by Diane Capri
The jet’s flight was often blocked by the trees and the bends in the old road, but she kept the binoculars trained on the north by northwestern sky.
Burke made it to the county road and turned toward Mount Rushmore. Once he’d reached the pavement, he accelerated to speeds well above the posted limit.
The park and the monument were ten miles away, but at cruising altitude, the Gulfstream could fly at five hundred miles an hour, and the Navigator’s top-end speed was closer to one hundred.
Kim gasped and sucked in a great gulp of air as the plane came into view again.
“What?” Burke asked. “What do you see?”
“The jet’s trailing black smoke. The hydraulic fluid leak must have caused the engine to overheat. It’s on fire!”
Kim reported what she saw when she saw it, while Burke pressed the accelerator closer to the floor and took the curves in the road at an alarming rate of speed. The top-heavy Navigator tipped dangerously sideways and bounced down onto its tires and kept going.
“The jet’s in trouble…It’s losing altitude…The pilot’s trying to lift it out of the dive…It’s too close to the trees…It’s coming up, but too slow…”
Kim’s commentary continued as the Navigator finally turned the last big curve. Now, she saw the monument straight ahead, miles away.
Through the binoculars, she had an unobstructed view of the Gulfstream as it headed straight toward the monument.
And slammed, head on, into the side of the mountain.
“Dammit!” Burke slapped his palm against the steering wheel, and the horn blasted a quick, sharp, exclamation of its own.
Kim’s gut clenched and roiled while she watched through the Navigator’s big windshield, horrified. A sharp “No!” escaped her lips before she slapped her palm over her mouth.
Twenty tons of metal and fuel and passengers gone in a millisecond.
Kim had seen plane crashes before. She knew what to expect. She watched the crash unfold reduced to slow motion in a trick of time, understanding the developing events that investigators would confirm later.
The cockpit had crushed into the passenger cabin.
The wings were tossed to the wind.
The tail of the plane spiraled through the air and landed somewhere.
A fireball blossomed outward, sweeping over Jefferson and Roosevelt.
Yellow and orange flames. Black smoke followed.
The wreckage of the once sleek and beautiful Gulfstream fell against the giant sculptured backdrop as if in exaggerated frame-by-frame motion.
Tumbling and rolling.
Flame on flame.
Black scorch marks as wide as a highway scraped down the rock face.
The twisted wreckage of the now destroyed jet splayed over the scree to burn out, eventually.
There was no longer any reason to rush toward the monument to thwart Keegan’s escape and capture Reacher.
Burke pulled the Navigator to the shoulder. They got out to stare, knowing there was nothing more they could do.
The park had opened at sunrise. Emergency vehicles were already on site. They deployed first.
More emergency vehicles were on the way. Sirens began to wail in the distance.
The monument was twenty-three miles from Rapid City. Helicopters were no doubt already in the air and firefighters en route on the ground.
But they had no need to hurry.
Handling the fire and locating potentially injured tourists were the only emergency efforts required. The park’s first responders could get the situation under control quickly enough.
Kim’s mind sorted through the facts that were important to her now.
Mount Rushmore was a terrorist target. It also attracted three million tourists every year.
Video cameras would have recorded the crash from a dozen angles.
Within the hour, the news stations would have the story on the air around the country and the world.
Reports would be written. FBI, FAA, DHS, and an alphabet soup of Federal departments. They’d all have their own take. Their own angle. Their own area of expertise.
But each report would contain one common statement about the Gulfstream crash.
No survivors.
If Reacher was on that plane when it exploded, he’d be as dead as the presidents on the monument.
She shook her head slowly.
Hard to believe. She’d been chasing him for six months now. Through one impossibly dangerous situation after another, Reacher had seemed invincible.
It simply couldn’t be true. Could it?
How could Reacher possibly be dead?
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
Sunday, May 15
South Dakota
9:30 a.m.
Burke kicked the dirt with the toe of his boot and stuffed his hands into his pockets. “Well, I guess that’s that. Plane hits the side of a mountain. There’s not much left. They’ll be lucky to find DNA in the ashes for a positive ID on Keegan and Reacher and the pilot when all this is cleaned up.”
Kim replied, “I’m gonna need to see the video.”
Burke widened his eyes and stared at her. “Why? You saw Keegan and Reacher get into that plane. You watched it crash and burn. Why do you want to see all of that again?”
“Because I don’t believe it. I need to confirm it for myself. And we can’t examine the actual crash site until all the experts release it. Which will take weeks if not months,” she explained, running a palm over her face. She inhaled deeply. “So video is the best we’ll be able to do.”
Burke shrugged. “Suit yourself. Where are you planning to get this video?”
Kim pulled the Boss’s cell phone from her pocket and showed it to Burke. As she’d expected, she was able to get a cell signal here, closer to the park.
The phone rang several times, and Cooper didn’t pick up. She left a message. “Looks like Reacher was on the plane. He may be dead. We didn’t have a clear view. Please confirm. Check the video from eight-thirty forward.”
