the Second Horseman (2006) (23 page)

"I wonder why?"

Brandon grinned. "You know, if you think about it, this could be the best thing that ever happened to you. When it's all done, you can sue your boss for mental duress an
d p
robably collect workman's comp for the rest of your life."

Chapter
TWENTY-SEVEN

As much as Daniel tried to fight the feeling -- and he was fighting it hard -- this was fun. Sure, the special ops missions he'd been involved in provided a hell of a rush and were satisfying on some deep patriotic level, but fun? Never. Too much blood and suffering.

Maybe Brandon wasn't as nuts as everyone thought he was. Which was crazier: getting rich stealing money from the air
-
conditioned homes of people who didn't need it or making twenty grand a year crawling around some godforsaken desert shooting people who'd never done anything to you? Not such a tough call when you thought about it in those terms.

The helicopter drifted down as it passed over a low, sunburned ridge, coming close enough for him to see the jagged rocks glowing in the dim morning light. The convoy was about a mile in the distance -- two identical cars and two identical semis -- moving steadily away from the reddening horizon. The rest of the road was completely empty -- a shiny black ribbon going on forever in both directions. There was a stark beauty to it that made him feel good, like they might just pull this thing off. But then, he'd once had the same feeling in Iraq and that day had turned into a disaster.

A dull beeping started over his headphones and he glanced at the pilot, who was tapping the instrument panel with his knuckle.

"What?" Daniel said over the thumping rotors.

"Engine light," the pilot said.

"Bullshit!"

The man pointed to the gauge and Daniel leaned over, putting a hand on the grip of his pistol in case this was some kind of half
-
assed trick.

The light was actually on. Pulsing red and continuing to sound. So if it was a trick, it was a little more than half-assed. He'd put almost thirty hours in this particular model over the previous week and wasn't aware of any way to fake that warning unless it was a system put in place specifically in anticipation of a hijack. If that was the case, though, Scanlon hadn't known anything about it.

He glanced into the aging face of the pilot and saw a convincing mix of worry and outright fear -- but he'd had that since Daniel first stuck a gun in his face.

"What's the problem?"

"I don't know." Another few taps on the gauge. "But we're going to have to set down."

"No!" Daniel shouted, as though he could keep them aloft by sheer force of will. He felt a trickle of sweat roll down his back as he looked out over the barren landscape. What now? Brandon had given him this job because he could think on his feet, but at this moment his mind was a blank.

"You said you could fly this thing," the pilot said, starting to sound a little panicked. "If that's true, then you know if we stay up here, we could lose the engine."

Daniel started to slide the gun from his waistband, but then stopped. It was easy to fall back on threats, but what good was that going to do now? He leaned forward in his seat and looked out at the convoy continuing blissfully up the road. What would Brandon do?

"Fix it," Daniel said.

"Fix it? I can't fix it! It's the fucking engine!"

"No way. It's a trick," Daniel said, keeping his voice completely calm. "You faked it."

"Are you kidding? How could I? There's a---.

"Shut the fuck up!" Daniel shouted and then immediately softened. What was it Brandon had told him? No one wanted to die for other people's heavily insured money.

"If this is some system you guys set up, you better fucking well turn it off. Because if we go down, I've got to cover my tracks. And that means I leave you in that seat with a big dent in your skull."

The pilot hesitated for a moment, then started to descend.

"Vegas control, this is helicopter 008 Echo. I have an engine light on and am landing immediately. Estimated position eighty miles west of Bridgeport."

"008 Echo, are you declaring an emergency?" came the response.

Daniel shook his head.

"008 Echo. Not at this time, tower. Will advise if I need assistance."

About a hundred feet above the deck the pilot increased power and slowed their descent, aiming for a relatively flat patch of ground just ahead. He was completely absorbed by what he was doing, with no thought at all to what would happen onc
e t
hey landed -- a sure sign of someone who thought he might not survive long enough to be killed.

"Dumb fucking luck," Daniel muttered and then reached for the stick. He shoved it forward, dipping the helicopter's nose violently and listening to the pilot shout panicked obscenities as he fought to regain control.

The impact was a little more dramatic than Daniel had planned for. Just because you knew how to fly a helicopter didn't necessarily mean you knew how to crash one. His harness stopped him from going through the buckling glass in front of him, but he felt at least one rib -- probably two -- break as it came tight. The sound of the blades digging into the ground and the bending of metal penetrated his headphones for a moment and then was gone, disappearing into a silent darkness. Instinctively, his hand went for his gun and he managed to get a weak grip on it but couldn't do much more. He wasn't sure how long he spent in that semiconscious state, but when his vision finally cleared enough to look left, he found an empty seat.

Two clumsy kicks got the door open, but he was stopped by the harness when he tried to get out. A few seconds of fumbling and he was on the ground, tripping over rocks and pieces of what was left of the helicopter.

The pilot looked like he'd come through the crash significantly better off. He was running into the dawn, heading for the highway that was probably a little less than a mile away. Worse, he seemed to be holding a pretty good pace.

Daniel started after him at a slow jog, his head continuing to clear as the pain in his side intensified.

After the first minute of his pathetic effort at a chase, he was starting to think it was hopeless. He was slowly losing ground, leaving little doubt that the pilot would make the road. At minute two, though, the gap seemed to have stabilized. Minute three shrank it a bit.

Daniel knew he wasn't moving fast -- his balance was still barely sufficient to negotiate the uneven terrain, and it was impossible for him to take anything but shallow breaths. What he was, though, was steady. It suddenly occurred to him that for an average person, even one much younger than the pilot, a mile-long run through the desert was a nearly impossible task.

