Freedom Does Matter (Mercenaries Book 2) (22 page)

The response was unintelligible, but she turned in the seat to look; it was Kevin, holding the cockpit door frame as she had earlier. He looked entirely unwell.

The next few minutes of conversation covered the copilot and the little Beckie could tell, but the gun, which Beckie handed to Kevin, convinced him as it had her that the copilot’s intentions were inimical. Kevin tugged the body back into the cabin and wedged it between two seat rows for safety. Before she described the nerve-wracking flight till now, Kevin went aft. He came forward again less than two minutes later, carrying a small flight bag.

“Always interesting, the things people carry. This guy, name seems to have been Hamza Faraj, left in his bag five bottles of water. Full, but opened. The little ‘X’ on the label makes me think they may not be as pure as… well, did you drink any of that bottle he gave you?”

“No. I just stuffed it in the seat back and went to sleep. Do you think he… he drugged us? Or tried to?”

He reached down beside Jean-Luc’s seat and retrieved an empty water bottle. He pointed to the mark. “It would explain why both Jean-Luc and I were affected and you weren’t.” He pitched the bottle aft through the door. “Have to wait for the tests, but it seems a reasonable assumption. Anyway, he brought no clothes, which seems unusual for a guy crossing oceans. An empty pill bottle, but I can’t read the label, except for the skull and crossbones at every corner.” He straightened out a crumpled piece of paper. “But this may be the most interesting…”

“Oh! Hold on a sec. I’ve gotta call Patrice. The coast is right there.” She pointed to the radar display.

“Yeah, I can see something out the window.” He took out his phone. “Would you rather use mine? It’s charged.”

“Do you have his number? I’d be excited if you took over communications. I still feel funny using one hand to drive.”

He dialed and spoke to Patrice, who, based on Kevin’s reaction, was happy to hear that Beckie had company—alive, alert, friendly company. Kevin confirmed it. “He’s glad to hear that someone with enough height and weight to push the brakes is available. He’s been worried all along what to do when you get on the ground and have to handle the throttles, the reverse thrusters, the spoilers and the steering along with being able to push the brakes. He says I can do some of those things.”

Beckie turned to look at him. “I can’t tell you how absolutely brilliant that would be! I didn’t even think of pushing the brakes. Where are they?” She looked down at the rudder pedals, wiggling minutely next to her feet.

“Don’t worry about it. First, I’ll have to get Jean-Luc out of the seat, though. Hold tight, in case I bump something…” Beckie gave a little squeal of terror. “Don’t worry, I’ll be as careful as I can. Don’t want to hurt him, either. He’s a bad guy to have angry at you.”

It took Kevin five minutes to get Jean-Luc out of the cockpit and strapped into a seat. Then he and Beckie swapped seats. “Because I’m right handed, you know,” she said. “And because Patrice is usually in this seat… Okay, glad to have you aboard,” Beckie said warmly once they were both settled. “Patrice wants to slow us down and have me do some real flying before the airport comes up, but first, what’s on that paper?”

Kevin pulled the sheet out of his pocket. “It’s an itinerary. That’s where I got his name, since it matches the passport in his pocket. Two months ago, he flew from Cairo to Doha in Qatar. Looks like he was there three weeks, then he flew to Houston. Business class, non-stop.”

“Not first?”

Kevin shrugged. “He was there a week, then on to Fort Lauderdale. That’s the end of his trip.”

“Hmm. That makes some sense, I guess. Jean-Luc told me they contract for copilots… Patrice, is that right?”

“Yes, and the usual service organization is in Lauderdale. I’ve already alerted Shen to the problem.”

“But that’s not the real interesting bit,” Kevin continued. “Looks like he got the first part of another itinerary, from Cairo to London. A group of seven, headed by, wait for it… Abdul-Bari Sedki.”

Beckie closed her mouth, then said, “You don’t think…”

“The woman said Sedki’d gone. It’s a possible connection.”

“Something to ask the Sheikhs, then. No date? That would help.”

“No, that was on the next sheet, I guess.”

“Hmpf.” Beckie turned back to the instrument panel. “Okay, Patrice, I’m as ready as I’m ever gonna be.”

Patrice put her through exercises in an attempt to give her a feel for the way the plane handled, the speed of response and the overshoot when a maneuver was ended. They talked about fuel enough to believe that they’d land with enough to use the reverse thrusters.

Less than an hour out, Beckie started the serious descent, holding one thousand feet per minute. Kevin, with his height advantage, saw the bright lights of the runway and pointed them out to Beckie. She pointed at the HEAL marker on the radar display. Patrice had already said that was the Al Alamain Airport identifier.

“At least, I don’t have to turn a lot. Right out there, straight ahead.”

The descent to 3500 feet took them almost to the coast, leaving them about forty miles from the runway. Patrice had her hold the rate of descent until she thought she could look out the window and touch the end of the runway, but she yanked her eyes back to the instruments. Kevin was watching the real world and Patrice had told him what he needed to do.

During one of the conversations, Patrice had told them the airport had no ILS capability, so Beckie’d have to fly the plane to touchdown. There were many things that the plane could do automatically: deploy the speed-brakes and spoilers and apply auto-braking, for example, and all those that could be were armed, but without a glide slope, she’d have to make the descent and apply the reverse thrusters herself. Kevin could then apply the manual brakes.

Beckie jumped when, just after they crossed the coast, an announcement blared out in the cockpit: “One thousand feet.” She recovered, pushed the nose back down and began breathing again.

