She opened her mouth to speak, but he stopped her. “Wait.”
He heard a sound that could only be some kind of aircraft approaching. It wasn’t a helo, though. It was some kind of small plane.
“Hold that thought,” he said, and pushed himself off the floor, crossing to the window.
It was getting louder.
Savannah and Molly came to stand beside him. “What is it?” Billy asked from his place on the floor.
“Small airplane. Single prop—one propeller,” he translated. “Whoever it is, our hosts aren’t expecting him. Lookit.”
Outside the window there was a great deal of activity as soldiers ran in all directions, probably heading for battlestations. The guard in front of the house took several steps out into the yard.
“Be ready to move,” Ken said.
“It’s not dark,” Savannah observed.
“Sometimes a good diversion trumps cover of darkness,” he said. “Let’s get Alex up and out of bed and Billy ready to roll.”
The mood in the FBI headquarters was tense. Alyssa could feel a trickle of sweat slide down her back.
How did Max Bhagat always manage to look so cool? He was wearing a suit with a jacket, too.
Several hours ago there had been visual contact—both Savannah and WildCard Karmody had been seen in Badaruddin’s compound. They were being held in the same structure where Alex was believed to be. That was good news. Now it was just a matter of the sun setting so that the SEAL team could bring them out.
Rose’s son Karl and his wife, Priscilla—Savannah’s parents—had finally arrived. It was obvious, about ten seconds after they entered the room, that Priscilla got on Rose’s nerves. Without saying a word to each other, Jules intercepted Priscilla and Karl, and George pulled Rose into the opposite corner of the room.
Alyssa bounced back and forth between them, feeling Max’s gaze upon her.
He didn’t look away when she caught him staring. It was entirely possible that he was deep in thought and didn’t even realize that he’d fixated on her. But he tracked her when she moved, and he was still looking five minutes later.
She took the opportunity to gaze back at him, trying to see evidence of the surgery in which he’d had his sweat glands removed.
But then he smiled, and she turned away.
The radio crackled to life and everyone sat forward in their seat. “Unidentified aircraft approaching the island.” The voice was Jenk’s—Petty Officer Mark Jenkins. “Request air support be stepped up to full stand by. Be ready to come in fast. We’ve got a lot of activity in the compound.”
“What does that mean?” Priscilla asked anxiously.
“Lieutenant Starrett may decide to take advantage of all the activity,” Max explained. “If the chaos factor is high enough, he may decide to pull the hostages out right now.”
“It’s Jones,” Molly breathed as a red Cessna made a pass overhead, and Ken came back to the window.
It did look an awful lot like the plane he’d seen on the smuggler’s runway. But whoever it was, they were flying at tree level and scaring the crap out of the soldiers on the ground.
Some of them—just an erratic few—opened fire.
Skinny came running down from the general’s house, screaming at the top of his lungs, probably for the troops to hold their fire. He went on for quite some time, no doubt giving them a crash course in physics. If they shot and hit the pilot while the plane was heading north like that, it would crash directly into the general’s house.
Ken was betting Badaruddin’s homeowner’s insurance didn’t cover things like self-inflicted acts of aggression.
“What is he doing here?” Molly asked. “Go away!” she shouted, although there was no way in hell the pilot of that plane could have heard her.
Jones made one more low pass over the road, getting up his nerve to give this a try.
It was going to be fucking tight, but he’d landed in fucking tight places before, for far less important reasons.
Molly was down there.
He was going to get his ass down there, too, and get her out of there.
The red Cessna was landing. Ken could tell by the sound of the engine.
The crazy son of a bitch flying that thing was actually going to try landing on the road.
One false move, and one of the wings would get tangled in the trees, and he’d somersault and crash.
“Okay,” Ken said. “Everyone in the back room. Let’s get ready to move.”
But Molly, the missionary, wouldn’t budge from the window.
The Cessna got lower and lower and lower. Jesus, the guy had balls of steel. It had to be like flying an X-Wing through the canyons of the Death Star—without any of the technology.
The wheels hit the dirt, and the plane jerked and lurched, but it stayed in the dead center of the road.
It was only at the very end, after it had slowed significantly, that the left wing caught a tree, and it spun out and crashed headlong into the brush on the opposite side of the road, almost directly across from the guest quarters.
It was entirely possible that Jones—if that’s really who it was—had done that on purpose.
The engine cut out, and the silence was amazing. No one moved.
All weapons were aimed at the Cessna.
“I don’t know whether to pray for him to be dead or alive,” Molly said. There were tears on her cheeks. “They know who he is. They’ll send him back to . . . oh, God.”
“Who is he?” Ken asked, but she just shook her head.
The Cessna door opened, and every weapon in that compound that wasn’t locked and loaded got locked and loaded. It was quite an impressive sound.
