She clenched her jaw to keep from throwing up. She was on her back, and from the pressure on her wrists and across her chest, knew she was strapped down to something hard.
Is that…a stretcher?
A constant, incredibly loud droning filled her head to the point of nausea and threatened to strip away her thoughts into a mind-numbing void. The unmistakable roar of a cargo plane in flight told her everything she needed to know, even without a complete memory of what had happened.
I’m a prisoner. They caught me.
The question remained, who? The British? The Americans? Some ally in Europe?
The plane jostled in a patch of rough air and she felt the tug of something—an IV needle—in her right arm. She knew they’d want to keep her alive for interrogation—she was much too valuable to anyone who captured her, and that thought gave her leverage—and hope.
Letting her head loll in time with the movement of the plane, she cracked one eye, ever so slowly. Through her thick eyelashes, her vision took a moment to clear, but when it did, she had to fight the urge to smile. She was indeed on a military transport plane, a C-146 Wolfhound, if she had to guess. Banks of monitoring equipment lined the galley cabin. On the starboard side of the plane, computers and monitors filled the length of the fuselage.
Her head rolled back to the left, and she got a view down the port side. Some equipment had been removed to allow a row of seats—no-frills jump seats and her own stretcher-cot—to be installed. Another jostle allowed her to get a peek down the aisle toward the cockpit.
Two pilots sat in the command deck, their helmeted heads turning every so often as they spoke to each other. Between them and her, a third crewman in a standard USAF flight suit sat in a chair, turning dials and typing on a keyboard. He too wore a flight helmet, his mouth moving occasionally as he spoke with the cockpit.
Movement out of the corner of her eye made her go limp. Someone stepped next to her litter and placed a hand on her neck, checking her pulse. Jayne practiced every control she’d been taught by her Council trainers to fake unconsciousness. She kept her heart slow by maintaining a steady breathing rate.
After a moment, whoever it was that checked her pulse moved on. She waited, counting to a thousand, then cracked one eye again, using the motion of the twin turbo-prop plane to passively change her viewing angle.
A flight surgeon sat in the nearest jump seat and rubbed his face. He leaned back and stretched, then crossed his arms and dropped his chin to his chest to catch a little sleep.
Think, dammit, think…
Minutes rolled by. She had no idea where the plane was headed, whether she was still in the U.K. or out over the Atlantic, headed for some undisclosed rendition center in the Appalachian Mountains. Wherever they were taking her, no good would come of it—she was certain waterboarding, or at least sodium Pentothal, was in her immediate future. She had to escape.
Jayne mentally listed every way she could attempt to escape her wrist cuffs and the chest strap. They’d failed to tie down her legs, but in her battered, weakened condition, she could understand that negligence. Sadly, it did her no good. If she couldn’t get at least one hand free, she wasn’t going anywhere.
Then it hit her like a bolt out of the blue. The cuffs were simple velcro straps, not made for heavy duty use, just something to keep someone from hurting themselves in flight. It must have been for transporting the SEALs—the USAF Special Operations Flight Group obviously hadn’t planned on transporting highly dangerous prisoners on medical flights.
Keeping one swollen eye on the sleeping doctor, she carefully lifted her right leg and crossed it over her left. She relaxed the long muscles of her leg and slowly brought her boot closer to the cuff at her side. The extra velcro—her wrists were evidently a lot smaller than the people the cuffs had been designed for—curled up on the end. She brought her boot over and scraped it against the extra velcro, hoping it would catch hold. Again and again, she dragged and pushed the boot into the velcro to no avail.
Then the plane jerked mid-flight and her leg overcompensated. The top of the boot scudded past the velcro and it caught on the rim, wrapped in black fabric to match her outfit. She pulled back slowly, but another pocket of rough air made her leg jerk, and the velcro gave way with a loud ripping sound.
The surgeon looked up, staring right at Jayne. He yelled and got to his feet, but it was too late. She tore her left hand free from the cuff and lashed out with her leg as he raced over. Her steel-toed boot connected with the side of his head and the flight surgeon crashed into the starboard computer banks. Before he hit the ground, she’d already ripped the velcro apart on her right hand.
The airman manning the computer station must have seen the commotion out of the corner of his eye, because he turned, his mouth open and slack. His hesitation gave Jayne all the time she needed to rip the chest strap free and get out of her litter. He pushed back from his station and made it to his feet before she was on him, driving her knee into his stomach.
Doubled over, Jayne used the IV tube protruding from her arm to wrap around his neck and pull, dragging him out of sight of the cockpit, behind a bank of computers. The tubing stretched a little, making the process take longer than she’d wanted, but in the end, she was free, and two of her captors were neutralized.
Jayne dropped the body to the floor, ignoring the muffled thump, and took off the man’s helmet. She slipped it on over her matted hair and cleared her throat. Adjusting the mic on its curved stalk, she made her way down the middle of the plane to the flight deck. Pausing long enough to catch her breath, she flexed her fingers to get the circulation going, picked a scalpel out of the surgeon’s tool kit, and smiled.
Jayne limped between the pilot and co-pilot, hovering over their seats, and smiled. “Gentlemen, I think we’re in need of a course correction.”
“What the hell?” blurted the co-pilot. He immediately unlatched his harness and started to stand, hands reaching for Jayne.
She avoided his clumsy attempt to grab her, then leaned forward and with a flick of her wrist, drew the scalpel across the co-pilot’s throat. Blood sprayed out in an arc, splattering against the pilot’s face and the cabin windows.
As the pilot sputtered in shock, she pulled the dying man out of his seat and dumped him in the aisle, there to writhe on the ground until he died. Turning back to the pilot, she sat in the vacant co-pilot’s seat and smiled broadly as he wiped the co-pilot’s blood from his face.