It took a lot longer than it should have, but Daniel managed to close to withi
n t
wenty-five yards of the man, who was now looking back over his shoulder every few seconds and nearly falling every time. He was obviously pushing himself too hard and his breathing was clearly audible as he started up a steep bench that climbed about a hundred and fifty yards before flattening out into the roadbed.

Daniel slowed slightly, matching the man's pace as they started up the grade, concentrating on keeping his stride even and relaxed. His vision was a hundred percent now, and his balance probably seventy percent. Overall strength was lower, probably fifty percent. And there was blood in his mouth. A lot of it.

By the time the pilot was a third of the way up the hill, he was expending more energy just thrashing around than moving forward. Daniel fought the urge to speed up, gauging that he'd overtake the man about twenty feet from the top of the hill and wanting to be as rested as possible when he did.

The pilot managed a final burst of speed when he saw he was about to be caught, but it wasn't enough. Daniel fell forward and batted the man's foot with an open hand, tripping him and leaving him on the ground gulping desperately for air. He didn't seem to have the strength to get up, so he tried to keep going by crawling through the loose rocks and dirt. Daniel rose and covered the distance between them at a walk, finally falling on the man and working an arm around his neck to cut off the air he so desperately needed. There were a few moments of increased thrashing and then the pilot passed out.

Daniel rolled off him and lay against the slope, searching for just the right rock. He finally found a properly jagged one and hit the unconscious man in the forehead a few times hard enough to raise a good bruise and cause a few shallow cuts that looked much worse than they were. Then he fished a syringe from his pocket and jabbed it into the pilot's thigh, depressing the plunger with one hand while he dialed his cell with the other. A moment later Brandon's strangely comforting voice was vibrating his ear.

"Yo."

"Hey. Got some bad news."

"Shit. What?"

"We, uh, crashed."

"Tell me this is a bad connection and you didn't say crashed."

"I said crashed."

"Goddammit! What happened? Are you okay?"

Daniel struggled to his feet and lifted the pilot over his shoulder, ignoring the sensation of his broken ribs slicing his insides. "I'm fine. A warning light went on and we had to set down. I made sure we went down hard."

"Shit! Do you think it was a trick? Something they set up in case they got hijacked?"

"I doubt it," Daniel said, choosing his footing in the loose soil carefully. "I told the pilot that if we went down I'd have to bash his head in and make it look like an accident to cover my ass."

The brief silence over the phone wasn't entirely unexpected. "Oh, man. You didn't
.

"Relax. He's fine. I gave him the tranquilizer and banged him up a little. It'll look like he got knocked out in the crash. The point is, I think he believed me. I don't think he wanted to die, you know?"

"Shit!" Brandon shouted again. "You're sure you're okay, though, right?"

"I've had worse," Daniel said, though he wasn't certain it was true.

"Okay. You've gotta make sure there aren't any tracks around the copter -- that everything looks natural. You probably don't hav
e m
uch time before someone shows up."

"I'm on it."

"Then can you maybe hole up under a rock a little ways away? We can send someone for you tonight."

Daniel braced himself against a boulder and hopped off a two-foot drop, grimacing as the pilot's weight came down on his shoulder. He was pretty sure he had some internal bleeding. The question was whether or not Brandon needed to know that. There wasn't a whole lot he could do without jeopardizing the operation and he didn't need to be worrying about a wounded man on the field. "Yeah. No problem. Early tonight would be better, though, huh?"

Chapter
TWENTY-EIGHT

"Goddammit!" Brandon shouted, kicking the dashboard repeatedly until he realized he was terrifying the already sweat-drenched driver.

He stopped attacking the dash and instead tapped out a manic, but less threatening rhythm on his knees. Stupid helicopter. Now he had to deal with the possibility that this was some signal Scanlon didn't know about.

"No!" he said out loud, causing the driver to flinch noticeably. "It happened, right? Nothing can be done. Nothing."

Normally, something like this would have caused him to immediately fold up his tent and send everyone home. Not really an option under the circumstances. In fact, he hadn't even bothered to think about a way to abort safely. If they were driving into a SWAT team, then they were driving into a SWAT team. At least this time he'd go dow
n w
ith a little style.

He shook his head violently. "Focus, dumb-ass!"

The sun was still low on the horizon, causing distended shadows to grow from the rocks and shrubs lining the road. Beyond that, it was impossibly bright. Generally, he wasn't all that shot in the ass with working under a spotlight, but timing and logistics had dictated that this thing go down in broad daylight. The upside, though, had been that they'd be able to do the heavy lifting on a straight, flat section of asphalt.

He stared out the windshield at the steep, twisting road in front of them for a few seconds and then rolled down the window to look back at the truck containing Catherine and his money.

"Son of a bitch," he muttered, pulling his head back in and putting a hand on the driver's damp shoulder. "It's not you, Rob. I'm just in a little bit of a bad mood."

"Okay."

Brandon's earpiece crackled to life with the voice of one of his men. He wasn't sure which.

"We've been notified that the helicopter had to make an emergency landing." The tone was that artificial calm all soldiers seemed to aspire to. There was nothin
g m
ore unreliable than a man who didn't have the sense to know when to start panicking.

"They're sending a replacement copter."

"ETA?" Brandon said into his throat mike.

"A little less than an hour."

"Everybody get that?"

He counted the responses.

"How're you guys feeling about this road?"