by Ben English
Helicopters from the city were descending behind him when he finally made it to the main terminal. He found Jack just inside the terminal, talking animatedly with a man Alonzo fervently hoped was long dead.
“What the hell is he doing here?” he asked, indicating Mahmoud. Jack looked grimy. Even for Jack.
“Wonderful, the infidel’s friend,” said Mahmoud.
Alonzo brushed past him. “Wonderful, the pig-lover’s bastard son.” To Jack, he said, “The gang is on their way in. Ian found us a helicopter. Where’s Mercedes?”
“She’s got my phone, we can find her that way,” said Jack. They set off in search of the airport security chief. It took Alonzo a dozen steps to realize that Mahmoud was in step with them.
“Why don’t you run along? There’s a great pork barbeque place just down the terminal.” He indicated with his head. The concourse still burned. Shells of burning jetliners sat askew at the gates, which were nothing more than scarred, gaping rents in the ferroconcrete hall.
“He’s friendly with airport administration,” said Jack. “And he’s been here during the whole attack. Like it or not, Mahmoud’s our best source of intel.”
Alonzo bit his tongue.
*
Mercedes made a face. What a completely stupid idea. There weren’t many places to hide on such a small plane, and most of the cargo hold was packed with bricks of money and mercenaries. They took her to Miklos.
The main cabin was full of frightened, panicky people. A mercenary near the front was administering some kind of medicine to the passengers, watched over by two others with guns.
She wondered if they knew she understood their Spanish. It was slower, simpler than the Cuban variety. “She wasn’t part of the plan,” one said. “Can we throw the body out on the tarmac before we take off?”
“We keep her,” said another. “The flight’s not that long, but my—”
Miklos ignored him. “Hello, what’s this?” Up close, he was cold. Bleak, as if he drew the living heat out of whatever was near. “You were on the roof last night with Flynn.” His eyes never left her face, and she returned in kind. “She comes with us.” To Mercedes, he added, “You’re memorizing my face, aren’t you? How very interesting.”
His hands were blindingly fast. Before she had time for even a hint of fear, he plunged a syringe deeply into her neck.
*
Jack and Alonzo found the security chief in an upper room overlooking the undamaged side of the airport. Emergency procedure manuals lay spread open throughout the office, and every person they saw moved with a kind of solemn, frantic tension. They waited for a chance to speak with the head of security. Alonzo found Jack looking out the window, at the rain mingling with fire.
“They seem to be handling things okay.”
“Think so?”
“The coffee pot’s still half-full.”
“I think they’ve got three pots on.” He looked at Alonzo. “This is what would have happened in London, I bet. This kind of chaos.”
Alonzo watched Mahmoud. Made sure the guy wasn’t stealing staplers. “Remind you of anything, Jack?”
“Looks like your living room, in high school. Right after you told your mom and dad you were going to marry that girl from Russian class, the one with the long, dark, curly teeth.”
“I remember her,” Alonzo said—and then the security chief was running past them, gesturing wildly at the window.
“Who gave that aircraft clearance?” He demanded. “Which one of you imbeciles passed clearance on that plane?”
It was a propeller-driven plane, not even a jet. A midsized aircraft for the Havana airport, with just enough range to service the southern United States and anywhere on the Caribbean rim. Typical tourist transport.
“Military priority, sir. “ The speaker’s screen showed that his computer was reconfigured to act as an air traffic control terminal. “Presidential level clearance.”
The sec chief was ash-colored, bloodless. “I’m looking at a twin-engine turboprop lining up on our runway. The apron is still on fire. You really believe Espinosa is a passenger on that aircraft?”
Apparently they had no means to block the runway. It looked like the plane was going to actually make it to the taxi point.
“You think Miklos?” asked Alonzo. Jack didn’t answer. They took the emergency stairs, stumbling out near the loading bay. The twin turboprop was all the way down the tarmac, taxiing about for takeoff.
A man in uniform approached them. It was the heavyset guard from the checkpoint earlier, the ex-football player.
“Excuse me, sirs. We found this in the luggage near the gate for that plane out there. I remember the woman with you back before the bombing. I would not forget her. She was using this.”
Jack took the camera, looked at the view screen, and handed it to Alonzo.
