Pilot Error

by T. C. Ravenscraft

  Toward Micki.

  Damn. Dirk combed his fingers through his hair. His men were not suicidal; no way would they continue to search in these conditions. But if he didn't have Micki back in his arms soon, then all hell was going to break loose and someone was going to get hurt.

  Lowering his head, Dirk locked gazes with Reynolds, who was now standing just beyond the glass office wall and watching him intently. There was no missing the glittering anticipation in the blond man's pale eyes. Reynolds had been waiting for him to mess up for years. It was clear he thought that now the time was very near. Dirk needed to buy some time and get Reynolds off his back. But how was he going to do that, without compromising his command?

  Thunder boomed above them again, loud enough to draw the attention of several of the workmen. Someone dropped his end of a particularly heavy crate. The wood cracked, spilling metal parts and packing straw onto the concrete hangar floor in a clatter. Scowling, Reynolds turned and barked an order.

  Watching the two men responsible drop to their knees to rectify their slip gave Dirk an idea. Crossing to his desk, he began a hunt through his bottom drawer for an old Marine Corps flight manual, in particular the flight manual with a page of complicated loading graphs. Reynolds was not an educated man, and armed with a printed diagram and a handful of numbers, Dirk could bluff his way with some completely incomprehensible 'pilot talk' about the wrong weight and balance of their aircraft.

  Finding the manual, he sat down, flipped to the relevant page, and started transferring numbers from the clipboard of stowed inventory onto a blank sheet of paper. Having flown his share of military transports when he was in the Marines, Dirk knew his way around loading graph computations. Reynolds knew that, even if he didn't know how to figure one. The fat little toad would see right through a bid to reposition some of the heavier crates for what it was—a stall for time—but he just might fall for it if Dirk covered it with a page of numerical malarkey. At the very least, it was worth a try.

  ***

  They tied the bowline to a tree and buried the anchor in the sand, but Micki still couldn't help think that if the approaching storm front was anything like its harsh display, then nothing was going to keep the jon boat from drifting away.

  Luke seemed indifferent about the possibility of losing their only way off the island now that they were actually there. His primary objective was to advance on the fishing shanty from the rear, using the dense scrub for cover just in case the speedboat they heard pulling away hadn't taken all the inhabitants with it. Micki's primary objective was to get indoors away from the lightning ASAP, no matter with whom she had to share it.

  Pushing through the ankle-snarling ground cover and scratchy saw palmettos after him was, in its own way, as challenging as swimming or rowing, especially when her heart pounded with mounting terror at every flash of lightning and clap of thunder. Her muscles ached in a way they never had, even after her toughest workout at the gym. Any minute now, another deluge would come and drench her to the skin again... if Luke's 'toast' prophecy didn't become a reality first. Worst of all, if she didn't get indoors and regain control soon, Mr. Macho was going to notice how genuinely terrified she really was. More than anything, that was the one weakness Micki did not want him to know.

  Suddenly, Luke dropped into a crouch amidst a stand of palm trees, and motioned her down behind him without turning to see if she obeyed. Micki held onto Fizz's collar as she knelt and squinted past his shoulder at a world lost to gloomy shadows and gale force winds. Before them, through the treacherous limbs of once cheery palms, lay a churning coral beach and the object of their quest.

  The fishing shanty looked a lot more substantial up close than it had from the air, and was a bit larger than most of its kind. It was supported by a number of sturdy poles, and looked fairly weatherproofed and braced. Built against the back wall was a platform, also on stilts, holding a galvanized water tank. That was odd. Even Tim Lewis, who was a diehard Keys fisherman, carried his own water rather than go to the trouble to construct a catch-and-store tank that would only be used periodically.

  But the most important feature, Micki noted with a sense of deeply felt relief, was that the shanty looked deserted.

  Eager to be inside and away from her personal terror, she scanned the upper windows and the uneven stack of crab traps beneath for any hint of life.

  "Looks like they've gone," Luke said. "Wait here and I'll check it out."

