Visibility was zero inside the cellblock. The cops, the harbormaster, the drunk, Safwan all yelled in different languages. Outside, the sound of bullets raking the cinderblock obscured their words. After a long burst of gunfire, the cellblock fell silent.
“HEY!” Tania shouted and slammed the table. “How many weapons do we have?”
“I can take ’em down,” the drunk said. “I got a Beretta.”
“Anyone else?” Tania asked.
No one spoke.
“Great,” Tania said. “That means all we have is shit-for-brain’s peashooter?”
There was a loud smack and the sound of a body falling on the floor. The cop remembered his flashlight and flashed a beam on Tania. She held a Berretta. Sprawled at her feet was the drunk’s body. She shrugged.
The cop turned his beam to the door.
Pia faced Tania. “How did the Syrians know we’d come to the Azores?”
“They knew you’d figure out the refueling thing sooner or later,” Tania said. “The smoker on the phone must have been the lookout.”
“Well, it’s me they want,” Pia said. “I’ll negotiate something.”
More bullets pinged off the metal door then stopped. An argument replaced the gunfire outside. Then Pia heard odd noises, as if someone were patting the door gently. Safwan stuck his arm in front of her and pushed Pia and the cop backwards, saying something in Arabic.
“He said, explosives,” the harbormaster said.
Everyone scrambled backward in the dark.
The explosion reverberated with bone-crushing noise in the confined space. The cop’s light cast about for the door and found it, bent but still intact. They listened to the now recognizable sound of someone placing another charge on the door. The group exchanged looks and backed up to the back wall.
Pia stepped back to the steel door.
“Hey, can you hear me?” she shouted through the steel. “Anyone?”
Bullets pinged off the other side. She flinched.
Behind her, the building’s back wall crashed inward. Dim light filled the room. A sledgehammer batted away excess bricks, exposing the bent steel frame of a small flatbed truck. On the back, sledge in hand, stood Jimmy Jenkins. “Let’s go, people! The good guys are coming.”
Pia tugged the cop, while Tania guided Safwan and Paulo through the wreckage and onto the flatbed. Pia dragged the drunk’s limp form into the pile of bricks and the cop gave her a hand. With a big heave, they landed the drunk on the flatbed. Jimmy stomped on the gas.
As they accelerated, a formation of police rounded the corner in full riot gear with weapons at the ready. Jimmy saluted them and one of them saluted back. He fishtailed into the marina and sped down a long dock between yachts bobbing in the water. Screeching to a halt near his plane, he jumped out and ran to untie it.
The cop stood still, shaking his head and staring at the developing gunfight three hundred yards up the hill. The PSP would win, but the cost would be high. He scowled at Pia, then trotted away to join his colleagues.
The plane’s first engine coughed to life and the whine of the second began. Tania pushed Safwan onboard.
Paulo pointed to the plane. “Safwan is your friend?”
“No. He’s a child molester. I’m going to make him show me where they keep the kids locked up.”
Paulo looked confused. “He say same thing. American molests children. He says a tall woman comes but he does not understand at first. He asks me to find tall woman and she frees children. This is you, yes?”
“He wants to free the children?”
“Yes. Many days, this is all he says, over and over.”
Gunfire from the harbormaster’s building resumed at a fever pitch. They watched for a moment. Then Paulo said, “I go now. You free the childrens. Safwan helps you. Boa sorte, mocinha.” Good luck young lady.
Paulo ran back up the dock.
Pia took a last look at the comatose drunk on the flatbed. She scrawled an IOU on the ruined truck’s windshield and ran to the plane.
Jimmy flew them into the night sky.
In the cockpit, Tania shouted at Jimmy. “Why did you slink off when you should’ve been helping us with the passports?”
“Can’t take the fingerprint risk,” Jimmy shouted back.
“What’s that supposed to mean—and don’t give me that ‘don’t ask’ again, ’cause I’m asking.”
Jimmy shrugged.
“Hey. Why’re you flying so low?” Tania said. “This is kinda scary.”
“Radar,” he said. “We don’t want our whereabouts getting to Romania before we do.”
“Where’d you learn to fly under the radar?” Tania said. Jimmy winked at her and she rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I know, don’t ask. Hey, Pia, what’s with this guy?”
“He used to be a drug runner,” Pia said. “He flew tons of marijuana from Mexico to Texas and Florida.”
Tania screeched “WHAT?” with such volume everyone jumped, even Safwan.
“You met Bobby Jenkins,” Pia said.
“Your father’s mentor, founder of Jenkins Pharmaceuticals, all that crap? What—are they related?”
“Jimmy is Bobby’s big brother. He put Bobby through college and helped him raise startup capital. When the drug business changed from hippies having fun to cartels chopping off heads, he retired to Bobby’s island house. The Feds have been after his money trail. He’s still negotiating things. So, he doesn’t want to drop anchor on American shores or tangle with American MPs.”
Tania shook her head. “I can’t believe you hang out with a drug dealer.”
“When Dad told me about his past,” Pia said, “I was shocked too. But Dad said, ‘you never know when a good smuggler might come in handy.’ And here we are.”
Tania fell back in her seat. “Behind every successful businessman is a gangster.”
Jimmy gave her a big grin.
Pia turned to Safwan. “Do you speak any English?”
Safwan said something in Arabic.
From the front, Jimmy said, “In the cabinet, there’s a laptop with a Sabel Satellite connection. Try using one of those translator sites.”
A few minutes later, Pia managed to get some basic questions answered. Safwan had been hired to care for the children shortly before her attack on Mullaitivu. They’d told him it was a camp for refugees. At the time, he’d thought her attack was an act of retribution. He learned about the abuse and kidnappings during the evacuation flight. Horrified, he escaped the plane at Lajes and tried to get help. The harbormaster had taken pity on him and let him camp out in the jail.
With a long flight ahead of them, Pia and Safwan started working on the destination. Pia pictured the deep stone windows Khelemba had described as a castle. She worked the satellite mapping software and combed the Sibiu area for pictures of castles, but Safwan insisted they look for a church. The hours ticked by, Pia methodically searching for every picture of rural Romania. Finally, half an hour away from landing, they found it.
“Valea Viilor,” Pia told Tania. “A fortified church built in 707, it’s a small-scale castle. It’s closed because of a special renovation being done by an American-Syrian partnership.”
Tania looked at the picture on the laptop.
“Can the two of us get the kids out of there?” Pia asked.
“We left our weapons behind, we have a smuggler for backup, and an Arab who doesn’t speak English. What d’you think?”