"Levont, find me one ready to blow."
"Lopez..." Brandt growled. There was courageous, and there was suicidal.
The corporal leaned forward as he took them low enough to get out of the plume. The four fiery volcanoes each looked prepared to erupt again. Their molten core bubbled and spewed.
"Last time I wasn't ready. This time-"
"There!" Levont didn't get the word out before Lopez slid them over to the second volcano, just in time for a huge steam plume to shoot out of the cone.
The plane shimmied but rode the column of superheated air. The metal around them became hot to the touch, but still, they climbed in the sky. Finally, the eruption ended, and they flew out of the blast zone, far above where they had entered.
The jet had slowed considerably to circle the volcanoes. And now their plane was above the Disciples. Lopez angled them downward.
"Now let's see how you like it!"
Brandt wasn't quite sure what Lopez had in mind, but it wasn't going to be pretty. They approached fast and hard on the jet. Someone on board must have spotted them as they tried to accelerate, but not even with a supersonic jet could they outrun Lopez, at least not in time.
The corporal aimed them straight at the jet. It wasn't until the last moment that Lopez had no intention at all of waving off.
"No!"
Brandt's order was too late. Rebecca braced for impact, but she couldn't be prepared for the actual impact. Lopez slammed their landing gear on top of the jet's back. Both planes lurched. Their vehicle bouncing up. Lopez wasn't done, though, as he hammered the plane back down. Then again.
"Lopez!" Brandt barked. "They've got way thicker steel."
"But a way higher stall speed!" the corporal countered, pounding down again.
It took one more time, with each of the planes falling out of the sky. Then it suddenly got a whole lot quieter as the Disciples' engines cut out. Lopez still wasn't satisfied, though. He brought their landing gear down again, shoving the jet's nose downward to the Mediterranean Sea. Only then, as the supersonic jet hurled toward a crash landing, did Lopez pull them up. But not quite as far as she had hoped. Then she saw why. Their left wing was engulfed in flame. Make that both wings. Make that the tail too.
"Lopez!" Brandt shouted.
"Jeez," Lopez said, working the controls. "Calm down."
Calm down? They were on fire. Fire. Oh yeah, and about to crash land.
Then the plane jerked, and it sounded like a rip cord was running out directly above her. They were suddenly pulled up. The draft was so quick it brushed the lava flames off the wings.
Rebecca craned her neck to see out the window. Above them, a huge plane-sized parachute had opened. Lopez cut the engines and let the plane drift down toward the water.
"There," the corporal said. "Happy now?"
As the plane gently landed on the water, Davidson popped off his restraint and made for the hatch. There were still smoldering fires all over the hull of the airplane. The lava had tagged them nearly everywhere.
Davidson opened a storage compartment, grabbed a fire extinguisher, then undid the hatch. They were lucky the winds had shifted. The parachute, still filled with air, tugged them along toward Israel. Even without his scope, Davidson could make out the coastline.
All in all? Not too shabby, he thought as he climbed out of the cabin and onto the back of the plane. He hit a few flames with the extinguisher, dousing them, as Brandt and the rest joined him. Then the wind shifted and the parachute collapsed. Brandt and Levont rushed over, grabbing the sagging material before it hit any of the flames. The last thing they needed was the thick material catching fire.
Lopez detached the chute from its anchor, and they threw the material over the side.
Dousing another bit of lava that was about to cut into a fuel line, Davidson scanned the horizon. The Disciples' jet seemed to have sunk completely. Just as well.
"Um," Rebecca said, scooting her way toward the nose of the plane, "are we sinking?"
Levont nodded. "It's all the gear in the hatch. It is dragging the tail down."
"Shark!" Lopez announced. Davidson looked over as a dorsal fin cut the surface.
"Of course there's a fucking shark," Brandt rumbled. "But somebody's got to dump the gear out of the hold." The sergeant began stripping, but Davidson stepped forward.
"I'll do it."
Levont also stepped forward. "I'm an excellent diver."
Lopez, though, shooed them all back. "Maybe but each of you is like a bloody Come Eat Me sign to the sharks."
No one could argue with that as Lopez pulled his shirt up over his head. Davidson's neck bandage was oozing as they spoke. Levont's shirt was saturated in bright red and Brandt...Well, he had a litany of cuts and scrapes.
"Be careful," Brandt ordered as Lopez took a knife from his leg holster. "I mean my kind of careful, not your kind."
"Come on," Lopez scoffed. "I've pearl-dived off of Sri Lanka." He waved his hand over the water as a shark came in close, then darted away. Not just any shark, but a bull shark. "This is nothing."
"Just film it!" Then Lopez gripped the knife in his teeth and dove off the side.
Brandt rushed to the side, but the plane tipped with his weight. Rebecca screamed behind him as one of the sharks got a little impatient waiting for them to sink and all. It threw itself halfway up the side of the plane, snapping and thrashing. Brandt only had time to grab Rebecca by the waist and swing her around, out of danger.
Levont leveled his weapon, but no one fired. With Lopez down there, they couldn't risk a feeding frenzy. Actually, once the bags were out of the hold, Brandt wasn't sure they could stay afloat. No need to get the natives too agitated.
The bull shark clamped his jaw one last time, then thrashed its tail, sliding back down into the water. His eyes, though, his eyes said, We'll meet again.
Fucking bull sharks. Great whites usually accidently bit you. They wanted seals. Once they took a bite and figured out you tasted bad, they were more than likely to spit you back out, giving you a chance to survive.
The bull shark? No such luck. They bit and held on-tight. If they did happen to let you go, it was only for a moment. They latched right back on. They were ferocious and committed to eating whatever they had caught.
Not a good combination.
"It's working!" Levont announced, and sure enough, the back of the plane wasn't quite as underwater as a moment before.
