Mitch couldn’t turn his head; the blade was pressing against his skin.
“I love this knife,” he heard J.J. say. “It’s a Russian ballistic knife. The whole blade leaves the handle when the trigger’s depressed.”
“J.J.,” Mitch muttered. “Not you.”
“Looks like it,” J.J. answered.
Have Nick and J.J. teamed up? Mitch ran through the scenarios in his head.
“Get on the radio to Nick and tell him to keep circling; there is a change of plans,” J.J. ordered.
“Forget it.”
“You don’t have a choice in the matter,” J.J. announced.
Mitch’s hand reached for his neck as he felt the blade of the knife slice into more skin and blood trickle down past his collar. He inhaled sharply from the pain.
“You’re unbelievable – this whole time, you’ve been running a covert operation?” Mitch said his voice showing his disgust. “The night shift with me, the bashing you got at Broad Arrow – were they for effect?”
“Oh, no. I was every bit a part of the team then,” J.J. assured him. “But I began to realize I wasn’t getting anywhere fast – no promotions in sight, crap money. I can’t even make a decision on location without some junior wanting to check it with you. And for what it’s worth, I’m sick of being managed. This time, I’m managing the show.”
“So, are you working with them? What’s ‘M.M.’ stand for?”
“How the hell would I know?” J.J. hissed. “I’m not working with those idiots. You can do what you like to Johan and Maria. This is about the gold – the gold they’re never going to receive. Now shut the hell up and call Nick.”
“Not happening. I’ll take us both down before I give you the chance to do this.”
“I counted on that. Which is why the phone in Sam’s vest has a nice little trigger in it now.”
Mitch’s eyes widened. J.J. patted his vest.
“I’ve got the detonator here,” he pulled out his own phone to show Mitch and replaced it back in his vest. “Technology is amazing. All I have to do is send a pulse from my phone to her phone and she won’t even have time to see her pretty little life flash before her eyes. But wait, there is more,” J.J. grinned. “That assignment you gave me—checking out the courier company—really paid off. I made a buddy on the ground in Nevada, the one who was giving us all the info about the courier company, and lucky me, he was keen to go solo too. So he’s planted the second bomb for me. It’s on board with Nick and Ellen.”
He’s not bluffing. Mitch opened the shared radio frequency. At least Nick’s not turning traitor.
“Nick, are you there? There is an emergency, stay airborne,” he ordered.
Nick sat back; removing his jacket. He glanced at the two security guards bound in the corner.
“Nice work, Nick,” Ellen said.
“And you too,” he congratulated Ellen.
Mitch’s voice broke through on the radio. Nick sat forward.
“I hear you loud and clear, Major, what’s wrong?” he replied.
“We have a change in plans,” Nick recognized J.J.’s voice.
“J.J., what’s happened? Are you OK? Is Mitch?” Ellen jumped in.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine, he’s fine,” J.J. said.
Mitch’s voice interrupted.
“It’s OK. But our buddy here has decided to go solo. And before you ask, yes, I can drop him, me and the plane into the Pacific Ocean except for one little detail.”
“Three details actually,” J.J.’s voice cut in. “I’ve wired Sam to go off and your plane’s also carrying a bit of C4 – beautiful stuff for fireworks. Plus there is a sharp knife pressed against the boss’s neck, so we’re playing it my way now.”
Ellen glanced around. “Where could the C4 be?” she mouthed the words to Nick. He turned back to the console, taking charge.
“What do we need to do?”
Mitch stared straight ahead, blocking out all noise.
OK, focus, he told himself. I need to shut down J.J., get the detonator off him and get the phone off Sam just in case there is a secondary device, and get Ellen and Nick off that plane. Think!
He felt another stab of the knife and listened to J.J.’s accelerated breathing.
Good, he’s nervous. That’ll help.
“This is what we are going to do,” J.J. said to his audience spread over two planes. “And we’re doing it before they get suspicious below. Nick, you will continue with Johan’s original plan and land that plane back in the hangar at Broad Arrow. Then you’ll be taking me out of the country on the route you had planned. Get to it now,” he ordered, “understand?”
J.J. waited for Nick’s reply before continuing.
