permission, all hell will break loose. But if we just walk away, they may not notice a thing.”
“You go,” Cheryl said in a tight voice. “I’m staying here.”
“What?”
“You don’t need me!”
Will started to pull the Walther, but a simpler idea struck him. Cheryl would not separate herself from the money now. He took the briefcase off her lap, got out, and walked briskly toward the plane. Before he was halfway there, he heard the door of the Tempo slam, and the sound of running feet behind him.
“Change your mind?” he said without turning.
“You bastard.”
He opened the Baron’s double-wide door, tossed the briefcase between the cabin seats, then turned and helped Cheryl into the plane. She slid between the aft-facing seats and settled into the righthand seat up front. Will sat down in the left seat, scanned the control panel, then switched on his avionics and started his engines. The twin Continentals rumbled to life with reassuring ardor.
“What’s that?” asked Cheryl.
A high-pitched sound was cutting through the engine noise. A siren. Will looked up and saw a boxy airport security vehicle bearing down on them, its red light flashing.
“Shit.” He throttled up and pulled forward before the guard in the Cushman could blockade the Baron in the line of parked aircraft. Turning right, he started down the taxiway that paralleled the general aviation runway. The Cushman was following, but it couldn’t hope to keep up with the rapidly accelerating airplane.
“Beechcraft November-Two Whiskey Juliet,” crackled the radio. “This is Gulfport Tower. You are in violation of FARs. Return to the ramp immediately.”
Will increased speed. He had thought he might take off from the taxiway, but he saw now that was impossible. A giant C-130 Hercules transport sat astride the taxiway ahead of him like an alien spacecraft, its four props slowly turning. He would have to taxi beneath the wing of the Hercules and turn onto the next taxiway, which intersected the main runway at 90 degrees.
“Baron Whiskey-Juliet,” said the tower, “you are endangering the lives of military aircrew and ground personnel. Cut your engines immediately.”
Cheryl braced in her seat as they rolled toward the Hercules. The sight of the huge spinning props was sobering, but Will held his collision course.
“You’re going to hit it!” she shouted. “Stop!”
He swerved left, buzzed under the left wingtip of the C-130, then slowed for the turn that would carry him onto the next taxiway.
“Tower, this is Delta-Seven-One,” said the radio. “Who is that crazy son of a bitch?”
That had to be the C-130 pilot. Will was halfway through his turn when another C-130 dropped out of the sky to his right and touched down on the general aviation runway.
“You’re going to kill us!” Cheryl shouted.
Will completed his turn, centered the Baron on the taxiway, then stood on his brakes and ran both engines up to full power. His oil pressure looked good, and under the circumstances, that was all he cared about.
Eight hundred feet ahead of him, the F-18s took off without pause, flashing left to right across his line of sight. They looked like sculpted birds of prey as they screamed into the sky. He had always thought it a sad irony that the most beautiful machines ever built by man were built to kill. But that rule held true in nature as well, so perhaps the “irony” was merely sentiment getting in the way of reality.
“You can’t fly through that!” Cheryl yelled above the engines.
He was going to have to time his takeoff so that the Baron would pass between two of the departing Hornets, but he felt confident he could do it. This was the last takeoff he would ever be allowed to make from this airport, probably from any airport. It might as well be his best.
“Is this even a runway?”
“It is for us.”
“Baron Whiskey-Juliet!” barked the radio. “You are not, repeat not, cleared for takeoff.”
Will took his feet off the brakes, and the Baron rolled forward with nauseating slowness compared to the jets. As they approached the intersection with the main runway, an F-18 hurtled toward the same point with a roar like a perpetual explosion. Cheryl screamed and covered her eyes, but Will knew the Hornet would be airborne before they reached the runway. He gave the twin Continentals everything he could.
Seconds before they reached the intersection, the F- 18 blasted into the blue. Cheryl was still screaming, but Will let himself ride the rush of adrenaline flushing through his system. All the fatigue of the past twenty-four hours had disappeared. After hours of impotence, he was finally doing something.
“November Whiskey-Juliet! Cut your engines! You are not cleared for takeoff!”
They crossed the intersection at eighty-five knots.
“November Whiskey-Juliet-Goddamn!”
The Baron rocketed into the air. In seconds it was only a thin cross-section against the sky.
Will was banking north at a thousand feet when he sighted the helicopter. It was a mile behind him, but it was moving to cut the angle off his turn. He increased speed and kept climbing, his eye on a bank of cumulus clouds to the northwest.
He had turned down his radio to dampen the sound of the tower, but as they plowed toward the clouds, he detected a new voice competing with that of the furious controller.
“Baron Two-Whiskey-Juliet, this is the helicopter on your starboard side. I am FBI Special Agent John Sims. Be advised that you have committed multiple felonies. Return to the airport immediately. Please acknowledge.”
“Can he catch us?” Cheryl asked.
“Not a chance. We can do two hundred twenty knots, and we’ve got clouds ahead. He’s history.”
“Baron Whiskey-Juliet,” crackled the radio. “I know you can hear me. I’m patching my Special Agent-in- Charge through on this channel. Stand by.”
Will kept climbing toward the cloud bank, pushing the twin engines as hard as they would go. “Can you see the chopper?”
“Getting smaller by the second,” Cheryl reported.
“Dr. Jennings,” crackled the radio. “This is Frank Zwick. You’re putting the lives of your wife and daughter at risk by cutting us out. You’re going to need backup. Without it, your family will end up dead.”
Will keyed his mike. “That’s a risk I’m prepared to take.”
“At least tell us where you’re headed.”
“The best thing you can do right now is get some agents into Brookhaven, Mississippi. Put some more in McComb. I’ll call you back.”
Will switched off the comm radio, then the transponder, which would normally broadcast his altitude and position to air-traffic controllers.
“You’ve got a bigger problem than that helicopter,” Cheryl said.
“What?”
“You told that guy at the hotel to forward Joey’s calls through to my cell phone, right? That means that whether Joey tries to call you at the Beau Rivage, or me on my cell phone, he’s going to get this phone. How do we decide who answers?”
Will’s face suddenly felt cold. How could he have missed it? If Hickey called Cheryl and got “the hotel” instead, his whole plan would be blown. “We’re all right for ten or fifteen minutes,” he said, thinking aloud. “I’ll answer. I’ll say we’re stuck in traffic on our way back to the Beau Rivage.”
“And after that?”
“By then we’ll be halfway to Hazlehurst.”
“Is that where we’re going?”
“North is where we’re going right now. That’s all we know until Joe calls and tells you something else. Where exactly is this motel you’re supposed to go to in Brookhaven?”
“Right by the main exit.”
Brookhaven was twenty miles nearer than Hazlehurst, and Will had once landed there to refuel, but he didn’t remember what sort of rental car facilities they had. He’d have to wing it.
