Alien Hunter (Flynn Carroll) (22 page)

“Make it take off!”

“I’m trying!”

He watched the speed creep up to fifty-five knots, then sixty, then hang there, remaining maddeningly fifteen knots under rotation speed.

Without warning, the ground was gone, and he realized how this airport worked, which was really, really badly.

“What’s happening?”

“We just taxied over a cliff.”

“Oh God!”

“I agree.”

The stall horn started bleating. His only choice was to drop the nose into absolute darkness and hope that the ground was farther away than he thought.

“What’s going on now?”

“We’re either gonna die or we aren’t.”

The airspeed indicator shot up to sixty-five and he felt the wings begin to bite. At seventy, the stall horn stopped. At seventy-five, he pulled the stick back, rotating nicely into a clear night sky.

“We’ve lived,” he shouted to her over the rising blare of the engine.

“Barely.”

“That would be true.”

He’d taken off into the west and climbed to two thousand feet while getting the feel of the airplane. It had been a long time and he was more than unsure of himself. Worried that he might become disoriented, he kept his eyes on the instruments, not even glancing out the windshield. At least, at this hour and in this place, his chances of colliding with another airplane were too small to calculate.

He kept climbing, heading west. Eastward there were mountains, and he wanted plenty of altitude before he approached them.

At five thousand feet, he commenced a slow turn. Any higher, and he risked running into a monitored airway. He didn’t have any idea of what the established flight paths might be, or where they were. He didn’t want to blunder into approaches to larger airports, maybe at Bullhead City or Lake Havasu City.

“Where are we? Why do we keep turning?”

“We’re heading into mountains. I’m gaining altitude.”

“Dear God.”

“You’re a worse flyer than me.”

He was actually relaxing a little, at least for the moment. Unless their pursuers were able to track them personally, this was going to prove a decisive blow to them. It wasn’t as good as getting behind them, but at least when he landed this airplane, he would know that they had lost him.

The Garmin showed the highest peaks below them at thirty-five hundred feet, so they were safe here, and safe, also, from the DEA, the Border Patrol, and Homeland Security. DEA was interested in night flights by small aircraft, but their primary concerns were movement northward from the Mexican border and low-altitude flight.

“Do we know if we’re dealing with any exotic technology?”

“We know so little, Flynn. Almost nothing. For example, why did they send only one cop, and what are his capabilities? His limitations?”

“One limitation we know.”

“What?”

“He got his ass killed.”

She turned to the window. “I’ve thought that he might be the only good guy. Their Dalai Lama or whatever. And the rest of them are all … Christ, I don’t even want to think about it.”

He hoped that she wasn’t going to add a morale problem to her difficulties with field skills. Low morale was as lethal as a gun.

The tiny cabin shuddered, the engine howled, blue flames glowed in the exhausts. He kept them at cruise, a steady hundred and forty miles an hour. Two hours out, they were north of Seligman, Arizona, and he was not liking the feel of the air. To maintain his heading, he was having to crab the plane northward more and more. The wind was picking up. Worse, there was continuous lightning on the northern horizon, and it was getting more distinct.

The plane bucked like a frightened horse, the creaking of the airframe audible even above the engine and wind noise.

Diana was now slumped forward. Flynn knew what her problem was, but he didn’t see any airsickness bags.

“If you can, feel in the seat pocket behind you. There might be a bag back there.”

She did it and found one, and none too soon. In seconds, she was heaving into it. He opened the vents and cold air poured in, a mix of the scents of exhaust and desert night.

The heavy weather was bearing down on them fast, but he couldn’t turn south, not and expect to thread through the higher mountains around Flagstaff. He needed to stay between Flagstaff and the Grand Canyon, basically, or he was going to crash this airplane.

“There’s a light,” she said. “Below us.”

“What kind of a light? Is it moving?”

“Steady. Not a strobe. Moving, yes. Getting bigger. I think it’s coming up.”

He doused his running lights, then dimmed the cockpit as deeply as he dared. At a minimum, he needed his artificial horizon and his compass.

“Where is it now?”

“Gone. It went out.”

“Went out? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“That it is
gone
, as in disappeared. Jesus Christ, why do I have to spell everything out?”

He pushed back a flare of anger. They were getting on each other’s nerves. “Let’s not fight,” he said.

