He needn’t have worried. Whatever disappointment she felt, she didn’t allow it to affect her professionalism. She took the plane to ten thousand feet and leveled off. According to the flight plan that Cold Harbor had filed, the first leg took them to Caracas, Venezuela. The two-thousand-mile flight was right at the edge of the C-130’s operational range, but Caracas was exactly Titus Eskridge’s kind of lawless. He could refuel away from prying eyes before making the next leg to Fortaleza, Brazil.
Their arrangement with Calista called for them to divert to a small airfield in Virginia. There they would turn over the C-130 and its cargo to Calista. A second aircraft would fly Jenn and George out of the country.
No chance that would happen.
Calista had been an ally, but it was an arrangement that had run its course and would not outlive the night. She was every bit as ruthless as Eskridge. Gibson still hadn’t discarded the idea that Calista had used George as bait to get them to do her dirty work. This was Calista—anything was possible.
Jenn’s true intention, which they had devised during their morning jogs, was to keep to Cold Harbor’s original flight plan for three hours before filing a new flight plan that took them to an airfield in southern Florida. There they would scuttle the C-130 so that neither Eskridge nor Calista could claim its cargo. Jenn had arranged their own transportation out of the country from Florida. Gibson intended to wait until the last minute to tell her that he wouldn’t be coming with her. Although now that they were missing George, he didn’t know what she would do.
He tried several times to start the conversation about their next move, but she rebuffed him.
She engaged the autopilot and stood up.
“What are you doing?” Gibson asked.
“We’re over the Atlantic,” Jenn said, her voice flat and affectless over the headsets. The engines made it hard to be heard without them.
“So?” he asked, finding that somewhat ominous. “Jenn? So?”
“So I’ll be right back.”
“Jenn. We should decide what we’re going to do.”
“I know that.”
“So where are you going?” Gibson asked.
“To clean up my mess.”
“Let me help you.”
“No. One of us has to be in the cockpit at all times. Stay here and don’t touch anything.”
“I’m not a child,” he said, realizing how petulant it made him sound. But he was tired and disappointed too.
“Everyone’s a child in a cockpit.”
Gibson followed her down the ladder to the cockpit door. Concerned about her mental state, he wanted to keep an eye on her. The absurdity of it wasn’t lost on him. A crazy man looking out for her mental health. Although, now that he thought about it, he felt more lucid than he had in a long time. His sanity had faded in and out since his release. During his preparations to take Damon Ogden, he’d mistakenly thought he’d been improving. But he’d crashed and crashed hard immediately after. He’d felt the same improvement working with Jenn but didn’t trust it to last. He didn’t feel that way now. Even though the job was over, he still felt in focus and almost like himself again. Hijacking an airplane might have been a bad idea, but it didn’t feel like a crazy one.
Now if he could just get rid of his dad.
“Dream on, son,” Duke said from the copilot’s seat. He didn’t have a headset, but Gibson could hear him just fine.
One at a time, Jenn dragged the bodies the length of the cargo bay. Rigor hadn’t set in, but the narrow pathway made it a difficult obstacle course. She lowered the ramp. Wind whipped through the plane, and the temperature dropped thirty degrees in an instant. It hadn’t been all that warm to start.
She hauled up the first body and sent it tumbling into the night. At ten thousand feet, hitting the water would pulverize the body. Mother Nature would take care of the rest. An undignified kind of funeral. Gibson wondered what his name had been. If he’d been married or had any children.
“Go after him. Ask him,” Duke suggested.
“Go to hell.”
“No, I’m serious. You’re going to turn yourself in anyway, right? They’re going to execute you for what you’ve done. So what’s the difference? Why don’t you die with a little dignity instead of tied to a table, turning blue while Ogden watches from the audience. His smug fucking face will be the last thing you’ll see. And when it’s over, he’ll take his girlfriend’s kids out for ice cream and never think about you again.”
“No, he’s willing to make a deal.”
“A deal . . . what is that? Take a leap. Fly. It will be beautiful. At least that way, Ogden suffers too.”
“No, I’m not going to be that man.”
“You’re not a man at all.”
It wasn’t the first time the ghost of Duke Vaughn had voiced such a sentiment, and each time it had knocked the wind out of Gibson. Not so now. Now his words meant nothing to Gibson. Duke sensed it, faltered, fell silent.
A buzzer sounded in Gibson’s ear. An incoming call on Cold Harbor’s sat phone, which had been wired into the aircraft’s control panel. It could be only one person. Gibson punched a button on the console and connected the call. No one spoke. Gibson wasn’t in the mood for games, so he hung up. The phone rang again a minute later.
“Hello, Titus,” Gibson said. “Fancy hearing from you.”
“Dan Hendricks. I should have killed you two years ago.” Eskridge’s voice was smooth and untroubled.
Hendricks didn’t sound anything like Gibson, but over the roar of the engines, it would be hard to identify voices. It made sense that Eskridge would assume Gibson was Hendricks.
“Dan is in California,” Gibson said.
“No, you’re not,” Eskridge said confidently. “Where is Jennifer Charles?”
“She’s feeding the fish. What do you want?”
“I want my aircraft.”
“Yeah, we kind of like it, though.”
“You can’t stay in the air forever,” Eskridge replied.
“Who’s to say?”
“As if you have the fifty thousand to refuel it. And even if you did, it’s my aircraft. I can track your location anywhere in the world. There’s nowhere you can land that I won’t find it. And you.”
“Yeah, but it’ll be a smoking wreck when you do. Or maybe we’ll start rolling cargo into the ocean. There’s got to be something irreplaceable on board.”
That provoked a long pause. Gibson could almost hear Eskridge trying to compose himself before replying.
“What do you want?”
“Maybe we could work out a trade,” Gibson said, floating the idea. Perhaps there would still be a way to get George back safely. If Calista was at least right about Eskridge smuggling classified materials, then it might be valuable enough to exchange for George.
“And what exactly is it you want?” Eskridge asked.
Gibson started to say “George Abe,” but he caught himself. The din made it hard to read tone of voice, but something about Eskridge’s question rubbed Gibson the wrong way. It should have been ironic and knowing, but Eskridge had almost sounded sincere. As if he didn’t know the answer. Gibson decided to bluff.
“Well, we’ve got George, but we could really use a relocation fund to help him get settled. I’m thinking something in the mid-seven figures.”
Jenn appeared in the cockpit door with a questioning look on her face. Gibson put a finger to his lips. This was the moment of truth.
“That’s high, but I think we can come to an accommodation. I can go as high as two million.”
“Three.”