  "Not likely! I'm not staying out here to be 'toast!'" Snatching up her backpack, Micki moved around him into the open.

  Luke sprung to his feet to catch her elbow. "Well, that was a dumb move! Why don't I just paint a target on your forehead?"

  "You said they were gone," she retorted, jerking her arm free of his grip but realizing that what he said was true. Stepping out from behind cover could have been a fatal mistake if the shanty hadn't been deserted. But for Micki, staying outdoors was an even bigger risk.

  "Since when do you listen to me?" Luke wanted to know.

  "Since—"

  Lightning interrupted her, forking brilliantly from cloud to windswept sea. Sudden rain, blown in wind-driven sheets across the beach, lashed the shore and stung their faces.

  "—since the storm is here," Micki finished when it didn't abate. Drenched to the skin, she felt suddenly tiny and vulnerable and lost. Now it was official. Rescue wasn't coming. Not in this. Not tonight.

  Luke spoke before the realization could fully overwhelm her. "Well, no one's taken a shot at us yet. Maybe we got lucky and they've all left. Come on." He started toward the building, gripping his gun in both hands as if unwilling to trust too heartily on their 'luck.' "Let's see if we can get inside before we drown."

  ***

  The shanty was indeed deserted, and Micki pushed her way inside the moment Luke, who insisted on going first, proclaimed it safe. Although it was summer, she could not remember a time in her life when she had ever been this cold. Dropping her backpack on the floor of the safe haven they had 'commandeered' as their own, she was hard pressed to restrain her shivers.

  Staying clear of the windows as the lightning flashed, Micki pushed strands of wet hair from her face, and watched Luke and Fizz explore the single room. As another shudder swept through her, she wondered sourly why he wasn't shivering too. His clothes were every bit as soaked. It must have something to do with an athlete's metabolism and all that hard muscle...

  Hastily Micki turned away, from the thought and from the man, and grimaced irritably. She had been cold before, so she could handle it like a big girl. At least they were safe from the accursed lightning. Indoors, she could focus her mind on something else.

  Just stay clear of the windows, kiddo.

  The abandoned shanty didn't look like what she had expected of The Bad Guy's hangout, given that the only ones she'd seen were in James Bond films. There was no electronic control board of flashing lights, no huge LCD screen dominating an entire wall that pinpointed the location of the drop points and the blockhouse on the main island, and no villain sitting in an overstuffed armchair, gloating over their foolishness for coming here.

  It just looked like a fishing shanty, with the added feature of heavy interior shutters. The room was all rough, textured wood—the walls, floor, and ceiling all fashioned from the same depressing weathered gray. The furnishings consisted of a scarred, unstable-looking wooden table and two equally abused wooden chairs. New scratches in the floor were testament that whatever else the room once held had been recently removed. On a side wall, under a small window, was an ancient sink with a single spigot that, she surmised without too much imagination, led to the collecting tank outside.

  Fizz located the only comfortable spot in the room. He flopped down in the corner with a heartfelt sigh on what looked to be a large pile of rags. Micki mirrored the emotion, but there was more to be done before she sat down to rest.

  Keeping one eye on Luke, who was shuffling through a pile of newspapers left on the table, sh
e crossed to the sink and turned the spigot. The water that trickled out was clear and, when she lifted up a handful for a cautious sniff, smelled fairly pure.

  Luke's voice came from behind her. "Is it fresh?"

  "Seems to be."

  Turning to him, she just caught his expression as he shifted aside the recent newspaper with its glaring headline about his brother's helicopter crash.

  "I wouldn't drink it, though," she finished, watching as his jaw tightened and he shoved away the offending mess of papers. "Not until we finish our water. Then we can purify this with the tablets I have in my pack—"

  She broke off, amazed, as Luke stalked from the table and considered the back wall with a frown. Her bewilderment grew as he took one step back, and then took a running start at the wall to throw his shoulder hard against it.

  "What are you doing?"

