by Jim Johnson
“Excellent,” he said, fishing around inside. “They need immediate attention.”
“Their government jet is sitting on the landing strip with two mighty curious pilots,” said Eisenberg. “Let’s load ’em up or put ’em in our jet and go.”
Henderson shook his head. “No way.” He nodded at Suzie. “Only professionals should move her with professional EMT equipment. She needs IV fluids badly. If she’s moved, the wounds might open and then we are in big time trouble.” He shook his head. “Nope.” Then he said to himself, “Ah.”
Tommy was standing against the wall and Eisenberg and the third marshal had him covered. María Elena knew how tired she was, and Tommy had to be a lot worse off.
Henderson pulled out a fancy smart phone and punched a quick dial number. “This is Doctor Henderson, gimme FBI command center.” Almost immediately, he said, “Good. This is Doctor Henderson. Here’s my code, authenticate. Urgent and immediate.” He spoke a series of numbers and letters. “Can you lock onto my signal and get the coordinates? It’s a landing strip out in the goddamn swamps and scrublands east of Miami some damn place. Here’s what I want. I want the closest best medivac team you can dig up and I want them here fifteen minutes ago. We have agents down. Alert the nearest trauma center that we have incoming. And from the looks of things, I might need a SWAT team to mop up. I don’t know what’s gone on here, but they got bodies all over the damn place.” He listened. “That’s right, and stop wasting time. Agents are dying.” He winked at everybody and shrugged. He clicked off and pocketed the unit.
Linda was awake and aware now. María Elena brought her a cone of water and she drank appreciatively.
María Elena held another cup of water to Suzie’s lips and spoke to Henderson. “Fifteen, twenty minutes ago, her heart stopped and I gave her CPR until she revived and breathed on her own.”
Suzie coughed and spit. “Thanks.” Her voice was weak and fading.
Eisenberg went to Tommy and put his gun against Tommy’s neck. “How do you like it?” While he did so marshal number three went behind Tommy and snapped on a pair of handcuffs. Then the officer frisked him.
Tommy looked at María Elena and shrugged.
She smiled encouragement.
“I want the woman, too,” Eisenberg said.
Henderson looked up. “I might need her for an assistant.”
“I’ll wait.”
“What’s she done to you, Marshal?” Henderson said.
“Aiding and abetting.”
“Won’t hold up,” said Henderson. “But I don’t care.”
Suzie Q looked at Linda and mouthed words María Elena couldn’t make out, even though she was close. Linda leaned toward Henderson.
María Elena could make out only a few of Linda’s whispered words. “Attorney General.…Tampa.…judge.…”
Henderson nodded. “Well, I think we’ll all wait until the FBI gets here and straightens things out. I saw a whole lot of bodies outside. A war zone as it were. They’ll take over and handle the prisoners.”
“No, sir. Atkins is my prisoner,” said Eisenberg rubbing his almost bald head. “They can have the woman.”
Henderson shrugged. “You do what you think you have to, deputy marshal, but surely the FBI can take care of things. They should be on their way.”
Linda spoke lowly again.
Henderson said, “Not my problem. That’s the best I can do for you.”
Eisenberg looked at his men, seemed to come to a decision, and said, “Doctor Henderson has everything here under control. We need to get this dangerous prisoner to more secure confinement and debrief him.” The two other marshals looked uncomfortable but nodded.
They started to leave, pushing Tommy ahead of them.
Henderson said, “Leave me one man. We might need security here. Too much unexplained killing.”
Eisenberg said, “All right, Doctor.” He pointed at number three. “Stay.” He motioned to number two. “Go. Now.” He grinned nastily. “Now I can retire.”
“You’d have to since doubtless everybody knows how embarrassed you were in Sarasota.” Tommy was replying to the marshal’s nastiness.
“Wait,” María Elena shouted. She ran to Tommy. She wiped her mouth and molded her body to him. She threw her arms around his neck and folded him down to her. Quickly she arranged Tommy’s handcuff key that she’d had pocketed to the front of her mouth. Their kiss was short and interrupted by her moving the handcuff key from her mouth to his. He grunted his satisfaction.