“Now then…” she began, wincing at how her swollen lips made her sound. “Let’s talk about where we’re going to land…”
What’s Next?
Have you read through the entire Wildfire Saga (don’t forget The Source and False Prey!) and are looking for more post-apocalyptic mayhem?
You might want to check out my Future History of America series. Fair warning, it’s not for the faint of heart. If you want action, these books have plenty. If you want characters—lots of ‘em—these books are chock full of people, from Presidents to foreign leaders, spies, rebels, soldiers, civilians and even bikers.
Want a paperback book you can sink your teeth into? The Future History books can also be used as doorstoppers.
If you’re looking for something less action-packed, but more realistic, try my Solar Storm series. This story is told from several points of view, in a typical American family.
What’s the catch?
The sun wipes out the global power grid and the entire world is essentially tossed back to the 1800s. This story is about one man’s quest to save his family and survive when the whole world goes dark.
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Author’s Note
I love Scotland. I love everything about the country, its geography, its people, and its history. Its a fantastic place if you’ve never been, and if you have, you know what I’m talking about.
My wife and I took a delayed honeymoon there in 2008, and it was worth the wait. I have been privileged to travel a lot with my family when growing up and I can honestly say that trip to Scotland was (and still is) the single best trip of my entire life.
So when I was casting about trying to decide where to locate the next book in the Wildfire Saga, Scotland was at the top of the short list (after all, Firestorm had already taken place on Skye, another of my favorite places).
When we toured Edinburgh, we took one of the ubiquitous ghost tours into the vaults—it was a great time and not only entertaining but educational. I kept those memories with me and when it was time to write The Regent, I knew exactly where Cooper, Danika, and Denny were going to find themselves.
And by the way, the tapping “ghost” that Denny feels is exactly what happened to me in the vaults on that ghost tour in June of 2008. We were standing as a group (I was toward the back because I was one of the bigger guys in the group and didn’t want to block anyone) and my wife was next to me, but on my other side was open air…one of those “side tunnels.” As the tour guide was speaking, I was snapping pictures with my camera (in the other direction, like some of the other tourists were doing) to get pictures of what a couldn’t see in the near pitch-black darkness. [spoiler alert: I got a lot of shots of brick and stone and dirt]
I paused between pictures and listened to the guide talk about the history of that particular vault (I kick myself now for not remembering what he was saying) when I felt two distinct taps on my shoulder (the one opposite my wife and the rest of the tour group). On instinct, I assumed it was my wife, who had moved to my other side and wanted to whisper something to me.
Then I felt her hand brush mine on the other side. I snapped a picture in the direction of where I’d been tapped and in the flash I clearly saw nothing but a half-wall and a shelf someone had stored supplies on in a previous century—there wasn’t even enough space for someone to stand there next to me.
Here’s the picture I took after being tapped on the shoulder…just an empty shelf!
In fact, no one was within three feet of me in any direction except my wife, who, as tall as she is, couldn’t have reached around my back and tapped my shoulder from where she stood. Not without moving—and on the crushed gravel/dirt floor, that would have been noisy. As a group, we sounded like a herd of wildebeests tromping through those tunnels.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood up and for the rest of the tour, I was on edge and looking over my shoulder into that black void. Afterward, I sidled up the guide at the pub we visited for a complimentary pint, and told him my story. Now this guy was a showman and he played up the ghost bit while we were down there—I have no doubt if it were part of some gimmick the guide company pulled, he would have made a big deal of it to impress the tourists. Instead he merely nodded and told me some of the experiences he’s had while on the job. It wasn’t a “och, weel, ye got yer money’s worth, laddie” moment, but rather like a “welcoom to th’ club” sort of conversation.
A few days later, I had a second paranormal encounter on that trip (on Skye) which convinced me even more what happened in the vaults was real (but that’s a different story, perhaps for a different book). That experience was so real, now it’s in The Regent and Denny got to experience a little of what I felt.
* * *
Marcus Richardson
24 February, 2018
Acknowledgments
A lot of authors go on and on thanking people who helped them when they wrote the book, and I’ve done the same on every book I’ve written. We as writers simply can’t do it all—sometimes we all need a little extra motivation, help with research, or even just someone off whom we can bounce ideas.
For me, that’s my incredibly supportive wife—without her encouragement, none of the books I’ve written would exist. When I was just some guy who decided he could write a book, she encouraged me to finish. Now that I actually have fans, she’s encouraging me to get better. For them. For you.
She’s also the first one to tell me what I wrote is shite, so thanks for that too.
Seriously, if you’ve helped me, I’ve already thanked you, but I want to call out a few people especially:
As for the rest of my family and friends—you know who you are—I hope I have expressed how very much I value your continued support and encouragement for my writing.
THANK YOU.
About the Author
MARCUS GRADUATED FROM the University of Delaware and later earn his law degree. Since then, he has at times been employed (or not) as: a highly over-qualified stock boy, cashier, department manager at a home furnishings store, assistant manager with a national arts and crafts chain, an acting store manager with the same chain, an unemployed handyman, husband, cook, groundskeeper, spider-killer extraordinaire, stay-at-home-dad, and writer.
He currently lives with his wife, children, and one cheeky vizsla in Illinois—and he couldn’t be happier you’re taking the time to read this.
Visit my website or follow me on Facebook and Twitter!
www.freeholderpress.com
[email protected]
Books by Marcus Richardson
THE WILDFIRE SAGA
The Source
False Prey
Book I: Apache Dawn
Book II: The Shift
Book III: Firestorm
Book IV: Oathkeeper
Book V: The Regent
Book VI: Extraction
OTHER SERIES
The Future History of America
Solar Storm
Elixr Plague: A Zombie Apocalypse Serial
For my complete catalog, please visit: marcusrichardsonauthor.com
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