He glanced around. He view was limited by the partition to his right. He could only see the very back of the cabin. He saw a stack of cardboard boxes piled up behind the Iranian, and glimpsed the leather binding of an old codex poking out from the uppermost box. His mood darkened as he remembered that Zahed and his men were now in possession of the trove of Nicaea. He pulled his gaze away from the boxes and surveyed the rest of the space. He spotted a drawer with a green cross symbol on it, under one of the rear seats. The first aid kit. He imagined he’d find a small pair of scissors in there, scissors that could cut through his binds. There was a slight obstacle blocking his way to the kit, in the form of the Iranian, who was watching him like a falcon and caught Reilly’s wandering eyes.
Zahed didn’t say anything. Just brought up his good hand and did a small tsk-tsk wave of his forefinger while giving him a chiding look.
Reilly’s eyes stayed locked on the Iranian, and he managed a wry, relaxed smile. Which caused Zahed’s expression to tighten.
Reilly let out a small chuckle. It might not have been much, but right there and then, unsettling the Iranian, even just a little, felt really good.
CLOSE TO SIX MINUTES AFTER starting its descent, the Conquest leveled at twelve thousand feet. Steyl checked the cabin altitude reading. It was still working its way up to its target.
It was time to get Reilly into position.
He climbed out of his seat and joined Zahed at the back of the cabin.
“Which end do you want?” he asked Zahed.
“Take the legs.”
Steyl nodded.
He grabbed Reilly’s legs firmly and locked an arm around his ankles to keep him in place, then he stepped back, hunched in the low clearance of the cabin, and pulled him off the bench and onto the carpeted floor.
Then he started dragging him toward the cabin door.
Chapter 63
Reilly hit the carpet with a muffled thud and went ballistic. He was bucking and writhing furiously to free himself from the grasp of the South African, twisting his body left and right while alternating bent knees with sudden kicks despite having both ankles tightly anchored together. Each twist and each kick sent pain ricocheting through him, but he just ignored it and kept fighting. Then from somewhere behind him, the Iranian moved in. Using his good arm, he put Reilly in a choke hold. Reilly was now restrained from both ends and had to fight even harder. The choke was vise-tight, but after several manic twists and lunges, he managed to slip out of the South African’s grip. Using his palms to balance himself, he lashed out at the man with big, two-legged kicks, keeping him at bay while flicking backward head butts to try to hurt Zahed.
“Christ, I thought you were going to sedate the fucker,” the South African blurted as he tried to wrest control of Reilly’s legs.
“No,” the Iranian said, struggling to keep Reilly’s neck tied down with his elbow, “I want him fully awake. I want him to feel every second of it with a clear mind.”
This only spurred Reilly further as he swung his legs wildly, aiming for the South African’s face. His position was too awkward to really put much sting in the kicks, and the man kept blocking them before they connected. Then Reilly decided to double his efforts on the Iranian’s front. The Iranian was the weaker of the two. One decent hit there could be a game-changer.
He had to land it first.
He snapped his head furiously from side to side, like a marlin fighting off a heavy line, trying to shake the Iranian’s grip, widening the strike zone Zahed needed to keep clear of—then he sensed the man within reach and bucked back, arcing his head backward as suddenly and as viciously as he could. The back of his skull connected with some part of the Iranian’s face. He couldn’t tell where it hit, but it was hard enough for him to hear the splatter and feel Zahed’s grip falter. Reilly moved quickly and squirmed his head under the man’s elbow. The Iranian tried to recover, but Reilly’s head has already slipped partially through the man’s bent elbow.
He bit into it like a rabid dog.
Zahed cursed with pain and flicked his arm up, but Reilly wouldn’t let go, sinking his teeth even deeper into the man’s forearm. But focusing on the Iranian made him lose focus on the other man who moved in and managed to hook his arms around Reilly’s ankles, reining him in again. Then Zahed freed his elbow and drove it back down into the base of Reilly’s ear, rattling his head again and allowing the Iranian to put his choke hold back on.
Reilly kept twisting and bucking, but they had him solidly locked in as they wrangled him past the hoard of ancient texts and through the tight space between the two forward-facing club seats, before dumping him face-first onto the small clearing between those and the two rear-facing ones. The floor of the cabin was way too narrow for him to fit across it. They twisted him around so he was lying diagonally, his feet by the front right seat, his head only inches from the base of the cabin door.
“You gonna be able to hold him?” the South African asked.
“Just do what you have to do,” Zahed said, breathing hard as he straddled Reilly’s back, his weight driving Reilly’s tied arms into his back and Zahed’s right forearm—the good one—pressing across the base of his neck, barely allowing Reilly to breathe. “I’ve got him.”
STEYL HELD THERE FOR A BEAT, making sure Zahed did have Reilly pinned down solidly, then he pulled back off him, slowly, ready for any sudden frenzy from the FBI agent.
None came.
“I’ll radio in and slow us down,” he told Zahed. “Give me a minute.”
“Go.”
Steyl got back in his seat.
He radioed Nicosia control to inform them he was level at flight level one two zero and asked for permission to slow down to one hundred knots. His request was promptly approved. With his engine power already reduced, the plane was slowing down. Steyl increased propeller pitch to change the angle of the blades. This was like downshifting a car from fifth gear to second. The props shot up to almost nineteen hundred rpm, and the noise inside the cabin went from a low-frequency rumble to a high-pitched whine.
Steyl watched the airspeed drop to the target level.
It got to a hundred.
They were ready.
“Open the door,” he called out to Zahed. “I’ll join you as soon as it’s fully open.” He had to stay in his seat while both sections of the door were being opened, to make sure he could deal with any unexpected complications during the unorthodox maneuver.
He turned around and watched as Zahed, still straddling Reilly, reached up and twisted the latch to unlock the upper section of the door.
The Iranian nudged it out.
The wind caught it instantly and flung it open.
A gale of cold air blasted into the cabin with a deafening howl.
Then came the frenzy.
Chapter 64
Reilly felt the seconds ticking away inside him like he’d swallowed a time bomb. His face was pressed down against the rough nylon carpet, jamming his right eye shut and making it hard to breathe.
He couldn’t move. The Iranian had him locked down solid. But at least the man was now alone. If Reilly was