Kevin’s phone was on the console between them; Patrice was far better situated to talk to the controllers and pass useful information back and forth. “Now keep the sink rate steady at about a hundred feet per minute and keep the air speed at 140 knots.”

“Nose up?”

“When you hear ‘forty feet.’”

“Minimum,” the plane said.

“Jean-Luc’s setting. Keep going.”

“One hundred.”

“Getting close,” Kevin said, not at all helpfully, Beckie thought, but quickly came back to adjusting the throttles to keep airspeed and sink rates steady.

“Fifty feet.”

“Forty feet.”

Beckie jerked the throttles to Idle and pulled more smoothly on the wheel, lifting the nose. The plane started to float; she cried, “What?”

Patrice said as calm as could be, “Flaps thirty.”

Kevin made that change and the plane dropped. Patrice had continued speaking so just in time he said, “Pull the reverser levers back, hard.”

As the noise level increased threefold, the plane shuddered, then hit and bounced but not hard enough to convince it to fly again. The brakes went on. The speed was dropping fast and the nose dropped. Kevin was forcing his feet against the rudders, hard enough that the auto-brakes disengaged.

“Keep the brakes on!” she hollered.

“When the speed drops below sixty, advance the throttles just a bit, till the speed brake lever returns, then back to Idle. If the auto-brakes are engaged…”

“They’re not,” Kevin said, panting.

“Then keep the pressure till the plane stops. I heard it hit. Does it feel all right? That’s stupid, how would you know? Is it pulling to one side or the other?”

“No, it wobbled a little, but it’s stopped now. Can I pass out?”

“You mean stopped moving, right?”

“Yeah.”

“First then, flaps back up to zero. Then, apply the parking brake. It’s below the throttles. Also, move the Engine Start levers to Cutout and shut off the engines and the fuel flow switches. The other things you can deal with when you’re over to the terminal. Just wait, there’ll be a tug along to get you. Where are you on the runway, anyway?”

Beckie looked back toward the terminal, then grabbed Kevin’s arm. When he looked, he said, “And police along with the tug?”

“Well, you’ve got a body, right? And you’ll have to clear customs. Fortunately, Al Alamain is a port of entry, so it won’t be too bad. So, where did you end up?”

“About two-thirds down, I guess,” Beckie said. “But not on the centerline.”

“Yeah, the controller just said. Actually, what he said was ‘Good job.’ He wants to shake your hand.”

Beckie picked up the phone and breathed deeply. “Patrice, thank you so much! I can’t say—”

“Then don’t. It was my pleasure, believe me, especially when I didn’t hear any grinding, crashing noises. Oh, when the tug gets there, release the parking brake by stepping on the manual brakes. Call me when you get settled, unless you need something before then. Say bye to Kevin.”

Hearing a muffled groan, she and Kevin both turned toward the cockpit door. Jean-Luc was almost standing on his own, propped up by the door. “What? Why are you…”

“Go sit down before you fall,” Kevin said with a laugh. “We’ll explain it all later.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Day Twenty-three - Cairo

BECKIE AND KEVIN HAD RETURNED to the luxury of the Cairo Marriott. Beckie had gotten more than a bit tired of going over the events in the plane, but since she alone had been awake for most of it, she got the questions. The various officials were fixated on the copilot: where he’d come from, who he was. His passport and the single sheet of itinerary Kevin had found in the his bag were the sole sources of information, though Jean-Luc had talked at length with Go Shen, hoping to find answers for himself.

The last attaché had been polite, but surprisingly jejune. Once Kevin returned from seeing him out, Beckie released some of her tension. “I don’t get what they are looking for, you know?”

“Yeah,” Kevin said. “But this is Egypt. Unusual things get more attention from the authorities than from the press.”

“Hmm.”

Her reflections were derailed by Dan and Sue’s entrance bearing snacks.

“You shouldn’t have!” Beckie said, her grab for the closest packet giving the lie to her words.

“Well, I bought them for tomorrow, during the break…” Sue told her dryly. “If there’s any left, that is.”

Beckie felt her cheeks warm as she handed the bag back. “Only took a couple,” she mumbled around the morsel in her mouth. She took control. “What’s the schedule for tomorrow?”

Dan sat across the table from her while Sue took one of the easy chairs alongside Kevin. “We should be at the hall by half-past seven,” Dan said. “The meeting will begin at eight.” He sipped from his glass of beer. “You’ll have your chance to see the two chiefs alone. They have both information and questions for you.”

“Good. I have a couple for them, too,” Beckie said as she headed toward her room.

Before eight the next morning, Beckie walked around the conference room table, relaxing herself and marshaling her thoughts to put them in a reasonable order. As she began the fourth circuit, voices came through the door.

She stood by the chair at the far end of the table. “Good morning. It is good to see both of you. I hope the tsunami has not affected you, more than others at least.”

They passed another minute or two in greetings while the attendant served the thick coffee the men enjoyed. Beckie stirred milk into hers until the cup almost overflowed, then sipped carefully.

She gave the men a smile and said, “Thank you for meeting with me this morning. I’m glad to speak with you alone, as I have questions I wish to try on you both.”

“Try on?”

“Sorry, idiomatic phrase. There are questions I wish to ask you. I understand you also have questions for me. Will your translators be necessary?”

The two sheikhs exchanged glances before al-Kassis replied, “My brother Al Hosni and I will make our way.”

“I agree,” Al Hosni said. “If we decide we need a formal record of this meeting—”