But then the water churned as several dorsal fins cut the water. Rebecca clung to Brandt as Lopez's head popped above the waves. Just as a shark lunged for him, Lopez hit the shark square in the nose with a pack. The beast reeled away as Lopez tossed the bag onto the plane.
Brandt rushed over to help Levont haul the corporal out of the water, while Davidson filmed it all, of course.
Lopez pulled a string of life vests after him as well. "I've got four vests that-"Another shark jumped out of the water, snagging the last vest, cutting the line, taking his prize with him. "Make that three vests."
"Ricky!" Rebecca chided him, helping him climb farther up the plane.
Lopez shook off all the help. Instead, he dropped to his knees and opened the gear that he'd salvaged. It was a pack of two rather large lifeboats. He pulled the cord and they began to fill with air.
"What the...?" Levont said, dancing back from the inflating rafts.
Lopez shook his head, spraying water on all of them. "Please, these experimental planes crash as often as they land. They've got the most sophisticated emergency rescue equipment on the planet."
"You are expecting us to take those out...in those waters?"
It wouldn't be long before sharks realized that rubber was not tooth-proof.
"Nah," Lopez stated. "Levont, let's put those muscles to work."
Actually, it took Levont, Rebecca, and himself to maneuver the first life raft under the wing and secure it. The second was easier to position. Suddenly, their sinking plane was now floating peacefully on the sea.
Lopez grabbed two paddles and held them up. "Who wants to row?"
Frellan breathed in the stale oxygen of his face mask. The pilot and copilot were both dead, along with two of their men. The rest braced themselves against the back of the chairs, keeping their heads above water.
The water was surprisingly warm, almost soothing. God's small gift to them.
"We've got to find a way out," Monnie complained, as was her want.
He indicated out the window where a shark tail glided past. "Feel free." Because beyond the sharks were bright flashes of red and orange. As a matter of fact, their jet had gone down nose first into a lava flow. Slowly, they drifted down the molten slope.
So perhaps he should not have characterized the pilot and copilot as dead. They were more dissolved down to their elemental components than simply deceased.
"I do have to say," Benedicto said, pulling his mask away for a moment, "the Disciples know how to treat a guest."
"How long will the oxygen last?" Monnie asked.
Frellan did not bother to answer her. Their SOS had gone out. They were only a few miles off the coast of Israel. If there was anywhere to crash-land into a volcano surrounded by sharks, it was here.
He looked over to Mikhal, who stood stoically as always. Without even a mask on. Frellan would never speak it aloud, but standing here, waiting while sharks circled, he began to understand the sniper perhaps a bit more.
"We can't have more than a half an hour of oxygen," Monnie informed the group.
Ah, dear sweet innocent Monnie. Now she had stirred fear. Fear he would now need to extinguish. He gave the slightest nod to Mikhal. Three muted pops sounded and half of their mercenaries slumped forward, abandoning their now useless oxygen masks.
Monnie sucked hard on her mask, those pretty green eyes of hers dilating. She did, however, quiet.
Sometimes stillness did win the game.
CHAPTER 26.
Undisclosed Location 3:27 p.m. (EST) Bunny burst in to find the attic in just as much disarray as she had left it. Stark's mom was right behind her.
"Oh, honey," she chided, "how many times have I told you to bring your dishes downstairs?"
"Mom!" Stark exclaimed, pointing to the all the red flashing lights.
The woman gave out a heavy sigh as she sat down at a workstation. "All's I am saying is a messy desk leads to a messy mind."
"I'm sorry," Prenner said, shaking his head as the woman logged in. "But we can't have a someone without the proper-"
Stark stood up. "Look. My mom might or might not have been on the FBI's most wanted cyber crimes list during the nineties. She may or may not be in the Witness Protection Program. She may or may not be foreign royalty." He put his hands on his mom's shoulders. "What I can say for sure is that she is the best damn hacker I know. If we want to save Brandt and the rest, we've got to let her help."
Finally, Prenner nodded.
Stark's mom patted her son's hand. "That was so sweet, dear. However, it isn't going to get you out of trouble for laying down such sloppy code. Your reliance on spaghetti code is really not doing you any good."
"Mom," Stark complained as he sat down at the desk again.
Bunny looked up as footage of a volcano played out. "What's that?"
"Oh," Emily chimed in, "there are now four volcanoes in the Mediterranean, Rebecca's plane crashed, and Vakasa's micro-tremors have stopped."
"Oh, is that all?" Bunny groaned. She just went downstairs and maybe grabbed a Tab cola, but that was it.
Stark's mom nodded to the screen. "Hon, you worry about where that little girl got off to. I'll handle this hacker punk."
Immediately, the red flashing lights faded out as the normal lights came back on, and then there was silence. No alarms. No buzzers. No klaxons.
For the first time in two days, Bunny felt like they might actually be in control.
Brandt sloshed through the shoreline waters of Palmahim, a small Israeli beachside resort. He carried Rebecca in his arms. Not that she was injured, they just needed her to look injured.
The other men followed along, abandoning their floating plane. They'd hit the shore just in time, as the hold had taken on too much water for even the lifeboats to hold up. A crowd met them at the water's edge.
Davidson explained in Hebrew that their plane had been downed by the volcano and that Rebecca needed immediate medical help. For once, it was a good thing there wasn't a doctor in the house.
One of the older men pointed to his old beat-up Hyundai pickup truck. He handed the keys off to Davidson. That was the kid for you. Even scarred up, he could charm the coat off an Eskimo.
Brandt loaded his fiancee into the back as the other men piled into the cab. He hugged Rebecca close as Lopez pulled them out of the seaside parking lot and onto the road. Not until they turned the corner, heading east toward Jerusalem, did Brandt let her up.
"Great job."