Aftershock: A Donovan Nash Novel (A Donovan Nash Thriller) (15 page)

“It’s her!” Michael said, leaning over to see. “I’m getting the impression she’s not leaving because she wants to.”

Donovan saw her being half-dragged out of the sedan and then yanked to her feet. “She’s not leaving at all if I can help it. Michael, slow down a little bit. Whatever happens, don’t let that Learjet leave!”

“What are you doing?” Michael called out as Donovan bolted from the cockpit.

Donovan ran as fast as he could all the way to the back of the Gulfstream. He kneeled next to the baggage door and threw the latch hard over, then slid the door up on its tracks until it remained open. Below him was the tarmac. Without stopping to think, Donovan dropped to the ground and rolled with the impact. He forced himself up and started toward the Learjet.
Donovan calculated he’d have a momentary element of surprise. No one was expecting an intruder coming from the runway.

Donovan never slowed. He drew his weapon as he rounded the nose of the Learjet and began to yell, “Fuego, Fuego!” His cries of “fire” had the desired effect. Donovan saw a look of confusion and alarm form on the faces of the two men. Donovan used his Sig to hit the bearded man in the side of the head. There was a solid thud, and the man collapsed. The second man stepped back and tried to get to a gun that was tucked into the front of his jeans. The woman spun and delivered a vicious kick to the gunman’s crotch. He let out a strangled whimper and went down on his knees, any thoughts about pulling his gun long forgotten as both hands went to protect his battered groin. Donovan clubbed him against the side of the head, and he crashed face first into the tarmac. He turned to the woman and leveled the Sig at her chest. There was no mistaking the rage that burned in her eyes.

“Turn around and get on your knees,” Donovan ordered, then stepped back and pointed the gun at the startled Learjet pilot who had rushed from the plane. Donovan saw the ID badge dangling from the pilot’s neck and yanked it free from its lanyard.

“What the hell?” The pilot sputtered in confusion as he took in the sight of guns and men lying on the ground.

“Where were you going to fly these people?”

“Toluca, Mexico. Just don’t shoot!” The pilot stammered as he held up his hands. “We’re a charter company—we’re supposed to take four people to Toluca, Mexico, and then wait for further instructions.”

Donovan glanced at the pilot’s ID. He recognized the outfit, a legitimate operation based out of Toluca, just outside Mexico City. If they were supposed to take four passengers, there must be another car coming, and Donovan didn’t want to be standing here when they arrived. “Close the door from the inside and stay there until the next car arrives. If I were you, I’d tell them you didn’t see a thing.”

The pilot nodded in furious agreement.

Donovan looked at the woman, who was still on her knees with her back to him, her wrists tightly bound with a plastic tie-wrap. “I’m going to help you to your feet. We need to get out of here. Can I trust you to not try to escape?”

“Hurry!” she urged. “The others will be here soon.”

Donovan helped her to her feet, and as she stood there, she peered at him over her shoulder, a mix of relief and fear in her eyes. In the daylight he could see that she was older than he’d first thought. She was closer to thirty-five than twenty-five.

“Oh no,” she said.

Donovan spotted the black Suburban coming fast. The headlights flashed on and off, sending some sort of prearranged signal. In the Mercedes, the keys were dangling from the ignition. “Get in the car.” Without hesitation she dove into the rear seat. Donovan slammed the door behind her and then he slid behind the wheel. He knew the minute he pulled away from the Learjet the men in the Suburban would see their friends lying on the ramp. Donovan threw the Mercedes into gear, stepped on the gas, and the sedan lurched forward. He spun the car around one hundred eighty degrees, sending the woman crashing sideways into the door as he sped directly toward the black SUV. The front end of the Suburban dipped as the driver braked heavily. Donovan powered straight at them, swerving away at the last possible second, creating a moment’s hesitation for the Suburban’s driver as Donovan blew past them, accelerating through eighty miles per hour.

