Hart jammed a .22-caliber Walther TPH pistol into Spence’s face.
“Hey, man.” Spence drew back. “Take it easy. I got on this plane the same place you did, right back there at the Prison Transfer Center in Whiskey Springs.”
“I’ve never seen you before. Never heard of you either.” Hart’s eyes narrowed.
The air leaked right out of Spence’s lungs as one second scraped by, then another.
Finally Ryder Hamilton broke the silence. “He shared a cell with me at the PTC. Three, four days before we boarded.”
Spence fought hard to control his surprise. Hart’s gaze cut from Hamilton to Spence. Spence held the hijacker’s gaze, his gut caving at the help from Hamilton. Maybe it was the con’s word. Maybe it was Spence’s beard or the clothes, but finally Hart grunted and thumbed the Walther’s hammer back into place. He turned and dragged Kelly with him toward the front of the plane, again keeping her between him and a bullet.
His chest hurt when that first gulp of air crowded in. After seeing the way Carl roughly handled Kelly, Spence didn’t care if he took the bastard dead or alive.
At the front row, Hart pushed Kelly into an aisle seat, straight ahead of Spence. Hart placed himself in front of her, his gaze narrowed suspiciously on Spence. Frustration chewed at Spence’s gut like acid. No way could he move on Hart now without risking Kelly’s life or the lives of the men between him and Hart. He slid his hand under the seat cushion, his hand closing over the reassuring sleekness of his Glock.
Feeling Hamilton’s gaze on him, Spence looked over. “Why’d you help me?”
“I’ve only got six months left on my sentence,” the other man drawled in a thick Texas accent. “I’m not screwin’ it up for Hart.”
Spence nodded, weighing the other man. Finally he nodded. “Thanks. I won’t forget it.”
Muscles braced, Spence palmed his gun, waiting. Watching. Soon he would get his chance. And he’d be ready.
Kelly rubbed her wrist, her scalp still stinging from the yank Carl had given her hair when he’d first pulled her on board. Relief joined the panic and fear she felt. At least Spence was on the plane. And, she noted, chewing at her thumbnail, Carl hadn’t taken his gaze off Spence for more than one second since he’d questioned his identity.
Thank goodness for Ryder Hamilton. She remembered the handsome, former oil executive’s picture from the pile of photos Spence had shown her last night. Had it been only last night?
Last night when she’d admitted to the invisible, yet strong-as-steel bond that bound her to Spence? Last night when she’d given him a part of herself she’d thought never to surrender again?
Kelly didn’t know why Hamilton had vouched for Spence, but she was going to thank him later. When they got out of this. She refused to consider that they wouldn’t get out of this.
Do something, her mind urged. She discarded ideas as quickly as they popped into her head. Jump him. Ridiculous. Distract him. For what? She didn’t know what Spence had planned— Wait! She could distract Carl. As long as he was studying Spence with the same paranoid intensity he’d always used on her, Spence wouldn’t have a chance to make a move.
Her ex’s dark good looks were an icy mask of fury and concentration. He switched his gun from one hand to the other and back again. A thick-necked prisoner with a shaved head and swastikas tattooed on either side of his mouth sat directly behind her. Another sat in the same row across the aisle.
She and Carl were right behind the cockpit door, which was open so Carl could keep an eye on the pilot, Jensen, and the copilot, O’Connor. Thanks to the little stainless steel gun Carl kept poking in their faces, the two men obeyed every order without comment. Each also had a wrist shackled to the steering wheel, which explained why neither had been able to help her when Carl had yanked her aboard.
Kelly’s nerves thrummed. The hair on the back of her neck prickled. When Carl had walked her right up to Spence, she’d tried not to look at him. Now she had to force herself not to turn around and search for him.
Through her blur of shock and pain and fear, two things became crystal clear. She’d had all of Carl Hart’s bullying she was going to take, and she wanted a chance with Spence Cantrell.
Nervous energy rolling off him like a bitter odor, her ex’s narrowed gaze returned repeatedly to Spence. A sheen of sweat filmed Carl’s upper lip. Stubble dotted his chin, giving his face a dirty pall. She knew he hated being unshaven, hated to be less than immaculately groomed.
