Renegade

by Catherine Mann

  Jill suppressed a shiver at the cold blast of evil emanating from the woman beside her. “Then let’s talk to them now, explain—”

  “Enough. It’s too late for that. Production of this plane must stop altogether.” Lee assessed Jill’s uniform in a dismissive up-and-down sweep. “Now you have your little role to play in my drama. Go.” She flicked her fingers. “Go do your job, try to save the day. Telling you and watching you squirm has only made this all the more fun. I should have tried this technique with some other very rude people earlier.”

  “You’re insane.”

  “Take good care of that new doggie of yours,” Dr. Drummond said. “We wouldn’t want anything to happen to him.”

  Fear for Mason iced clear through to Jill’s spine all over again. She had to get a warning up to Mason and his crew that somewhere on board their plane, Dr. Lee Drummond had used her expertise and high-security clearance to plant a bomb.

  NINETEEN

  “We have a what on the plane?” Mason tamped down the nauseating fear and tightened his focus, looking frenetically around the cargo hold for anything out of the ordinary.

  With control panels, hanging gear, and packed pallets, there were thousands of possibilities. Even the smallest explosives could do lethal damage to an aircraft at this height and speed.

  The colonel replied, “Yes, I said a bomb. I don’t understand all the whys or wherefores yet, but apparently somehow Jill Walczak found new evidence indicating that Dr. Drummond has either turned traitor or gone off the deep end. Regardless, she could be out to set you up, make it look like an accident that’s your fault. Jill’s theory makes a damn frightening amount of sense. Drummond even said something about having given her plan a test run a couple of flights ago, which leads me to believe the bomb must be on the pallet.”

  His parachuting accident hadn’t been an accident after all? And Dr. Lee Drummond was setting him up? Hell, was this ever going to end? “Is Jill all right?”

  “Fine, so far as I know, but we’ll be able to determine that much better if we land safely.”

  “Capiche, Colonel.” The sooner the better.

  “I’m sending Jimmy back to lend extra hands and eyes.”

  “Roger.” Mason swung his attention back to the pallets.

  Drummond. If only she’d been removed from the team when he’d expressed his concerns a year ago about her obsessions that bordered on bizarre. But that was irrelevant at the moment. He had a bomb to locate.

  He walked gingerly around the pallets, checking, searching without touching. “Colonel, let’s just drop the pallets in the desert now.”

  “We can’t,” Colonel Scanlon answered over headset. “With the software that’s running the airplane right now, we can only get the load out over the range. Ironically, that was put in there for safety. If we off-loaded it now, we would also be sending some sort of bomb out to wherever the wind took the parachute. It has to be in the range as originally planned for the drop. It’s faster and safer than returning to base, where we could blow up a crap ton of people.”

  Mason glanced at his watch. How long before that thing went off? The aircraft hummed under his boots. Jimmy stepped into the cargo hold, his face somber inside his helmet.

  They needed to act fast. “Colonel, any ideas on how the bomb is triggered? Is it on a timer or what?”

  “We don’t know. Drummond is swearing Jill made this up, and if anything goes wrong, we should blame your girlfriend. We can sort through all that on the ground. Now, ready the load. Unless we learn anything new, we’re dumping everything.”

  Not a chance in hell did he believe Jill was lying about anything. Mason started checking the pallets over, in each crevice, under tarps, but the sheer amounts made the task beyond any minute-long scan. Damn, damn, damn it! It could be anywhere, and it wasn’t like he was going to find a red X with a sign that said, Bomb Here.

  Damn, he wished he had a second chance with Jill, to say he was sorry for being a jackass. Sorry for not reassuring her that he believed she was the most amazing woman ever to walk the planet, and hell yeah, that scared him. But if she would hang tough, he would sort out how to get past the fear. Because he was even more freaked out by the possibility of being without her, never getting the chance to know more about what kinds of tea she liked and exactly where she enjoyed being kissed.

  All of which had become increasingly clear to him in the past two days of silence, and now came crashing down on his helmeted fat head as he faced the possibility of dying without seeing her again.

