John took another deep breath and let the crisp bite of the dry mountain air chill his lungs. He changed his grip on the antenna and slid down the port side. With his feet on the wing root, he transferred his grip to the open hatch and stepped inside.
The dark interior of the cabin was no warmer, but at least he was out of the wind. John drew his gun and started forward.
As he reached the forward wall, the plane leaned sharply to one side. They were turning from the taxiway onto the active runway. John’s foot came down on something soft and yielding, and he put his hand out to steady himself, misjudged, lost his balance, and fell atop the dead pilot.
A gunshot barked and a bullet split the space he’d just occupied.
“Well, Mr. Blalock, what a pleasant surprise. I thought you’d be running with Ms. Maxwell before Holdren arrived. I guess it was my turn to underestimate your tenacity.”
John caught his breath again as waves of pain burned through his head and back.
The plane accelerated down the active.
“What’s the matter, John? Are you getting too weak for repartee’? I noticed my earlier shots didn’t entirely miss. Could it be that you’re more seriously wounded than I thought?”
John wanted to give a snappy comeback, something you’d hear in the movies, but not often in real life. But he just didn’t have it in him. John felt around for the gun the pilot had carried, found it and transferred his own weapon to his left hand.
He braced against the cabin wall, and then leapt for the opposite side.
Two shots rang through the cabin. John slammed into the cabin door with a grunt, and half fell into the front seat. He raised the pilot’s gun. He was directly behind the pilot’s seat now. If the pilot’s ammo was the same armor piercing rounds that Dewatre carried this was about to be over.
He aimed for the center of the wall and squeezed off six quick rounds.
Suddenly, Dewatre lunged at him from the cockpit door.
John dropped the pilot’s gun and seized Dewatre’s right wrist, but not before the man’s knife pierced his body armor and plowed a track along his side.
The low cabin ceiling and crowded floor gave no room for fancy maneuvers and once they joined, the fight became one of brute strength. John should have easily won a wrestling match with the smaller man, but the loss of blood had already weakened him.
Still, he forced Dewatre’s knife hand back while trying to line up the barrel of his gun with Dewatre’s torso. Runway lights flashed through the portholes lighting the cabin interior like paparazzi strobes. Even in the cold, Dewatre’s face was beaded with sweat.
John bent his wrist until the slender blade of the knife was pointed at his opponent’s throat.
“Alas, one dies but once, and it’s for such a long time,” John said.
Dewatre’s eyes grew wide.
The plane lurched, throwing both men off their feet. John fell against something hard, and a bolt of agony shot out from his shoulder. Before he could recover, Dewatre had pulled loose and climbed over him, heading toward the rear of the cabin. The aircraft bounced crazily for another moment while John tried to get to his feet.
Then as suddenly as it had started, the bouncing stopped.
John hurried to the emergency exit Dewatre took.
Dewatre crawled out the wing and was standing, holding on to the winglet. John looked around. They were off the runway and back on one of the taxiways and still doing at least fifty knots.
But not for long.
One of the old hangars was dead ahead. Its main doors were open, but the interior was filled with small private planes.
He looked back at Dewatre as the nose of the Learjet reached the hangar. The French agent had seen what was coming and turned to face it.
The end of the Learjet’s wing went over the wing of a Piper without touching it. Then it passed between the upper and lower wings of an old biplane.
The upper wing took Dewatre in the chest, and he disappeared from John’s sight in a spray of blood.
Resigned to the inevitable, John dropped to the floor and awaited the impact.
He didn’t have long.
The Learjet shuddered as its wings tore through two airplanes. A moment later, there was an explosion of avgas and jet fuel. The exterior lit up with the orange glow of a fireball. The plane bucked. Its nose bisected a vintage P-51, transfixed an OV-1, disintegrated a Bell Ranger, and then crashed into the closed rear hangar doors.
John was hurled forward. He struck the pilot’s body and lodged there for a moment. As the nose gear collapsed, the plane tilted crazily throwing John against the ceiling and then back onto the floor.
The cabin broke open just ahead of the wings, and the back half of the plane began to flip end over end. Fuel sprayed from ruptured tanks, sending long ribbons of flame in every direction. In seconds, flames englobed the wings and tail section in a great blast of heat and light.
John sat still, staring back, transfixed as the hurtling ball of flames expanded toward him.
CHAPTER 26
A sleek black Suburban slid to a stop near the burning hangar. Doors opened. Holdren and Romax emerged from the back seat. Their driver and another man joined them at the front of the vehicle where they surveyed the scene. Both Holdren and Romax wore overcoats that were open to expose their black Kevlar vests.
In the still dark gray of dawn, fire trucks sprayed foam
