mad scheme wanted more than a scale model and the papers explaining her work. They could have broken into the lab or grabbed her luggage at the airport. But they needed Francesca to interpret her findings. Her process was so arcane, so different, that it didn’t conform to the norms of science, which is why no one had thought of it before.
The whole thing didn’t make sense! Within a day or two she was going to give the process to the countries of the world for nothing. No patents. No copyright. No royalty fees. Absolutely free of charge. Anger smoldered in her breast. These ruthless people were stopping her from improving the lot of millions.
Phillipo groaned. He was coming around. His eyes blinked open and came into focus.
“Are you all right?” she said.
“It hurts like the devil, so I must be alive. Help me sit up, please.”
Francesca put her arm around Phillipo and lifted until he sat with his back against a seat. She unscrewed a bottle of rum from the bar and put it to his lips. He sipped some liquor, managed to keep it down, then took a healthy swallow. He sat there for a moment waiting to see if his guts would come up. When he didn’t vomit, he smiled. “I’ll be fine. Thank you.”
She handed him his glasses. “I’m afraid they were broken when he hit you.”
He tossed them aside. “They are only plain glass. I can see fine without them.” The level eyes that bored into Francesca were not those of a frightened man. He glanced at the closed cockpit door. “How long have I been out?”
“Twenty minutes, maybe.”
“Good, there is still time.”
“Time for what?”
His hand slid down to his ankle and came up filled with a snub-nosed revolver.
“If our friend hadn’t been so anxious to give me a headache, he would have found this,” he said with a grim smile.
This was definitely not the same rumpled man who had seemed more like an absentminded professor than a bodyguard. Francesca’s elation was tempered by reality. “What can you do? They have at least two guns, and we can’t fly the plane.”
“Forgive me, Senhora Cabral. Another failure to be forthright on my part.” Sounding almost guilty, he said, “I forgot to mention that I was in the Brazilian air force before I joined the secret service. Please help me up.”
Francesca was speechless. What other rabbits would this man pull out of his hat? She gave him a hand until he was able to stand on shaky legs. After a minute a new strength and determination seemed to flow through his body. “Stay here until I tell you what to do,” he said with the air of a man used to people obeying his command.
He went forward and opened the door. The pilot glanced over his shoulder and said, “Hey, look who’s back from the land of the living dead. Guess I didn’t hit you hard enough.”
“You don’t get a second chance,” Phillipo said. He jammed the revolver barrel under the Texan’s ear hard enough to hurt. “If I shoot one of you, the other can still fly. Which one will it be?”
“Christ, you said you took his gun!” Carlos said.
“You’ve got a short memory, cavaleiro,” the pilot replied calmly. “You shoot us and who’s going to fly the plane?”
“I will, cavaleiro. Sorry I didn’t bring my pilot’s license with me. You’ll have to take my word for it.”
Riordan turned his head slightly and saw the cold smile wreathing the bodyguard’s face.
“I take back what I said about dealing with a professional,” Riordan said. “What now, partner?”
“Give me the two guns. One at a time.”
The pilot handed over his pistol and the one he had taken from Phillipo. The bodyguard passed the weapons back to Francesca, who had come up behind him.
“Get out of your seat,” he ordered, backing into the cabin. “Slowly.”
Riordan caught the copilot’s eye and levered himself out of his seat. Using his body to shield the gesture, he made a quick palm-down flip with his hand. The copilot nodded almost imperceptibly to show he understood.
The pilot followed Phillipo as if drawn by an imaginary leash, as the bodyguard backed up into the cabin. “I want you to go lie facedown on the divan,” Phillipo said, keeping his gun pointed at Riordan’s chest.
“Hell, I was hoping I could take a nap,” the pilot said. “That’s real kind of you.”
Francesca had backed off the aisle to make room for the two men to pass. Phillipo asked her to get some plastic trash bags from under a front seat. Phillipo intended to use the bags to bind the pilot. With Riordan on ice he would only have to deal with the copilot.
The cabin was about twelve feet long. In the tight space Phillipo had to step aside to let the other man pass. He re minded Riordan not to try anything at close quarters, because it would be impossible to miss. Riordan nodded and stepped to ward the rear. They were only a few inches apart when the co pilot put the plane over on its left side.
Riordan had expected the move, but he didn’t know when it would come or that it would be so violent. He lost his balance and was thrown onto a seat, his head slamming into the bulkhead. Phillipo was lifted off his feet. He flew across the cabin and landed on top of Riordan.
The pilot disentangled his right hand and blasted his big fist into the bodyguard’s jaw. Phillipo saw galaxies whirling over his head and almost blacked out, but he managed to keep a death grip on the gun. Riordan brought his arm back for another punch. Phillipo blocked it with his elbow.
Both men were street fighters. Phillipo clawed at Riordan’s eyes. The pilot bit Phillipo on the fleshy part of the palm. The bodyguard jammed his knee into Riordan’s groin, and when the pilot opened his mouth, Phillipo snapped his head forward, smashing the cartilage in Riordan’s nose. He might have gained the upper hand, but at that point the copilot made the plane yaw sharply to the right.
The struggling men flew across the aisle into the opposite seat. Now the American was on top. Phillipo tried to club Riordan with the gun’s muzzle, but the pilot grabbed his wrist with two hands and twisted it away and down. Phillipo was strong, but he was no match for the double-teamed assault. The barrel swung closer to his midsection.
The pilot had his hands on the gun and was wrestling it away. Phillipo tried to hold on to the pistol, almost had control of it again, but the grip was slippery from the jets of blood flowing from Riordan’s nose. In a wrenching twist the pilot took control of the gun, got his fingertip onto the trigger, and squeezed.
There was a muffled crack! Phillipo’s body jerked and then went limp as the bullet plowed into his chest.
The plane righted itself as the copilot put it back into its nor mal position. Riordan stood and staggered toward the cockpit. He stopped and turned, apparently sensing something wasn’t right.
The gun he had left behind was propped up on the body guard’s chest. Phillipo was trying to steady it for a shot. Riordan charged like a wounded rhino. The pistol cracked. The first bullet hit the pilot in the shoulder, and he kept coming. Phillipo’s brain died, but his finger twitched twice more. The second shot caught the pilot in the heart and killed him instantly. The third went wild and missed him completely. Even as the pilot crashed to the floor, the pistol had dropped from Phillipo’s hand.
The struggle from one side of the cabin to the other had taken only a few seconds. Francesca had been thrown between the seats and played possum as the bloodied pilot was making his way back to the cockpit. The shots sent her down again.
She cautiously stuck her head into the aisle and saw the pilot’s still body. She crawled over to Phillipo’s side, pried the pistol from his bloody hands, and approached the cockpit door, too enraged to feel fear. Her anger quickly turned to shock.
The copilot was slumped forward, his body held in place by his seatbelt. There was a bullet hole in the partition separating the cockpit from the cabin and through the back of the copilot’s chair. Phillipo’s third shot.
Francesca pulled the copilot upright. His groan told her he was still alive.
“Can you talk?” she said.
Carlos rolled his eyes and whispered a hoarse “Yes.”
“Good. You’ve been shot, but I don’t think it hit any vital organs,” she lied. “I’m going to stop the bleeding.”
She retrieved the first aid kit, thinking that what she really needed was an emergency-room trauma unit. She almost fainted at the sight of the blood flowing from the wound down his back to puddle on the floor. The compress