  Think. Stop freaking out, and definitely stop picturing Jill’s face. “Sir, I bet it’s not on a timer. If the flight had been delayed, it might have gone off on the ramp.” He thought back to working with Lee Drummond. She’d always planned for every contingency. She would never take an unnecessary risk. “I assume the bomber would want to get away with it, so it would have to look like an accident.” Or blamed on the person who loaded the cargo hold.

  “That certainly makes sense to me. What would the trigger be then?”

  Jimmy clicked on. “Maybe an altimeter. If we go above or below a certain altitude, it goes off?”

  Scanlon keyed up. “I don’t think so. It wouldn’t look like an accident if we just blew up in flight. The airplane has been tested for years, and if it just blew up while we weren’t doing anything but changing altitude or opening the ramp, it would be suspicious. Vapor? Got any ideas?”

  “How about airspeed?” Vince suggested from the front. “Like that movie with the bus. Go below a certain speed, and it blows.”

  Mason eyed the cargo hold quickly, aware of the danger of each passing second. “It would have to be wired into the plane somehow to know the speed. There aren’t any off wires back there are there? Jimmy, see anything I’m missing?”

  He shook his head. “Nothing out of the ordinary.”

  Silence filled the airplane for a few moments while Mason—the whole crew—scrambled for options. He thought back to the original drop, Drummond’s so-called practice run. She’d targeted him as the fall guy.

  What if . . . “It has to be connected to the pallets leaving in the drop. It would just look like a replay of the last mishap if the pallets were off-loading, and something bad happened. Maybe the G forces of the yank from the parachute triggers the bomb.”

  “Damn,” Scanlon hissed low. “I think you’re right.”

  Mason eyed the pallet. “What if we off-load without the chutes? Cut them loose manually and start a climb so that first mini-chute opens later, when they’re out of the craft and sets off the bomb then. If they blow up, then we’ll know all’s clear to return to base.” If not, they would have to land in the desert and pray they didn’t explode a big crater in the earth.

  Even with time ticking down, there was a collective moment of silence as they all calculated the risks of what they were about to do. The sweat that had been beading on Mason’s forehead trickled into his eyebrow.

  “Okay, then,” Scanlon agreed. “You’re the boss in back. Make it happen.”

  Mason cracked his knuckles inside his gloves, cricked his neck, eying the pallets. Heat itched along his back as much as the exertion while he worked with Jimmy to disconnect the tie-downs he’d so diligently put in place earlier. “Vapor, how long till we can get these out?”

  “We’re pointed at the range and should be at the drop point in about ninety seconds.”

  “All set back here.” Mason turned to Jimmy. “When we start climbing, these things should start rolling. We might have to give them a push. Shove them straight. If they turn, they might get jammed up. Masks up and oxygen check.”

  Jimmy nodded and gave a thumbs-up.

  Mason tightened his mask into place and tested his oxygen regulator. All over but the crying. “Pilot, back end is up on oxygen, cleared to open the doors.”

  “Copy, doors coming open.” In the rear of the aircraft the doors opened, providing a glimpse of blue sky instead of the inky darkness he’d faced in
all other drops from this craft. “Vapor, update?”

  “Coming up on the release point,” Vince’s voice boomed over the mic. “Start the climb, Colonel.”

  The deck angled beneath his boots as the nose rose. The pallets started a gentle glide toward the open back. Wheels rumbled along the tracks in a slow elephant walk parody of the whiz-bang releases of the past.

  Wheels creaked, then stopped.

  Shit.

  Mason motioned for Jimmy and went to hot mic so he could talk hands-free. “Time to push.”

  Jimmy might be tall and lanky, but he had a rep for being a lean, mean mother in a bar fight. They could use all of that fight right now.

  Alongside his crewmate, Mason leaned a shoulder into the last of the pallets, planted his boots on the deck, and shoved. Harder, until muscles screamed and burned in his legs. His ankle throbbed, a reminder of his accident just a week ago. Thank God he had Jimmy’s help. Never again would he pick on the guy for the unrelenting hours he spent in the gym pounding his body into submission.

