And then Dunhill’s hand gripping the rope.
“Chill out,” he said. “Just chill out. No one has to get hurt.”
She wanted him hurt.
She wanted to grab the rope and strangle him with it.
Behind her, Kalani heard footsteps coming out of the plane. She moved forward, taking two steps down, closer to Dunhill and his rope. He moved up a step closer before Kalani put her foot up onto the railing, lifting her weight up with it, then pivoting around and jumping off the side to the mad, cursing sounds of Dunhill.
She landed hard, but on two feet. Steady.
She bolted toward the open side of the hangar, curving her route toward Lea to grab her by the elbow and yank her out of the fucked-up situation. Take her out of the Blackwoods situation permanently.
But Lea turned away, flinching back.
Kalani had a new image etched into her mind.
She held the image in her mind as she ran out of the hangar and through the gate toward the parking lot. She hated the image. An image that needed replaced by something different. Something good.
Where was Ethan?
She was in a full sprint back to the car, running faster down their lane in the parking lot. It was that time in the night, late night or early morning, when at just any minute Kalani would be able to see the bluing of the horizon and know how close the next day really was. She was happy to have survived so long, if she could be honest with herself. There would still be some work to do, the heaviest lifting yet, but they were close. She could feel it.
She thought of Ethan again. He’d been on her mind almost constantly, more so as she was returning to the car as a failure. A failed mission, so far . . . until she could grab the radio and call DARC Ops into action. Call for backup. Describe the plane. List the plane ID numbers from memory.
She might not have stopped them. But Jackson and his men surely would. She was as sure about that as she was about the plane’s need to refuel at some point.
She was hoping Ethan would at least be awake.
She was really hoping not even to see him in the car at all, but instead the strewn, empty straitjacket lying on the seat. Maybe he’d have the radio himself, already calling in for help.
She was hoping for just one thing to finally go right.
Either way, she had to start making her move. No more passenger on the Lea Blackwoods crazy train.
How could Lea have stayed there? Why hadn’t she helped?
Stop thinking about Lea.
A moment later, Kalani stood frozen at the rear car door, jaw open. Mouth breathing. Hard breathing, her shoulders moving up and down with it, her heart beating to full capacity.
She stared into an empty back seat. Empty save for a straitjacket strewn to the side.
She turned, frantically scanning the area for him, when a black car pulled into the parking space across the lane from her car. A middle-aged man stepped out. He was thin, but well defined for his age, and dressed in olive drab—an old army uniform. Army boots. Something about those boots made Kalani wonder about clay prints back at the safe house.
He was smiling at her.
Why was he smiling at her?
“Sorry I’m late,” he said, walking over casually. “I was following behind, but then you guys pulled some moves and you lost me.”
In the brief silence, Kalani knew exactly who the man was. Her elusive tail, finally showing himself.
A touch of menace in the tail’s eyes.
Kalani had her hand in her pocket, fingers wrapped around car keys. “Who are you?”
“I’m with Jackson,” he said.
“Who are you?
He stopped a few feet away. She was glad he did. “DARC Ops personnel. You know how it is. I don’t have a name.”
Jackson knew every one of his crew by name. Including her. They were a family.
“You’re not with DARC.”
“Fine,” he said. He huffed out a breath, rolling his eyes. “You’re too smart for me. Good. I’m with Lea.”
That made more sense to Kalani. Horrible sense.
“And here to help you, either way.”
“I don’t want your help.”
“You’ll need it,” he said. “You’ll need help any way you can get it.”
“No.”
“Lea already made the right choice,” he said. “What are you going to do?”
“Have you been following us the whole time? Stalking us at the house? Intruding?”
“No,” he said with a smile. “I was invited.”
Kalani wondered how fast she could open the car, slip in, and lock the doors. And then start the engine. And drive over him.
“I left something in the trunk,” he said. “You might want to be careful.”
