AWOL with the Operative (3 page)

Sam must have dozed off after all. For how long he had no idea. The next thing he knew, the pilot was calling to him.

“Agent McDonough, wake up! I need you!”

Sam didn’t like the insistent, concerned tone in Redfeather’s voice. Shaking off the fog of sleep in his head, he sat up on his seat, instantly alert.

“What is it? Something wrong?”

“I hope not.
That
out there has been tailing us.”

The pilot nodded in the direction of the window on his side. Sam leaned over to get a better view through the glass.
That
proved to be a sizable helicopter of the military variety.

“How long has it been out there?”

“Not sure. But it has to be a powerful chopper to keep up with us.”

Not only keep up with them, Sam realized, but overtake them. The craft was flying level now with their plane a few hundred yards straight off to their left.

“Maybe it’s an official chopper patrolling the region. Just checking us out to make sure we’re legitimate.”

Ken Redfeather shook his head. “I don’t think so, not in this area. Anyway, I’ve never seen anything like it before.”

“What’s happening?” Eve demanded to know.

Sam had forgotten that, except for a very small pane on either side, she had no window back there. He turned his head to make sure she was all right. “Probably nothing. Just keep low until we know,” he ordered her curtly. He swung his attention back to their pilot. “Can you rouse them on your radio? Ask them what they’re doing out there?”

“I can try.”

Before Redfeather could act, the helicopter suddenly and rapidly closed the gap between them until it was no more than a couple of hundred feet away. A door in the side of the craft rolled back, revealing a burly, bearded man kneeling there in the opening with a rifle raised to his shoulder. Within seconds, Sam could hear bullets pinging against the body of their plane.

Sonofabitch!

“They’re shooting at us!” Redfeather shouted.

Sam concurred with a caustic “I noticed that.”

He knew what their objective was. Eve Warren. He also knew who they were. Had to be Victor DeMarco’s goons ordered to bring their plane down. But how in hell had they learned his method of transport?

No time to worry about that. Somehow he had to get them out of this mess, but first—

“You okay?” he asked, whipping his head around. “You weren’t hit, were—?”

He broke off in exasperation. Although she managed to shake her head, she went on sitting there upright, looking too numb with terror to move.

“Didn’t I tell you to get down?”

“Stop bullying me!”

“Then, dammit, do as you’re told.”

The look of alarm on her face was joined now by rancor directed at him. But she complied this time, squeezing down as low as possible in her seat.

Satisfied, Sam faced forward again, snatching his Glock out of his shoulder holster. Not that it would be of much use at this distance against a powerful rifle, but he felt better with the gun in his grip. He scanned the sky out his window. Not a cloud in sight. Wait a minute. There, below them!

“We’ve got cloud cover under us,” he informed Redfeather. “Looks big enough to hide in.”

“It’s a low snow mass.”

“Man, I don’t care if it’s a typhoon. Just get us into it, and fast.”

Ken Redfeather obeyed him, pushing the yoke forward. The nose of the plane went down, sending them into a dive. Sam steadied himself against the plunge, hoping Eve was hanging on. And hoping even more that Redfeather had the skill to get them out of this steep descent once they were buried in the cloud mass.

If the helicopter was swooping after them, Sam had no indication of it. At least there was no further gunfire from the chopper. None that he could detect anyway.

Small comfort, Sam thought wryly, remembering his squad supervisor’s certainty. It looked like Frank Kowsloski had been right about Eve Warren. That she did know something vital enough for Victor DeMarco to want her taken down. In this case,
literally
.

So much for a simple pickup and delivery. Squad supervisor or not, he was going to blister Frank when he got back.
If
he got back.

A fog closed in on the plane, cloaking them with its thickness. Snowflakes swirled around them, adding to their cover. They were in the cloud mass.

To Sam’s relief, Ken Redfeather pulled them out of the dive. They were flying level again. He searched through the windows on both sides. No sign of the chopper. They were safe. At least for the moment.

“Where are we anyway?” he wanted to know.

“On the border between British Columbia and Alberta,” Redfeather said.

“Not anywhere near Calgary, I suppose, since we haven’t stopped for refueling.”

“No, Calgary is still a long way off.”

Sam checked on Eve. “You holding up?”

“Just dandy,” she answered him dryly.

He guessed that was all the reassurance he was going to get. He wasn’t going to ask for more. He’d had enough of her obstinate crap. Besides, he had another concern to address. He switched his attention back to Redfeather.

“I don’t know about you, Ken, but I think it’s time you got on your radio and called out a distress. Let them know what’s happening up here.”

“I’ll try, but I’m not sure I’m in range of one of the towers. Bush pilots have been complaining for years about the dead zones out here.” Redfeather reached for his mike. “Let’s see if I can reach—” He broke off, staring in alarm down at the instrument panel.

“What is it? What’s wrong?”

“The oil pressure is dropping—and dropping fast. One of those bullets must have struck a push rod tube, and now we’re leaking oil at the bottom of the cowling.”

Great. Another freaking complication. “How bad is that?”

“Real bad. You want it straight?”

“Let’s have it.”

“Without oil, the engine will lock up and quit. I’m surprised she hasn’t already—”

There was a sudden, sickly sputtering. It was happening. The engine was seizing up. Sam heard a horrified gasp from the rear seat, and then there was nothing but a terrible stillness. The engine was dead.

The plane drifted for a few seconds, and then Sam could feel it settling as it lost altitude on its descent through the cloud cover.

