125

 

 

Gwen stood in the restroom. She braced her hands against the sink, blew out a long slow breath. She wanted to kill Peter Weiss, to take his head in her hands and snap his neck. Thanks to Dwayne’s training, she could do it too.

The scale of Weiss’s, Hassan’s, betrayal was beyond her understanding. But, more than murder and revenge, she wanted escape. She straightened, turned, looked for any kind of weapon. Nothing. Think! Think! The toilet paper dispenser, the metal inner tube! She pulled it free, loosened her shirt, stuck it into her waistband. She ducked into the next cubicle, grabbed another one. Rammed into someone’s eyes, they could do some damage. All she could do was go along with the charade, pretend she didn’t know. Still. Then what? Dive off the yacht, swim for it? The engines would suck her under, chew her up in seconds.

She heard the guard, Ali, rapping on the door, calling her.

She eyed herself briefly in the mirror. She saw fear. And fury. I’m not ready to die, she thought. She blew out a breath, cast her mind to the dojo, to Dwayne. To all the dirty fighting tricks she knew. Then she pushed open the door and walked out.

Randy Sieber was waiting for her. Gwen gasped, tried to recover.

“Randy! What a surprise! What are you doing here?”

“Sheikh had a threat issued against him. Needed some security advice,” he answered gruffly.

“Well, that explains why I was frisked then,” Gwen replied, mind racing, trying to maintain her mask of calm.

“Let’s go,” said Sieber. “We need to fly you outta here. Outta harm’s way.”

Gwen smiled. “I’m ready.”

*   *   *

The pilot was furious. “Flying in this?” he shouted at Sieber. “It’s beyond marginal, man,” he yelled, his South-African accent strengthening with his fury.

“Sheikh’s orders,” repeated Sieber. “Let’s go.”

They buckled up. Sieber sat next to the pilot. Gwen sat in the row behind.

The pilot handed Gwen a set of headphones. She wondered if he knew what was planned for her. She didn’t believe for a second that Sieber would fly her to dry land. She got the feeling that the pilot wasn’t in on the plan. She could use that.

They lifted off. Straightaway, before they had even gained twenty feet, they were almost slammed back on deck. Gwen could see the pilot muscling the joystick, fighting to get the chopper up again. Maybe the wind would do the Sheikh’s bidding. Crash the copter, kill them all. Takeoff and landings were always the most dangerous parts of the flight, but when a storm was raging the risks went up exponentially.

Gwen focused on her breathing: deep, smooth, calm. She wriggled her fingers and toes, imagined strength suffusing every inch of her.

The pilot won the first battle with the wind, got the chopper up, maybe a hundred feet above the waves.

“Where to?” Gwen heard the pilot ask.

“Head toward the shore,” replied Sieber. “And don’t argue. Just do it!” he yelled, as the pilot started to shout.

The pilot fell silent, set a course, flew with the wind behind him. It felt as if the helicopter were surfing the wind.

“Go higher,” Sieber told the pilot.

“I’m not gonna go too high. System’s coming in at altitude. Don’t want to get caught in all the crap up there.”

Senses straining, Gwen sat, waiting, wondering when and how Sieber would make his move. She drifted her fingers up inside her shirt, felt the metal tubes, saw in her mind how she would use them. Below her she could see the swell building. The wind speed was high enough to blow the spume off the waves in trails of white, feathery spindrift.

“Go higher,” Sieber said again.

“What don’t you underst—” the pilot began to say. He paused abruptly. Gwen leaned forward to see why. Sieber had a pistol out, was pointing it at the pilot.

“What don’t you understand?” asked Sieber.

Gwen guessed the plan. Breathe slow, build the oxygen in your blood, slow your pulse, stay calm.

She felt the chopper rise, felt it hit a buffer of wind, slew suddenly to the right.

“It’s too high. We need to come down,” shouted the pilot.

“OK. OK. Just a bit, take her down.”

The pilot brought them down. He brought them down a lot, unnoticed by Sieber, who was undoing his seat belt, getting up, moving back between the seats to her row.

Here we go, thought Gwen. She felt her pulse begin to race as adrenaline pumped her veins.

“Unbuckle. Get up,” Sieber ordered her, pointing his pistol at her. She looked in his eyes, tried to reconcile this man with the one she knew at Falcon, failed. There was no fellow feeling in his glance, just a void. Gwen unbuckled, got up. As Sieber fiddled with the door, glancing between her and it, she edged forward so that she was between Sieber and the pilot. Holding on to the side, Sieber threw open the door. The chopper lurched again. Christ, they were going to crash at this rate.

“What the fuck are you doing?” yelled the pilot. He slowed their flight, Gwen noticed. Quickly, he had brought the chopper to a near stationary hover. Gwen looked down at the waves, rising, falling, huge. But huge was better than flat. Flat meant concrete. Waves meant a chance of surviving the fall. Even if a small one. She grabbed one of the metal tubes, held it behind her as she grasped the seat back to hold steady.

The chopper was still tilting dizzily. Sieber was off balance. Gwen slammed forward, rammed the metal tube at Sieber’s throat. The lurching of the chopper meant she hit his chest. Sieber roared, lashed out at Gwen. She ducked, pivoted, grabbed him from behind, hauled backward. She had the advantage of surprise. He seemed to realize too late what she was doing. He roared out, hauled back, tried to get his arm behind his back, fired off two shots. The pilot screamed in rage or pain—Gwen couldn’t tell.

The helicopter listed wildly, losing altitude as it went into a death spin. Get out, get out. Still holding Sieber, Gwen jammed her feet against the seat, pushed off into space, arced into a dive, letting go of Sieber. Below her the waves loomed. How high was she? Two hundred feet. Maybe one-fifty. The water’d be like another element, almost a solid. Streamlined, body hard, she arrowed down into the sea.