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Twenty minutes after Alvarez had taken off, the brewing storm caught up with the plane. Jorge fought the controls. He'd been forced to gain altitude, more afraid of being driven into the trees below by the violent turbulence than he was about being seen by radar. The plane shook and vibrated, buffeted by gusts of wind. There was still light left in the day, but driving rain and shifting cloud made visibility almost nonexistent.
Jorge was flying on instruments. The plane was old, and some of the instruments didn't work as well as they once had. The fuel gauges tended to stick. Jorge wasn't concerned about it. It was just one of the quirks of the aircraft. The plane was like an old lover, every nuance and response familiar and comfortable. From long experience, he knew how much gas the engines used. He knew how far he could go when the tanks were full. They'd been full when he'd taken off to meet Alvarez. He wasn't worried about reaching Rio Branco, even with the complication of the storm.
What he didn't know was that two of Nick's armor piercing bullets had found the fuel tanks. Ever since they'd left the airstrip, a thin stream of gas had been draining away. Jorge had noticed that the plane's trim was off, but he'd put it down to a combination of the storm and improper loading.
He wished he'd known ahead of time how much the crates weighed, but Alvarez had kept everything close to his chest. Hindsight was always 20/20. If he'd known what he was getting into, he'd never have taken the job. When the shooting started, he'd been terrified. It was only by luck that nothing had happened to the plane.
They had already crossed into Brazilian airspace. Soon Alvarez would be out of his life for good. Jorge never expected to see the Colonel again after this. He didn't know what was in the crates and he didn't want to know. Whatever it was, it had cost the lives of the men Alvarez had left behind.
There might be a way to use that to get another five or ten thousand from Alvarez when they landed in Brazil. He was thinking about how he was going to spend the money, when the right engine coughed and sputtered.
He looked at his instruments. The rev counter on the number two engine was moving erratically. Then the left engine began to misfire.
"What's happening?" Alvarez said. "What's going on?"
"I don't know."
The right engine coughed once more and stopped. Jorge compensated and tried to restart. Nothing happened. Then the left engine died. The plane began to lose altitude.
"What's happening? What's happening?" Alvarez said, panic in his voice.
"Shut up!" Jorge yelled.
Desperate, he tried again to restart, with no result. With the engines dead, the only sound in the cockpit was the eerie sound of the wind whistling by as the plane dropped toward the jungle below. In frustration Jorge slammed his fist against the dashboard. The needles on the fuel gauges dropped to zero.
"Damn it, Jorge. What's happening?"
Jorge looked at the man who had hired him to fly to his death.
"What's happening? We are going to crash. You had better brace yourself, Colonel."
Alvarez gripped his seat.
No. I am a rich man. This cannot be happening, not to me.
The last thing Alvarez saw was a troop of monkeys clinging to the rain spattered canopy below, staring up at the enormous shape descending on them from above.
The plane struck the trees and came apart with a horrible sound of rending metal. He heard Jorge scream. Then darkness enveloped him.