Hawaiian Thunder (Coastal Fury Book 4)

by Matt Lincoln

  “I think you’re right, sir.” Kaden pointed in the direction of the other helo. “It’s slow this time of night, so he’ll be able to get out of there if we don’t stop him.”

  Davis pushed the helicopter to keep up as much as possible, but the aging system didn’t agree with the rush.

  Maui’s shoreline, lit by the many resorts and homes along the coast, passed in a slow crawl to our left as Lanai drifted behind us. The uninhabited island of Kaho’olawe was a deeper shadow in the already-inky night over the ocean.

  “It’ll be half an hour before we’re even close to being within range to call Kona International on the radio,” Davis complained. “If we had a sat phone, we could call them, but out here, I got nothing.”

  “Can you get us close enough to use a cell phone from Maui’s towers?” I asked him. “We don’t want to use the radio and alert him that we’re pursuing.”

  “Point taken,” Davis answered. He veered east, went down to fifteen-hundred feet, and got us parallel to the coast. “I’m not going closer than this. We’re losing too much time with this diversion.”

  I pulled my phone out and checked for a signal. The signal indicator flickered. It was iffy at best. I took off my headset and dialed Meisha’s cell number. It rang once, and I heard her voice, but the call dropped before I could say a damn thing. Deciding it wasn’t going to work, I tapped out a quick text to Meisha and tried to send it. No dice. I jammed my headset back on.

  “We’re S-O-L,” I told Davis. “We’ll have to wing it.”

  Davis slowly looked back at me. The glow from the instrument panel lit two-thirds of his face. The rest stayed in shadow, which created a skull-like effect.

  “That joke was terrible, Marston,” Davis said as he turned forward. “Kaden, do you still have eyes on them?”

  “Barely,” the young deputy answered. “It’s getting harder to keep an eye, but they’re definitely going toward Kona.”

  Kaden had lost sight of Volkov’s helicopter by the time we were past the southern tip of Maui. In the stretch between there and the Big Island, it was easy to feel as though we weren’t moving. Above, the stars were as clear as could be. Below, the ocean was an utter void.

  A faint blur on the horizon spread into a handful of bright points. The Kona International Airport wasn’t, as far as international airports went, large. It was, however, large enough for jets to land and take off for the West Coast.

  “Kaden, look for where they landed,” Davis ordered. “Marston, help me eyeball the sky around us. I’m going straight in as soon as the kid finds Volkov.”

  “Copy that,” I told him.

  It was getting close to predawn, and early morning flights would start picking up, but there could be traffic at any point. Davis dropped altitude so that we were only a thousand feet off the ground.

  “Unidentified helicopter, you’re too close to the runway,” a strained voice announced over the radio. “Move out of there. Now.”

  “Oh wow, I’m like, so sorry,” Davis answered. “Where do you want choppers?”

  They read him the riot act as he proceeded in the direction they ordered.

  “Have your documents ready,” another voice demanded. “I don’t know who gave you a license, but they’re gonna wish they—”

  “There!” Kaden pointed to a helicopter on the ground near a private jet. “Four people just got out of the helicopter, and I see two, no, three more by the plane.”

  “Tower, this is Special Agent Davis with the Honolulu MBLIS office,” Davis snapped. “Get deputies out here now and do not allow the Lockheed jet here to leave. Lock everything down. We have a hostage situation.”

  “Excuse me?” the man exclaimed over the radio. “Where’s the—”

  “Just do it!”

  Davis set us down next to Volkov’s craft as his people burst into action.

  “They heard your call,” I barked while Davis shut down the engine.

  “Or they heard us fly in,” he snapped back. “Does it matter? Let’s go.”

  “Um, sirs?” Kaden pointed at the plane as it began to move. “Their plane is moving.”

  “Get in front of the plane,” I told Davis. “They won’t leave if we’re in the way.”

  “What? No. My dad’s insurance won’t cover this, I just know it.”

  “They only do that shit in the movies,” Davis shot back. “Oh, screw it.”

  He opened the throttle and got us airborne as the plane taxied to the runway. The grumpy male voice from the tower bellowed over the radio.