“This is a goddamn nightmare!”

He flew on. There was nothing else to do.

When the light didn’t reappear and nothing else happened, he restored his instrument lighting but left the running lights off. They’d been in the air now for two hours, and he had another three hours of fuel left. Like so many of these drug wagons, this plane had been modified to fit larger tanks.

“We can make El Paso,” he said. “We’ll land at Sunrise Airport. I’ve flown in there.”

“We can’t rent a car without identifying ourselves.”

“That’s not the plan.”

“I don’t want to steal another one. It’s too risky.”

“That’s not the plan, either.”

“So we buy?”

“We can’t buy.”

“Then what? I don’t get it.”

He said nothing.

The storm now behind them, they flew into a gradually spreading dawn, and he was relieved to finally see the horizon. As the plane began to feel like a more solid platform in the sky, the sense of disorientation that had dogged him from the moment he’d taken off faded.

The light that Diana had seen coming up was also gone. What it might have been they would never know. The sky is a big place.

The landing at Sunrise was surprisingly easy. He squawked their approach and got immediate clearance. They hit the runway with a single bounce, then Flynn throttled back.

“That worked well,” Diana said. She sounded ready to kiss the ground.

“The Cessna is a forgiving airplane.”

He pulled out one of the disposable cell phones and dialed a number.

“Hey, Miguel.” He shifted into Spanish. Diana’s face immediately reflected the predictable suspicion. “
Compadre
, I’m at Sunrise and I’ve got an airplane somebody on the West Coast probably wants back. It’s on the apron in front of the old Bellanca hangar. The bogus on it is NT273, it’s a Skyhawk.”

“What’re you up to? I thought you quit the cops.”

“I did. Private enterprise now.”

“Anything there for me?”

“An airplane.”

Diana interrupted. “What are you saying? What’s going on?”

He closed the phone, pulled out the battery and the chip, and crushed it between his hands. “A friend’s going to pick us up,” he said.

“That’s off the reservation, damnit.
Way
off. And you know it.”

“Nothing’s off the reservation anymore. He will pick us up, he will take care of the plane, he will get us where we need to go.”

“You can’t have involved the El Paso police.”

“No police.”

“Then—oh, Christ, not a gangbanger?”

“He’s honest. A good guy.”

“You’ve tangled us up with the drug trade. Flynn, this is not a direction for us.” She opened her door. “Come on, we need to get out of here.”

He climbed out, also. They needed to get away from the plane anyway. The way it had been hidden, it could well be on some DEA list.

“Miguel and I went to grade school together. When we were six, he beat me to a pulp. Put me in the hospital. Last year, he did ten years on a case I worked. We’re good friends.”

“He did ten years last year?”

“He blew his way out.”

“Good Christ!”

“Not with explosives.”

“But he’s an escaped convict. You can’t get an escaped convict involved in this.”

They walked into the lobby. Flynn eyed the sandwich machine. He was definitely hungry.

“He got off for good behavior.”

“Who shaves nine years off a ten-year sentence for good behavior?”

“It was very good behavior. I thought you’d be comfortable with an ex-con.”

“Don’t throw that in my face, okay? I wasn’t guilty.”

“Neither was Miguel.” He put some money in the machine and got a ham and cheese sandwich. “Avoid the pimento,” he said.

“No food,” she muttered. “Later.”

“That’s right. Sorry.”

Miguel had gained so much weight that the only reason Flynn recognized him when he finally ambled in was that there was nobody else coming through the doors this early in the morning.

“Hey, buddy.”

“Thanks for the plane, man. That’s gonna be some useful hardware.”

“No problem. You better get a paint job on it, though, I think it’s probably on the list. Not to mention its former owner.”

“You movin’ stuff? You on the sweet side of the law at last?”

“I’m still honest.”

“The plane tagged?”

“Don’t know. Could be.”

“We’ll find anything like that.”

“I need clean transportation. Car or truck.”

“I got a Range Rover, good VIN, good plates, not a problem.”

“Done, let’s go get it. We’re on a schedule.”

He gave Diana a long look. “Man, I’d like to see her work a pole.”

“You would.”

“The truck’s gonna set you back. Not much.”

“Yeah, it’s gonna set me back one airplane.”