“When you land, Ellie, you’ll tie Nick up – after I clean up the others, I’ll need him to fly me and my partner out. If you don’t, I’ll blow you, Nick and Sam sky-high and finish off team leader here,” J.J. looked at Mitch. “Wait until Johan and Maria see Nick in the pilot’s seat, so they know it’s gone to plan, then come out firing. Take out everyone and anyone in your path. Don’t hit Sam though; I need her to ensure Mitch follows through. Besides, she’ll assume you’re on her side. Clear?”
“Understood,” Ellen’s cold tone came over the radio.
“I’ll take her out myself if need be,” he watched Mitch for a reaction. “Mitch’s going to drop me as close as he can get to Broad Arrow,” he shoved Mitch. “And if he behaves, I might even give him a Band-Aid; making a mess there, Mitch!” J.J. wiped the blood off his hands.
“Well, remove the knife,” Mitch spat back.
J.J. raised his elbow and hit him hard in the side of the head.
Mitch swore in pain.
“Mitch?” Ellen sounded alarm.
“Shut up, he’s alright. What is with you and Sam? Can’t you function without him?” J.J. said, “I’m not going to destroy my only means of getting down, am I? He’ll be better off if he learns to shut up.” J.J. glared at Mitch. “As I was saying, when we land, Mitch will get this plane back on route to Las Vegas before we start panicking the courier company and their little track-and-trace program kicks in. If he does as he is told, I might spare Sam. My partner will be on the ground in Vegas to meet the plane, so don’t think about aborting,” he threatened Mitch. “When he rings through the all-clear, I’ll disengage the detonator.”
“That’s big of you,” Mitch retorted.
J.J. snapped Mitch’s head back grabbing his throat, and cutting off his oxygen.
“Don’t push me, Mitch. I’m in charge.”
“If you kill me,” Mitch gasped, “you’ll have to land this yourself.”
He released Mitch. “Not before I take the others down with me. Remember that before you get too heroic.” J.J. stopped suddenly and looked at Mitch. “You’re stalling for time knowing the courier company will panic if the delivery is not on schedule. Very clever. Get me to Broad Arrow now.”
“You’re going to meet Maria’s contacts?”
“Why waste a good deal?” J.J. shrugged. “They don’t care who it comes from as long as they get the goods. Now everyone shut up and get to it.”
Mitch knew what he had to do. He pushed the throttle forward and headed up to ten thousand feet.
“What are you doing?” J.J. felt the plane rise.
“I’ve got to take it up,” Mitch informed him.
“Why?”
“The flight path I was given has us at over fifteen thousand feet on the last leg.”
“Why would they do that?”
Mitch shrugged. “A lot of the gold mines have private planes. Sometimes there is a stack of traffic in the under-ten-thousand-feet zone. If we’re finished, they move us up and out of it until we are ready to land.”
J.J. glared at him.
“Suit yourself,” Mitch said. “If I’m not there, it’s going to draw attention to us and the tower will be asking questions. Fine by me.”
“Do it, but I’m keeping my finger on the detonator so don’t try anything,” J.J. ordered.
Won the first round!
Nick’s eyes grew wider as he heard the conversation. He flicked off the microphone so he could continue to listen and not be heard.
“Shit, he’s going to kill them both,” he told Ellen.
“What?” Ellen gasped. “What’s he doing?”
“He’s going to take it over fifteen thousand feet and depressurize the cabin.”
“I don’t understand.”
Nick explained. “Mitch and I have talked about this before. He’s going to attempt to push J.J. out.”
“Why? How?”
“The run over the goldfields doesn’t require us to get much over ten thousand feet so, in theory, a smaller plane could do the trip without a pressurized cabin. Mitch is traveling at under ten thousand now; it’s called the physiological zone.”
“OK, and?” Ellen prodded him.
“People are fine in a zone from sea level to ten thousand feet; the oxygen level is OK, so you don’t need any special breathing aids.” Nick continued. “But Mitch is going to push over the ten thousand feet zone to what’s called the physiologically deficient zone.”
“So,” Ellen finished, “he’ll somehow depressurize the cabin, deprive them both of oxygen and try to outlast J.J.?”
“Precisely, but there is a catch,” Nick said.
Mitch’s voice interrupted. “Thirteen thousand feet.”
“He’s letting me know what he’s doing so I can time how long he’s going to be in the danger zone,” Nick told her.
“What’s the catch?” she pushed.
“He can’t deprive them of oxygen without breaking something to depressurize the cabin.”
“Can’t he open the doors from the control panel?”
