Toys

and I don’t mean that as a compliment. The two of you are oil and water.”

She gazed at me calmly, but we both had an idea of what was coming next. The interceptor was a smart- missile that would clamp onto our plane, cut a hole through the fuselage, and unleash a team of highly trained Elite commandos inside.

“We’re going to have to bail out,” she said. “You’ve used a Deathwish Suit before, haven’t you?”

“Unfortunately, yes,” I answered. “Deathwish Suit” was a pejorative nickname for superinsulated silicone uniforms with jet-propulsion packs and parachutes. They were designed for high-altitude bailouts, like this one would be. The jetpacks would last an hour, keeping you aloft, then you needed to pop the chute and hope for a pinpoint landing.

“Come in here and put one on,” she said. “I’m trying to contact friends in Russia who might help us. But it’s going to be down to the wire.”

“Just the way I like it,” I said.

“You’re such a liar.”

“Not me. Everybody else.”

Chapter 55

The attack came much faster than Lucy or I would have liked. With a harsh grinding sound, the interceptor latched like a giant, metal remora onto the outside of the jet. It rocked us sideways, but the Elites apparently didn’t want to knock us out of control and risk a crash. Maybe I was still usable to them-or to Lizbeth. Or maybe Jax Moore wanted to kill me himself.

I was snuggled up beside the rear cargo-hatch controls, my body wedged tightly into a storage space, my feet braced against a wall.

A laser saw from the interceptor, with a sharp hiss, had already started to cut into metal. A smoldering line appeared in our hull as the beam sliced through.

In less than a minute, the cutout fell inward, and two well-built Elite guards charged through, with three more right behind them. They were armed with assault rifles and wearing their own Deathwish Suits, ready for anything.

Well, not anything.

I dropped the cargo hatch!

Instantly, a ferocious wind sprang up inside the plane.

The first two commandos were too shocked and surprised to grab hold of anything. The suction pulled them flying through the cabin, then shot them out the hatch into the dark ether.

The same could be said for just about everything else that wasn’t fastened down tightly. Bottles from the bar flew past me like a hail of bullets, along with luggage, wads of plush upholstery, entire cabinets that had been torn from the walls.

Then my luck turned bad again. Our luck, since Lucy was involved now too. The cutout section of hull was wrenched off the floor and came spinning along with the rest of the debris-but it hit the hatch opening flat, blocking most of it.

When the three remaining commandos got sucked toward the hatch, they slammed into the hull cutout instead. Not good for me. Suddenly, it was three against one, and these guys were trained to maim, then kill.

Of course, I tried to remind myself, so am I.

I unwedged myself, pointed my feet at them, and let go of my grip. The wind shot me toward the hatch like a human pile driver. This certainly should be interesting. If I survive.

Chapter 56

Proving that I still had “it,” I slammed into two of the muscular commandos, a boot planted squarely in each man’s chest. The force of our impact caved in the hull section, folding it in the middle. It blew out through the hatch and we went with it, twisting into the air outside with gut-wrenching speed.

I grabbed hold of the nearest commando’s throat, then gave my jetpack a hard blast.

The two of us broke free from the others and rocketed away, punching and kneeing each other viciously as we struggled for control of his rifle.

His buddies were quick to follow, moving faster than I could with my unwilling passenger in tow. Flashing bursts of laser fire started hissing past us.

I managed to spin the commando around and into a headlock with the rifle pinned across his throat. As best I could, I was using him as a shield.

His “buddies” didn’t hesitate for a second. They continued to fire mercilessly. The tough skin of the Deathwish Suits kept the blasts from traveling all the way through, but I suffered the shock of successive shots hitting his body. I felt him convulse-then go limp in my arms.

Hanging on to the rifle, I curled myself up tightly and shoved the dead body into their path. Then I jetted away in a series of sharp, erratic somersaults. That bought me a few seconds, long enough to turn around and start shooting back.

That was when another Deathwish-Suited figure came spinning into sight.

Lucy in the sky-no diamonds!

She was zooming in behind the pair of commandos, so they didn’t see her-not until she crashed piggyback onto one Elite’s shoulders. She locked the poor guy’s neck between her thighs in a scissor hold. Then her hands snapped his neck, tearing off his helmet with such fury that I was surprised when his head wasn’t still inside it.

As she rode that flopping body past the other commando, the sight distracted him for the instant I needed to fire off several shots. The lasers slammed his back; his hands jerked up and tossed his rifle into the icy wind rushing around us.

Lucy released her grip on the dead man she was straddling, and he sailed away, out to join his brethren in a long, final plunge to oblivion in the wild waters of the Bering Sea.

Lucy turned, grinned rather insanely, and gave me a double thumbs-up.

For my part, I grinned insanely back at her, wondering what I’d gotten myself into with this crazy, but obviously brave and impressive, human woman.

Book Three THE EUROPEAN TOUR Chapter 57

The insane grins and double thumbs-ups between Lucy and me were long gone and almost forgotten now. Unfortunately, and as promised, flying in a Deathwish Suit was no joyride. I had to fight my way through the fierce air currents that tossed me around like a snowflake, and my body took a relentless, terrible pounding.

But the more serious problem was that our jetpack charges were running low. Lucy and I conserved some fuel by dropping into nearly heart-stopping free falls-then gave the jets a blast to lunge our bodies forward again.

But by the time we sighted land, still far away, we were running on empty.

I saw Lucy straighten her body like a high diver leaping off a cliff, cut in her jets for a final burst of juice, and shoot forward in a long, arcing glide.