Donovan tried to picture the layout of the airport, to judge where there might be an access road that led from the ramp to the street. If he could make it into the city, he knew he could lose them. He glanced into the rearview mirror and was shocked at how fast the Suburban had turned around. He saw brief flashes from muzzle blasts, and the Mercedes’ rear window exploded into thousands of tiny fragments. He heard the sound of more bullets striking metal. In the mirror, Donovan couldn’t see the woman.
She was smart enough to stay down—or she’d been hit. Donovan weaved in and out of airplanes sitting on the ramp, searching in vain for a way off the airfield. The SUV was closing on them. Donovan noticed a faint smoke trail left by the Mercedes, and the smell of burning oil was unmistakable. Suddenly, the prospect of outrunning the Suburban seemed remote.

Donovan swerved back and forth, trying to throw off their aim, but in doing so the gap closed even further. The black SUV was now only thirty feet behind them, more smoke poured from beneath the Mercedes. Donovan desperately looked for a way to outmaneuver them. If he couldn’t lose them, he and the woman would be easy targets when the Mercedes’ engine finally seized.

Up ahead was the cargo ramp. The sound of a bullet pinging off the roof of the car brought a surge of adrenaline. They wouldn’t last much longer out in the open. In the side mirror, all Donovan could see was the front grill of the Suburban, the powerful SUV towered high above them. Donovan winced and grit his teeth as another bullet thudded into the metal somewhere behind him. In an instant, Donovan calculated the distance to a Boeing 727 cargo jet parked to their left. The aging three-engine aircraft had seen better days, sitting faded and dirty on the oil-stained ramp, the name of some long-forgotten air cargo firm painted on the side. Donovan let off the gas pedal for a moment and allowed the Suburban to pull even with the Mercedes. The Suburban and the Mercedes were side by side, hurtling down the tarmac at seventy miles per hour. Donovan needed to time it just right. Only feet away, the gunman put three bullets into the hood of the Mercedes. Donovan gripped the steering wheel in both hands and swung the Mercedes hard to the left, smashing into the SUV with enough force to veer both vehicles to the left. The driver of the Suburban was momentarily caught off guard, and Donovan felt the SUV push back. Donovan held firm, and powered straight toward the forward fuselage of the 727. The accelerator floored, Donovan felt the SUV pull free as the driver of the Suburban tried in vain to stop.
In a blur of aluminum, Donovan shrunk down in the seat as they flashed beneath the belly of the 727 only inches behind the nose gear. A brief shriek of metal on metal sent a shock wave through the Mercedes as they sped beneath the airliner. Glass cracked and spider webbed as the roof of the Mercedes barely scraped the aluminum belly of the Boeing. A second later the Mercedes shot out the other side of the 727.

Behind them, Donovan heard the sound of screeching tires, followed by the sound of crashing metal. The Suburban was a foot and a half taller than the Mercedes—everything above hood level was obliterated as the SUV slammed into the Boeing. The 727 bucked and groaned at the impact, lurching to the side as the remains of the Suburban’s chassis careened into the undercarriage, came to a sudden violent stop, and began to burn. The Boeing’s right main landing gear snapped sideways from the impact, collapsing the right wing down onto the Suburban.

Donovan accelerated the Mercedes. The 727, its wing tank ruptured, was pouring raw jet fuel onto the ramp near the burning Suburban. Moments later, both exploded into a massive fireball. The shock wave from the blast ripped past them, and Donovan felt his ears pop. The heat blew in through the hole where the rear window used to be and seared the hair on the back of his neck—then it was over. Behind him an orange cloud billowed up from the destroyed plane, the tail and wings jutted out from the black smoke as burning jet fuel gutted the 727.

“Are you okay?” Donovan called out, as he slowed and cruised through an open gate onto the small road that ran along the outside of the perimeter fence.

His passenger peered out the rear window at the carnage and then found Donovan’s eyes in the mirror. “Did you drive under that plane? How did you…?”

“I’ve spent some time around the 727. I know a few things,” Donovan replied, as he slowed dramatically and tried to understand where he was on the perimeter road. They needed
to hide. A bullet-riddled car speeding from a crime scene would draw immediate attention.

“Where are you taking me?” she asked, as she struggled to prop herself up in the seat.

“I should drive you straight to the American Embassy and turn you over to them,” Donovan replied with his eyes fixed on hers in the mirror.

“No, not the embassy,” she shook her head vehemently. “Or the police—they are corrupt. They are involved in this.”