She watched him warily. He’d wasted no time getting the protective gear off her. The bulletproof vest and riot helmet lay in the corner where he’d thrown them. His gaze sharpened on her. Satisfaction flared in his brown eyes.
She couldn’t believe she’d ever found his coldly handsome, calculating features compelling. She had to get his attention off Spence and on her. “Why did you do this, Carl?”
“I told you, darling. We’re going back to Belize.” He laughed harshly. “Relive our honeymoon.”
The thought of his hands on her made bile rise in her throat. She tried to stay calm. She didn’t believe he really wanted her physically. He’d always said she never did that right either.
“I didn’t hear from you while you were in prison. Why now?”
Hate frosted his eyes, so frigid that she felt it stroke up her spine. But she held his gaze, her breath aching in her chest.
“I thought about you plenty, darling. About the way you turned on me, about the way you put me in that place to rot.”
His own actions had landed him there, but Kelly didn’t think now was the best time to point that out. He yanked her chin up. “Remember our time in Belize, Kelly?”
She’d spent the last three years trying to forget it, trying to live with what an idiot she’d been. “But why do you need me, Carl? I’ll just slow you down. What are you going to do when you get there? Drive somewhere? Take a boat out to Roitan?”
He raised his hand as if he would strike her and she pressed into the seat. Bracing herself, she waited as he stared at her, hatred flushing his features.
Finally he lowered his hand, trailed the gun barrel across her collarbone.
Kelly froze. He flashed a smile, a slash of teeth in his cruelly handsome face. “I’ve got some money waiting for me, darling. Once I get it, I won’t need you anymore.”
“Money? In Belize? How—” She broke off, a memory surfacing. Not wanting a dime of Carl’s money after the divorce, she’d forgotten all about the account he’d opened in the Central American bank. He’d said they would return on every anniversary and he’d deposit money for each year they were together. Mad money, he’d called it. For her to spend as she wanted. On a high from their marriage, he’d been in a generous mood, which he often was when he got his own way. “The only reason you would need me is to access that account you set up for me on our honeymoon.”
“That’s right.”
“But there can’t be more than a thousand dollars in there!” Sickened, Kelly gestured at all the people behind her. “You did this for a thousand dollars?”
“Hardly. There’s between four and five million in that account now.”
“What? How on earth!”
“It’s quite sad how trusting little old ladies can be,” he said chuckling.
It took a second for Kelly to put it together. “You embezzled that money from senior citizens? You were named as trustee for a group of them in the nursing home! Their retirement, their pensions!”
“Not embezzling,” he said in a hard voice. “More like…siphoning.”
“You’re just adding years to your sentence.”
He laughed. “It’s easy to doctor accounts, darling. They probably still don’t even know the money’s gone.”
Anger burst inside her along with disbelief, but what really had her pulse shooting into orbit was the memory that her account could only be accessed with her exact palm print. Carl had set it up that way when he thought he had her under his thumb.
Dread thickened inside her. What reason would Carl have to keep her alive after he withdrew the money from the bank?
He trailed the gun back up her neck, across her jaw. She swallowed, nausea pooling in her belly. Would he ever give her some space? Ever give Spence a window of opportunity to move?
Carl’s eyes took on a distant gleam and he fingered her hair. What little breakfast she’d eaten nearly came up. Kelly closed her eyes, swallowing back the bitterness in her throat. If he touched her in a sexual way, she was going to fight him. She wasn’t going through that again, especially after experiencing the way a man should touch her.
She tried not to let her mind be frozen by Carl’s leer. Relief had her slumping in her seat when he turned toward the cockpit, his eyes narrowed, suspicion tight on his face.
The little bud of anger inside Kelly grew as she watched her ex-husband stalk into the cockpit. He leaned over the pilot’s shoulder for a long minute, then he exploded.
“You’re going around in damn circles!” Flinging his arm back, he brought his gun sharply against the pilot’s head. “If we’re going to Central America, there’s no reason for that gauge to read north-northeast!”