She sure took a lot of pictures. Alonzo ignored the ones of Havana, the other members of the team, Jack buying weird roots in Chinatown, Jack on the tram. The last file was a short video clip, neatly showing the tail ID of the plane and a few airline workers—wait a minute, they had weapons. He squinted. Norincos, Type 56.
“Colombians,” he said. “Liberation Army.” There was more. Mercedes herself appeared in the shot. She had Jack’s phone and his green wool jacket, and it looked like she was biting the seam of the inner pocket. Alonzo watched as she tore a hole in the bottom of the pocket, exposing the lining. Looking pointedly at the camera, she pushed the phone thru the hole until it dropped inside the jacket.
There was no audio playback, but she might as well have shouted. Her lips moved. Follow me. Find me. She hesitated. Jack’s body is under the train. Mercedes looked irritated, then resolute.
Alonzo watched the small screen as she sprinted for the airplane’s cargo door. When it was over, he tried handing the camera back to his friend. Jack ignored him.
He was silent, his eyes on the plane. It rolled down the runway and lanced into the air, climbing fast, leaping toward the thunderheads.
The wind and rain blew over them both, hammering from a handful of angles, but his friend didn’t move. Jack stood perfectly, terribly still. The plane vanished quickly into the thick clouds and comingled smoke.
“Jack. What do you figure?”
His friend remained without expression, watching the sky. For one long moment he was motionless, unreadable. As if the soul had gone out of his eyes and left a completely solid mass behind.
For a moment he was utterly blank. Unmoving, stone.
But just for a moment.
The story continues in Jack Be Nimble: A Lion about to Roar.
Ready for more? Visit www.BenEnglishAuthor.com.
End Notes
Much thanks to all the kind words from you, readers! Great to connect with you on Twitter, Facebook, etc.—but to the point, thanks for reading these books! I’m happy you choose to spend time with Jack, Mercedes, Alonzo, and the rest of the gang.
The universe of the Jack Be Nimble books isn’t all that different from the one where you and I live, but in a few ways, it might be slightly better. For instance, if you noticed the quote by Captain Malcolm Reynolds at the beginning of this book, you might realize that in Jack’s universe, the incomparable television series Firefly was able stay on television a bit longer & live up to its proper destiny (six seasons, ten emmys, and a movie franchise).
Coron Bay, where Jack and Victoria spent their honeymoon, is a fantastic place to explore shipwrecks. In our universe, the waters and the caves all through the Philippines are full of sunken history.
Young Mercedes’ statements about San Francisco being secretly run by Filipinos and the Irish Mafia are mostly accurate, but honestly, it depends on the neighborhood. And to set the record straight, it was Young Victoria that Jack ran into outside the North Beach curio shop. The Tagalog phrase that her friend used translates to English as, “Hey, looks like Victoria’s got herself a souvenir! How handsome!” It’s an incredibly rich language. In th
e next book you’ll hear Alonzo’s colorful opinions on the Tagalog language.
The use of microcapsules to deliver vitamins and specially-targeted medicines is on the cusp of today’s reality, with pioneering work in this field being done at places like the University of Pittsburg and the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Polymer Research in Potsdam. Fascinating stuff! Clever readers will recognize Mahmoud from the previous book, Tyro. He’s a lurker, that one. And special thanks to Clark, Daylynn, and Katie Seaman for their patience with a particularly talkative tour guide!
So you’ve gotten a taste of the amazing things that the adult versions of Jack and Mercedes can do when they are together. The next book, A Lion about to Roar, concludes this single (and most singular) week in their lives.
Can’t wait for you to read it!
Ben
Table of Contents
Foreword
Five Ghouls and a Specter
Cayo Verad
Creative Anachronism
Hit ‘em Where They Ain’t
Second Story Work
Playing the Long Game
Microcapsule
Trajectory and Resonance
Coldest Winter of His Life
Little Black Dress
Legend
The Epicure
Odd Combinations
Reception
No Limits
Short Skirt, Long Jacket
A Cupful of Ink, the Revel, an End of Us, and Mercedes’ Idea
Burner
Send
When the Wheel Comes Round Again
Outflanked
No Epiphany Required
End Notes
