Pilot Error (16 page)

Was he abandoning her again?

Micki turned quickly, but found her assumption unjustified. Luke was still sitting in the boat, but he was busy acquiring a fresh ammo clip from one of the side pockets of his camera bag rather than rowing off. Silent for a moment, she watched him release the empty magazine from the gun butt, and then caught a flash of brass from the top slug as he loaded the fresh clip.

Empty magazine? She looked twice, but there definitely weren't any shell casings in the clip he had just removed. That meant the Beretta was—had always been—empty. Was that the reason for his brazenness when she had held the gun on him?

Why that lousy, untrusting, no good, son of a...

He had obviously replaced the full clip with an empty one before coming back from his dive!

Luke looked at her then, cutting off her unspoken rebuke. She had never seen that expression of grim determination before, and it gave her a dread feeling in the pit of her stomach that was suddenly unmatched by even the worst Florida thunderstorm.

"Let's hope," he said, cocking the mechanism ready for firing, "that we don't have to use it."

***

Pacing the length of his glass-walled office in the maintenance hangar, Dirk Jurgensen kept a watchful eye on the loading of the Curtiss C-46 cargo plane, and a fretful mind on Micki. The loading was going well; the crates from the last rental truck were currently being stowed for their passage to Bermuda. Reynolds was efficient at overseeing workers and moving merchandise, even if he was stupid enough to think that he could actually get away with shooting down a civilian aircraft.

Damn him! Growling softly, Dirk turned in his pacing and headed back the other way, away from the silent marine-band radio atop his file cabinet. What was going on out in the islands? Why hadn't someone reported finding at least some trace of Micki? She couldn't have simply vanished!

Reaching the far wall, Dirk turned again, shooting a glower at Reynolds' back. If the pudgy little man were conscious of the visual daggers directed his way, he gave no indication as he bullied the men who struggled with the heavy crates. That only increased Dirk's irritation. Micki was missing because of Reynolds and somehow he vowed to find a way to get even.

There had always been an undercurrent of competition between the two men, Reynolds always stopping just short of outright defiance of Dirk's command. That was also going to stop. A well-placed rumor here, a too-good-to-pass-up temptation there, and he would have the greedy little toad smack dab in the middle of a compromising situation. Manipulation was the sort of thing Dirk was good at, and 'compromising situations' were something their mutual boss did not tolerate.

Smiling at the thought of revenge, Dirk started back toward the radio. Where the hell was Micki? The 7:00pm departure plan was now squashed. It was already ten minutes after and, watching as the last of the merchandise was loaded, Dirk knew he wasn't going to be able to stall with the excuse that 'the plane wasn't ready' for very much longer. Sooner than he liked, Reynolds would be demanding to leave before they got too far behind schedule.

A roll of thunder reverberated around the hollow tin of the maintenance hangar, evidence of the storm that raged outside. Micki must be frightened half out of her wits—if she was still alive.

Clamping down on his anguish before it consumed him; Dirk looked at the silent radio. If she were hurt or... anything... then it was Reynolds' fault. His and Hardigan's. Luke Hardigan, with his fake Rolex watch and his thinly veiled 'looking for a bulldog' line. Who was he anyway? Who sent him? And what did he really want with the pages he had copied in Micki's office?

That was another thing Dirk needed to do. He needed to clear out her office, leaving no leads for her so-called friends to follow. But he couldn't; he couldn't leave Reynolds with a fully loaded plane of valuable cargo and a relief pilot who may be greedy enough to fly it. It was the same reason why Dirk wasn't out there personally looking for Micki. Instead, he had to settle for stalling, buying time to protect his interests, and hoping to God that someone would find Micki and bring her back.

As if willed to life by Dirk's worry, the radio crackled. "Sweeper One to Bulldog. You copy, Bulldog?"

Grabbing the mike, Dirk answered quickly. "Bulldog, go ahead. What have you got?"

