“What?” Jake said. “Even if he makes it, what?”
“The Zubayr archipelago is not soft and sandy like Al Bodhi. It’s hard and rocky and unforgiving. If he makes a landing like he did in Hajjah, they’ll both be injured. Or worse.”
“What about that thing we did going into Hajjah?” Jake said. “You know, uh…ridge soaring. That’s it. Where we climbed a few hundred feet.”
“Problem is, Jake, we’re over water. No updrafts over water, especially this early in the morning. We took advantage of the winds in the mountains to gain extra altitude. Now we have no mountains and no land.” Wiley paused. “As far as ridge soaring, Mr. Kaplan will have to make it to the northernmost island in order to get the first and possibly only chance at ridge lift and even then—”
“Even then.” Jake interrupted. “It might not be enough.”
“Exactly.”
Jake didn’t say anything for the next thirty minutes. Wiley explained the situation to Kaplan and he said he understood what had to be done, including the consequences of failure. Jake knew Kaplan would be extra cautious with Isabella on board. Even though Jake didn’t like it, he knew Kaplan had strong feelings for her. But there was something else eating away at him. He couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was, though.
There was tension between Kaplan and himself. They had been close friends, even confidantes when they first met in Savannah, Georgia earlier in the year. Kaplan had been involved, from an air traffic controller’s standpoint, in an aircraft accident investigation. Early in the investigation Jake suspected it wasn’t an accident but the result of sabotage. As Jake unraveled the truth, he exposed his own boss as a conspirator. But worse than that, Jake uncovered Kaplan’s long-time girlfriend as an accomplice. Maybe Kaplan held that against him.
The same event that took the life of Jake’s fiancée also took the life of Kaplan’s girlfriend. But her death was fast. She died on the spot, in front of Kaplan. Jake’s fiancée, on the other hand, lingered in a coma for days, began to recover and then without warning died. It’s possible, even probable, that Kaplan blamed Jake for her death too.
At some point, Jake knew, he’d have to make amends. He wanted to have that opportunity.
At some point, but not right now.
CHAPTER 36
KAPLAN SAW THE Zubayr archipelago island chain stretch out in front of him from north to south spanning fifteen miles from end to end. He counted fourteen islands. The northernmost island a tiny dot even from his low altitude of three hundred fifty feet. The glider in front of him a half a mile and at least another hundred fifty feet higher had just passed the first island.
The second island in the chain was much larger, maybe three quarters of a mile by half a mile, with a large peak in the middle. The ripples in the waters of the Red Sea indicated a strong wind from the south. He knew this was his best chance, maybe his only chance, to gain back some precious altitude—at least enough to carry him further down the archipelago. The question in his mind, how much altitude could he gain before he lost the lift from the peak? A question soon answered when he saw Wiley make a climbing left turn gaining several hundred feet before turning south toward the rendezvous point.
The jolt from the updraft caught Kaplan off guard. He rolled into a gentle turn and spiraled upward, making sure he kept the glider inside the updraft. Kaplan’s altimeter climbed ever higher. Now he was faced with a choice, follow the chain of islands, hopping from one to another adding extra miles to his route but remaining close enough in case he needed to find another ridge to steal altitude from. Or, make the straight line shot to the rendezvous point like Wiley did but it left him vulnerable over the open water.
Wiley told him his prototype gliders were rated at slightly better than a 60:1 ratio. He ran the rough calculations in his head. Piece of cake.
Kaplan lost the updraft at exactly a thousand feet, turned to the south and followed Wiley’s glider on a direct line toward the rendezvous point. Halfway across the span of open water he realized he’d made a mistake in his calculations as his altimeter passed through six hundred feet. Coupled with a headwind slowing his progress across the water and the extra drag from the jammed retractable engine, he wasn’t getting the 60:1 glide ratio Wiley bragged about.
Not even close.
