“If you need me, or need to tell me something, don’t hesitate to use those.”
“Rhett, I don’t know how much you know about me and my gifts, but in the interest of total honesty, I need to tell you that I could have compelled you and your soldiers into cooperating with me tonight.”
Rhett nodded, instantly feeling exposed. He moved his tingling hand to his nape. “I know you’re a powerful mind manipulator.” He looked up quickly, “But you didn’t manipulate me, did you?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Your signature.”
“My what?”
“Your psychic signature is different. I knew you were capable of more than just following orders, and I wanted to see what you would do when faced with this decision.”
Rhett shook his head. “You’re going to have to explain these abilities of yours to me.”
Meg smiled despite herself. “I will later—the abridged version anyway. We don’t have much time.”
He pursed his lips tightly at the reminder of their fleeting hours. “We’re going to have one hell of a war.” Rhett looked around as though imagining the inevitable combat as he replaced his earpiece with a spare from another pocket. He raised his hand in farewell before turning to sprint after his soldiers.
Twenty yards away, he slowed his pace and spoke into the device.
Meg had been gathering the bags of C4 and calculating what to do with them when she heard Rhett clearly in her ear. “Give me one hour. I’ll be in touch.”
She reached up to press the device so she could respond. “Copy that. I’ll be here.”
47 Ten Digits in the Sky
“It’s just impossible.” Vince Trainer glared at the side of Bob Jacobi’s face. Jacobi’s eyes were glued to the plane’s gauges and indicators on the other side of the cockpit door. Evan and Creed were seated in the pilot and copilot’s chairs flying the plane—or just monitoring the autopilot. They were ordered not to touch anything. Evan was ordered twice.
This was in the effort to give Trainer and Jacobi a chance to hold a private conversation—away from the black box that recorded every word spoken inside the cockpit.
“Of course it’s possible,” he scoffed. “I was landing fighter jets on thousand-foot runways on aircraft carriers on rough seas—at night!” His chest puffed with pride. “We need to land on a two lane road in the middle of the country in broad daylight? I could do this with one hand tied behind my back. Hell the road isn’t moving! That alone makes this task laughable.”
Trainer had heard about Jacobi’s Navy days more times than he could count. He rolled his eyes, exasperated. “Damn it Jacobi! I know you can land just about anywhere, that’s not the issue! If this family needs to be at that location and avoid the authorities, we’re going to have to devise a better plan!”
“We just drop below radar, land, drop the family and take off. So long as we do everything inside their seven-minute response time window, we can just claim flight control malfunctions caused us to veer off flight plan.”
“Be realistic, Bob! We could lose our licenses! The ATF is going to be on us like white on rice the second we touch down and the Winters won’t be able to get off the plane without being detained by federal and state agencies. You and I both know this won’t work.”
“Excuse me Captain, Trainer—I think I have a better plan.”
The two men turned to see Alik Winter standing as tall as the low cabin ceiling would allow. In his hands he held what looked at first glance to be slender backpacks.
Five minutes later the entire family gathered at the plane’s bulkhead to talk things through. Jacobi and Trainer were back at their posts. Trainer was thrilled to know they were leaning toward a more realistic solution and was happy to give the family time to hammer out the details of the prospective parachute drop.
“How many chutes do we have?” Margo was asking.
“We have seven, though after looking them over, I wouldn’t trust two of them. At some point their packaging became unsealed. Moths or vermin could have gotten inside, compromising the integrity of the material.” Evan watched his mother’s expression as she mulled this over.
“Moths and vermin?” Cole muttered. “Vermin. Who talks like that?”
Alik rolled his eyes at Cole.
“Only five working chutes,” Theo rubbed his face. “And there are nine of us, plus Maze.”
“Do any of you have experience skydiving?” Margo looked around the cabin.
“Farrow and I do, Dr. Winter,” Creed shared a knowing look with his fellow former assassin.
“Yes, ma’am. Paratrooping was part of our strategic insurgence training,” Farrow added.
“Does everyone at the Facility get trained as paratroopers?” Theo asked, looking from Sloan to Kylie.