Burke made his way to the Navigator and restarted the engine. Before she joined him, Kim called Gaspar.
He answered on the first ring. Kim smiled. She could always count on Gaspar.
“I’m watching the video again now,” he said.
“And?”
“And it’s…inconclusive.”
She felt her spirits lift slightly, which was odd. “Inconclusive how?”
“The Gulfstream was damaged when you and Burke hit it at takeoff. A fire started in the hydraulics, at the back. It would have moved through the plane from the back to the front,” Gaspar said, thinking aloud.
“Things happen fast. Pilot loses control, struggles to land. Passengers panic. Lots of smoke. Lots of fire. Lots of stuff happening to mess up the controls, the wiring, everything. Chaos inside. Alarms of all kinds going on,” Kim said, repeating what she knew from airline disasters past.
“Which is why I can’t say for sure,” Gaspar agreed.
“Can’t say what for sure?”
Gaspar took a deep breath. “It looks like maybe the passenger door opened when the plane took that last dive.”
“What?”
“The belly of the jet was scraping the tops of the trees. The branches are in the way. I’ll keep looking for a better angle, but as of now, I don’t have a clear visual on the Gulfstream at that point.”
Kim felt a prickle along her scalp. “But?”
He took another breath. “I’ll send you the video now. You look. Tell me what you see.”
Emergency responders were coming closer. Two noisy helos overhead coupled with multiple sirens from all sides made it impossible to hear anything else.
This was just the beginning. Soon, federal, state, and local personnel would overrun the monument and the crash site. To say nothing of the media and the gawkers.
She realized she’d heard nothing more from the phone for a full second.
Had Gaspar hung up? Or had the call been compromis
ed somehow? Lockdown of communications was part of anti-terrorism protocols. Either way, the call was over.
She slipped the phone into her pocket, walked back to the Navigator, and climbed into the passenger seat.
Two fire trucks sped past, sirens wailing.
“What are you thinking about?” Burke asked as if watching the wheels turning in her head. Gaspar used to say that. He claimed he could tell when she was wrestling with a knotty problem.
“We brought that plane down,” she said, troubled by the idea.
“That’s a good day’s work. I’d say,” Burke replied. “Wouldn’t you?”
She shook her head. “When I rammed into the wing, I thought the pilot would abort. We’d take them into custody.”
“And then when he didn’t stop, I guess my SEAL training kicked in, and I shot at the plane which didn’t make the pilot stop either,” Burke shrugged. “That’s not on us. The guy must have had a death wish or something. He had to know he couldn’t fly far with all that damage.”
Kim said nothing.
After a few moments of silence, Burke cleared his throat. “I talked to Smithers. He’s got teams in place. More help is on the way.”
She raised the binoculars to look at the crash site. Controlled chaos had descended in the past few minutes. The scene would be overwhelmed for hours and closed for days.
“Smithers is more than competent for the situation,” Kim replied as she pulled her laptop out and connected to it the secure satellite to download Gaspar’s video. “Would have been nice to hear from the Boss. But I guess that’s asking too much.”
Burke said, “He called. I told him what happened. He’s on it.”
Kim cocked her head. “On it how?”
“He didn’t say. Said to stand by. He’ll call back,” Burke replied, clearing his throat.
Kim nodded and opened Gaspar’s file. The video filled the screen. Images only. No audio.
She watched as the Gulfstream approached the monument. The jet was clearly in trouble shortly after takeoff.
The point Gaspar flagged had happened shortly before the crash. The jet lost altitude and dipped way too low. At the bottom of the dive, it seemed to perch in the trees for a few moments, like a bird.
When the plane came back up, gaining altitude again, the passenger door was open. Absolutely.
“What have you got there?” Burke asked.
Kim turned the laptop screen toward Burke. She played the video again, enlarging the image.
They watched the Gulfstream dip and rise.
Burke jabbed the screen. “Right there. The door was closed as it went down and open when it came up.”
“Are you sure?” She was certain. Gaspar was, too. She wanted unanimous agreement.
“No question,” he said, sounding more irritated than the situation warranted. “Play it again. You’ll see it.”
She replayed the video.
“Pause it. Right there,” Burke demanded angrily as if she were arguing with him. “Door was opened in that dip. No doubt about it.”
Kim nodded. She agreed. So did Gaspar.
Did the door open because of a malfunction? Perhaps a failure of the locks caused by the fire inside the cabin?
Possibly.
But it was also possible that one of the passengers opened the door deliberately.
Which passenger?
Surely not the pilot. He had managed to bring the plane up out of the trees again, so he must have been at the controls in the pilot seat.
Would Keegan have known how to open the door? Maybe.
But Reacher was the one who had closed it before takeoff. He would definitely know how to open it again.
When the plane was low enough, Reacher could have jumped into that stand of trees. Definitely.
Was he still alive?
Smithers called Burke and asked them to assist with backup. He said they were stretched thin until additional personnel arrived.