There was a moment of static as if the caller were choosing his words carefully. "The jon boat is missing from Charlie Cabin. Looks like our friends are on the move. They won't get far, though. No gas, no motor."

"Stay on it. I want them found."

"But the weather's blowing up bad out here. Gonna hit any time. Sweeper Two's already headed in."

"No!" Dirk thundered, slamming a fist down on the file cabinet. "Tell them to get back out there. I want her found within the next half hour."

The crackle and hiss of static lasted far longer this time. "But the lightning—"

"I don't want to hear it!" Dirk's rage nearly choked him. "Just find her!"

Breaking the connection, he spun about on his heel. The incompetent idiots; he should go out there and find her himself.

The overhead lights flickered throughout the hangar, but remained on. Dirk glanced up, imagining the tempest that lay beyond the galvanized tin. He had lived in the Keys long enough to know the sort of deadly lightning wrapped up in a squall of this magnitude. This looked like it was settling in for the night, the weather report forecasting the leading edge of the front to continue its track out across the Gulf waters.

Toward Micki.

Damn. Dirk combed his fingers through his hair. His men were not suicidal; no way would they continue to search in these conditions. But if he didn't have Micki back in his arms soon, then all hell was going to break loose and someone was going to get hurt.

Lowering his head, Dirk locked gazes with Reynolds, who was now standing just beyond the glass office wall and watching him intently. There was no missing the glittering anticipation in the blond man's pale eyes. Reynolds had been waiting for him to mess up for years. It was clear he thought that now the time was very near. Dirk needed to buy some time and get Reynolds off his back. But how was he going to do that, without compromising his command?

Thunder boomed above them again, loud enough to draw the attention of several of the workmen. Someone dropped his end of a particularly heavy crate. The wood cracked, spilling metal parts and packing straw onto the concrete hangar floor in a clatter. Scowling, Reynolds turned and barked an order.

Watching the two men responsible drop to their knees to rectify their slip gave Dirk an idea. Crossing to his desk, he began a hunt through his bottom drawer for an old Marine Corps flight manual, in particular the flight manual with a page of complicated loading graphs. Reynolds was not an educated man, and armed with a printed diagram and a handful of numbers, Dirk could bluff his way with some completely incomprehensible 'pilot talk' about the wrong weight and balance of their aircraft.

Finding the manual, he sat down, flipped to the relevant page, and started transferring numbers from the clipboard of stowed inventory onto a blank sheet of paper. Having flown his share of military transports when he was in the Marines, Dirk knew his way around loading graph computations. Reynolds knew that, even if he didn't know how to figure one. The fat little toad would see right through a bid to reposition some of the heavier crates for what it was—a stall for time—but he just might fall for it if Dirk covered it with a page of numerical malarkey. At the very least, it was worth a try.

***

They tied the bowline to a tree and buried the anchor in the sand, but Micki still couldn't help think that if the approaching storm front was anything like its harsh display, then nothing was going to keep the jon boat from drifting away.

Luke seemed indifferent about the possibility of losing their only way off the island now that they were actually there. His primary objective was to advance on the fishing shanty from the rear, using the dense scrub for cover just in case the speedboat they heard pulling away hadn't taken all the inhabitants with it. Micki's primary objective was to get indoors away from the lightning ASAP, no matter with whom she had to share it.

Pushing through the ankle-snarling ground cover and scratchy saw palmettos after him was, in its own way, as challenging as swimming or rowing, especially when her heart pounded with mounting terror at every flash of lightning and clap of thunder. Her muscles ached in a way they never had, even after her toughest workout at the gym. Any minute now, another deluge would come and drench her to the skin again... if Luke's 'toast' prophecy didn't become a reality first. Worst of all, if she didn't get indoors and regain control soon, Mr. Macho was going to notice how genuinely terrified she really was. More than anything, that was the one weakness Micki did not want him to know.