“What do you mean?” The image of a wad of C4 explosives jumped to her mind. “What is it?”
“Open it up and I’ll show you.”
And then the image of an empty trunk. And her pushed inside screaming.
“Open it,” he said.
“No.” She walked backward, away from him.
He drew a small handgun from his pocket. “Let’s go,” he said. “Give me the keys”
There was a flash of movement behind him.
He spoke again. “Give me the keys or—” the last sound opening up to a big blast of air like the wind had been knocked out of him as the top half of his body lurched forward, and over, with Ethan behind it.
Ethan tackled the man to the ground, wrestling him immediately for the gun. It bounced loose and slid a few feet out of their grasp, and the fight was for who could grab it first, Ethan holding him down by his throat with one hand while the other inched up the pavement. No words. Not even any more vocalized hints of struggle. Just the sound of clothing and bodies writhing against the ground. The metal sound of the gun against the pavement.
Could she slide between them? Stay out of the way and pick it up?
Then Kalani felt another hard object. Another piece of cool metal, this one stuck into the small of her back. She smelled alcohol. And then a man’s voice, telling her to hold very, very still.
31
Ethan
The gun was finally back in his hand.
Relief.
It lasted until the sound of his name screeched through the air from Kalani. He traced for the source, not her horror-stricken mouth, but the reason behind Kalani’s blood curdling scream: A man standing behind her. Standing too close, with his right hand down behind Kalani’s back. A pronounced stiffness in that back, a particular discomfort, painted the picture for him. It was like x-ray vision, seeing through, seeing the threat.
Another hostage. That time, Kalani.
A gray-haired man stood behind her. A man who looked entirely too familiar, thanks to a sneak peek at Macy’s memoir. He’d been a cop once, back in St. Louis, before he’d worked for Blackwoods. Fuck. “Everyone just relax,” he said. “Just hold it right there.”
The guy under Ethan’s knee, some younger military guy in olive drab, finally stopped his struggling. He seemed to know the hostage-taker.
“Nothing’s changed,” the man in the suit said. “This doesn’t change anything. Lea, come here.”
Lea appeared, half frozen. She was sniffling, crying.
“Let’s go, Lea.”
Lea began to scream, too, and then turned, running back to the hangar. Ethan only found out why when someone’s arm rose behind Suit and Tie’s shoulder, then struck down all the way to his wrist with as much force as possible to knock the gun away.
Logan!
Wherever the fuck he’d come from, he’d snuck up from behind and was wrestling with the man. Ethan looked around wildly. Had DARC arrived? Was anyone else waiting in the shadows? Would they be on their side or Blackwoods’?
It was Kalani’s turn to reach for the gun, having been freed by the latest surprise, her hands grabbing around on the pavement for it.
She held it in two steady hands and gave the brie
fest glance to Ethan. She looked lost but calm. That was okay. Calm was good. Calm would get them both through it.
From the ex-cop’s pocket came the glint of a knife. He reached down and pulled out a switchblade. He wielded it before Logan, ready to strike.
By the time Ethan took aim, careful aim so as not to get Logan in the shot, he heard the cracks of three tight shots. He saw the ripple in the man’s clothing and flesh, shockwaves expanding out. Some kind of mist in the air, mixing with the man’s gasp as he fell to his knees, then onto his side. Kalani was screaming the whole time, screaming at the ex-cop, then at Ethan, then at nothing.
Logan kicked the knife away from him. But even if the man had a knife, he was no threat to anyone anymore. He went limp and still.
Logan rushed over to Ethan to help subdue Olive Drab, holding him facedown on the ground, hands wrestled behind his back. He had stopped using words. Only grunts came out.
Kalani’s white running shoes approached and stopped just in his peripheral vision.
“I think they drugged me,” Logan said. “They fucking drugged me.”
“Where were you?” he said. “How the hell did you . . . ?”
