Honey Moon (14 page)

He turned to stare at the woman on his arm. Jenna was so beautiful and so stupid for trying to help him.
Want you, think I love you, have to lose you. Bye, sweetheart.
He smacked a kiss on her forehead. “Honeymoon’s over. Go home.” He growled, knocked her hand from him and hurried for the ramp.

He groaned as she ran on his heels. He slowed, readying to force the pack from her as their feet hit the ramp. Little minx anticipated, swerving aside.

He understood his little minx was a genius as the pack dropped from her fingers. She stumbled, kicking it beneath the shuttle, and he grasped her arm. “Easy, sweetheart. Walk up the ramp, not around it.”

She pulled her arm free and grabbed to clutch his hand, holding on like a petrified child. “I’m glad you’re not clumsy,” she mumbled. “My left knee gives out. Think about that—I mean me, my literary genius—when they close that lid.”

She’d drugged him with something and it fell on him to be the hero? Fine. But he needed more of a clue than think of dimpled knees hidden by that long skirt. Their wrist phones cleared and his heartbeat returned. The still-scowling brute didn’t speak, gesturing them to enter the aisle.

Rows of pods, lids closed on all but the end pair closest to the cockpit. A solid-looking attendant blocked the cockpit, and Brute walked behind Sam’s bride—
I wish
—otherwise, no one else was still standing in the hundred foot long aisle. Damn, wouldn’t he have at least a few minutes to figure out the scam before they went into the sky?

He tugged Jenna until they reached the open pods, stopped and cleared his throat. “Hang on a moment. I have to speak to the pilots. It’s important.”

Goons burst out laughing. “Don’t be a pansy.” The closer guy moved in on Sam. “If you piss yourself, we’ll hose you down on the moon.”

“No. Listen—”
Watch out, incoming
. A large fist connected with his jaw.
Fuckin’ take it, hero
. He absorbed the blow without a stumble, his arm raised.

Jenna’s yelp, her hand ripping from his, froze his fist. He turned. Brute had her in a chokehold.

“In the pod, loverboy, before I snap her pretty neck,” Brute said.

Idiot, idiot, idiot.
He should have known more than the pilots would be a part of this. His hesitation, and a punch to his kidney, cost him his feet. The second goon whacked him on the back and muscled him into the pod. He managed one deep inhalation before the lid came down.

Darkness.

Barely a minute and the feel of rushing, rushing—airborne.

He yawned.
Jesus, what’s wrong with me? That bastard manhandled Jenna and I’m fine with taking a nap?

Fear began racing up his spine as he came to panicked deductions. He’d been drugged. His lungs didn’t work right, that’s why he was fighting another yawn. Too bad he didn’t know what else the pill Jenna had given him did, other than make him feel like an elephant sat on his chest.

Fuck, forget the pill. What was
he
supposed to do?

A red light flickered in the far left corner.

A shallow breath and his lungs immobilized.

Sudden eureka had him scared shitless. Activated by something seeping into this sealed pod, the pill he’d swallowed had made his lungs literally lock. He couldn’t inhale if he wanted to, and he was fairly certain lives depended on him not breathing in the toxic air. Assuming Jenna was either the chemical mastermind he thought her to be or had gotten expert help, the drug controlling his respiration would wear off before brain death. That meant he had three to five minutes to escape—less if he expected to save anyone other than his own sorry ass.

Balls.
His arms strapped, he couldn’t unclip the harness. That’s why she’d delegated to him. It took all his strength, fingernails cracked and bleeding, to gain his limbs.

Goddamn balls.
Lid didn’t budge.

He threw himself upward. Came down so hard his brain rattled and a thought jarred loose. A soft voice floated from memory, “
my left knee gives out”.
Literary genius? Gives out—get out? Had she hired some geek extraordinaire or was she the genius who burned through serious encryptions and walls to glimpse schematics of these blasted coffins? Figured out what gas they’d use and how to counteract it, so at least one victim remained conscious?

Please, please, let it be so.
He raised his hand, felt along the left edge and hope flared.

His knuckle scrapped raw, but he managed to slide the thin lever. He cracked the lid enough to roll out, staggered onto his feet, and allowed the lid to slam closed before too much poisoned gas seeped out.