Carl struck the pilot again and a thin line of blood trickled down the man’s temple.
Kelly jumped up, screaming, “Stop it, Carl! You’ll kill him!”
Carl hit him again. “Get this plane on course. Now!”
“Carl, stop! Stop!”
Kelly’s scream chilled Spence’s blood. Bolting out of his chair, he ripped the black box off Hamilton’s cuffs and palmed him a handcuff key. “Free yourself and get this key to the marshal in that seat.”
He indicated a pudgy, red-haired man three rows up. Hamilton nodded and Spence took off up the aisle. Hart bludgeoned the pilot with his gun, yelling about flying in circles. Kelly was on her feet, still screaming at Carl to stop.
“Kelly, get down!” Spence bellowed to be heard above the noise of stirring prisoners and clanking chains as they all craned for a look. He halted at the cockpit door, leveling his Glock at Hart. “U.S. Marshal. Drop your weapon, Hart!”
The copilot lunged at Hart, swinging at him with the arm not shackled to the wheel. Before Spence could ID himself again, Hart’s gun went off in rapid succession. A loud series of pops sounded from the control panel; smoke streamed into the air. Spence fired, too, hitting Hart in the shoulder, taking a bullet himself.
With a bellow of enraged pain, the bastard spun. The plane nose-dived sharply, the motion knocking Spence’s feet out from under him. He grabbed the doorframe, his gun flying out of his hand, bouncing across the bullet-riddled instrument panel and disappearing in a tangle of feet.
“Mayday! Mayday!” the copilot yelled. The pilot slumped, blood spreading in a slow stain across his white shirt.
Sharp pain arrowed up Spence’s right arm. He’d been hit. He roared and rose to jump Hart, trying to wrestle the Walther from the convict’s iron grip. He nearly had it. Fingers wrapped around the slick barrel, he yanked. Hart broke free, rocked Spence with a hook to the chin. Head ringing, jaw snapping, Spence stumbled backward out of the cockpit. Hart tackled him, grabbed again at the gun.
Kelly jumped on Hart’s back, gouging at his eyes with her fingers, trying to wrench him away from Spence. She bit his ear and he roared in pain, bucking violently enough to throw her off. She hit the wall behind her, lying dazed for a moment.
Spence grabbed the gun, Hart’s hand closed over his. Dark eyes burned hate and death into his. Muscles popped and both of them grunted with the effort to keep the gun. Spence tried to get a foothold on the floor, tried to brace himself so he could throw Hart off. Pain seared Spence’s arm, but he couldn’t let go. The plane continued its downward descent; Spence and Hart rolled into the steel frame of the seats, crunched in the narrow aisle.
There! He nearly had the gun turned in his hand—
A gunshot exploded, deafening for an instant. Acrid smoke burned Spence’s nostrils.
Absolute silence fell like lead weight.
Then Kelly’s wobbly voice sounded in the swollen quiet. “Spence?”
Hart collapsed limply on top of him.
“I’m okay,” he grunted, pushing off the hijacker’s body and edging into a sitting position. He clamped a hand over his wound and applied pressure.
Two marshals—Lowe and Pendergrass—peered into Spence’s face. “You okay?”
Spence nodded, his muscles quivering with reaction, his heart racing.
Lowe leaned down and felt for a pulse in Hart’s neck. “Gone,” the marshal said.
“We’ve got the plane back under control. Thanks to Ryder Hamilton.” Pendergrass helped Spence to his feet and clapped him on the shoulder.
Spence nodded, caring only about one thing right now. He gestured to Hart’s gun where he’d dropped it and turned, catching Kelly with his left arm as she barreled into him.
Relief and euphoria nearly buckled his knees as his body jolted down from an adrenaline high. Burying one hand in her hair, he crushed his lips to hers. She clung to him.
She was alive. He was alive. Hart wasn’t.
