“Anything?” Jenn asked over the headset.
“Not a damn thing,” Gibson said without bothering to hide his frustration.
For the last two hours, as they returned north to meet Calista in Virginia, he’d torn the hold apart, looking for whatever she had gone to all this trouble to obtain. He knew it was a fool’s errand. Like looking for a needle in a haystack. Worse. At least Gibson knew a needle when he saw one. Calista’s prize could be anything. Any size. It could be a microchip or a large piece of hardware. For all Gibson knew, he’d already held it in his hands.
They felt beaten. To work this hard to free George only for Dan Hendricks to take his place felt like a cruel zero-sum game. They’d planned it all so carefully, or thought they had, yet Calista had outmaneuvered them once again. Up in the cockpit, Jenn and George were busy strategizing. Over his headset, Gibson could hear them proposing and rejecting one plan after another. Another waste of energy since they had no clear picture of what Calista had waiting for them. That was why Gibson remained down in the hold, hunting blindly. If he got lucky, supremely lucky, they’d have a much stronger bargaining position when they landed. So he kept looking despite the odds. Like every failed gambler before him, he had this ridiculous idea that he was “due,” somehow.
“Gibson,” Jenn said. “Wrap it up and get back up here.”
He felt the plane begin to descend. They were out of time, and they were out of options. Gibson took one last look down the length of the cargo bay, hoping maybe he’d missed the flashing neon “Classified Material Inside” sign. If only they had something, anything, Calista needed. The irony of course was that they did, they just didn’t know what it was they had. He sighed and made his way forward. Calista Dauplaise held all the cards, and for the life of him, Gibson couldn’t figure out if they’d even been dealt into the game.
Gibson strapped himself into the copilot’s chair beside Jenn. Out the cockpit window, he could see the lights of the Northern Virginia suburbs. To the east, the sun was cresting the horizon one more time. Once again, he was on board a plane at dawn, landing with no control over what came next. At least this time, he wasn’t shackled with a hood over his eyes. Whatever it was, he would see it coming. And he was among friends. That was no small thing. Of course, knowing Calista, they might all wish for a blindfold sooner rather than later.
If only they had found it . . . But wait . . . He thought for a moment. Calista didn’t know that, did she? What if they bluffed? Threatened to destroy it? No. It was a stupid play. You couldn’t trade what you didn’t have. Especially when you didn’t know what you didn’t have. All they had was the plane itself.
Suddenly, Gibson sat up straight. We have the plane.
“Jenn,” he said. “I might have an idea.”
The C-130 landed hard, bouncing on one wheel. A strong gust lifted the plane off the runway and tried to turn it sideways. Jenn compensated as best she could, but the big aircraft fought her all the way back to the ground, as if the C-130 were even more reluctant than they to land there. Once she wrestled the wheels down, Jenn powered down, and the aircraft settled into the earth. They decelerated down the runway.
It was a small airfield with two runways side by side. At the far end stood three small hangars, all of which would fit easily inside one of the Dulles Air Center hangars. The center hangar was open, and lights were on. They taxied toward it. Jenn made a tight turn so that the tail of the aircraft faced the hangar. As the aircraft turned, he saw Calista’s limousine inside the hangar. Behind it, her henchmen’s SUV idled. He didn’t see Cools, Sidhu, or anyone else, but they would be there, out of sight. Waiting.
“Go,” Jenn said as soon as it was safe.
Gibson and George hustled back to the hold to prepare. Jenn had wanted George to stay in the cockpit out of harm’s way, but he wasn’t having it. Not while Calista had Hendricks. Gibson admired him for that. They worked quickly, no time to set up anything elaborate. When Jenn joined them, she looked at what they’d jury-rigged and whistled.
“I don’t know if that will work,” she said.
Gibson didn’t disagree but said, “You have a better idea?”
She did not. It would have to do. He handed her one of the three controllers.
No one knew what to expect when they lowered the ramp. They readied themselves as best they knew how. Jenn swapped a full clip into her MP7. George stood a little ways off and tucked the gun that Jenn had handed him out of sight. Gibson popped the clip from his Glock and checked it. It hadn’t been fired, but he did it anyway to steady his hands.
They looked one to the other.
“This reminds me of a story,” George said.
They waited for him to go on, but he didn’t appear inclined to share it.
“What do you think?” Gibson asked Jenn.
“Let’s not get killed.”
“Solid plan.”
George said, “If it’s me she wants, we make the trade.”
Jenn looked aghast. “She wants Eskridge’s cargo as a bargaining chip.”
“And if there is no bargaining chip?”
Neither Jenn nor Gibson had considered the possibility that it was another of Calista’s inventions. That George had been the target all along.
“Why would she want you?” Gibson asked.
“Who can say? But I think that if I’ve proven anything, it’s that I’m not the best at anticipating Calista’s motives.” He gestured to his scarred face.
Gibson laughed despite himself. George joined him. Jenn stifled a smile. It was a morbid joke, but gallows humor was the only kind left to them. Gibson would have happily stayed in this moment. This was where he was meant to be. The people he was meant to be with. He wanted to remember this feeling so he could hold on to it afterward. He would need it.
“Why are you so happy?” Jenn asked.
“I’ll tell you later.”
“You are certifiable,” she said.
He didn’t argue.
Jenn activated the ramp, and the hydraulics whined into life. The ramp descended. Gibson would have wagered that Calista would be nowhere in sight. That she would be safely tucked away while her men secured the aircraft. He would have lost that bet.