“The trunk,” Logan said, his voice sounding distant and hollow. Ethan could hear the dry terror in both of their voices, and he was glad when Kalani joined in with, “You were in the trunk of my car?”
Ethan remembered hearing the thumping. He thought about his own wake-up from the drug-induced sleep. He was still groggy and half sick from that. It was a surprise he could even hold the gun properly.
Maybe it was a good thing he hadn’t taken the shot.
A good thing for Logan, too.
A good thing he had Kalani.
“I woke up and it was pitch black in there,” Logan said, resting his knee onto Olive Drab’s back. He was breathing hard, trying to catch his breath from the excitement. Ethan could smell the sweat of fear on him. “I woke up all fucked up and I just started going crazy in there, kicking at everything I could. I must have broken the seat, because I crawled through and—”
“He’s dead,” Kalani said, her voice monotone.
“I know,” Ethan said, looking up at her. “Good shot.”
“Where are we going to put this one?” Logan said, nodding over to Olive Drab.
Kalani, with a blank expression on her face, said, “In the straitjacket.”
Logan grinned. “And the trunk.”
His grin died quickly at a distant whining sound. A prop engine starting up. Then a solid rumble as it got up to power.
Kalani ran to the car, opened the driver’s side door, and pulled out the radio, yelling the tail numbers into it. Ethan was amazed she’d remembered them. Her own little magic trick.
Tansy took seconds to set up monitoring for the flight, Jackson muttering something about having to get the authorities involved now, damn it, but all Ethan could hear was the groans of Olive Drab as they stuffed his limbs into the straitjacket.
32
Kalani
Kalani watched the concentration on Ethan’s face harden as he swerved the car through interstate traffic. She was glad to have been relieved of driving duties. She was glad Ethan was in the front seat with her, and not in the back with a gun aimed at him.
Instead, the back seat contained Logan, who kept watch over Olive Drab through the folded-down rear seat. He lay inside the trunk, silently stewing the whole time. And that was okay. His voice wouldn’t exactly be a welcome addition to the Bach concerto Ethan had insisted on. Something classy to drown out the voice of the straitjacketed man stuffed into their trunk. It was quite the carload.
“They can’t stay up there forever,” Logan said, talking about the private plane flying 20,000 feet above them—somewhere. It was a similar comment to the one Jackson had made over the radio when they first called in.
Through the night, Jackson’s team had raided the cave only to find the vacated remains of what appeared to be a monitoring station. Now it was time for DARC Ops to do the monitoring, tracking the flight of N2820DX after it had fled from the cargo airport.
“I imagine the Feds are following it,” Ethan said.
Kalani said, “Of course they’re following it.”
“I meant behind it. Flying behind it.”
“I just hope they don’t shoot it down,” she said, still thinking of Lea. Still having some mysterious, lingering sympathy for her sister. There must have been some sort of explanation for why she ran back into that damned hangar. Right?
She said it again, but in a whisper. “They better not shoot it down.”
Ethan frowned. “Why would they do that?”
She didn’t know why. All she could really think of was Tucker, lying there, face covered. So fucking still . . .
The radio suddenly crackled to life with Jackson’s voice. “They’re talking them down. I just talked to someone from Roanoke-Blacksburg air traffic control.”
Ethan grabbed the radio from on top of the dashboard. “So they’re circling back?”
“They practically flew over the safe house,” Jackson said. “But, yes, they circled and they’re due to land there within the hour.”
“Damn it,” Ethan said, “That’s a few minutes before our arrival window.”
“Then speed it up,” Jackson said.
“He’s trying,” Kalani chimed in, her hand gripping the armrest tightly as the car swerved around another group of cars not moving fast enough in the left lane.
“But don’t kill yourself, either,” Jackson said. “That won’t help. I’ll be at the airport in thirty.”
“Thirty minutes? What, are you flying there?” The way Ethan had said it sounded like a joke, but Jackson replied in the affirmative. Tucker had been gone for days. Days of torture, perhaps. No one wanted to leave it a second longer.
