storm had passed and to take it on a course west along the coast as insurance. She asked Eriq to go along with her, follow her lead, and to pretend that he was a Cuban nationalist trying desperately to get out of the country.
“ You play Bogey?” she asked, the wind now whipping her jacket about her.
His tie flagged across his forehead and eyes. “I’ll do my best, shh-weet-heart.”
“ Do you have Captain Anderson’s notes and map?”
“ I do, but I don’t know how helpful it’s going to be.”
She took hold of the route the killer might take if he were to leave Tampa straight for the Caymans. “Okay, let’s get airborne.”
Lansing was already on the radio to the tower, explaining that there was an emergency need to take off. They weren’t buying it, from the sound of things. Jessica laid Captain Anderson’s projected route before Lansing. Lansing told the tower he’d be back in touch with them, then stared at the proposed flight plan.
“ You said you wanted to go due east. This is south.”
“ Southeast,” she split hairs.
“ That’s a lot of miles in storm conditions.”
“ Don, it’s important we follow this path as closely as possible.”
“ No way we’re going through the Straits of Mexico, not in the given weather pattern. It’d be safer and simpler to go direct for the east coast and south from there, and maybe even a layover in Miami to refuel…”
Lansing desperately attempted to ignore Eriq Santiva, and he did well, save for the out-the-corner-of-his-eye suspicious looks. Jessica took Don aside to reason with him while Eriq continued the silent, stony role he’d fallen into, his inscrutable Cuban features befitting the situation.
“ It’s important we get out over international waters as soon as possible,” she told Don.
He nodded as if he actually understood. “All right… all right. Get your friend out to the airplane, and we’ll be on our way.”
She went to Eriq and when she turned around, Don was already out the door and on the airfield. When they stepped out, they saw that Don was doing a preflight check of the plane, and he shouted over the wind for them to get aboard. Obviously, Don had made up his mind.
The wind pummeled the airfield and the people on it. Eriq was pushed into the plane. Jessica’s coat did a wild flap dance about her body as the wind lashed out at her and the small plane, creating a shiver in the aircraft. The skies were just lightening up but remained a gunmetal gray all the same, painted and smeared with the ominous hues of storm clouds preparing to burst. But at the moment there seemed a fortuitous lull in the precipitation. Looking out over the grass, the taxi strip and the small runway now, Jessica saw how slick everything was. But she was determined to go ahead with her plans, climbing into the cockpit after Eriq, who’d opted for the backseat.
Once inside the plane, Don asked, “What am I going to tell the tower? I take off without talking to them, my butt’s in a sling when I get back here.”
“ But you did talk to them, inside, earlier…” shouted Jessica over the wind. “And they didn’t like it; told us to stay put,” he countered. “Radio them it’s a police emergency,” Jessica countered his counter.
“ They’re going to want to know more than that.”
“ Tell ‘em it’s got to do wid dat, ahh, ahh, whataya-callit case. Dat, uhhhh…” began Eriq, in rare form.
“ The Night Crawler thing?”
“ Right… dat’s it, kid. Tell ‘em dat.”
“ Suppose they want to talk to one of the policemen?”
“ Tell them we’re FBI,” said Jessica. “And if they want to talk to me, tell them I’m Agent Coran and this is Agent John Thorpe…”
“ Thorpe; FBI?” He looked Eriq over as if he hadn’t seen him before. “You think they’re going to believe that?”
“ We’ll give them badge numbers if they ask,” she replied. “Let’s get out of here, now.”
“ Roger that…”
Don had gone sullen on her, and his new somberness had begun the moment Santiva had entered the picture, Jessica believed. He no doubt had originally accepted her offer in the comfortable male fantasy that a woman alone, a woman like her-vulnerable and in need-could prove to be fun and “rewarding” in every sense of the word to take on as his lone passenger to a Caribbean paradise; that they’d fly off and into a romantic adventure together, a la Romancing the Stone or some such thing.
The tower, on hearing their FBI numbers read, had no trouble allowing Lansing to take off, but the dispatcher did so with caution heaped upon caution. And the takeoff itself proved to be like rushing into a blinding wall. Unable to see ahead of them, Lansing did a marvelous job of getting airborne in the dense fog.
Jessica, in the copilot’s position gasped when the plane smashed against the mountain of cloud they were under. With Jessica clutching at her copilot seat and Eriq tucked into the rear, the little plane was buffeted about like a toy in a wind tunnel once lift was reached. With the rush of noise and the engine so near, Jessica saw-rather than heard-Don muttering to himself, likely kicking himself for taking on this job. Only when she placed on the headphone set could she hear him cursing himself.
The sky was lighter now, but this was of little comfort. They were still flying blind into an unpredictable wind shear. Still, they rose higher, trying to escape the thermals and the fog, the bumps, grinds and whips, when suddenly they were above the enormous pillow of clouds-popping free like a bird escaping a cage, flying directly into the brilliant sun, a welcome sign even if it, too, was blinding.
Lansing leveled the plane out, its roar like a cat’s purr in the infinity of sky, and in a moment the compass indicated their heading as due south. They would follow along the western coast of the Sunshine State; only today, there was neither sunshine nor view below them, only above.
Jessica wondered at the killer’s luck. With this kind of cloud cover, how were they going to go in low over suspicious boats? How could they possibly ID the suspect sailing ship even now, armed with Ken Stallings’s description? Furthermore, the winds would have given the sailing vessel full power to skim over the water. And Allain had six hours on them.
Eriq seemed settled for the moment in the rear seat, having steadied his nerves after the bumpy takeoff. He appeared beat, so dead tired in fact that when Jessica glanced again at him, his eyes were closed. She prayed he hadn’t overdosed on Dramamine. With Lansing beside her, they filled the little cockpit from top to bottom. He seemed a capable pilot. She had given little thought to his skills or possible lack thereof before now, but he’d handled the thermals and the wind well, appearing a capable master of the air. She felt somewhat guilty at having duped the young man. Now that they were airborne, she wondered how much of the lies had been absolutely necessary to get them here. It now seemed foolish to have run such a charade on Lansing to get what she wanted, but telling him the truth now could mean a 180-degree turnaround and a return to the ground-and to hell with that, Jessica quietly told herself, keeping silent counsel as the plane soared southward toward the emerald Caribbean Sea.
TWENTY
— I have eaten your bread and salt. I have drunk your water and wine. The deaths ye died I have watched beside And the lives ye led were mine.
The wind itself-sometimes called Satan’s leash dog- seemed now to Warren Tauman his ally in escape, for it had risen with the saving fog that masked his escape to now send him at twice and thrice the speed he would have been making without its help. He needed to conserve on fuel. It was a long trip to where he was going, and he knew his route was at best a circuitous one, no beelines since Cuba lay in his path. Although he felt certain that he had all the time in the world to get to where he was going, since no one knew his plans or his destination, he wished to be out of American waters, and he wished to start over elsewhere, even as he meant to convince the