“Jayakatong, old friend,” Jones’s voice called out. “Tell your troops to back off. I have the money you were looking for and I’m willing to trade it for something of mine that you’ve got.”
Skinny stepped forward. “And what would that be, Jones? I don’t recall taking anything of yours.”
“Some friends,” Jones called back. “Molly Anderson and Billy Bolten. They’re missionaries for chrissake. You have no business holding them here.”
“Actually, I do,” Skinny replied. “It seemed Miss Anderson had some interesting information that I wanted her to share with the general.”
“Jones!” Molly called out. “He knows who you are!”
That was Molly’s voice. She was in earshot. Jones had guessed right in assuming she’d be held in the same little “guest cottage” that he’d spent some time in about a year ago.
She was alive, and conscious. That was good.
What wasn’t so good was that she’d let slip—either on purpose or unintentionally—the fact that he was Grady Morant, the most hunted man in all of Southeast Asia and Indonesia, thanks to the price on his head, which translated to roughly five million U.S. dollars.
Jones had pretty much known on his way over that there was a very real possibility this was going to be a one-way trip. He’d already considered the possibility that Molly had given him up, and he didn’t blame her for it at all. He’d run with the money, putting both her and Billy in mortal danger. He deserved what he got.
And right now what he got was the chance to be a dead man, rather than a barely living man kept alive only to be tormented and tortured.
No, there was no way in hell he was going back to the Thai alive.
He reached around to his arsenal of weapons and grabbed a hand grenade. He pulled the pin and took the duffle of money and climbed down out of the plane.
Molly was as white as a sheet, and Savannah came up beside her, ready to catch her if she should faint.
Out the window, she could see Jones, climbing down out of his plane.
“Tell your troops to hold their fire,” he said. “Tell them that while the reward for bringing Grady Morant in alive is five million, it’s only a hundred thousand if I’m dead.”
“What did he do?” Savannah asked softly.
“He
destroyed a drug lord’s business,” Molly said, “but the bastard bounced back. God, Grady should have killed the Thai when he had the chance.”
Those were pretty harsh words for a missionary.
“Here’s what we’re going to do,” Jones-Grady said. “I’m holding a grenade,” he held it up for the officer and everyone else to see. “I’ve pulled the pin, but as long as I’m holding onto it, it’s not going to go off.”
“Oh, Lord,” Molly whispered, pressing her hand to her mouth. “Oh, Grady, don’t do this.”
“What I’m going to do is keep holding the release,” he continued. “What you’re going to do is march all of your American hostages out of your guest quarters and down the road to that helicopter you inherited from Otto Zdanowicz. You’ll give them weapons and a map and a pilot, if they need one. And then you and I will stand and wave good-bye as they head back to Jakarta. After they’re gone, I’ll put the pin back in the grenade, and we can have a nice dinner before you call the Thai.”
“Holy shit,” Ken said. “He’s negotiating our release.”
“I’m not going,” Molly said. “I’m not going to leave him here.”
“No one’s going anywhere yet,” Ken said.
The officer paced in silence for several long moments before he responded to Jones’s proposal.
“What’s to keep you from blowing up both yourself and the money after they’re gone?” he finally asked.
“I’m not exactly the suicidal type,” Jones said with a laugh. “Do I look like I want to blow myself up?”
“I would hug a grenade before spending the rest of my life in Nang-Klao Chai’s dungeon,” the officer said.
“I’ll give you my word that I won’t.”
The officer laughed. “Your word. Wonderful. How about: If you blow yourself to bits with that grenade, I will track down your friend Molly. I’ll deliver her to Chai, and tell him to keep her alive in your place.”
“He warned me that this would happen,” Molly whispered. “He said if we became friends that they’d use me to get to him.”
“Can’t we do anything?” Savannah asked Ken.
“I think Jones is doing a pretty good job all by himself,” Ken told her. “He’s going to get us out of here. And then they’ll probably toss him in here. And tonight Sam and the rest of the team will have to rescue only one person instead of five.”
Molly turned toward them, hope in her eyes. “Your friends can get him out of here? But will they have to arrest him? He’s wanted in the U.S. as well.”
“I didn’t hear what his real name was,” Ken said. He turned to Savannah. “Did you?”
The walk to the helicopter was excruciating.
Grady was holding a duffle filled with money and that grenade and looking at Molly as if he was never going to see her again.
“I’m sorry I got you and Billy shot,” he said. He was walking on one side of the road with the slender officer he’d addressed as Jayakatong, the hostages were on the other. Soldiers with huge guns were in front of them and behind them. “I was planning to tell you that I took the money for safekeeping, but we both know that would be a lie.”
“But you came back,” she said.
“Too little, too late.”
“It’s never too late.”
“Yes, actually,” he said, “sometimes it is.”