It felt like hours, but it took only minutes for Spence to have the plane back under full marshal control. And without using the weapons he had brought on board. Despite Kelly’s worried urging to immediately sit down, Spence took care of business first. Hamilton had done his part by releasing two marshals, who in turn had released the others. Spence made a mental note to have his uncle Vaughn, a federal judge, give an early review of Hamilton’s case. The man had probably saved his life and Kelly’s, too.
Kelly stayed close, her hand locked in his. In the cockpit door, he turned to the copilot, concerned about the man who’d seen his partner shot right in front of him. “How’re you doing, O’Connor?”
The man’s thick gray hair was plastered to his skull and matched the color of his face. Sweat glistened on his forehead and neck. His voice shook as he returned Spence’s gun to him. “I’m not hit or anything, but the flight controls are another story.”
“What do you need?”
“Another pilot would be nice,” the man said drily.
Spence nodded as he tucked his weapon into the small of his back, urging Kelly out of the aisle as two marshals carefully carried out the dead pilot. Two other marshals followed them to the back of the plane with Hart’s motionless body. Kelly turned her head into Spence’s shoulder.
Setting his jaw against the pain in his other arm, he slid an arm around her waist and pulled her next to him as he said to the copilot, “I’m sorry about Jensen. I know you guys were friends and flew together a lot.”
O’Connor nodded, looking dazed and devastated. Streaks of Jensen’s blood splashed morbid color on the copilot’s white shirt.
“Can you radio the plane behind us?” Spence asked gently.
The man reached for the mike, his hands shaking so badly Spence didn’t know if he could push the button.
“I’ll try to get you some help in here.”
“I’m sorry, sir.”
“It’s all right.” Spence squeezed O’Connor’s shoulder. The man had just seen his friend die. Spence wouldn’t have been all that steady either.
O’Connor established radio contact with the Gulfstream now following them in plain sight and Spence filled Taggart in. “I’ll give you everything in more detail when we land,” Spence told the FBI agent. “I need to get some help for O’Connor.”
He signed off, then stepped out of the cockpit, his hand slipping into Kelly’s. “We need another person in the cockpit with the copilot. Does anyone have any flying experience?”
His gaze went first to the marshals, but they all shook their heads.
Finally, Hamilton spoke up. “I’ve flown bug smashers.”
“Is that a plane?” Spence’s system slowed to normal as he finally allowed himself to savor the relief and gratitude that he and Kelly were all right.
“Little single-engine jobs. I used to fly the
m around the oil fields of West Texas.”
“That’ll do.” Spence motioned him up.
As Hamilton passed, Spence said in a low voice, “Thanks again for your help, now and earlier. I won’t forget it.”
The other man’s gaze turned speculative. “You’re welcome.”
After Hamilton moved into the cockpit, Spence glanced around. The prisoners were all still shackled, the marshals again back in control. In the back of the plane, the male nurse was just zipping Hart into a body bag like Jensen’s. Even though Spence knew they were lucky not to have lost more men, he hated that Hart had caused the death of a good man, a man who certainly hadn’t signed on for gunfire.
A rush of fatigue swept over Spence and his head throbbed.
“Now will you sit down?” Kelly asked, pulling him toward the back of the plane.
“Yes.” He allowed her to settle him in a seat, then kissed her again.
“Sir?” the flight nurse quietly interrupted. “Why don’t you let me look at that arm?”
Spence nodded and sat quietly, his hand locked in Kelly’s, while the man efficiently cut away Spence’s sleeve, then cleaned and bandaged the wound.
“Looks like it went in and out.”
“Good,” Spence said.
“Thank goodness.” Kelly settled her head on his shoulder and he shut his eyes as the nurse moved off.
“I was so afraid, Spence.”
“Well, you couldn’t tell.” He opened his eyes and found her staring up at him somberly. “I was damn proud of you.”
“You were?”
“Yes.” He kissed her, slowly, softly.
She touched his face, wonder coming into her eyes. “We’re really okay.”
“Yeah. More than okay.” He smiled tiredly and when she smiled back, his heart clenched. “Listen, Kelly, about that date—”
“Don’t try to get out of it,” she teased.
“No chance.” He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “I love you, Kelly. I know it’s fast, but—”
Special Report Page 15