† † †
Jake studied the island in front of him as Wiley finessed the glider closer to the landing spot. The island had a large volcano crater on the eastern side, blown out to the southeast from a previous eruption. A column of steam rose from within its center. Wiley’s landing spot was west of a smaller crater on a plateau next to the western shoreline. Jake noticed all the islands in the Zubayr archipelago were littered with craters, all of them black and barren, but this large crater was the only one that appeared active.
As they approached the landing site Jake could see the blackened earth covered with thick vegetation.
And rocks.
Lots of rocks.
A large boat was anchored just west of where Wiley was preparing to land. A large red and white dive flag was mounted on top. Two skiffs were beached on the western shore and two figures stood by each.
“Is that our welcoming party?” Jake asked.
“Yep. Two crew, two medics.” Wiley said. “Turn around and see how Kaplan’s doing, will you?”
“He’s back there a good ways, maybe a mile.” Jake said. “He looks a little low.”
† † †
Kaplan watched the glider in front of him kick up a cloud of black dust as it touched down. Four figures scurried toward the glider as Wiley and Jake popped the canopy and crawled out. Two men pulled the glider toward the skiffs, a distance Kaplan estimated at fifty, maybe sixty feet.
“Isabella, are you buckled in?” Kaplan asked.
“Aren’t we a little low, Gregg?” Hunt asked. “I don’t know much about flying but we look like we’re too close to the water.”
“We are low. It’s going to be close.” Kaplan said. “Hold on tight.”
Once again Kaplan was staring ahead at a glide path that was too shallow—too low. He noticed the shoreline as they approached the landing site. The black sand ended abruptly several feet from the water’s edge then leveled out. Covered with vegetation and small rocks, the landing site was far from ideal. That is, if he could even make the landing site.
He kept the glider lined up on the same line Wiley used. The black sandy beach rapidly approaching. The water even faster. Wiley had incorporated a three setting flap system, each signified by a catch when the flap handle was pulled. Kaplan pulled on the first notch of flaps.
Better.
The glider slowed and the glide path angle improved. Kaplan pulled on the second notch of flaps.
Much better. We might just make it.
Kaplan relaxed a little. He hadn’t realized until that moment just how tight his grip was on the controls. He wiped his sweaty palms on his pants.
He pulled out the last notch of flaps. His glide angle improved again. Momentarily. Drag caught up and his airspeed slowed. Kaplan lowered the nose to compensate and kept his airspeed just above a stall, that moment when airflow over the wings was insufficient to maintain lift, and the aircraft stops flying.
That moment came as Kaplan’s glider was twenty feet from the black sandy beach. The glider skipped on the shallow water and onto the beach where it dug in nose first. Water and black sand sprayed across the canopy. The four-foot lip from the beach to the plateau that Kaplan was aiming to clear was approaching faster.
“Hold on.” Kaplan yelled.
The glider dug into the black sand deeper as the glider slowed. The nose of the glider caught the lip with too much forward speed.
Kaplan heard Isabella Hunt grunt as the glider came to an abrupt stop. He felt the pain of the harness straps digging into his chest, shoulders, and waist. Then came a feeling he didn’t recognize. The glider was still moving, rotating forward. And upward.
“Whoa.” Hunt scre
amed. “We’re going over.”
The glider stood on its nose. Kaplan stared at the ground, harness pulling against the weight of his body. What seemed like an eternity to Kaplan, was only two seconds. Then the glider fell backward onto the beach.
“Remind me never to fly with you again.” Hunt said.
“Any landing you walk away from is a good landing.”
† † †
Jake was the first person to reach Kaplan’s glider. By the time he opened the canopy, both crew and medics had arrived.
“Another nice landing, I see.” Jake said. “Will you give me lessons?”
“Very funny, smartass.” Kaplan reached his arm out to Jake. “Give me a hand, will ya?”
Jake pulled Kaplan out of the glider while both medics attended to Isabella Hunt.
“We need to get her to the boat.” One of the medics said.
The two crewmembers gently removed Hunt from the glider and carried her to the nearest skiff. One of the medics walked up to Kaplan. “Are you injured?”