The marshals dragged them apart and pushed Tommy out of the room. She heard them go down the hallway and out the door. The Jeep started up and backed out. She followed the sound of it as it went into gear and drove off toward the landing strip.
María Elena knew full well that Tommy was in big trouble. He needed time when he wasn’t under surveillance to escape; and the fact they’d handcuffed his hands behind his back would make the trick most difficult if not impossible.
She sank against the wall, miserable.
Henderson was working on Susan Quantrell again.
Linda looked at María Elena urgently and María Elena went over to see what the problem was.
Linda’s voice was a harsh whisper. “If they get him away from here, you’ll never see him again. Never.” Linda was fighting exhaustion and blood loss. “No amelioration. No time served. He will disappear forever.”
María Elena stood taller, panic settling in. “No,” she whispered. “No.”
“They will watch him like a hawk. That key won’t help, not much.”
Nothing escaped Linda.
“Whatever it is, you have to do it now,” Linda urged. Her shoulders slumped. “I can’t help. Suze can’t help. It’s up to you.”
The plan sprang into her mind fully formed.
María Elena whirled and strode over to the table, elbowing the remaining marshal aside.
He dodged, wary of her anger, but not threatened.
She went to the duffle on the table and came up with a .38, spun around and jammed it into the marshal’s ear. “Over to the wall. Now.” Her voice was commanding. He moved, but slowly.
She stuck the revolver between his legs and fired a round into the wall. He jumped a foot and moved quickly.
“Down.” María Elena motioned. “On your stomach, hands behind your back.”
As he was kneeling, she glanced at Henderson to see if he would take action. He was watching intently without any indication of interfering. Linda was nodding approval.
María Elena ground the gun into the back of his head. “I don’t want to add another corpse to the count, but I will if I have to.”
He dropped onto his stomach a complete believer. Next to him lay the handcuffs which had contained her to Eduardo and to the wall. Quickly, she cuffed his hands to each other and then that to the same PVC running up the wall. Then she searched him and took his weapon and handcuff key.
She jumped to her feet and ran back to the table. She started pawing through the contents once again. Then she stopped and grabbed the whole bag and swept some of the magazines and weapons she’d separated earlier into it. She slung the heavy bag over her shoulder and shot Linda a thank you look. Then she turned and ran through the door, down the hallway, through the double doors and down the stairs and to the remaining whole vehicle.
She threw the bag into the bed of the pickup, jumped in and found the key where it belonged: under the sun visor. She cranked the engine and it ran ragged. Without looking she knew it had taken a round or two and she hadn’t seen the damage on her run through the parking lot.
She slammed the shifter into reverse and backed out quickly. Then into first, popping the clutch and spinning the tires which in turn spewed gravel and dirt in a rooster tail behind her. She wound it up past the redline on the tach and popped the shifter into second, foot floored on the accelerator. She kept it in second because it was easier to control. She slewed between Quonsets and over a smoldering something next to t
he motor pool.
They’d been through so much today; there was no way she was going to give up, going to let them take Tommy. She worried that if he managed to free himself from the handcuffs, he’d wreck the plane or it would crash in the following melee.
The pickup’s engine screamed in protest and she pushed the accelerator farther into the floor. She did a four-wheel slide onto the access road to the landing strip and the Ford pickup took off. She went far into the red on the tachometer and finally slammed into third gear, double clutching it. She was pushing seventy when she emerged onto the ramp. The makeshift control tower was near the north end.
One jet sat there, ready, with two pilots sitting on the ground under a wing. The old chopper sat, burned hulk still smoking.
The other was taxiing to the far, south end of the runway. She wrestled the steering wheel to the right, almost rolled it, and downshifted to second to slow it enough to keep from rolling and ruining Tommy’s only chance.
