Sharon Dunn - Wilderness Secrets

“Of course.” Perhaps it was the severe tension of the moment, but she almost laughed out loud. “My dad taught me.”

He handed her the gun. “Pretty Boy is coming up on your side.”

“Is that what you call him?” She looked again to see that the blond man, Pretty Boy, had drawn even closer. As the plane gained speed, Pretty Boy took aim at her window. The plane bumped along. She opened the copilot door and fired off a shot that sent Pretty Boy to the ground. He got right back up. He must not have been hit.

The plane lifted off. When they were about forty feet off the ground, they flew right over Eddy, who was scrambling to line up a shot.

The plane was slow in gaining altitude. Jesse eased the throttle on the pedestal. When she peered out the front windshield, it looked like they wouldn’t clear the tops of the trees.

Jesse stared straight ahead. “Come on, baby. You can do this for me.”

As they flew over the tops of trees, she thought she heard branches brushing the underside of the airplane.

Abby let up on the death grip she had on the armrest of the seat and released the breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding. “We made it.”

He turned to her. She liked the way a spark came into his brown eyes when he smiled. “Yes, we made it.”

She unclicked her seat belt and turned around to see what kind of cargo was in the plane. A tarp had come off what looked like neatly stacked rectangles of something. She leaned over the seat to get a better look.

Jesse’s face blanched. “It’s not what you think.”

Her breath caught in her throat. The tarp had been covering what looked like bricks of some kind of drug. A mixture of fear and anger swirled through her. “And what am I supposed to think?” Men couldn’t be trusted on any level. She was in an airplane with a criminal.

“Abigail, I can explain,” he said.

She slammed a hand on her hip. “I just bet you can explain.” All the anger she felt over Brent’s betrayal flooded back through her. What Jesse had done was even worse. Why was this happening? Did she have a sign on her forehead that said she was okay with being deceived by men?

The plane began to wobble.

“Face forward in your seat, put your seat belt on.” Jesse said in a raised voice.

One wing dropped lower than the other. She secured herself in the seat. “What’s wrong with the plane?”

Jesse clicked some switches on the instrument panel. “Either we’re having engine trouble or Eddy was able to hit the plane, and we just didn’t hear it over the sound of the motor.” He stared through the windshield. “Either way, I’m going to have to crash-land this baby.”

Abigail’s heart seized with terror as she stared through the windshield, watching the treetops grow ever closer.

Jesse stared out at the ground below as the plane lost altitude. He searched the landscape for a flat spot that could serve as a landing strip. What he saw was mostly forest and mountains.

“You know this area. Is there any place close by that would be flat enough to land on?”

Abigail stared through the front windshield. It took her a moment to respond. “Everything looks different from up here. Veer off to the west. I think there’s a grassy patch on the other side of that cluster of trees.” Her voice trembled as she spoke, a sign that revealed the level of fear she was battling.

The plane continued to sputter and lurch up and down as though traveling on waves. Jesse changed course. He dropped altitude as they drew near to the trees. He could see the flat spot Abigail had referred to. When he checked the gauges, he saw that they had lost substantial fuel since takeoff. The gas tank might have been hit. But some other damage was making it hard to keep the wings level.

The plane drew even closer to the ground, skimming the treetops. The strip of land was not very long. He’d be pushing it to try to get the plane stopped before they ran into the trees on the other side.

He nose-dived the plane, then leveled it off and dropped the landing gear. The wheels touched the ground, and the plane bumped along. The landing was so rough his body felt like he was being shaken from the inside and the outside at the same time.

The aircraft remained on the ground, but continued to rumble toward the trees. The entire cockpit vibrated as the trees drew closer. The nose of the plane shot through them. They rolled along, cutting through the trees that were far apart. Branches snapped until the larger trees served as a sort of net that stopped them. The body of the plane thundered and shook.

Both of them sat, clinging to their chairs while the dust settled, and the plane stopped creaking and groaning.

“If there’s a fuel leak, there could be a fire,” Jesse said. “You need to get out.” He had to find that hard drive, or all of this would be in vain. Lee had died before he could tell Jesse where in the plane he’d hidden it.

Abigail leaned to push on her door. “My door won’t open. There’s a tree in the way.” Her voice was filled with anguish. She slumped back in her seat and stared at the ceiling. Her lower lip quivered.

Jesse reached over and stroked her shoulder. “It’s all right. We’re on the ground now.” He tried to sound reassuring, but they were far from being, literally or figuratively, out of the woods. He stood up from his seat and took a step toward the cargo area. “You can get out from my side.”

“And what are you going to do?”

Her accusatory tone got under his skin. He was an honest man. “There’s something I need to locate.”

“You said yourself this plane could catch on fire.”

He had no time to argue with her. “I’ll explain later. Get outside and tell me if you can assess why we went down.” He didn’t mean to sound harsh, but time was of the essence.

She scowled but shifted over to his seat and pushed open the door.

Jesse scanned the cargo area. He flung open several storage drawers, not finding anything that looked like a hard drive. Maybe Lee had taped it underneath the control panel. He hurried toward the nose of the plane and ran his hands underneath the control panel. Nothing. He flung open a storage box behind the copilot seat and rifled through the contents. Not there.

The pilot-side door screeched open and Abigail stuck her head in. “There are flames shooting out.”

He stopped his mad search long enough to register what she had said. A thunderous noise that sounded as though it was contained within a bubble surrounded him. A small explosion from the fire. More, bigger explosions might follow.

He needed to find that hard drive.

Smoke filled the interior of the plane. He coughed. His vision blurred.

He felt Abigail grab his hand and drag him out of the plane.

When his vision cleared, he saw a wall of flames by the plane’s engine. Smoke began to rise in the air. He coughed, feeling a sense of defeat.

He hadn’t found the hard drive. The cartel would be set on revenge even more because of their loss of product. He wasn’t sure they had fired shots at the airplane. It didn’t seem like they would risk the drugs burning up, but then again, if he got away in the plane they’d lose the drugs for sure and he could identify the three men.

Abigail rose to her feet. “It looks like it’s too wet for the trees to catch on fire. The fact that it’s been a wet spring will keep the fire from spreading.” She still sounded shaken and upset.

Already the fire was dying down. That single burst of flame must have consumed all the oxygen and fuel. Part of the plane would still be intact when the flames died down, though the interior had filled with smoke.

Smoke rose up in the air. Probably not enough to be noticed by anyone in Fort Madison, the little town they’d hiked in from. The three men who had been after them would see it and know where they were located. They hadn’t flown that far before landing.