“Only my pride.” Kaplan said. “Go. Take care of Isabella, please.”
Jake helped Kaplan unload Wiley’s equipment from the glider. One of the two crewmembers returned to the glider after the skiff left with the medics to take Hunt to the larger boat anchored three hundred feet from shore.
After everything was removed from the gliders, Jake, Wiley, and Kaplan loaded the remaining skiff and were taken to the larger boat. The Toymaker was a one hundred twenty-five foot yacht that resembled a live aboard dive boat in every way. The dive deck was equipped with a full complement of tanks, wetsuits, masks, and fins.
“The Toymaker?” Jake laughed when he read the name painted on the transom. “Seriously?”
“What?” Wiley grinned. “I’ve been a certified scuba diver since I was thirteen. This is a very versatile vessel with many uses above and beyond just a dive boat. Inside you’ll find all the comforts of home along with some ‘specialized’ equipment. I designed the hull myself. In the right conditions, she’ll do forty-five knots.”
“Why am I not surprised?” Jake noticed the men onshore tying the two gliders together with ropes, one behind the other. “What’s to become of your sailplanes?” He pointed toward shore.
“I can’t allow them to be retrieved.” Wiley explained. “They are unique and the technology is classified. We’ll be boarded in Djibouti and I can’t run the risk of them being discovered and us being tied back to the explosion in Yemen. There is a trench in the sea floor about five hundred yards south of here. We’ll tow them to the trench and scuttle them to the bottom.”
“A trench?” Jake asked. “How deep?”
“I’ll drop them at about 600 meters.” Wiley said. “About two thousand feet.”
“Two thousand feet.” Jake said. “The Red Sea is that deep?”
“You did see the volcanoes?” Wiley said. “There are spots that are over ten thousand feet deep. Now, let’s go check on Ms Hunt and find out what she knows.”
Jake and Kaplan followed Wiley down below deck to the medical bay. The medics had Isabella Hunt already hooked to an IV. Her face was pale and Jake could see she’d lost a lot of weight.
“How is she?” Kaplan asked
“She lost consciousness as soon as the IV started working.” One of the medics said. “She’s dehydrated and they’d been drugging her for days. I drew a blood sample to see what’s in her system. She’ll need to sleep for now.”
“As soon as she’s conscious, I want to speak to her.” A familiar voice said from behind them.
Jake turned around.
CIA Director Scott Bentley.
CHAPTER 37
COLLINS LEARNED PATIENCE from the beginning of his life as an assassin. As a hit man for the Irish Republican Army, his first assignment required him to remain stationary for over twelve hours before his prey and the right opportunity to kill came his way.
It was cold in Ireland the night of that assignment. Wet snow bit at him for hours, chilling him to the point of shivers. Yet he waited. Waited and watched until his target drove up after a long night of ‘pub hopping.’ The explosives Collins had planted in the man’s detached garage were enough to bring down an office building, overkill for the small garage. But he accomplished the kill. Along with the garage, the man’s entire home was demolished by the explosive device.
Technology had come a long way since those days. And so had his expertise. He’d learned the tricks of the trade, far superior to others in his line of work. He learned tragic accidents do happen and he used that to his advantage. The more a target appeared to be a victim of random misfortune, the less attention it garnered from the authorities.
Collins calculated the response times from the local fire and police departments. He knew exactly how long he had to incinerate the home, return to his vehicle, and flee the scene before local authorities arrived.
Now was the time.
Collins removed the wireless device from his backpack and toggled the switch. If all went according to design, there would be no initial explosion, just a massive flame fueled by the owners’ gas line. The explosion would come later, after the fire was fully involved, the home ablaze, and he was far from the scene. He knew the heat from the pyre would destroy any evidence of arson.
He picked up his binoculars and studied the rear of the home, the kitchen below the master bedroom fully visible from his vantage point. A flicker of light grew larger. Flames shot upward from behind the stove engulfing the cabinets above. He smiled. The device had worked as planned.