“I’ll try to glide us in for a safe landing, folks, but it’ll be a miracle if there’s a clearing down there. Better make sure your belts are tight before you fold yourselves into a crash position.”

Sam whirled around in his seat, barking a command at Eve. “Brace yourself! Head on your knees!”

But she knew the drill. Her head was already lowered, face hidden against her knees. Sam risked a quick glance through the window. They had broken through the cloud mass. The ground was coming up on them swiftly. There was nothing down there resembling a clearing, only the dense, unbroken forest.

Sam ducked down, straining against his belt to get his head on his knees. A few seconds later, they plowed into the forest. He could hear the undercarriage tearing apart as the plane, nose down, smashed through the limbs of the trees.

The action jerked him up, slamming his head against the window on his side. He felt a sharp, shooting pain, and then everything went black.

Chapter 2

F
or a full moment after the plane came to rest Eve was too shaken to move. Then slowly, carefully, she lifted her head from her knees. Dazed. She was so dazed she was imagining she was tipped over at a crazy angle. That had to be the explanation.

It was only when she struggled to sit up on the seat that she realized she
was
at a crazy angle. Or at least the plane was.

But as rough as the impact of crashing into the forest was, it had been softened somewhat by all the branches that had snatched at them on the way down. Must be the reason why, when she tested her own limbs, they seemed to work just fine. No other injuries she was aware of, either.

Shaking her head to clear it, Eve tried to see through the thick gloom of the cabin. It was hard to distinguish anything in the dim light of the forest and with the broken boughs of the evergreens plastered against the shattered windows on all sides.

She became conscious then of something else in the cabin. The awful silence. Sam McDonough, the pilot! Why wasn’t she hearing them? Why weren’t they stirring?

For another long, stunned moment she was too fearful of the answer to move. But she couldn’t go on sitting here like this. She had to
know,
had to help them. If it wasn’t too late. But she wouldn’t let herself believe that it was.

She made an effort to get to her feet, and couldn’t. The seat belt, of course. She was still tightly restrained by it. Her fingers were unsteady, but she managed to unbuckle the belt and stagger to her feet. With her sight adjusted now to the murky light, she immediately learned the worst when, supporting herself against the tilt of the plane, she leaned over the back of the pilot’s seat.

Ken Redfeather’s head was at an unnatural angle. The kind of angle that said his neck was broken. His eyes were open. And sightless. There was no question of it. The man was dead. Had Charlie looked like this after his own death? The possibility was so unbearable that Eve thrust the image out of her mind.

She willed herself not to start wailing in shock and sorrow. Sam McDonough needed her attention. She moved on to him. He was slumped against the passenger door. Cracks radiated in the glass of the window where his head rested, an indication he must have suffered a severe blow when his head struck the window.

No evidence of any blood, but she could detect a sizable lump already swelling on the side of his head. She prayed he was still alive.

His collar was open at his throat. Searching for a pulse, her hand brushed against the stubble on his jaw. She tried not to think how warm his skin was, how touching him like this felt both wrong and right at the same time.

Stop it. There’s nothing wrong or right about it. It’s simply a necessity in a bad situation.

To her relief, she located a pulse in his neck. It was strong and even—a confirmation that he was unconscious and not dead. But maybe injured internally, perhaps with a concussion, and needing medical care.

What should she do? What
could
she do?

There was the radio. Call out a Mayday? Impossible. Even if the radio was still working, she had no idea how to operate it. Besides, Ken Redfeather had said it was unreliable in the air and down here in the forest…

Eve had never felt so helpless, so close to outright panic. She gazed wildly around the tight cabin, as if looking for a miracle. There was no miracle. There was only another serious discovery. Through the window on the pilot’s side, she could see gas dripping down from the crumpled wing. And she could smell it through a gap in the glass. There was something else she could smell. Smoke!

Dear God, the plane must be on fire somewhere, and if the flames reached those wings where the fuel was stored—

You can’t go on standing here doing nothing.

She had to act, had to get both Sam and herself out of the plane before it went up like a firestorm. The door on the pilot’s side provided no exit. It was blocked by a heavy tree limb. It would have to be the passenger door.

Summoning what she hoped was a sufficient measure of strength and fortitude, Eve leaned over Sam as far as she could. It wasn’t easy getting a grip on those shoulders of his, not when they were so wide and hard as stone. But she somehow managed to lever him away from the door in slow degrees and finally to heave him over to the left.

She was puffing from exertion by then. Although the door latch was exposed now, she had to pause long enough to catch her breath. She used the opportunity to check on the fire. She could see the source of it now through the cracked windshield. Little wisps of smoke were curling up from the nose where the engine was located. No visible flames yet, but if she didn’t hurry—

Eve took up the battle again, straining to reach the latch. No good. The only way she could get at it was from the front. There was a narrow gap between the door and the passenger seat. Wedging herself in the opening, body twisting and squirming, she managed to squeeze through. The awkward effort cost her her balance, almost landing her in Sam’s lap.

Righting herself, she attacked the latch. The door was stuck. What if she couldn’t get it open? What if they were trapped in here?

She refused to accept that. This time she put her shoulder to it, shoving ferociously with an equally fierce curse of frustration. “Open up, damn you!”

The door popped wide with a suddenness that almost pitched her out into the snow. Recovering herself again, she realized that her purse was getting in the way, hindering her every move as it swayed like a pendulum from her shoulder. She tossed the bag out on the ground.