  Finally . . . the pallets gave way. The first rolled downward, closer to the open door, and hit the wind.

  Tumbling from the aircraft.

  “Ooh-rah,” Jimmy’s cheer thundered through the headset.

  Then—push—number two gone. This was actually going to work. Now they just had to pray they’d guessed correctly on the bomb’s location—and his gut told him they had.

  And—push—number three away.

  Push—number four. Harder. He strained.

  Jimmy’s foot slipped on the rollers. The load shifted sideways. Mason launched toward it as Jimmy grappled for a hold. The pallet continued rumbling toward the rear, drifting sideways.

  Mason sprinted to get ahead of the errant cargo. Too late. The load wedged into the side of the airplane right next to the door.

  Shit. Mason motioned for Jimmy, and they worked to tip it even a little, straining, pushing toward the middle.

  It was jammed but good. How much time would they have left to free it? “I’ll pull, and you push.”

  Mason edged around, almost there. His safety line went taut. No more length.

  “Damn, damn, damn it!” Out of options and time, there was only one thing left to do. Unhook. “I’m going around.”

  Without hesitation, he unclipped the line at his waist. There was no way he was letting his crew die up here. No fucking way. He’d lived that hell the week before when he thought their plane went down. Now he moved in front of the pallet and grabbed the netting, tugging until his fingers numbed. The pallet inched, but not enough. He met Jimmy’s eyes.

  Mason nodded. Yeah, this was how it would have to be. He was going out for another free fall. Hopefully, it would go well, but if not, he needed to let Jill know . . . Know what?

  God, it was so damn obvious now. The only thing that mattered now other than keeping his crew alive. “Tell Jill I love her, and I’m sorry.”

  Mason pulled, throwing all his body weight into the last pallet, even realizing where that would take him—right out the back of the hypsersonic jet. He’d been there before and survived. He could do it again. He would survive it again.

  The pallet wrenched free and slid toward the ramp. Mason jumped on and held the cargo netting tightly as they slipped into the wind. The frigid air slapped his flight suit against him, the sun blindingly bright. He looked down . . . Shit. Vertigo kicked in as the desert view spun like a muted kaleidoscope of tans and browns.

  The pallet tumbled as it went through the engine wash of the plane and then slowed its rotation. Mason regained his equilibrium and risked looking down again. The cargo’s chute probably had at least thirty seconds before the built-in altimeter opened it—and maybe set off a bomb.

  Of course it was in this load. It would only be a sorta good bar story if it wasn’t in the packed cargo. If the bomb was in this pallet, it would be the best bar story ever.

  Assuming he survived.

  He flattened his boots against a crate and thrust himself away from the pallet. He grabbed his rip cord. Yanked. The pallet fell away as his own chute slowed his descent.

  He zeroed in on the load dropping faster and faster. A small chute whistled out of the bundle on top, then the main chutes spouted out.

  The pallet exploded into a huge fireball.

  Percussion waves rippled upward, fluttering his parachute against the cloudless blue sky. Heat slapped his face like a drive-through sunburn. But he stayed aloft. Grabbing the risers, he steered himself out of the heat and clear of charred bits of debris.

  Above him, the hypersonic jet made no sound. No telltale flash of light in the sky. There’d been only one bomb, and it had gone off harmlessly, away from them all.

  Damn! This now qualified as a great bar story. He would be drinking free forever.

  He eyed the empty patch of desert test range, nothing but a couple of rusted-out trailers for target practice, some bubbly round cacti and scrub brush.

  And a truck. A really familiar truck. In fact, the same sort he’d seen driven by the sexiest camo dudette ever to walk the planet.

  He laughed, loud and unrestrained. There was no one up here to hear him anyway. Life was good and he was alive and best of all, Jill had come to pick him up for the second time in a week. He had the sneaking suspicion this was a woman who would always be there waiting for him when he landed.

  Squinting in the unrelenting sun, he didn’t take his eyes off the approaching vehicle for even a second. The big blue F-150 screeched to a stop, and the driver’s side door flung open, hard and fast.