  "This room isn't big enough."

  "Excuse me?"

  Luke didn't answer. Mystified, Micki watched as he slammed the wall again, then began pacing its length.

  "Have you gone nuts, Yank? This is a heck of a time to consider enlarging the living space."

  "This has to be a false wall. The room isn't as big on the inside as it looks to be on the outside." Arms crossed, he regarded it with a glare then backtracked to pick up one of the battered chairs. Seeming to choose a place at random, he used it to bestow a savage blow against the wall.

  The chair practically disintegrated on impact, but not before a hole the size and shape of a door materialized. Now that it was open, she could see how its lines had blended in with the rough grain of the wood. This place was built more skillfully than it appeared.

  She followed Luke to the threshold of the dark opening and called after him as he entered. "What's in there?"

  "Not much." There was a muffled thud. "Ow..."

  Micki hid a smile, and turned to her backpack as a peeved remark came from the depths of the darkness.

  "Not much that I can see, anyway."

  Muffled thumps and soft curses continued to come from the hidden space as Micki pulled her flashlight from her survival gear and crossed back to the opening. "Here, let me shed a little light on the subject."

  Stepping just inside the door, she flicked on the light and swept it over the narrow room. There were several shelves, all empty, and the same scratch marks on the floor.

  "Damn." Luke's gaze traveled the room with her light. "It's cleaned out, too. They didn't leave anything behind."

  Prompted by the angry despair in his tone, Micki rested a hand on his arm. When he turned to her, she gave the flashlight to him.

  "We'll get them, Luke, and we'll make them pay for what they did to Ray. You can count on that."

  Micki held eye contact with him over the flashlight. The smile that slowly filtered into Luke's solemn expression made her suddenly aware of her slip of having used his given name. Before he could respond with either a wry comment or a patronizing putdown—or worse—she cleared her throat and moved back across to the main room.

  "But first," she said, as if nothing had happened, "we've got to take care of some basic needs."

  Luke followed her to the shattered door jamb. She left him leaning on the frame, wondering what he was thinking but not daring to look at his face again, and went to examine what Fizz had claimed for a bed. Gently nudging the dog aside, Micki shuffled through the pile of rags and uncovered a men's dress shirt with a large tear down its right sleeve. Closer examination brought a smile. As suspected, it bore the label of a pricey New York designer, but considering they were up against counterfeiters, it was a sure bet the garment wasn't genuine.

  "Look, they left us dry clothes." She fired the shirt at him, trying hard to be the Micki he knew. Being cooped up with Luke Hardigan was starting to rattle her almost as much as the lightning. "There has to be something we can wear."

  Next she unearthed a men's gray jogging suit that sported name brand patches already unraveling from the pants, and a hole in the collar seam of the shirt. The cheap imitations hadn't even survived long enough to make it to their intended store.

  Micki stood with the jogging suit, despite Fizz's reproachful gaze for stealing a good portion of his bed. "If you look through there," she told Luke with a nod at the remaining pile, "I bet you can find something stunning to go with that shirt."

  Luke snorted, but moved to examine the rejected clothes. Despite herself, Micki glanced at his back as he squatted to rifle the pile, his muscles well-defined and moving enticingly under his soaked shirt. His rummaging scored a pair of men's jeans with an obvious flaw running down the left leg of the denim.

  Although Luke seemed unaware of her as he held them in front of himself for a test fit, Micki turned away, unable—or unwilling—to put a tag on the sensations he was evoking inside her.

  "And after we dress for dinner," she babbled distractedly, "we take care of the really important stuff. Dinner itself."

  "Dinner? What sort of dinner?" He sounded so hopeful that it made her smile with genuine amusement.

  "Military-style rations—MREs. I ordered them from a military supply catalog for just this sort of occasion."

  "Always the survivor?"

  "You got it."

  "Great, I'm starving."

  Snagging the flashlight from his hand, Micki headed toward the hidden room they had discovered. "Not so fast. First, I'm going to change." She spoke to Fizz as she passed him. "If he peeks, boy, rip his leg off, okay?"