  “I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but you better set that chopper down before you get shot down.”

  “He doesn’t have that authority,” I scoffed as I slung my M4’s strap over my shoulder. I prayed I wouldn’t have to use it on that plane, but it was not going to leave the island without a fight. “Keep going. We’ll stop them.”

  “Tower, if you won’t call MBLIS to confirm, call the airport on Moloka’i and talk to the deputy there,” Davis informed the man. “We cannot allow that plane to take off.”

  “Tower, the terrorists in that helicopter have hounded my passengers all the way here from Oahu,” a man said in a British accent.

  “Everyone, stop your craft and power down your engines,” the tower operator ordered. “Nobody is leaving.”

  “Yeah, no,” Davis muttered.

  He pushed forward, hard, to get ahead of the jet. They were at the end of the runway, and it was going to be close. I clutched the rifle at the ready with one arm and opened the side door with the other. Davis pushed the helo to its max, but the plane was accelerating too quickly.

  I braced myself against the helicopter’s frame to steady my aim and then fired at the front landing gear. Sparks hit around the tire, but it didn’t go flat. I tried again, even though I worried about hitting the fuel tanks.

  The plane shuddered as the front landing gear bent. It bled speed enough for Davis to catch up to the jet. I leaned way back into the cabin as we passed the intake for the right turbine. The rotors and engine screamed with the effort of breaking even with the slowing plane, and in no time, I made eye contact with the pilot. He glared at me and shoved the throttle forward. The jet started to pull ahead despite the damaged front landing gear.

  I pointed the M4 at the cockpit window, and the pilot’s eyes widened. He looked forward while yelling something I couldn’t hear. I braced against the door to aim. Ronnie stumbled into the cockpit on the side with the window facing me, and that forced me to take my aim off of the cockpit.

  “Hurry up, Marston!” Davis’s voice drilled into my head. “Last chance before this can dies.”

  I snapped my aim down and fired at the front gear again. This time, the tire exploded, and the gear bent backward.

  “Pull up,” I yelled at Davis. “They’re gonna have a rough stop.”

  Gravity sucked me down into my seat as we shot straight up. I watched as the jet’s nose caught the pavement and thought it might flip. The tail rose in the air and then slammed back down. A wing dipped and clipped the edge of the runway that sent the plane’s body into a spin that saw the other wing raise them on their side.

  “Don’t do it,” I hissed at the plane. If that thing were to cartwheel now, Robbie would be tossed like a doll.

  As if it heard my plea, the body slammed down on the asphalt. Sparks showered the runway in the jet’s wake. The engines screamed and then died out. As the last pieces came to rest, the lights blinked and then went out.

  Now that I’d made the plane crash on takeoff, I hoped I wouldn’t come to regret it.

  CHAPTER 37

  “Get out and stay back, kid,” Davis told Kaden as we set down next to the smoking plane. “You don’t wanna get caught up in this shit.”

  “I already am.”

  Kaden opened his door and got out as the rotors slowed. Shots rang out from where the plane’s cabin door had opened a crack. Bullets hit the cockpit’s bubble windows, and Davis dove out of his
door. I joined them on the ground, and we grouped on the far side of the helicopter.

  “We gotta move fast, before they get their wits about them,” I told the other two. “Don’t give them a chance to hurt Ronnie.”

  I tried not to think about the more than fair chance that she already was.

  Davis and I ran to the plane’s tail. I trained my rifle on the rear hatch while Davis did the same for the front. They hadn’t opened the front hatch more than a few inches. Now that we were close, I saw there was damage to the edges.

  “They can’t get it open,” I hissed to Davis. “They’ll come out back here.”

  Davis nodded. Over by the helo, Kaden barely stayed out of sight. I didn’t like that his legs were visible, but there wasn’t anything we could do to help with that other than to bring down the seven or eight men on the jet before they could take him out.

  The rear hatch cracked open from the top. Lights flickered against it, and I turned to see emergency responders barreling toward us from the middle of the runway. Shit.

  “Your friend is coming out first,” Volkov yelled. “She will die if you try anything stupid.”