As Savannah helped her uncle and the two missionaries get comfortable, Ken wrestled the helo off the ground. They lurched and swooped and flopped around for quite a bit before things evened out.
She came forward. “Do you really know what you’re doing?”
“I do now,” he shouted. “Took me a sec to figure out the controls.”
She sat down, uncertain whether to laugh or cry. “You haven’t really ever flown a helicopter before have you?”
He glanced at her, glanced at her again.
“It’s okay,” she said. “You seem to have the hang of it now—you can tell me the truth, I won’t freak.”
“I’ve had some training, but this is a first for me,” he admitted. “And I have this wicked, awesome simulator game for my PlayStation2. It’s really not that different.”
“Will you just do me a favor and check to make sure we aren’t going to run out of gas?”
“Fuel gauge,” he said, pointing to the intricate control board. “Here and here. Computer says . . .” He made an adjustment to another device. “We’ve got enough to fly for . . . three hours at this speed.”
He reached up and flipped several more switches, pushed other buttons. “Navigation computer says . . . Port Parwati, ETA fifty-eight minutes.” He smiled at her. “Plenty of fuel. We’ll land there and transfer to a Navy helo—get us back to Jakarta that much quicker. Besides, we don’t want anyone mistaking us for Otto Zdanowicz and blowing us out of the sky.”
God, she hadn’t even thought of that. Still . . . Fifty-eight minutes until Ken didn’t need to be the pilot, until she could ride the rest of the way to Jakarta in his arms. “I can’t believe this is almost over.”
He looked at Savannah and grinned. “Honey, it’s just beginning.”
On General Badaruddin’s island, as the helo carrying Molly and her friends faded from a speck to nothing, Jones put the pin into the grenade and handed both it and the duffle to Jayakatong.
Who turned to a squad of his soldiers and ordered, “Beat him. Make sure that he won’t be able to run away tonight, but be careful not to kill him.”
They circled him cautiously, and he knew what they were thinking. Grady Morant. Any man who had angered the Thai enough to place a five-million-dollar price on his head must be just one degree of separation from the devil himself.
Except, no, wait. The Thai was the one who was one degree of separation from the devil. Thanks to Molly, Jones was just two degrees of separation from the other guy, the one who lived upstairs.
Imagine that.
Her mother and father were waiting, along with Rose, as they disembarked from the Navy Seahawk.
Savannah had been extremely aware of Molly for the entire trip—aware that she’d left her lover back in Badaruddin’s camp. She’d tried to be discreet about holding tightly to Ken, who made it much more difficult by whispering all the ways he was going to blow her mind that night—as soon as they found a hotel room where they could be alone.
But after they landed and helped Molly, Billy, and Alex off the Seahawk and into the waiting ambulance, Savannah was ready to never let Ken go.
They came off the helicopter arm in arm, and she could see her mother’s horror in the way she took a quick step back.
Savannah looked at Ken, trying to see him with her mother’s eyes and . . . oh dear. He looked like Robinson Crusoe’s younger, grunge-loving brother. But what a smile, and what incredible eyes . . .
“Savannah! Darling! Thank God you’re safe!” Her mother practically yanked her out of Ken’s arms and enveloped her in a cloud of perfume.
Ken held out a dirt-streaked hand to her father. “Mr. von Hopf. I’m Ken Karmody. How do you do, sir?”
Her father shook his hand. “I understand you’re responsible for saving our daughter’s life, young man. I’d like to offer you a reward.”
“Well,” Ken said. “Thank you, sir. I’ll accept. As a matter of fact, I’ve already picked out something pretty special and . . . Mrs. von Hopf! You’re exactly as I pictured you.”
Savannah bit the inside of her cheeks as Ken brushed past her mother’s gingerly offered hand and gave her a bear hug.
Rose, who’d returned from a quick visit with the still heavily sedated Alex in the ambulance, was also trying not to laugh.
On impulse, Savannah hugged her grandmother. And got a very big hug back. “Thank you for bringing Alex home.”
“I had more than a little help,” Savannah replied. “There’s a man still in Badaruddin’s camp who sacrificed himself for us. Kenny says they’ll get him out tonight. I hope so . . .”
“They will.” Ken jumped
into the conversation. He squeezed her arm. “Trust me, they’ll bring him out.” When she nodded, he turned to Rose. “Mrs. von Hopf, it’s a pleasure to meet you, ma’am. I’d love to have the chance to sit down and talk to all of you, but I need to do a debriefing with my CO and Max Bhagat—he’s the FBI team leader,” he told Savannah. “And then I’ve got a date with a shower and a scrub brush. I’ll meet you back at the hotel, okay? Don’t go anywhere without an FBI escort.”
Troubleshooters 04 Out of Control Page 50