  Looking obliging, Fizz settled down on the remainder of the discarded clothing pile, facing the doorway.

  Smiling at the long-suffering glance of innocence she got from Luke, she ducked into what passed for privacy... and a chance to examine those mysterious dogtags in her pocket.

  ***

  Darkness cloaked the silent aircraft that roosted in the hangar beyond the glass-walled office. The rain was a loud and constant roar on the tin roof, broken only by the intermittent presence of thunder and lightning.

  Dirk let himself in Micki's office with the key he had copied years ago. It fit the lock on her office door as perfectly as his other copied key fit the door to her trailer. He sat at her desk, turned on the lamp, and immediately scowled at the paper chaos. How did she ever keep anything straight?

  Not that he had time to reprimand her sloppiness now; there would be time to correct that bad habit, and others, once they were married. The bogus loading graph he had shown to Reynolds had bought him maybe twenty minutes, maybe less. He had claimed the cargo plane that they intended to fly to Bermuda was so tail heavy that they would never make it off the ground. The numbers he'd put on his graph confirmed it. To rectify this, he'd said, relying on pilot jargon to cloud the issue, some of the heavier crates would have to be repositioned closer to the C-46's center of gravity to change the payload moments.

  Although suspicious, Reynolds trusted Dirk's proficiency as an ex-Marine pilot, and had reluctantly barked orders to the men. Or maybe it was simply because he would be riding shotgun in the cockpit and wasn't taking any chances. Feeling smug with his victory, Dirk had left with a casual comment that he was going for a bite to eat, and then had jumped in his work truck to drive straight across the tarmac to Micki's office. Now he was gambling that the storm would strengthen to a point where it would genuinely compromise a safe takeoff that evening.

  Clearing a spot on the desk, he flipped open the tan-covered business ledger. Before he departed for Bermuda and a luxurious retirement with his new bride-to-be, Dirk meant to find out exactly what was on the pages Luke Hardigan had copied from Micki's ledger. While he was at it, he would also make sure there were no other loose ends left behind to incriminate himself, his employer, or Micki in the trafficking of counterfeit goods.

  Flipping through the last few ledger pages made him swear softly. In all likelihood, Hardigan had copied evidence of fuel receipts and shipping payments for all the trips Micki had made to the distribution shop in Miami. When matched with the destinations and dates in
her flight log book, photocopies or not, it would be enough to get the ball rolling in a Federal indictment.

  Dirk had to find Micki and get those copies back, or there were going to be some nagging complications left behind after they departed US soil. He had to destroy the paper trail and cover his tracks.

  Disgusted, he flipped the ledger closed and surveyed the papers and forms littering the desk. There was nothing else of any real importance there—just the legitimate paperwork of Jacinto Scenic Flights, which tomorrow would be nonexistent. Hardigan had zeroed in on the things that Dirk hadn't wanted him to find, a prime clue that the self-styled tourist wasn't all that he claimed.

  Where the hell was he, and what was he doing with Micki?

  With a jealous growl, Dirk's arm swept the clutter off the desktop. As paper gently rained down around him, he stared at the notebook computer that his temper had revealed underneath. He conducted all business transactions for Dominic Van Allen on a computer identical to it. The portable hard drive that documented every scrap of merchandise received and distributed in the past three years was packed securely in the soft-sided attaché by his feet. Another computer, secreted away in a private study in Bermuda, would eventually give up the information for Van Allen's use alone.

  If only Micki had started using the laptop like he'd wanted her to. Then he could have gotten into her files via the internet and a backdoor password whenever he wanted, as easily as he could gain access to her home and work space with his duplicate keys.

  She would never have known.

  Hell, Micki was so computer illiterate that he could have set himself up as a registered user and logged in right under her nose. A little doctoring here and there, and then they would both have been in the clear. Instead, that snoop Hardigan was in possession of some very sensitive information.