“No. The pressure on the doors makes them impossible to open in flight. There are two things he can do. He can break a window and hold tight, hope J.J.’s ejected and then drop altitude so he can breathe—which is risky in itself—or …” Nick shook his head, “… he can get to a certain height, turn off the engines, open the doors and hope J.J. gets sucked out – then as quickly as possible, close the doors, pressurize the cabin or drop below ten-thousand feet again and breathe.”
“Won’t oxygen fall from the ceiling?”
“It’s not a commercial plane,” Nick told her.
“How long can he last if it doesn’t work?”
“Assuming there is supplemental oxygen on board …” Nick thought for a moment, “the worst-case scenario without oxygen, if he doesn’t go beyond about eighteen thousand feet is twenty minutes – above this, about ten minutes. But given they will both be exerting themselves—you know, fighting—he’s probably got ten minutes tops.”
“And what will happen to him?” Ellen asked.
“It’s called hypoxia. He’ll get tired, dizzy, short of breath, get a headache. If he doesn’t get oxygen, he’ll become weak and uncoordinated and slow right down. His reaction time will be delayed and he’ll fall unconscious. The danger is that most pilots don’t feel it coming on; it’s kind of hard to pick the signs.”
Nick listened to Mitch’s voice announcing he was at fifteen thousand feet and rising to twenty thousand.
“Isn’t that enough? Why is he still rising?” Ellen asked.
“Because if he doesn’t break something, he’ll have to turn the engines off to open the door … he’ll lose about three thousand feet when he does,” Nick explained. “He’s going to have to act fast … you’d think J.J. would have realized they don’t need to rise anywhere near that height.”
“Twenty thousand feet,” Mitch‘s voice broke through over the radio waves.
Nick tensed. “Shit, here we go!”
“What can we do?”
“First off, we can let the gold plane courier company know everything is under control or there’ll be more dramas. Then I need to get clearance from the tower for both of us to go to that height.”
“What do you mean both of us?” she asked.
Mitch continued to take the plane higher.
J.J. leaned over him. “Patch me through to the other plane.”
Mitch pushed a few buttons.
“Nick, report in,” J.J. ordered. There was no answer.
Mitch listened. Hope you’re on another channel notifying the tower what’s going on, Nick.
“Ellen?” J.J. barked again.
Nick’s voice came through. “We’ve got the runway in sight now and we’re about ten minutes from landing.”
“Good,” J.J. sighed, easing the knife off Mitch’s throat. “This is going to be easier than I thought. Get this plane down now.”
Mitch could see from his instruments that Nick was nowhere near the runway at the Broad Arrow mine.
He was following Mitch skywards.
Got to get that detonator. Mitch looked at his watch. I’ve got ten minutes tops before I have to seal the door again. I hope you’re listening, Nick.
“OK,” Mitch turned to J.J. “That’s probably the best place for me to land over there, it’s a clear area and you can get to Broad Arrow by foot quickly. You can see it through the right window.”
He waited for J.J. to look to the right.
Mitch cut the engines and hit the door release button. He braced for the rush of air at eighteen thousand feet as it pulled through the plane, dragging everything not tied down out with it.
J.J. screamed, falling backwards. Mitch saw the knife fall to the ground as J.J. stood spread-eagled across the door to the cabin, grasping anything he could to stop himself from being sucked out. Mitch looked down as his seat belt held him in place, but the chair pulled, trying to break loose.
He felt the plane glide before he restarted the engines.
Lost twelve hundred feet in those thirty seconds. That’s about right, he calculated.
He checked the engines were on and the doors remained open. Mitch put the plane on autopilot. The roar of rushing air was deafening. He reached back as if in slow motion against the pull of air, fighting for oxygen in the rarefied state.
He saw J.J.’s face reflecting terror.
“Give me the detonator and I’ll close the doors,” Mitch yelled.
J.J. raged. “Close the goddamned doors,” he screamed “or I’ll press the button.”
Mitch smiled at him.
“Sure,” he yelled, “let go of the door and press the button.”
“You bastard,” J.J.’s face was red with anger.
“You know, at the height we’re at,” Mitch yelled, “you’re going to hit the ground at just over one hundred miles an hour in under two minutes.”
J.J.’s eyes darted around the cabin.
“Eight minutes,” Nick’s voice cut in over the radio.
“Eight minutes until what?” J.J. yelled.
