Ridley Pearson - Killer Summer

“Summer? Are you there?”

She’d frozen. She couldn’t speak. The copilot had seemed so familiar-especially his voice-and now she could place it: he was who’d called her father’s BlackBerry.

“SUMMER! I NEED YOUR COORDINATES! PUT DOWN THE PHONE AND GET ME THOSE COORDINATES!”

Pause.

“Summer? Sum…?”

“I need to speak to the guy in charge, the guy with the dark hair,” repeated again in her head.

She dropped the phone, spun a full circle, and marched, trance-like, into the cockpit. She looked to the right, saw a logbook with a pen shoved in its spiral spine. She tore out a sheet of paper, wrote down the string of numbers, double-checking them against the navigation screen.

She returned to the Airphone.

“Sum? You there? Sum…?”

“I’m here.”

That shut him up.

“Do you have them?”

“I’ve got them.”

“Read them to me.”

“What did you mean, ‘the guy with the dark hair?’ ” she asked.

“What are you talking about?”

“No, Dad, I’m the one asking you what you’re talking about? Who said anything about dark hair?”

“You’re imagining things. I didn’t say anything of the sort.”

“You just said it!”

“Read me the coordinates.”

“What’s going on, Dad? He called you, right? In the hotel. Your BlackBerry. The call I answered. I know him… Who is he?”

She had it, then. She slumped in his chair.

She recalled him sitting there on the phone as they were about to land. He’d said, “Listen, I would if I could, but this is my last trip on it.”

How could he have known that? He’d said nothing to her about giving up the Lear. He had a trip to New York planned, another to Toronto. He’d talked to her about going with him on the jet.

“I need the coordinates, if I’m going to help,” he said. “That, and I need to speak to whoever’s in charge.”

“The man with the dark hair.”

“If he’s the one in charge, sure.”

“You said he was.”

“Summer, you’re in shock. You’re not thinking clearly. Come on, sweetheart- kiddo -you’ve done amazingly well. Phenomenal. Keep it up. Just read me the coordinates, would you please? Sweetheart…?”

The torn piece of paper trembled in her fingers.

“What have you done?” she gasped into the receiver.

The static hissed and popped. There was a snake in her ear, the devil’s tongue.

“Now, you listen to me, Summer, you’re in shock. It’s completely understandable, expected. You’re inventing things. It happens. But you’ve got to clear your head, okay? I want to help you.”

“You… asshole !”

“Now, you listen to me, young lady…”

She pushed the END button. Tears began flowing as she stared at the receiver in her hand. It represented him. It represented everything wrong with him. She beat it against the seat’s console and threw it against the fuselage. Pieces of plastic broke loose.

She stood and moved toward the closet, but in a drunken, disconnected way. These weren’t her feet, her hands; this wasn’t her. She stumbled, fell into another seat, and buried her face in her hands.

She didn’t remember coming to her feet again. She found herself facing the closet. She fumbled in the dark for the case and found it. It opened by twisting two metal tabs. She rummaged through the case and withdrew two devices. She couldn’t see well enough to know what they were, but both were small and electronic.

A loud noise came from the front. The door was opening.

The jet was so well insulated, she hadn’t heard anyone approaching. Only now, as the key activated the opening mechanism, did she know.

She hurried down the aisle, only to slip and fall. She banged her head against an armrest and dropped both devices. Leaving them, she crawled ahead on hands and knees and reached for the door handle just as it was raising up and the stairs were lowering.

She threw her body on the handle, forcing it back down.

From the other side, a mumble of men’s voices.

Seconds later came a rustling from the jet’s right wing. She kept her shoulder against the lever, preventing it from moving. She squatted down to get a better look out the right side. She couldn’t see anything, but someone was out there crawling around the fuselage. Then she heard two loud snaps, one directly beneath her, the other directly overhead.

The shattered Airphone’s LED changed from green to blinking red. They’d snapped off the antennas, rendering the satellite phone and no doubt the plane’s other instruments useless.

The door lever pushed against her. She kept her shoulder against it. It was the last place she wanted to be.

More banging around outside. With each sound she flinched.

He was out there on the wing.

There was more sound: metal on metal.

Something was going on out there. She focused. It was coming from the rear of the plane. From…

The emergency exit.

The same hatch through which she and Kevin had fled the plane.

Again, the front door’s lever attempted to move. Again, she braced against it.

But her attention remained on the rear of the plane, where obviously someone was opening the door from the outside.

She spotted the handheld GPS and radio she had dropped on the carpet. She stretched out and kicked the GPS beneath the first seat. She then hooked the radio with the toe of her sandal, noticing for the first time how scratched up her foot was.

Keeping her shoulder to the door handle, she saw things get light at the back of the plane.

Paralyzed with fear, she left the radio on the carpet a few feet from her.

The plane’s captain stepped into the aisle. He aimed a small but blinding light at her.

“We’re not going to hurt you,” he said. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

The flare gun.

Her father kept a flare gun for emergencies somewhere on the plane; she’d heard him mention it to William before. The closet briefcase? Had she been so eager to find the radio that she’d missed the gun?

“Step away from the door and keep your hands where I can see them,” the pilot said.

“Or else what?” she called out. “I thought you weren’t going to hurt me.”

“Don’t be a smart-ass.”

She kept her shoulder against the handle.

“Too late,” she said.

If she could get past the pilot, if she could get her hands on that case in the closet, maybe, just maybe…

“I’ll hurt you, if necessary. I saw what you did to… to my associate. Now, keep your hands where I can see them and step away from the door.”

Her knees wobbled, her arms and legs shook, tears threatened once again. She hated herself for it.

“Do not test me,” the man said, his voice ominous and chilling.

Summer stepped away from the door.

Willie Godfrey, a third-generation trust funder who could trace his lineage back to William Brewster, sported a mane of white hair even though only forty-odd years old. Tall and movie-star handsome, he had a larger-than-life persona that was even bigger than his oversized, overaccessorized pickup truck.

“I can shave a good hour off your route,” he said loudly, drawing Brandon to his side. The two men studied a map under the glare of a mercury light mounted on an outbuilding.

Walt watched things play out between the two through a kitchen window. Cell-phone and radio coverage having died passing Galena Summit ninety minutes earlier and wanting to preserve every watt of the satellite phone’s battery, he was taking advantage of the Godfreys’ landline.

He was brought up to speed on events in the valley: the bridge was open to traffic again; no further attempt had been made on the wine, or the armory, or half a dozen other potential targets. Things were returning to normal. His biggest concern, he was told, was the barrage of phone calls from the FBI and Homeland Security, and a growing anger because of Walt’s silence.