotted with flickering silver stars above a moonlit cloud cover. He was flying this jet. He was here in the present. This time, it was up to him to bring her down safely.
He opened his eyes and saw Natalie, pretty as an angel with green eyes and a spunky attitude. He had to protect her, to keep her safe so they could have their chance at a life together.
He should ask her now to marry him, to share his life. “Natalie, I never expected to—”
The cell phone rang, and he grabbed it.
“Bad news, Quint.” Colonel Robert’s voice was firm. “Unless the hijackers are
apprehended and pose no possible threat, you won’t be allowed to enter Chicago airspace.”
“Tell me more.”
“You have twenty-two minutes to completely secure the aircraft.”
“What’s to stop me from lying, Colonel? I could tell you that I’ve got them under control right now.”
“But you won’t,” he said. “The only reason you’ve got any time at all is your record on previous successful missions and your reputation for honesty. Yours and that of Dan Austin. Twenty-two minutes. Godspeed, Quint.”
He turned to Natalie and said, “You need to handle the plane for a while. Stay on the phone with Colonel Roberts and he’ll tell you what to do.”
“Where are you going?”
He didn’t want to alarm her, but there wasn’t time to be sensitive. “I need to go into the cargo hold and apprehend the hijackers. Otherwise, the F-14s won’t allow us to land.”
Uncomprehending, she shook her head. “Why not?”
“With hijackers loose on the plane, we’re considered a hostile aircraft. They won’t take a chance on letting us near Chicago. Or anyplace else for that matter.”
“You can’t be serious, Quint. We’d be shot down by the United States Air Force?”
“Remember September eleventh,” he said. “They can’t chance that happening again.”
As he rose from the pilot’s seat, she caught his arm. “I’m going with you. Gregory can take care of the plane.”
“No,” he said firmly.
“I won’t let you risk your life. Not without me.”
They didn’t have time for this discussion. “If I get killed, you still have a chance. Maybe you can talk them into letting you land the plane.”
“If you die, I don’t want to live.”
Her simple declaration tore a hole in his heart. He’d been where she was now, watching the unstoppable approach of danger to a beloved. He knew the terrible emptiness of bereavement. It was a searing, soul-deep pain he wouldn’t wish on his worst enemy.
He pulled her from the co-pilot’s seat and embraced her warm body. “I won’t die, Natalie. I promise.”
He left her on the flight deck.
