Greg Iles - 24 Hours

That had to be the C-130 pilot. Will was halfway through his turn when another C-130 dropped out of the sky to his right and touched down on the general aviation runway.

“You’re going to kill us!” Cheryl shouted.

Will completed his turn, centered the Baron on the taxiway, then stood on his brakes and ran both engines up to full power. His oil pressure looked good, and under the circumstances, that was all he cared about.

Eight hundred feet ahead of him, the F-18s took off without pause, flashing left to right across his line of sight. They looked like sculpted birds of prey as they screamed into the sky. He had always thought it a sad irony that the most beautiful machines ever built by man were built to kill. But that rule held true in nature as well, so perhaps the “irony” was merely sentiment getting in the way of reality.

“You can’t fly through that!” Cheryl yelled above the engines.

He was going to have to time his takeoff so that the Baron would pass between two of the departing Hornets, but he felt confident he could do it. This was the last takeoff he would ever be allowed to make from this airport, probably from any airport. It might as well be his best.

“Is this even a runway?”

“It is for us.”

“Baron Whiskey-Juliet!” barked the radio. “You are not, repeat not, cleared for takeoff.”

Will took his feet off the brakes, and the Baron rolled forward with nauseating slowness compared to the jets. As they approached the intersection with the main runway, an F-18 hurtled toward the same point with a roar like a perpetual explosion. Cheryl screamed and covered her eyes, but Will knew the Hornet would be airborne before they reached the runway. He gave the twin Continentals everything he could.

Seconds before they reached the intersection, the F- 18 blasted into the blue. Cheryl was still screaming, but Will let himself ride the rush of adrenaline flushing through his system. All the fatigue of the past twenty-four hours had disappeared. After hours of impotence, he was finally doing something.

“November Whiskey-Juliet! Cut your engines! You are not cleared for takeoff!”

They crossed the intersection at eighty-five knots.

“November Whiskey-Juliet-Goddamn!”

The Baron rocketed into the air. In seconds it was only a thin cross-section against the sky.

Will was banking north at a thousand feet when he sighted the helicopter. It was a mile behind him, but it was moving to cut the angle off his turn. He increased speed and kept climbing, his eye on a bank of cumulus clouds to the northwest.

He had turned down his radio to dampen the sound of the tower, but as they plowed toward the clouds, he detected a new voice competing with that of the furious controller.

“Baron Two-Whiskey-Juliet, this is the helicopter on your starboard side. I am FBI Special Agent John Sims. Be advised that you have committed multiple felonies. Return to the airport immediately. Please acknowledge.”

“Can he catch us?” Cheryl asked.

“Not a chance. We can do two hundred twenty knots, and we’ve got clouds ahead. He’s history.”

“Baron Whiskey-Juliet,” crackled the radio. “I know you can hear me. I’m patching my Special Agent-in-Charge through on this channel. Stand by.”

Will kept climbing toward the cloud bank, pushing the twin engines as hard as they would go. “Can you see the chopper?”

“Getting smaller by the second,” Cheryl reported.

“Dr. Jennings,” crackled the radio. “This is Frank Zwick. You’re putting the lives of your wife and daughter at risk by cutting us out. You’re going to need backup. Without it, your family will end up dead.”

Will keyed his mike. “That’s a risk I’m prepared to take.”

“At least tell us where you’re headed.”

“The best thing you can do right now is get some agents into Brookhaven, Mississippi. Put some more in McComb. I’ll call you back.”

Will switched off the comm radio, then the transponder, which would normally broadcast his altitude and position to air-traffic controllers.

“You’ve got a bigger problem than that helicopter,” Cheryl said.

“What?”

“You told that guy at the hotel to forward Joey’s calls through to my cell phone, right? That means that whether Joey tries to call you at the Beau Rivage, or me on my cell phone, he’s going to get this phone. How do we decide who answers?”

Will’s face suddenly felt cold. How could he have missed it? If Hickey called Cheryl and got “the hotel” instead, his whole plan would be blown. “We’re all right for ten or fifteen minutes,” he said, thinking aloud. “I’ll answer. I’ll say we’re stuck in traffic on our way back to the Beau Rivage.”

“And after that?”

“By then we’ll be halfway to Hazlehurst.”

“Is that where we’re going?”

“North is where we’re going right now. That’s all we know until Joe calls and tells you something else. Where exactly is this motel you’re supposed to go to in Brookhaven?”

“Right by the main exit.”

Brookhaven was twenty miles nearer than Hazlehurst, and Will had once landed there to refuel, but he didn’t remember what sort of rental car facilities they had. He’d have to wing it.

The Baron shot into the clouds like a stone thrown through a waterfall, and his heart lightened instantly. The FBI chopper couldn’t see him now unless it had radar. And if he dropped to treetop level, it would take an air force AWACs with look-down radar to find him. He felt a brief chill as he remembered that Keesler Air Force Base was only a few miles behind them. There might be an AWACs in the air already, on maneuvers, and after his stunt at the Gulfport field, they might be glad to shadow him for the FBI. He needed to get down into the ground clutter as soon as possible.

“What about the house Joe took you to that night?” he asked. “By McComb. Anything else come to you?”

“No.”

“When the FBI raided the cabin, they found Huey’s truck. That means Huey and Abby probably left in another vehicle. Were there any other cars at the cabin?”

“I told you, I never went there.”

“But you must have heard them talking.”

“There’s a tractor there. I know that. Huey bush-hogs fields for part-time work.”

Will tried to picture Huey and Abby escaping from a SWAT team on a rusty John Deere. It didn’t seem likely.

“What else?”

“What do you mean?”

“Think about Joe’s family. Cars they’ve had. Come on…”

Cheryl shook her head in exasperation.

In the switchboard center at the Beau Rivage, a young operator sat reading the unabridged version of The Stand. When the hotel’s main line rang, he answered the way he always did: “Beau Rivage Casino Resort.” But when the caller asked for Suite 28021, he punched Alt-Z on his computer, executing a macro set up at the request of Remy Geautreau, the front desk manager. A digital connection was made and a forwarding number dialed. The operator verified that the macro had executed, then went back to his Stephen King novel.

Will jumped when the cell phone rang, but he dug it quickly from his pocket and checked his watch.

“I’m going to answer,” he said. “If it’s Joe, I’ll feel out what he expects and play it by ear. Hold the phone up to my ear, and hit SEND when I tell you.”

Cheryl held up the phone, but Will said nothing. He had just realized something. At maximum cruise, the Baron’s engines sounded like twin tornadoes, even with the soundproofing. Telling Hickey they were stuck in traffic near the Beau Rivage wouldn’t explain the roar. Hickey might even recognize the distinctive sound of airplane engines.

The cell phone kept ringing.

Will had two choices. Throttle the engines back to idle and hope they were quiet enough to be undetectable over the cell phone, or cut them altogether. Cutting the engines was far more dangerous, but only that would guarantee that Hickey wouldn’t hear them.