He said a tourist had found Fern Olson, unconscious behind the steering wheel of a disabled Chevy on one of the backroads. She was alive and en route to a hospital in Rapid City. She’d be debriefed when the doctors allowed.
Burke mused, “So Olson met with three clients before the prison break. Two are dead, Denny and Walsh.”
“What about Petey Burns?” Kim asked.
“Smithers says he’s still at large. He probably stole another car and managed to avoid the roadblocks and get away from Bolton,” Burke shook his head with a wry grin. “Turns out Burns actually is the kind of guy who learns from his mistakes, I guess. They might never find him.”
“And Keegan wasn’t a client, but he’s dead now, too. What did Smithers say about that?”
“Still working on it. But preliminarily, they think Keegan was passing instructions to Olson through Walsh and Denny, and maybe Burns. Seems like they were all pals, one way or another.” Burke had pulled onto the roadway again. “Smithers will debrief Olson and try to get the whole story.”
“Olson’s phone records may help with that, too,” Kim replied.
“Hopefully.” Burke nodded. “Smithers thinks Keegan has been using Denny like that for a long time. They were cellmates. Smithers says seven years back, when Reacher was here, Denny was the guy who passed along intel to Olson’s now dead law partner.”
“Seriously?”
“Yep. And since Denny wasn’t all that smart, Smithers thinks Keegan was the mastermind who got a lot of people killed back then. People Reacher cared about, apparently.”
“So Smithers thinks Reacher came back for revenge on Keegan and Denny?”
“That’s the working theory,” Burke said. “Not that anyone will ever be able to prove it.”
Made sense. If there were people Reacher cared about, people he felt responsible for back then, coming back to set things right was exactly the sort of action he might have taken.
Which left a couple of open questions. Was Reacher planning to reach Keegan and Denny while they were locked up? Or did he have advance notice of the prison break?
Could have gone either way. But if someone told Reacher about the prison break before it happened, then…
Kim cocked her head and thought about it for a while, but every scenario she tried seemed implausible. So she tucked the question away in her mind, along with all the other unanswerable questions she’d stashed there before.
Then she turned her attention back to the things she knew for sure.
She watched the Gulfstream crash video a few more times while Burke drove the last miles to the park’s entrance. She closed the laptop and locked it.
There was no time to do more.
She and Burke manned the phones and assisted with crowd control and various other tasks until official replacements took over.
But the questions weighed on her mind.
Was Reacher really on that Gulfstream? Burke had said so. Emphatically.
More to the point now, if he was on the plane, had he bailed when the Gulfstream dipped into the low trees?
Where was he now? Had he been burned beyond all recognition in the crash, like Keegan and the pilot surely had been?
When they returned to the Navigator hours later, Burke said, “Where to?”
“You’ve heard nothing from the Boss?” she asked.
Burke shook his head. Kim wasn’t sure whether to believe him or not. Their relationship had been tense from the start. She wanted to trust him, and yet she felt uneasy.
Had he been sent here to spy on her? Report to Cooper when she preferred not to?
Maybe.
Or maybe she was just a little too paranoid.
She couldn’t put her finger on any specific issues, so she tried to let her suspicions go.
Perhaps her relationship with Burke no longer mattered anyway.
If Reacher was dead, the assignment was over. She’d return to the Detroit Field Office and Burke would go wherever Cooper sent him next.
She wasn’t sure exactly how she
felt about all of that. Disappointed, certainly. Worried, like always. Defeated, too, in a way.
She’d been sent to find Reacher, not get him killed.
If Reacher had died in that crash, then she’d failed.
And for Kim Otto, failure was never an option.
A glimmer of hope still burned in her gut.
Reacher couldn’t really be dead. She couldn’t have failed so spectacularly.
She’d hunted men before. Captured plenty of them. She’d never lost any. Not one.
Reacher was the most challenging assignment she’d ever attempted, sure. But she was more than capable for the job.
Wasn’t she?
She looked at her watch.
2:55 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time.
Exactly sixty-one hours since Cooper’s first text.
Sixty-one hours later, in many ways she was right back where this assignment had started in Margrave, Georgia, seven months ago.
Jack Reacher, dead or alive?
* * *
Otto and Gaspar’s Hunt for Jack Reacher continues in
JACK OF HEARTS
Click Here for Details
Available on Kobo
Have you read all of Diane Capri’s Hunt for Jack Reacher books so far?
The Hunt for Jack Reacher Series:
(in publication order with Lee Child source books in parentheses)
Don’t Know Jack • (Killing Floor)
Jack in a Box (novella)
Jack and Kill (novella)
Get Back Jack • (Bad Luck and Trouble)
Jack in the Green (novella)
Jack and Joe • (The Enemy)
Deep Cover Jack (Persuader)
Jack the Reaper • (The Hard Way)
Black Jack • (Running Blind / The Visitor)
Ten Two Jack • (The Midnight Line)
Jack of Spades • (Past Tense)
Prepper Jack • (Die Trying)
Full Metal Jack • (The Affair)
Jack Frost • (61 Hours)
Jack of Hearts • (Worth Dying For)