“I’ll be there as fast as I can,” Ethan said, gunning it again and swerving around another car.
“Sounds like the pilot smartened up,” Logan said as the radio shut off.
“Yeah, that’s the problem,” Ethan said. “They talked them down, apparently, but that doesn’t mean anything.”
“Well, what do you think it means?” Kalani said.
“It means we should expect desperation . . . They’re obviously running out of fuel, but not bullets.”
Ethan lowered the classical music just long enough to hear the groaning in the trunk. He raised the volume and Kalani felt the car accelerate.
They’d called ahead and had airport security open the gates onto the runway, but even with the help, the drive was still chaotic. Squad cars and emergency rescue vehicles were parked around the aircraft in random angles. Hurried bodies rushing about. Men in full body armor with various three-letter acronyms on the backs of their vests.
Through the confusion, Kalani saw Dunhill’s landed and surrounded plane. Next to that plane was a larger private jet. Ethan had pointed to it and said, “Looks like Jackson’s here.”
She had flown in it once before, leaving Hawaii in the DARC Ops jet. It was the start of a wonderful yet painfully small window of time where she and Ethan could enjoy a little privacy with each other. A nice break from the action before the commencement of legal proceedings and a witness protection program. Now Kalani hoped they could return there, and as fast as possible.
One of the first things she wanted to ask Jackson about was for a much-needed vacation for her and Ethan. The safe house was initially described as such, but look how that had turned out. She needed a vacation from the vacation. A break from everything but Ethan.
When Ethan parked the car, Kalani looked back at Jackson’s jet at the precise moment when the DARC Ops leader was hustling down the stairs—hands full of body armor. She and Ethan jumped out of the car and met him halfway, strapping on the armor before anyone could even say “hello.”
Finally, after they’d been strapped in and armed, Jackson said, “Good timing.”
“We’ll see,” Ethan replied.
&nbs
p; Standing there at the foot of Jackson’s jet, looking over to the other aircraft, Kalani understood the risks. First, the immediate risks to her and Ethan. Then Lea and Tucker, who might possibly get caught in the crossfire if the situation deteriorated any further.
Any injury to Tucker, of course, would be a disaster. But for Lea . . . Kalani still wasn’t sure how willing of an accomplice she’d been. She remembered that distinct look of fear on her face during the incident at the hangar. It was clear that she was not helping Kalani, but also not exactly enjoying the situation.
Ethan had caught Kalani’s attention, his eyes focused hard into hers. “We’ll do everything we can to be careful,” he said. “Everything.”
“I know,” she said. “And there’s Tucker, too.”
“All the more reason we don’t want to go in guns blazing.”
“Hopefully the Feds can talk them down,” Jackson said. “Well, I suppose they’d already talked them down, but talking them out could be a different story.”
“Do we have any plans on our end to infiltrate the aircraft?” Ethan said.
“Not yet.”
“But we have plans for that?”
Jackson was frowning. It was clear he didn’t want to infiltrate. Even Kalani, with no formal military training, could pick up on it. The forces in the plane had the advantage of the high ground. High ground plus concealment. Aside from the few windows, which they’d obviously avoided, it was hard to tell where anyone was. Tucker and Lea, especially. Any unlucky incoming bullet trajectories, and it would be all over.
“The skin of the plane is basically like a strip of plastic, so . . .” Jackson trailed off, and no one needed any further explanation.
There was some trouble going on with the agencies. Various groups of variously acronym’d men had gotten into a full-fledged shouting match over who had “jurisdiction” and who could call the shots.
Jackson swore several times and then said, “Blackwoods . . . they’ve got a lot of friends in law enforcement. Good friends. Maybe even some blackmailed friends. I hope this doesn’t become a whitewash somehow.”
Dark Discovery (DARC Ops Book 8) Page 22