She finally got it slowed and straightened out and floored it again. The tach went past the redline again, and another thousand RPM’s when the engine blew and she lost all power. She punched in the clutch and shifted to neutral to keep going. But something had happened to the transmission too. It wouldn’t go into neutral and the clutch wouldn’t work. The truck slowed immediately. She slewed it sideways and stomped on the brake. Maybe if she blocked the runway they couldn’t take off. She looked left and right, judging the distance. She was perhaps one third of the way down the landing strip. That gave them two thirds to operate. If she remembered correctly, probably about three thousand feet, maybe a shade more. She hoped the pilot would see reason and abort his take off. If he did, she wasn’t altogether certain what she’d do, but she was determined to do something.
The sound of two jet engines going to one hundred percent grabbed her attention.
“Oh, shit.”
The aircraft began to move toward her.
She slammed the door open and vaulted into the bed of the pickup. She grabbed the duffle with all its weapons inside and set it on the roof of the truck’s cab. She picked and grabbed for a moment and laid out a few weapons and magazines on the roof of the cab. She grabbed an M-16 since it had longer range and threw it to her shoulder, jacking a shell into the chamber. She took aim at the onrushing jet, lowered her sights to its wheels and tires and opened fire. She didn’t particularly want to hit anything, just get them to stop.
The aircraft kept coming, picking up speed. She emptied the entire magazine.
“That pilot is a damn fool,” she told no one.
She lifted the Uzi and fired until it was empty, not long at all on full auto.
The Cessna continued on its takeoff roll.
In her mind’s eye, María Elena could see Eisenberg standing behind the pilots urging them on, refusing to let them throttle back.
She dug out another weapon, the MAC-11 and opened fire, full auto, the damn thing bucking in her hand. She didn’t have much control over the accuracy so she simply sprayed bullets onto the asphalt.
The magazine died and she tossed another empty weapon into the bed of the pickup. She plucked one of the remaining weapons, a rougher MAC-10 and began firing it. Empty shells flew and she realized she’d been peppered by hot empty shells much of the time shooting, though some empties littered the runway beneath her and the bed of the pickup.
They weren’t going to stop. Her ears were pounding from the noise of the guns. She reloaded another magazine into the MAC-10, in essence a machine pistol and famously inaccurate unless you’re in close confines. She hosed off that magazine and tossed it aside. Selecting the next weapon, she saw the two waiting pilots standing and watching her with awe.
The sleek Cessna continued accelerating. She guessed it to be used for CIA drops where they didn’t want to advertise whose corporate jet it was, just like the other one behind her on the ramp.
She knew little about jets or any aircraft, but she did know that there had to be a point of no return on takeoff.
She knew this was almost her last chance and Tommy’s final shot at freedom. It might even be too late, for if the jet crashed, then he’d be in that crash and in real danger. You just don’t crash airplanes and walk away.
She snatched the AR-15, insured a shell was in the chamber, and wrapped the sling around her forearm for a more stable firing platform.
The scream of the jet engines sent hackles up the back of her neck. She shook her head to clear it. She aimed at the tires and fired two three round bursts, just as Tommy had taught her. She thought she’d gotten a hit, but the aircraft continued to scream toward her.
She was now in jeopardy herself. She recognized now that the aircraft had to lift to clear her and the truck or simply crash into it. She did not think any further.
One final attempt and she aimed for the onrushing jet’s windscreen. She didn’t want to kill the pilots since they needed to control the aircraft, but she had to frighten them.
“Now or never,” she said aloud. She fixed the moving target in her mind and down the barrel of the AR-15 and the trajectory it would take. She squeezed the trigger once and tracked the aircraft blazing toward her and fired again. The right top of the windscreen above the copilot’s seat starred and cracks lanced across the whole thing.
The aircraft continued to scream toward her and she watched it come over the barrel of the AR-15 in fascination. If something didn’t happen in the next few seconds, they’d all be dead.
As if by her mental command, the jet engines stopped screaming and some kind of airbrakes came out. Then the sound of thrust reversers began. She didn’t know what the Cessna employed to stop it besides the brakes, but it was happening. Some kind of air brakes or flaps widened. Yet the damn thing was still screaming toward her, and there was no way it could miss her.