Dark clouds edged his vision as he scanned the aisle, legs wobbling like a lamb going to slaughter, to see no lurking forms. Thank Christ, the goons must be in the cockpit. Now if only his lungs would begin to work.

They didn’t.

Not until he’d opened Jenna’s pod, lifted her limp body out, dropped her in the aisle and yanked two unconscious men and another woman from their coffins did the blackness force him to his knees. Finally his chest heaved, drawing in the only-mildly tainted air that spilled out when he’d opened the pods, into his lungs.

His head swam, but he remained upright. The poison injected into each pod had to have been a measured burst, dissipating upon opening, or he’d be lying flat instead of swallowing back vomit.

He wiped his mouth and hustled. A sharp smack to each face brought survivors round. They freed four men, five women then eight lifeless bodies. It became clear to Sam that too much time had passed. They’d be allowing the sweet smelling gas that remained inside the pods to escape if they opened the rest, who likely—because of the fate that had already befallen passengers in the last eight pods they’d opened—to find no pulse.

Of course guilt shook him when one of the ashen-faced men found another guy breathing. He was almost too busy to care as he held a vomiting Jenna. The rescuer stared back at him, tears on his cheeks, standing beside a pod without a stirring body lying outside it. The survivors who weren’t vomiting checked the remaining pods, trying not to inhale as they felt for a pulse, then slammed lids closed.

The name of the man who’d lost his bride was Kurt. A big guy, Kurt’s closed fisted blow to Brute’s face as he opened the cockpit door pretty near took Brute’s head off. Twist to the neck, thud to the floor told Sam he was dead. No dummy, Kurt bent over the guy and straightened with a weapon—a nice-sized Glock—in hand.

Once they’d subdued the other attendant and both pilots, and had the three strapped and locked inside foul-smelling but survivable pods now that they’d been aired out, Sam and Kurt re-entered the cockpit. They’d left Jenna explaining to the grief-stricken honeymooners, including one man he rather wished they’d imprison in a pod. He didn’t like the way the guy gawked at Jenna who was ignoring him. Instead she looked to Sam, insisting along with the rest of the handful of survivors that the fraud in the uniform should take the wheel.

Kurt stumbled into the cockpit on Sam’s heels. “I never killed anyone before.” The guy swiped at his cheeks, angrily wiping tears. “Never seen a bunch of murdered people to include my wife, either. This is beyond sick.” He dropped into the copilot seat and his chest heaved. “Know how to fly a lunar shuttle?”

Sam stared into the wild blue yonder. “How hard can it be?”

“Guess we’re all dead.” Kurt glared at the complicated instrument dashboard.

“Beyond sick is right.” Sam swallowed against the bitter taste of cooling adrenaline. “So much more devious than I ever feared. But when planning mass murder, why go to the expense to actually build rockets? These shuttles must be nothing but winged gas chambers, hopefully still on autopilot.”

“Yeah. That makes sense. I noticed in the last pod I opened on a dead woman—she was a tiny thing—there’s grooves cut in a rectangular pattern in the base.”

“Huh?” Sam slumped as he faced control buttons, levers and lit icons for apps with none showing something like a leaf tumbling in the wind, which as far as he was concerned, was the universal symbol for a situation where the pilot soars to save the day, only to crash-land and get a beam rammed through the chest.

One good thing—the altimeter showed they were two hundred thousand feet up and traveling horizontally, not vertically and ascending to leave the atmosphere.

“The grooves suggest the bottom of the pod can be opened, like aircrafts from the world wars that dropped bombs,” Kurt said, his voice tone flat.

Dispose of bodies over the oceans?
“Holy crap. But that’s a lot for fish to eat.” Sam flinched.
Way to go, numbnuts.
The guy’s murdered bride was scheduled to be dumped into the sea? “Er…sorry. I can’t imagine what you’re feeling right now. It’s just…I wouldn’t think they’d take the chance remains would wash ashore.”

Kurt snorted. “Good point and here’s another fact. Speaking as an amateur geologist, there’s five hundred active volcanoes on Earth.”

“Christ.”

“No. I think he’s long fled this planet.”