Suddenly, Luke dropped into a crouch amidst a stand of palm trees, and motioned her down behind him without turning to see if she obeyed. Micki held onto Fizz's collar as she knelt and squinted past his shoulder at a world lost to gloomy shadows and gale force winds. Before them, through the treacherous limbs of once cheery palms, lay a churning coral beach and the object of their quest.

The fishing shanty looked a lot more substantial up close than it had from the air, and was a bit larger than most of its kind. It was supported by a number of sturdy poles, and looked fairly weatherproofed and braced. Built against the back wall was a platform, also on stilts, holding a galvanized water tank. That was odd. Even Tim Lewis, who was a diehard Keys fisherman, carried his own water rather than go to the trouble to construct a catch-and-store tank that would only be used periodically.

But the most important feature, Micki noted with a sense of deeply felt relief, was that the shanty looked deserted.

Eager to be inside and away from her personal terror, she scanned the upper windows and the uneven stack of crab traps beneath for any hint of life.

"Looks like they've gone," Luke said. "Wait here and I'll check it out."

"Not likely! I'm not staying out here to be 'toast!'" Snatching up her backpack, Micki moved around him into the open.

Luke sprung to his feet to catch her elbow. "Well, that was a dumb move! Why don't I just paint a target on your forehead?"

"You said they were gone," she retorted, jerking her arm free of his grip but realizing that what he said was true. Stepping out from behind cover could have been a fatal mistake if the shanty hadn't been deserted. But for Micki, staying outdoors was an even bigger risk.

"Since when do you listen to me?" Luke wanted to know.

"Since—"

Lightning interrupted her, forking brilliantly from cloud to windswept sea. Sudden rain, blown in wind-driven sheets across the beach, lashed the shore and stung their faces.

"—since the storm is here," Micki finished when it didn't abate. Drenched to the skin, she felt suddenly tiny and vulnerable and lost. Now it was official. Rescue wasn't coming. Not in this. Not tonight.

Luke spoke before the realization could fully overwhelm her. "Well, no one's taken a shot at us yet. Maybe we got lucky and they've all left. Come on." He started toward the building, gripping his gun in both hands as if unwilling to trust too heartily on their 'luck.' "Let's see if we can get inside before we drown."

***

The shanty was indeed deserted, and Micki pushed her way inside the moment Luke, who insisted on going first, proclaimed it safe. Although it was summer, she could not remember a time in her life when she had ever been this cold. Dropping her backpack on the floor of the safe haven they had 'commandeered' as their own, she was hard pressed to restrain her shivers.

Staying clear of the windows as the lightning flashed, Micki pushed strands of wet hair from her face, and watched Luke and Fizz explore the single room. As another shudder swept through her, she wondered sourly why he wasn't shivering too. His clothes were every bit as soaked. It must have something to do with an athlete's metabolism and all that hard muscle...

Hastily Micki turned away, from the thought and from the man, and grimaced irritably. She had been cold before, so she could handle it like a big girl. At least they were safe from the accursed lightning. Indoors, she could focus her mind on something else.

Just stay clear of the windows, kiddo.

The abandoned shanty didn't look like what she had expected of The Bad Guy's hangout, given that the only ones she'd seen were in
James Bond
films. There was no electronic control board of flashing lights, no huge LCD screen dominating an entire wall that pinpointed the location of the drop points and the blockhouse on the main island, and no villain sitting in an overstuffed armchair, gloating over their foolishness for coming here.

It just looked like a fishing shanty, with the added feature of heavy interior shutters. The room was all rough, textured wood—the walls, floor, and ceiling all fashioned from the same depressing weathered gray. The furnishings consisted of a scarred, unstable-looking wooden table and two equally abused wooden chairs. New scratches in the floor were testament that whatever else the room once held had been recently removed. On a side wall, under a small window, was an ancient sink with a single spigot that, she surmised without too much imagination, led to the collecting tank outside.