'I'm fine,' Lightstone rasped, looking back over his shoulder at the surrounding cliffs. 'But-'
'Well, Sam's not,' she said firmly. 'We've got to get him to a hospital.'
'The controllers at the Kenai Tower picked up my call to Anchorage,' Woeshack said, looking up. 'They're sending a paramedic team and state troopers from Soldotna out to the docks right now.'
'Okay,' Lightstone nodded weakly as he forced himself to start moving again. 'Then let's hurry up and load him in the plane. We've got to get out of here before-'
'Uh, I think we've got a problem,' Woeshack interrupted.
'What's that?'
'I don't think we can take off with four people on board.'
'There're four seats in the damn thing. Why the hell not?' Lightstone demanded, looking over his shoulder again as he slid his right index finger over the trigger of the automatic carbine.
For a brief moment, he thought he'd seen something move near a large bolder up on the cliffs, but now he wasn't sure.
'We got a bunch of bullet holes in the floats, and some of the chambers are filling up with water,' Woeshack explained. 'The plane's still floating now, but if we don't-'
Crack-pow!
Lightstone had just turned around to look at the bullet holes that seemed to pockmark the dark orange floatplane when the 7.62mm bullet whipped past his head and exploded through the right-side bubble window of the Cessna Skywagon.
'Shit!' Lightstone cursed as he triggered a long, piercing burst of 5.56mm rounds into the trees surrounding the boulder where he'd sensed movement. Expended casings flew over his shoulder, and Marie Pascalaura screamed and dropped to the rocks. Woeshack rolled to the ground and fumbled for his shoulder-holstered. 357 Magnum.
'Get that prop going!' Lightstone yelled at Woeshack. Then he and Marie dragged Sam Jackson over to the water and up into the boat.
'What do I do?' Marie Pascalaura yelled as she fumbled with the starter and got the outboard running, while Lightstone spun around and emptied the rest of the carbine's magazine in the general direction of the distant boulder.
'You still have the radio?' he asked as he turned to push the open aluminum boat out into the water.
'Yes.'
From behind his back, Lightstone heard the Cessna Skywagon's starter whine as Woeshack tried again and again to kick the engine over. Finally the floatplane erupted into a loud, rumbling roar.
'Then go like hell for the dock, and let them know you're coming. State troopers should be on their way,' he yelled over the deafening sounds of the plane and the outboard motor as he replaced the short-barreled carbine. 'We'll meet you there.'
'But-'
'Get going!' he ordered as he aimed and fired another short burst at a sudden movement of green camouflage next to the distant boulder and then ran toward the plane, vaguely aware that his lower legs had started to turn numb in the icy water.
Lightstone pulled himself into the front passenger seat, yanked the door shut, and began to put on his headset when the sharp crack of a high-powered rifle echoed across the water once again. He started to duck down, but then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a broad splash of water about ten feet to the far side of Marie Pascalaura's rapidly accelerating patrol boat.
'Goddamn it!' Lightstone screamed. 'Those sons of bitches are shooting at her!'
Then he turned to Woeshack, his eyes widened with rage.
'Get this thing between her and that boulder, right now!' he yelled as he pulled himself into the narrow backseat area, braced himself against the right side of the plane and used both feet to kick out the left-side rear Plexiglas window.
As Special Agent-Pilot Thomas Woeshack throttled the dark orange floatplane forward, Lightstone switched the Colt Commando carbine over to single shot, aligned the open sights of the short-barreled weapon as best he could inside the bouncing and vibrating plane, and began to methodically fire round after round at the pair of cammo- clad figures barely visible on one side of the tree-covered boulder.
He completely ignored the loud clatter of torn metal as an incoming stream of 5.56mm bullets ripped into the floatplane's left pylon, and the loud clang! as another 7.62mm bullet punched through the thin-skinned aircraft in the space equidistant between Lightstone's stomach and the back of Woeshack's pilot's seat.
Thomas Woeshack continued to accelerate the bouncing and rattling floatplane in an effort to keep up with the rapidly moving patrol boat. He had to leave the Cessna's wing flaps locked in the full-up position to keep the plane down on the water.
But all too soon, the forward speed of the plane, the bullet damage to the waterlogged floats, and the counteracting force of the wind against the torn metal fabric started a rattling vibration that threatened to tear the small plane apart.
'Feels like the left pylon is going to tear loose any second now! Either got to go up or slow down!' Woeshack shouted over his shoulder.
'She's clear. Go up!' Lightstone yelled as he set the smoking carbine aside and reached for the headset in the back of the plane.
'Can you hear me?' Woeshack asked as he readjusted the wing flaps and started the Cessna up into a steady, roaring climb.
'Christ, I think I'm deaf,' Lightstone muttered, the headphones making him aware for the first time of the high-pitched ringing in his unprotected ears.
Marie Pascalaura waved her hand and continued to accelerate the small patrol boat toward the distant western shore.
'You sure that was Paul you saw on the ground back there?' Lightstone called loudly into his mike.
'Yeah, pretty sure,' Woeshack acknowledged. 'He had on that red-and-yellow vest that his wife made for him. Real easy to spot.'
Lightstone didn't say anything for a long moment.
'You get to know Paul very well?' he finally asked.
'Well enough,' Woeshack said, his voice taking on a bitter tone. 'He got me through flight school when everyone else was trying to have me grounded.'
'Then what do you say we go back around, then come in low over that goddamned boulder?' Lightstone said in a cold, deadly voice as he wrenched another loaded magazine out of the nylon harness and reached for the carbine.
Woeshack looked back at Lightstone for a moment. Then he smiled. 'How low do you want it?' he asked, banking the vibrating aircraft around to the right.
'Low enough that if I miss, you get to take them out with the prop,' Lightstone replied as he loaded the automatic carbine and set the selector back to automatic. He waited with cold, murderous patience for Woeshack to bring the aircraft to an altitude of about twelve hundred feet.
'You ready?' Woeshack asked.
'Absolutely.' Lightstone set another loaded magazine between his legs.
'I'm going to go up high and then drop us in fast. I don't think they're going to be expecting something like that.'
'Good.'
'Okay,' Woeshack nodded. 'Here we go.'
True to his word, Woeshack put the Cessna in a steep dive that caused the no-longer-streamlined airframe to shake and rattle and vibrate all the way down, leveling out just in time to clear the trees as Lightstone held the trigger down and sent all thirty 5.56mm rounds streaking into and around the boulder area.
Chunks of trees and dirt and rocks went flying in all directions as one of the camouflaged-dressed men spun away and then tumbled down the cliff, while the other scrambled for the safety of a narrow ditch.
'Nice job, Woeshack,' Lightstone whispered into his mike, not caring that his hands were shaking as he released the empty magazine and let it drop to the floor. 'One down and one running.'