Then a tire blew and she knew that she had hit it or grazed it enough to matter.
The Cessna jerked to the right and smoke seared off its brakes. It kept skidding sideways heading toward her and she saw the pilot desperately working controls. The engines advanced quickly and the small jet lunged forward and missed her and the truck. But the passing engine blast knocked María Elena off her feet and out of the pickup. She smashed into the runway, trying to perform a shoulder roll like Tommy had taught her, and failed, but not completely. She ended up on her back suffering a lot of pain.
“Not my left shoulder again,” she complained, scrambling to her feet.
She watched the jet slide off the runway, tires smoking and stinking, into the scrub alongside the strip. The tail end of the plane slewed farther around and the damn thing spun a couple of three sixties. Then it went farther into the scrub and into the muck and was going slowly enough for the landing gear and wheels to sink and get hung up. It did so and slammed to a stop. The engines died or the aircrew killed them.
María Elena knew she didn’t have long. She leaped back onto the bed of the Ford pickup and snatched the .38, stuck it in her waist. She dug around and found a .44 Desert Eagle, eight shot mag and powerful. She jumped back down onto the ramp. She ran toward the smoking Cessna, sunk up to the middle of its wheels in swamp muck. She checked the load in the Desert Eagle, and it was good. She should have used this to stop the jet; hell it would stop a buffalo or so the PR said.
She favored her left shoulder but continued to run.
The whole place was strangely silent. No more screaming jet engines, no more automatic weapons fire. She wondered if her hearing would ever be the same.
Tire smoke hung listlessly in the morning sun and it stank worse than the disturbed muck.
María Elena knew that she was in big trouble now. You don’t just shoot down a government airplane full of U.S. marshals and their prisoner and aircrew. And you don’t just try to effect said prisoner’s escape.
She hoped Tommy was all right. Or at least not injured badly. Her feet began sinking in the mud and she lifted them to take longer strides.
She did
n’t care if she went to jail for a long time, she wasn’t going to let them take Tommy without a fight.
Water was now atop the mud and she waded forward.
The door on the left side of the Cessna swung open toward the cockpit, the boarding ladder fell into place and she cocked the Desert Eagle and lunged ahead.
Baldy stood in the doorway, one hand holding on to the frame and the other bringing his automatic to line up on her.
As she lifted the heavy Desert Eagle to shoot, Baldy suddenly flew out of the door, tried to right himself while airborne, and hit in the water and muck face down. He splashed swamp water all around him and immediately pushed himself to his knees coughing and sputtering. A second man appeared in the doorway, the other marshal, and he raised his hands in surrender, looked over his shoulder, and jumped.
Then Tommy stood there smiling at her. He gave her a thumb up and she saw a handcuff swinging from his wrist. He disappeared back inside and then the pilot and copilot jumped out. Their flight suits became immediately soaked. The three stood beside Baldy in the shallows of the swamp.
Disturbed mosquitoes swarmed angrily around them all.
Tommy stepped out. He waded toward her. “Each time I see you I am glad to be alive, just to look at you. This time more than most. Thank you, Pocahontas.”
“Yes, dear. Me, too.” She dimpled at him and handed him the Desert Eagle.
Baldy sat up and sputtered, completely covered in muck. He gagged and spat.
Tommy tucked the Desert Eagle under his arm and finished unlocking the other handcuff. He waded back to the aircrew and marshals. Mosquitoes flew into the air. He climbed back into the dead Cessna and came out with two more sets of handcuffs. He cuffed all four together and then to a strut on the left landing gear. “Shouldn’t be too long,” he said amiably. “Gotta be a thousand feds on the way.”
Baldy coughed and started to shout, looked around, and stopped abruptly. His shoulders sunk.
Tommy and María Elena waded to the hardpan and stomped off their feet. Tommy kept looking admirably at her and shaking his head. “I ain’t ever getting on your bad side.”
