Finest Hour (32 page)

More flashes lit the field, and bullets pinged off the water tank. Mason flopped down next to Bowie and lay prone. A stray bullet, even if unintentional, would be a most unfortunate ending. The dog wriggled around for a moment but finally settled up against him.

Mason watched as the fight raged across the field, barely fifty yards away. Gunfire, screams, and battle cries rang out. A fight for survival was underway, and there would be only one victor. He made no effort to join the fight. Like Bowie, there wasn’t enough left in him to make much of a difference. He would have to trust that his rescuers had what it took to get the job done.

They did.

Numb and cold, he watched as cadets slowly emerged from the night like ghostly soldiers of the Confederacy. Their eyes were wide with fear, but there was pride in their steps as they pressed victoriously onto the battlefield. Several had been injured, blood staining their faces and uniforms.

“Sir!” one man shouted. “They’re over here!”

Within seconds, a dozen cadets had set up a perimeter around Mason and Bowie. One of them was Corporal Rodriguez.

“Marshal,” he said, extending a hand.

Mason smiled and pulled himself to his feet.

“I never thought I’d be glad to see you.”

“The captain thought you might need a hand.” He looked around at the bloody carnage now washed a hundred yards in every direction. “Me, I’m not so sure.”

Mason reached down and stroked Bowie. The dog was still a little shell-shocked.

“We gave them a hell of a fight. Even so,” he said, straightening up and patting Rodriguez on the shoulder, “we appreciate the rescue.”

Leila pushed her way into the small circle.

“Thank God,” she cried, rushing up and hugging him. “I thought we’d lost you.”

He held her, content to take a moment to simply bask in his good fortune.

“I’m all right,” he said, wiping blood from a small wound on his temple.

She cupped his face with both hands and kissed him. When she finally pulled away, her cheek was streaked with blood.

“I’m all right,” he repeated, softer this time.

Captain Artz stepped closer. “I don’t mean to interrupt, but we need to get out of here. It’s a half-mile hike back to the bridge, and it wouldn’t surprise me if those monsters came back with reinforcements.”

“You walked in?”

“We thought it was the only way to get in undetected.”

“And you didn’t run into trouble?”

He looked around at the other cadets.

“Nothing that the Virginia Tech Corps of Cadets couldn’t handle.” Captain Artz slapped his palm against the stock of the Grendel. “The rifles didn’t hurt either.”

Bowie clambered unsteadily to his feet and pressed himself between Mason and Leila. She reached down and stroked his wet fur.

“It’s good to see you too, boy.”

As everyone gathered up, Mason broke away and wandered over to the base of the tower. It took only a moment to find his M4. Other than being slick with blood and human entrails, it appeared to be in good shape. He gave the sling a cursory rinse in a nearby puddle and slung it over his shoulder before trudging back toward the cadets.

All in all, he thought, it hadn’t been a bad night. He and Bowie had managed to come out of the fight relatively unscathed, the enemy had been soundly defeated, and a group of brave young men and women had experienced what might well prove to be their finest hour.

Chapter 19  

Samantha felt herself being lifted into the air by Mateo’s calloused hands.

“Can you climb in?”

“I think so,” she said, gripping the sides of the doorway and pulling herself into the cargo hold.

The aft hold was much larger than the one that she and Tanner had hidden in earlier, and her first thought was that it looked like a kindergartner’s block-building project on the first day of school. Hundreds of pallets, most of them shrink-wrapped in clear plastic, had been stuffed into the hold with little consideration as to their size or shape. A crisscross of tracks along the bulkhead allowed the huge pallets to be slid in and out of the aircraft, but certainly not by hand, and certainly not by a twelve-year-old girl.

Mateo grabbed the bottom of the metal doorway and pulled himself in after her. The hold was so tightly packed that there was barely room for them to stand side by side.

“Now you see why Mr. Vega needs your help.”

“Because I’m small enough to squeeze between this stuff.”

“Exactly. You’re like his little mouse, digging for cheese.”

“Even if I can wiggle in there, there’s no way I can drag one of these things out,” she said, tugging on one of the pallets.

“You won’t have to.” Mateo pulled a folding knife and a small flashlight from his pocket and handed them to her. “Use the knife to cut off the plastic and any support straps. Then carry the cargo out to me one package at a time.”

She looked at the knife and then back up at him.

He smiled. “What’re you going to do, little girl, stab me?”

She returned a nervous smile before turning to study the hold.

“What exactly am I looking for?”

“A pallet stacked with bags of coffee. It will be labeled Negro Perla.”

“You guys came all this way for
coffee
?”

“What can I say? It’s very good coffee.”

“I guess it must be.” She shined the flashlight into the hold. It was going to take a while to find anything. “What’s Negro Perla mean?”

“Black Pearl.”

She cut her eyes at him.

“As in
the
Black Pearl?”

“What’s
the
Black Pearl?”

“You know…” She pretended to tip her hat. “Captain Jack Sparrow at your service.”

He made a face that said he had no idea what she was talking about.

“I hope you’re not wasting my time in there,” Vega called up from below.

“No, sir.” Mateo turned to Samantha and whispered, “You’d better get busy. Mr. Vega’s not a patient man.”