  “Give it up,” Kaden shouted back from the helicopter. “You’re surrounded!”

  What the hell? I met Davis’s eyes. What was the kid thinking?

  “I think not,” Volkov answered. “You chase in old helicopter and call me surrounded? You are delusional.” The door eased open another couple inches. “Leave before you get hurt.”

  Someone argued from inside the plane, and Volkov shut them down. The door didn’t swing open any more than it had, but I saw a flash of blond hair in the strobe lights that now lit the scene. Ronnie. I gestured to Davis to indicate that she was, indeed, there.

  “Yuri, we gotta get out of here.” The voice was of the tall, thin man who’d been at Volkov’s house. “It’s not going to get better. We take the chopper and go.”

  “I’ll pilot.” That was Ronnie, and she sounded haggard as hell. “They won’t shoot at me. We’ll find a place to hide out until your people can get us off the island.”

  “What about the rest of us?” a different person complained. “I ain’t going to jail.”

  A gunshot silenced the argument.

  “Anybody else argue?” Volkov demanded. “We take care of our own and will get you out of jail. Let’s go.”

  The emergency vehicles screeched to a halt halfway toward us. A police car continued and parked next to Kaden. The young officer took cover, which meant the new arrival would see who the good guys were.

  “Now or never, Yuri,” Ronnie told him.

  “Let us go. Play hostage.”

  “You on the plane, come out with hands up,” someone ordered over the squad car loudspeaker. “There’s nowhere for you to go.”

  Davis’s unreadable expression spelled trouble for us as we backed under the curve of the plane and out of sight of the door. I wanted to believe Ronnie hadn’t turned, but hearing what she said seeded more doubt than I liked to admit.

  The door lowered as more police cars arrived on the scene. I used hand signs to tell Davis I’d grab Ronnie. He shook his head “no” as the door dipped with the weight of people stepping down on the stairs on its other side. I made a motion to make clear I wasn’t taking his “no” for an answer.

  “Hands up!” the officer ordered again.

  “Back off,” one of the goons answered. “We have a hostage.”

  A commotion broke out, and Ronnie dove from the built-in stairs onto the runway. Something in her body cracked as she hit the asphalt. Davis and I used the distraction to burst out from under the plane and leveled our rifles onto the goons who were still on the stairs. They all stared in my direction as I jumped in front of Ronnie to protect her. I then felt motion at my hip followed by cold steel pressing into my neck.

  “Drop it, Ethan,” Ronnie said from behind me. “I have to do this.”

  “What the hell?”

  “Do it,” she insisted. “Let go of your weapon.”

  Did I trust her or not? Back when Holm and I sometimes went to his family’s house during shore leaves, Ronnie and her friends used to talk us into “training” sessions for scenarios they should never have to face. This was eerily close to one of those practices, the Double Agent Game.

  “Make me,” I told her.

  “I’ll shoot you dead.”

  I released my rifle and put my hands in the air. The M4 dropped to my waist, where the strap kept it from clattering away. By some miracle, Volkov’s men hadn’t noticed Davis, and he melted back under the plane. He shot me a venomous look before he was out of my sight.

  “We can help you,” I told her in a loud voice. “Don’t do this.”

  “I made a deal,” she answered. “Yuri, I got him. He’s more valuable than I’ll ever be to those pompous asses.”

  Her grip on me weakened, and her breathing got raspy. She coughed and leaned on me, but she kept the handgun on my neck.

  “Ah, Veronica, you are good to your word.” Volkov emerged and trotted down the stairs. He pointed to the assembled police and called out to them. “We take helicopter. You do not follow, or we shoot MBLIS agent.”

  “What about us, boss?” one of the goons asked.

  “Pinky and the Brain,” Ronnie ordered. “You two come with us.”

  That was unexpected, but when I saw the guys who pushed through the others, it made sense. “Pinky” was the tall, lanky dude who I met at Volkov’s house. He smirked as he grabbed me by the arm. The other lackey didn’t look unlike the mouse from The Animaniacs cartoon from the nineties.

  “I hate that name,” the Brain complained as he helped Pinky pull the M4 strap over my head.