He spotted a place next to an old abandoned hangar. In the tall weeds next to the building were two derelict cars. Donovan stopped and then backed the Mercedes in between them and shut off the engine. In between the
tick tick
sounds coming from the overheated motor, he could hear the wails of fire trucks.

Donovan forced open his door and got out of the car. The paint on the roof of the Mercedes was gone from grazing the belly of the 727. The rear door was partially wedged closed from the impact, but Donovan opened it and slid in beside her. It was a move she wasn’t expecting—he held his gun low and close to her rib cage. He knew with her hands tied and her legs pressed against his, she was far less likely to try to beat the crap out of him again. “I want you to tell me everything. If you don’t—I’m going to give you back to them.”

She nodded and lowered her head. A moment later she put her chin up, shook her hair free from her face, and took a deep breath, steeling herself for a confession. “My name is Eva Rios. I live in the highlands on the western shore of Lake Atitlán. I saw the men who kidnapped the American woman. I know them—they are the ones trying to kill me.”

The constant hum from the jet’s engines made a perfect backdrop as Lauren read. The flight from Dulles International to Tri-Cities Regional Airport in Tennessee was only an hour. Montero was sitting across the aisle working on her laptop.

Montero handed Lauren the FBI file on Meredith Barnes’ kidnapping and subsequent murder. The file represented the death of a woman that would have been Robert Huntington’s wife—Meredith Barnes was the single lightning strike that had altered him forever. Had she not been killed, Lauren probably would not have met Donovan, let alone married him and had Abigail.

Montero possessed the entire file. There were dozens of photographs taken of the scene of the abduction. Pictures of the dead driver, their bullet-riddled town car, as well as dozens of empty shell casings. There were pictures of Robert Huntington, his eye bruised and nearly swollen shut from the beating he’d taken. Lauren knew what he had looked like back then, of course, but she’d not seen these—right after Meredith’s abduction, the pain and loss plainly evident on his battered face.

Lauren examined each one. She could feel the urgency emanating from Robert. She knew his impatience well. The stark helplessness in his eyes back then was palpable. She went to the next group of photographs. They were of Meredith. Lauren only gave a cursory glance at the first several pictures, well aware of what Meredith looked like, how beautiful she was. The next one made Lauren’s stomach churn. She averted her eyes, unprepared.
She gathered herself, and began once again. Meredith’s naked body was crumpled faceup in a dirt field. Her long red hair partially covered her face, but the single bullet wound was clearly visible. Lauren skipped the next few pictures; they were close-ups of her and her injuries. She instead jumped to the autopsy report, which listed the cause of death as a single gunshot to the head.

It took Lauren another half hour to sift through the entire file. Meredith had arranged an historic ecological summit meeting in San José, Costa Rica. Meredith, with her passion for the earth and environment, had achieved the global recognition to assemble the summit. Leaders from almost every western hemisphere government were in attendance. Her dream was to sponsor an accord that would lead to meaningful laws that would severely limit logging in the world’s rain forests and the overharvesting of severely depleted populations of fish and reckless oil drilling in Alaska, Canada, Central and South America. She’d convinced the World Bank to provide billions in zero-interest financing to support such actions in the third-world countries, the end result to help build alternative industries that would provide jobs and economic growth for the next thirty years. Her plan was brilliant, but quickly fell apart upon her death.

She became an instant martyr, but there was no one to fill the vacuum she’d left behind. Instead, her public latched on to the nearest object to vent their feeling of loss—Robert Huntington. Lauren slumped as she read the report stating that, without a doubt, Robert Huntington was the prime suspect in a scheme to murder Meredith Barnes.

Lauren paused, as she knew he’d been the target of speculation the instant Meredith’s death was made public. While a shocked and mournful world held candlelight vigils, photos were released of Robert on a remote beach with a slender young blonde. Even though the photos were faked, it was all the evidence an angry public needed for the murder of Meredith to become a conspiracy by Robert Huntington and Big Oil to silence her voice. From there it became the fabric of public belief. Lauren scrolled
through the pages until she found the reference to a lone person of interest, a petty criminal named Antonio Romero, a man who had been drunk when apprehended, who later died in custody. The last page in the file was a memo from the FBI, stating that the murder of Meredith Barnes had been closed upon the death of Robert Huntington.