“You come in here with a hot airplane and expect a clean truck in return? Man, that ain’t right.”

“Neither is dealing in stolen goods.”

“You aren’t a cop anymore. You tell me that, it’s gonna stand up in court. I know the law.”

“Eddie is still a cop, and Eddie still doesn’t care for your ass.”

The negotiation was starting to take too long, but Flynn could not betray his urgency. He just wished he believed that he could get away from their opponent, but he did not believe that. Maybe they were out of his gunsights right now, but he doubted that it would last.

Finally, Miguel said, “The plane is a good trade.”

They headed for his house, where the Rover waited. Diana was silent, furious at Flynn for letting an outsider so close.

Flynn wondered how long it would be before the perp and his friends showed up in Miguel’s life, and extracted from him every tiny bit of information he possessed.

“Where you goin’? Or should I ask?”

“See Mac.”

“
Mac?
Ain’t nobody shot him yet?”

“Mac dances too fast.”

“Where’s he keepin’ himself these days?”

Flynn laughed. “That I’m not gonna tell you. The plane is worth four times the truck. That’s enough for one day.”

“I wouldn’t sell Mac. Mac’s my friend.”

“Everybody’s your friend, Miguel. That’s why you have no friends.”

Twenty minutes later, they were heading out of El Paso in the Rover. Across the Rio Grande stood the dirty hills of Juarez, a most dangerous city, but bright in the light of dawn.

Flynn thought it would be nice to be in Juarez right now, hiding in a small hotel somewhere, deep in the city’s maze of streets.

Even there, though, it would just be a question of time, wouldn’t it? From now on, it would always just be a question of time.

“Who’s Mac?” Diana asked.

“MacAdoo Terrell. The worst person I know and one of my oldest friends. Maybe the worst person in Texas, which is saying a fair amount.”

“MacAdoo Terrell and Errol Caroll?”

“Mac and Flynn. Our parents died before we were old enough to kill them. At least Eddie got a decent name. He was the third member of our gang.”

“And why are we going to see the worst person in Texas?”

“Because we need a friend.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Where the Rover had come from, Flynn hoped he would never know. It had the feel of death about it. Why he knew that, he couldn’t really say, but he knew it. It was his cop sense, he supposed, which had been in overdrive for a while now.

They were a few miles west of the little town of Iraan, pronounced Eerie-Ann in West Texan.

“We’ll turn north on Three Forty-Nine,” Flynn said. “Mac’s got fifteen thousand acres of hell and good hunting up there.”

“What’s so bad about this guy?”

“What isn’t? He won’t show himself right away, incidentally. When he does, it’ll be a near thing for me. He’s got any number of reasons to want me dead, and we don’t have enough money on us to do more than get him to think about changing his mind.”

“A lot of people don’t like you, Flynn. Casinos. Your boss.”

“Eddie Parker? We grew up together.”

“Well, he seemed pretty sour on you. Why does this guy hate you?”

“First off, Eddie has been pretty sour since we were about five. Second, I put Mac’s brother on death row.”

“And he can’t blow his way out?”

“Not so far.”

“It strikes me as foolish to expose ourselves to more danger than we’re already in.”

He turned onto Mac’s road. It went back three miles, and it rode like it hadn’t been spread with gravel in a good long while.

“Shouldn’t we get our guns ready? Mine’s in my backpack.”

“I know where your gun is.” He took his out of its shoulder holster and laid it carefully in a cup holder. “They won’t do us any good.”

“I just do not see why we’d come to some criminal lair or hideout or whatever it is.”

Flynn saw Mac’s shack huddled down in its draw, a ramshackle mess but topped by a very large, very clean American flag.

“See that? That’s why.”

She shook her head. “A crook wrapped in a flag is still a crook.”

He knew that Mac would already have the truck in the sights of one of his superb rifles.

“There are gonna be dogs,” he said. “Don’t get out until Mac calls them off. They’ll tear you to pieces.” He pulled a little closer to the shack and the dogs immediately swarmed out from under it. They were Mac’s own special breed, Weimaraner–Pit Bull mixes. Loyal, fast, lethal. If a bullet was going to stop one—and that was the only thing that could—then it was going to have to be well placed. Their wide heads, huge jaws, and yellow-gold Weimaraner eyes made them look the part of the hell-hounds that they were.