“Right.” She stuffed the knife into her front pocket and began squirming between the pallets.

As Mateo disappeared from view, it occurred to her that she might indeed have to stab him with his own knife. No doubt Tanner was already working on a plan to rescue her, and like all of his plans, it would involve people getting hurt.

Having dispatched Geraldo, Tanner considered his next course of action. At most, he had a few minutes before the men became concerned about their missing comrade. Once that happened, all bets would be off. They might flee, taking Samantha as a hostage. Or they might come looking for him as a well-armed group. Neither of those scenarios bode particularly well for him or Samantha.

He retrieved his shotgun and flashlight before heading further into the terminal. The doors to the next two gates were both locked, and he saw no easy way to get through them. The door to the third gate, however, had been propped open with a suitcase.

Tanner swung it the rest of the way open and hurried down the jet bridge. It was identical to the previous one, except that there wasn’t a plane at the end of the ramp. Instead, the movable platform opened out onto the tarmac. The service door was on the side facing the men, and Tanner doubted that he could sneak down the stairs without someone noticing.

He stepped over to the open platform and looked down at the tarmac. It was too far to jump, but not so far that he couldn’t lower and drop. He sat down and turned around, hanging onto the metal framing. Then he lowered as far as his arms would allow and dropped. As soon as he hit the ground, he ducked behind the steerable wheels that were used to propel the jet bridge.

Peeking around a large power box, he saw two guards and the man in pink standing beneath the 747’s cargo hold. Their attention was firmly fixed on what was happening inside. Samantha and the man who had captured her were talking. He handed her something, and then she disappeared behind a large pallet.

The Mexicans must be using her to retrieve something from the plane, most likely drugs. While it could have been some other valuable, perhaps gold or gems, those items no longer held the same intrinsic value that they once had. Drugs, on the other hand, might be even more valuable. Not only were they very hard to come by, they were also incredibly addictive.

The men on the ground were so focused on the recovery operation that Tanner suspected that if he could get close enough, he could probably drop all three with a few quick blasts from the shotgun. The problem with that plan was the man in the hold. No matter how quickly Tanner dropped the others, he would remain a threat to Samantha.

This was one of those rare times when Tanner thought that it might actually be better to negotiate. And that meant getting his hands on something valuable. His eyes settled on the Piper. Presumably, it was to be their ride out of D.C., and he doubted they would give it up without good reason. If he could gain control of the airplane, there was a good chance they would be willing to trade it for Samantha.

An abandoned fuel truck sat on the tarmac, centered about halfway to the Piper. It couldn’t have been more than fifty yards from where Tanner knelt, and it felt like a reasonable gamble to make a run for it. But a gamble is what it was. A quick turn of the head by any one of the men, and the game would be up.

Willing himself to appear smaller than he truly was, Tanner darted toward the truck, never once taking his eyes, or his shotgun, off the men. He was too far away to win a gunfight, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t send them ducking for cover.

Thankfully, it didn’t come to that.

Tanner let out a sigh of relief as he darted in behind the refueling truck. The unmistakable odor of jet fuel permeated the air like a bottle of Caron Piovre perfume. Hiding behind something loaded with thousands of gallons of combustible fuel probably wasn’t the smartest thing he had ever done, but it did at least shield him from view.

He rose up and peered between the hose and the tank. The Mexicans were still focused on retrieving their cargo. None of them had even glanced in his direction.

He turned and looked at the open stretch that lay between him and the Piper. Halfway there; halfway to go.

Surprisingly, it took Samantha only a few minutes to find the pallet piled high with bags of Negro Perla coffee.

“Found it,” she called back over her shoulder.

“Good,” said Mateo. “Now use the knife to cut away the plastic.”

Samantha opened the knife and gingerly tested the edge. It was well used, but sharp. She sliced through the plastic and pulled it aside, careful not to nick the burlap sacks beneath. When she had enough of the plastic removed, she grabbed the corners of one of the sacks and pulled. It was about the size of a small pillow but much heavier.

“They’re too heavy!” she shouted.

“You can do it,” he said, sounding more like a coach than a captor.

She slid her arms around the bag and lifted. To her surprise, it pulled free of the pallet. She would never have been able to lift it a few months earlier, but things had changed since she’d first met Tanner. He was constantly pushing her to be stronger. Tougher. Meaner. More like him, only cuter. Even the thought of Tanner made her load seem lighter. It was as if he were standing right next to her saying, “Come on, darlin’, put your back into it.”

The gap between pallets was so narrow that several times she had to set the sack down, climb through the crevice, and then drag it through after her. When she finally made it back to Mateo, her arms were aching.

“Good girl,” he said, taking the sack and turning around to lower it to the man standing below the cargo door.

It was in that moment that Samantha knew how to defeat Mateo. She wouldn’t have to stab him at all. She would simply give him a good shove, and out he’d go. The fall probably wouldn’t kill him, but it should at least put him out of commission for a while.

As soon as the man below caught the sack, he set it on the tarmac and used his knife to cut it open. Mr. Vega stepped closer to have a look. The guard shoved both hands into the dark coffee beans and fished out a brick-sized package sealed in plastic. It looked like a block of Play-Doh after someone had mixed all of the colors together.