He listened for any sounds emanating from the residence other than the sounds of the fire itself. None. He’d disabled every smoke alarm he could find. If he’d missed one, he would have known by now.
The downstairs filled with heavy black smoke, flames barely visible as they spread across the ceiling. The rustic beams made perfect kindling, ignited quickly and burned hot for long periods of time. The all glass prow-shaped rear wall blew outward, glass crashed onto the back patio. Flames curled around the roofline, crawling laterally from room to room, feeding itself on the old home.
Time to go.
He stuffed his binoculars and the wireless device into his backpack, slung it across his shoulder and ran toward his car.
When he reached the edge of the woods he could hear the blazing roar of the fire behind him. The streets were empty. He ran to his car. In the distance he heard the faint sound of sirens.
He tossed his backpack on the seat, started his car, and drove to the edge of the parking lot. To his left he saw flashing lights rounding the curve a half a mile north of him on Shenandoah. He turned right just as a ball of fire ballooned over the tree line in front of him. The sound wave that followed rocked his vehicle. He turned right, west, on Lower Fayetteville Road and saw flashing lights ahead so he made another quick right on Stonebridge Boulevard and entered a residential subdivision.
An approaching fire truck had unexpectedly cut off his planned escape route on Shenandoah. His alternate route cut off by a police car. Meticulous planning is the key to success. Plotting several different escape routes had always been a requirement for Collins. Plan for the unexpected had been his axiom. It had kept him alive all of these years. And out of the hands of authorities.
Collins weaved through the Stonebridge subdivision until he reached Newnan Crossing Boulevard. He turned north. By the time he reached the traffic signal at Col. Joe M. Jackson Medal of Honor Highway, the night air was filled with sirens from all types of emergency vehicles responding to the blaze.
In his rear view mirror Collins could see the orange glow from the fire. He turned left when the light changed to green then made an immediate right onto Interstate 85 and drove toward Atlanta.
Collins hummed a John Prine song he heard on the radio, “Sweet revenge, sweet revenge, without fail.”
CHAPTER 38
8:00 a.m.
Herent, Belgium
KYLI PLACED HER hand on her friend’s sh
oulder. “Kates. Kates, wake up. We need to get moving.”
“Come on, Kyli.” Kates whined. “It’s early and I have jet lag.”
“If you want to see Paris today, you need to get your ass in gear.” Kyli said.
“This is Europe, for crying out loud, how far can it be?”
“The drive is three hundred fifty kilometers.” Kyli ripped the sheets off Kates.
Kates was one of Kyli’s best friends from high school. She slept in gym shorts and a t-shirt. Her long brown hair tangled and matted. All Kyli could see were Kates’ long legs that seemed to stretch for eternity, a physical trait Kyli envied.
Kates opened her blue eyes as she grabbed for the covers. “Kyli. I don’t know what a kilometer is. Well, I know what it is, but I don’t know how far it is.”
“Fine.” Kyli ripped the covers off the bed again. “It’s like a hundred and eighty miles.”
“Three hours then.” Kates grabbed for the covers again. “And the way you drive, probably less.”
“Nope.” Kyli struggled with Kates over the covers. “Like you said, this is Europe. The drive is more like five hours. So let’s get moving. You can sleep in the car.”
Kates sat up in the bed. “Your grandfather’s Mercedes is a car.” She said. “A Mini Cooper is not a car, it’s a shoebox with wheels.”
“Maybe so. But it’s fun to drive.” Kyli opened the curtains. The sun highlighted the purple walls. “ So, what do you want to see first?”
“You know what’s on my list.” Kates grabbed a towel from the closet. “I want to see the Eiffel Tower, Champs Elysees, and the Louvre. Those are a must.”
“We’ll walk Champs Elysees tonight.” Kyli said. “It’s pretty at night with all the lights. The Louvre takes a lot longer than the Eiffel Tower so we can do the tower in the morning, it’s on the other side of the river, then we’ll head over to the Louvre and stay as long as you’d like.”
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