Sam straightened his shoulders. “Okay. It also means if I don’t figure out how to take control from autopilot soon, we’ll probably fly over the closest volcano to our starting point, hover and drop, and proceed to land in a secret underground or underwater base on some spot right here on good ol’ godforsaken Earth.” He jerked his hands from the wheel, and punched his correct code into his corrupted wrist phone. “Kurt, watch for seagulls and rainclouds while I stir up a few billion souls to help us select a place to land before a heat-seeking missile does the job. They’ll notice the second we go off course.”

“Who you gonna message with that kind of clout? You know Jack Bauer isn’t real, right?”

Jack Bauer was a character in an ancient TV series. His name had become synonymous with an unrealistic hero who could defeat the bad guys before a day ended. Sam chuckled. “Who needs twenty-four hours? The Net’s being flooded as we speak. My name is Dexter.”

Kurt’s eyes went wide. “Sam Dexter?
In the Loop
is your blog?”

“Guilty.”

“Fantastic.” Kurt cracked a smile. “If they don’t have time to utilize those missiles, maybe we’re not all dead. You understand the audio controls? We have to get a hold of someone who isn’t connected with the Love Center to talk us down.”

Chapter Ten

The shuttle’s nose angled wrong, automated control for the damn landing wheels nowhere to be found, Sam hit the runway like he’d never flown any type of aircraft before.

Kurt saved him from more than ribs cracking after he shot forward and sharp knobs tried to impale him.

Thousands had clustered at the airport, closed to all traffic but crashing shuttles. Men and women cheered, screaming questions and encouragement while medics descended on them. Clearly the blog post had gone viral. He’d have to get online and post a follow-up to his status before the area became so overrun by anxious fans that authorities broke out the teargas—or worse.

Over a grueling hour later, Sam sprawled on a hospital bed that was raised so he could partially sit with heart pounding and head aching, his brain on overdrive with worry.

Upon being wheeled into this place, they’d stripped him, but no one had dared to confiscate his wrist phone. Then a medic hadn’t hesitated to place a lap-com in front of him, so he didn’t have to peck away at wrist phone keys.

He’d encouraged his online fans to do what they could to help authorities ensure the safety of those on the other shuttles, and give him time to situate himself before he shared a detailed summary of what he knew. He posted his hopes that world leaders would quiet civil unrest by going public with constant newsfeeds on what they were doing to ferret out and arrest the monsters in their midst.

Fingers shaking, he’d added his belief that stopping him from feeding the world the truths he knew—dedicated followers debating every word to know for sure they were his—would result in potential mass hysteria. People would not only protect him, the whistleblower, but in the confusion, honest leaders could be accused and discriminated against, as well as those proven to be guilty of crimes against humanity on a scale not seen since twentieth century concentration camps. He ended his post with the promise of consistent updates on his wellbeing, including when he’d switch to video feeds.

Now he couldn’t take the stress any longer. Time to concentrate on his own needs. He set aside the lap-com and took the bellowing up a notch because the dickheads in this medical center had yet to bring a woman to the secured room they’d confined him to—a woman he very much needed to see before he could think about escaping, burrowing underground somewhere he’d dare to close his eyes.

Authorities and fans wanted so many pieces of him, Sam felt like he was on the verge of exploding and giving them just that. Over thirty-six hours without sleep, he’d soon not be able to manage more than grunts, monosyllables and smashing his fist into someone’s face.

He glowered at the two male medics hovering nearby. “Return my clothes and unlock the door. I’ll find my wife”—
how I wish that was true
—“myself. Please.”

They’d tucked him away in this solitary room and guarded the exit. The medical center personnel wouldn’t stop sneaking pictures of him wearing nothing but a hospital wrap, open to his navel and held together in the back by flimsy ties. Everyone gawked as if he was hot stuff, like a rock star, movie star or political comedian, when in reality he was nothing but a selfish guy who feared to get word out concerning the real hero—not until she was safe from being fawned over by anyone other than himself. Except, in his case, he prayed it’d be much more than a mere fawning. In fact, he was so nerved up, he should drag himself into the bathroom and relieve the pressure. Take the edge off so he didn’t jump the moment bozos cooperated and she walked into this room.

One of the medics cleared his throat. “I’ll ask again, Mister Dexter.” He tapped at his wrist phone and a moment later raised his gaze to Sam. “I…um…told my superior you’d be more cooperative concerning the debriefing after you and Miss Jensen were reunited.”