“Until we lose consciousness,” Mitch answered. “I’m taking the detonator.”
Mitch moved forward in the chair towards J.J., the seatbelt giving him enough length to reach him.
So far, so good. Feeling fine, got to watch for the signs.
Mitch felt the blood begin to pour from his nose, flowing down over his lips. He looked over at J.J., who remained spread-eagled across the door, terrified. Mitch reached inside J.J.’s vest and found the phone. He looked at the screen. It was locked for safety. At least something’s going right today.
Mitch gripped it. J.J. let go of the wall with one hand and grabbed onto Mitch’s arm. With his other arm he grasped the door, using his feet to keep himself wedged into the cockpit.
“Seven minutes,” Nick yelled over the radio.
Mitch heard Ellen cry, “I can’t stand it, can’t we do anything?”
“We are,” Nick answered her. “Stay calm. Mitch knows what he is doing.”
I hope you’re right, Nick, Mitch thought. He could see J.J. was feeling the effects; he seemed light-headed, slow to move, but oblivious to it. Mitch tried to fight J.J.’s arm off.
“Are you trying to kill us both?” J.J. spat the words at him.
“If necessary, you bet,” Mitch tried to push him off, leaning out of the chair.
Feeling the symptoms now, just behind my eyes. Time’s running out. Got to get J.J. off me, got to close the door.
“I’ve got the detonator, get off me and I’ll let you live,” Mitch breathed rapidly.
“You’ll let me live?” J.J. laughed. “You’ll let me live? You might have the detonator but this is my show.”
Mitch saw a flash of silver as J.J. flicked a knife out of his sleeve, while gripping onto the door with his other hand. J.J. slashed at him, stabbing him in the arm that was still holding the phone. Mitch felt an initial flash of pain, then nothing else.
Big sign of danger. I should be feeling that pain, he thought.
“Five minutes,” Nick’s voice cut through. “Close it up, Mitch, you can’t go the whole way.”
Mitch grasped the phone despite the throbbing in his arm. With his free hand he wrestled for the knife. He struggled, feeling lightheaded.
Hell, how can J.J. still be physically strong?
Dropping back in the chair and raising his foot to J.J.’s chest, Mitch groaned with exertion as he gave J.J. a huge shove, knocking the wind out of both of them. Mitch watched as J.J. went sprawling through the cabin door, screaming as he hurtled at a phenomenal speed towards the open rear door.
He could hear Nick yelling over the radio to him.
“Three minutes, close up, Mitch, NOW!”
Mitch breathed in air in huge gulps. He looked at his hands.
Blue. Nails look blue. Not a good sign.
He closed and locked the cabin door, shutting out his view of J.J. clinging on at the back of the cabin. Turning in slow motion, he squinted at the panel.
Don’t pass out! Get the bomb off …. He started to give way to the blackness engulfing him. He wanted to sleep. Stay awake!
He moved in slow motion and turned the engines off. He closed the plane door. Fumbling, he turned the engines on again, pressurizing the compartment. He heard J.J. thump to the ground behind the door.
I’ll deal with you when we land, J.J.
Mitch sucked in the air in gasps.
“Mitch,” Nick yelled, “what’s happening?”
Mitch looked around; everything was blurred. He couldn’t find an additional oxygen supply.
About two minutes left, enough time for the depressurization to kick in, maybe.
“Mitch, report in now,” Mitch heard Nick yell.
Mitch could hear J.J. gasping from behind the cockpit door. He drew in deep breaths himself.
Safe here, he thought. Got the phone with the detonator, so the team’s safe. Whether J.J. survives or not, I’ll leave to the gods.
Mitch heard Nick’s voice clear and loud now that the rush of air had subsided.
“Mitchell, come in!” he commanded, his voice sounding strained with tension.
Mitch’s voice was groggy. “Nick …”
“I’m here, Major, and I’ve got you in sight. What’s going on in there?”
Mitch wiped the blood from his nose on the back of his sleeve. He saw the stab wound in his arm wasn’t too deep.
Can’t feel it at all. Must be the hypoxia. Almost blissful.
“I’ve got the detonator; it was in his phone. So he can’t call his partner to blow you guys up or trigger the bomb on Sam,” Mitch spluttered. “Get the phone off Sam as soon as you land, just to be safe.”
“We’re not going to land yet.”
Mitch took a minute.
“Where are you?”
“Right behind you,” Nick answered.