  I prayed I wasn’t making a fatal mistake. My years of training taught me to never allow the enemy to disarm me.

  “Get over it,” Volkov told the Brain. “Is funny with all your facts and trivia. Get in.” He turned to the rest of his crew. “Surrender yourselves and trust in me. One by one, start now.”

  Pinky pushed me toward the helicopter as Volkov’s other men dropped their weapons and exited the crippled plane. Davis came out of his low vantage point and covered the startled goons. His eyes were on me, however, with impotent fury written all over his face.

  Closer to me, Ronnie stumbled. Volkov caught her by the elbow.

  “You get us in the air, and I will fly.” He didn’t seem to notice or care that she pocketed my sidearm that she’d lifted. “You are not well, but we will get you better when it is safe.”

  “Yeah,” she said in a tired voice.

  The police kept trying to talk to Volkov, but he pretended as if they weren’t there. I stalled a bit as they tried to get me in because I wanted Ronnie out of harm’s way. If we didn’t get out of there, she was going to get shot for pulling a gun on me, and Davis might be the one to deliver that bullet.

  I got my first good look at her as she climbed into the little helo. Holm’s little sister looked twice as old as she was. Red and blue strobes flashed across her gaunt face, and she held her lower left arm stiff at her side where she’d stuck the gun into what I now saw were cargo pants. Her short sleeves revealed stick-like arms except for a dark area on her left arm, which was swelling. This was Robbie’s sister, and she was a walking skeleton.

  I lurched toward her. Pinky lost his grip on me, but the Brain kneed me in my thigh and just missed the point that would’ve dropped me. He didn’t know that he’d missed, though, and I played it up. They hustled me into the helicopter, and Pinky kept the point of the M4 jammed into my side.

  Out the front window, I watched the police take the other goons into custody as they gave themselves up. Ronnie got the helicopter going with one hand but kept the injured arm on her thigh as if nothing was wrong with it. Volkov was so intent on the scene playing out that he paid it no mind.

  “Bear south,” Volkov instructed as we took off. I barely heard him, and he took note. “Put headset on ‘Alec Dalton,’ friend Brain.�
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  The Brain swore as he ripped his headset off and handed it to me. I got it situated, and Volkov grinned.

  “Veronica says you are brother’s friend.” His grin faded. “We did not plan to leave Robert in such condition, you must know. He was weak.”

  “Yeah, he got his guts knifed open a couple months ago,” I snarled. “You had his sister. What the hell did you think he’d do?”

  The helo jolted to the left as Ronnie circled out over the water and then due south along the coast. Predawn greyness made it easier to see the lines between water, land, and sky. Hawai’i’s volcanoes loomed closer than I liked, and a chill ran down my back. Nature was a wholesome bitch, and I loved her, but those damn volcanoes would scare the hell out of me if I lived there.

  “Is he alive, Ethan?” Ronnie’s strained voice cracked over the headset.

  “You betrayed him.” The words stung me as much as they had to sting her. “Why should I tell you?”

  “We will find out later,” Volkov told her. “First, we connect with Mezzanotte.” He looked over his shoulder at me. “Not Sugar Fingers. That one is idiot. We leave you on ground if you follow rules.”

  “Screw your rules,” I growled.

  Ronnie gained altitude as we approached a cluster of lights below. As we hit three thousand feet, Volkov put his hand on hers.

  “Not too high. Stay out of radar, milaya.”

  “I wanna see the sunrise,” she muttered into the mic. “Just a minute.”

  “Veronica, go to one thousand feet,” Volkov ordered in a higher-pitched voice. “Do not mess around.”

  In response, she juked the control to the right and over the water without bleeding altitude. We were at around four thousand feet and, if I was lucky, hitting radar space.

  Ronnie grunted, and then she had my handgun in her left hand. Volkov recoiled and reached for it as she fired. Blood sprayed from his chest and all over the window bubble.

  I knocked the M4 barrel up with one hand and punched Pinky in the chin. It was a glass chin and shattered with a satisfying crunch. The Brain grappled me from behind as I wrestled with his determined partner for the M4.