  Jill stepped out.

  Even from hundreds of feet overhead, he could tell it was her. The red hair. The perfect curves. And something else about her that just called to him.

  She shaded her eyes with her hand, looked up at him—and she smiled.

  Oh yeah, this would make for the best bar story ever.

  The bartender looked more like ZZ Top turned surfer as he leaned toward a college-age tourist with a camera around her neck. “You’ve got your grays and the greens. The grays are your most common breed of aliens. About seventy-five percent of the ones we’ve seen out here fall into that category.”

  The gum-smacking coed angled forward with avid eyes, while her boyfriend clicked cell phone pictures of Area 51 memorabilia on the wall. “Gray, as in the short, androgynous-looking ones?”

  The seasoned bartender—Aaron—sketched on a napkin, while the other guy setting up drinks raced to and fro behind him. “I guess you could put it that way. . . .”

  Jill soaked up the familiarity of it all as Mason accepted another toast from his squadron pals while the jukebox cranked Led Zeppelin. They’d asked him to share last week’s parachuting story no less than twenty-five times, and as others retold it, the tale got wilder and woollier.

  As if the entire experience hadn’t been hellish enough.

  Reliving that moment of watching him float to the ground awesomely whole and alive made her eyes sting all over again. There hadn’t been much to say when he’d landed. They’d mostly stood there holding each other and kissing and holding on even harder until a half-dozen security vehicles encircled them.

  Once they’d been debriefed and Mason was cleared by the doctor, they’d gone back to her place, made love, and stayed there. Uncle Phil had even brought Boo home to her—the old guy had a lightness in his step as the old rumors fell away, his name, his reputation cleared.

  She and Mason had fallen into an unacknowledged routine. His house was bigger than her duplex, but he didn’t have much furniture. So every evening after work, he just showed up at her door with another cooking pot to try out in her kitchen before he stayed the night.

  The time to talk would come. She had faith in that now as she found more peace and confidence within herself.

  Her instincts were good, damn it, with people as well as at work. She knew that now. She’d certainly pegged Lee Drummond. With the remains of the pallet wreckage and the information Jill
had wrangled, Colonel Scanlon and a team of investigators were uncovering a long line of tampering connected to Dr. Drummond. Oh, she’d hidden her tracks well as she quietly sabotaged people and projects according to her own twisted agendas. But she wasn’t as smart as she thought. Apparently most of what she’d said to Jill had been picked up by some kind of remote-controlled flying listening device that looked like a bird. Thank God, or they could have spent years trying to sort through evidence. Even a crummy lawyer could have made the argument there was just as much evidence that Jill could have been the culprit trying to pin things on Dr. Drummond. The nanotechnology security measures had been employed because of the sensitive nature of the viewing. It appeared Dr. Drummond would be facing serious jail time.

  And she hadn’t even managed to tank the jet project.

  Jill knew she would be in the dark about details from this point until the public unveiling, however many years in the future that might be. But with a simple nod, Mason had assured her she’d done her part in making sure that historic aircraft she’d seen so briefly would one day make it into the military’s inventory.

  Mason set his empty beer mug on a passing waitress’s tray, snapping Jill’s attention back to the noisy bar as he turned his full focus on her.

  “Well, my friends,” Mason announced to his cluster of fans, “it’s been a pleasure, but I have a dinner date with a beautiful woman. So, if you’ll pardon me . . .” He angled through the throng and hooked his arm around her shoulder as she stood to join him.

  Jill slipped her arm around his waist beneath his leather flight jacket. Once they stepped outside into the darkened parking lot, she looked up at him. “Do I need to play designated driver and take your keys, Sergeant?”

  “I only had one beer. Scout’s honor.” He brushed two fingers over his heart and then across her lips—very slowly. “I prefer to recall every detail after I make love to you.”

  When he chose to talk, wow did he have a way with words. In fact, she liked a lot of things he did with that mouth of his. “Then let’s be sure to make it a night to remember.”