He didn’t need an answer as the powerful landing lights lit up the sky and the massive Russian airliner screamed overhead and landed on the runway ahead of him.
Adam looked up from under the desk and watched as the colossal airliner, far larger than any normal plane at Laredo, taxied towards the terminal building. Adam looked around wildly for the procedure manual. He was on his own and a large international flight had just arrived, claiming to be suffering from a malfunction of some kind. On finding the manual, he quickly realized the incident wasn’t covered, certainly not when the airport was effectively closed in the middle of the night and one member of staff was on duty.
Adam donned a high-vis safety vest, grabbed a torch, his cell and headed down to the chaos he expected below.
As he walked, he called the airport’s operations chief, his boss. He quickly explained what had happened to the somewhat sleepy executive and was informed he would be arriving there within the half hour.
As he approached the aircraft, the four main doors opened and an internal stairway began to appear from the hold of the aircraft and within five minutes, Adam was surrounded by over 300 bewildered passengers. None of them spoke English and from what he could tell, they had as much difficulty understanding the Russian stewardesses.
A few minutes later, as the chaos was beginning to reach fever pitch, the captain appeared at the top of the stairs and announced everything was OK, they had identified the problem and were good to go.
“Err, sorry,” coughed Adam as it appeared the captain was simply going to reload his passengers and leave.
“It was just a faulty fuse, all fixed,” he explained as Adam rushed up the stairs to stop them.
“You can’t just take off. We need to file an incident report, contact the FAA…”
The captain gave Adam his best poster smile. “Son, I’m the Captain with a staff of fourteen and three hundred passengers keen to get to their destination. You’re one little guy, now get the fuck off my steps before I throw you off!”
Adam looked at the smile on the captain’s face and suddenly realized there was a complete lack of any warmth behind it. As good as it looked, it was only skin deep. The menace in his voice had Adam retracing his steps and praying his boss arrived before the plane had a chance to leave. It seemed unlikely. An order was barked at the passengers that were milling around the aircraft and almost as one, they disappeared back on board. The stairway began to retract back into the hold and as the final door closed, the plane began to taxi to the runway. Without so much as a request for clearance, the plane powered up its four massive engines and shot into the sky. The final act of the bizarre scene being its somewhat magical disappearance as the lights extinguished almost the second it left the ground.
Adam was left looking into the blackness of an empty sky and wondering if he had just dreamed the last twenty minutes when the screech of his boss’ tires brought him back to reality.
“Adam, what the hell are you doing down here?” asked his confused boss, pointing to the control tower. “Get up there and help the plane down.”
“They’ve been down,” he said meekly and then launched into what had happened, from the first mayday to the captain threatening to throw him off the plane.
Unfortunately for Adam, there would be no evidence of any plane having landed. While he was distracted by the multitude of passengers, two technicians had made their way to the tower and successfully doctored any record of their landing at Laredo. Every detail was wiped, even down to the customer service webcam that broadcast the exciting movements on Laredo’s runway. If anybody checked the flight number, they would find it had landed hours earlier at LAX, without incident and was in fact an Airbus A330. No Ilyushin had been used on the LA route for many years.
To add to Adam’s woes, a small stash of extremely potent Marijuana had been left near his workstation.
What Adam would never know was that the Ilyushin was no ordinary Ilyushin and was in fact one of a few experimental and highly secret ghost planes developed by the Russian military. Only flown at night, the plane had a slightly more angular look to its fuselage and borrowed technology stolen from the US many years earlier. Both allowed the massive jet to have the ability to appear on radar, just as Adam had thought, as a flock of birds. The other most startling ability, which Adam had managed to miss, was how quiet the engines were, barely audible over a revving car engine, allowing the plane to land and take off without alerting the local residents. All in all, Adam was going to have a very hard job convincing anyone of the plane’s existence.
As for the plane itself, within ten minutes, it was back cruising at 40,000 feet and taking three hundred rather bewildered Venezuelan tourists back to Venezuela, after a somewhat shorter than anticipated and promised trip to America. It had also deposited ten of General Yuri Borodin’s most experienced Spetsnaz troops deep in the heart of Laredo. Fresh from jungle training in Venezuela, the soldiers were ready to serve their General and kill Sean Fox.
Chapter 35
Sean arrived at the rest stop, as directed by Luis. Sean had had many bizarre working arrangements in his time with the CIA but he had to admit working with the nephew of the boss of a major drug cartel to supply him with the contacts in order to secure the East coast drug distribution rights was pretty much out there. Not for the first time he chastised himself for not going to the beach. But then James would still have been kidnapped and Katie would have had no hope of ever seeing him again. He chastised himself for chastising himself about the beach. Whether Los Zetas or the Gulf got the contacts, someone would and in the end, what difference did it make? A huge one but he had to think of young innocent James and not the lives of all the drug users he was condemning. Shit, why hadn’t he just gone to the beach.
Thankfully, before he could continue his circle of self-flagellation, headlights lit up the darkness of the rest stop and Luis pulled up alongside. The first issue Sean noted was the unexpected passenger; it seemed Luis had gained another bodyguard. The second issue was the rather clever second bodyguard who had waited until Sean had been distracted by the arrival of Luis to appear and place his gun firmly against the back of Sean’s head, through the open window of the Corolla.
As Luis and the first bodyguard exited their car, Sean noticed that the beating Luis had received had been significant. At least he hadn’t been given up without a fight. His judge of character remained intact. If little else, it was at least one plus point. The second, most welcome plus point, was the look of surprise on the bodyguards’ faces when they recognized who Sean was. Luis had obviously not divulged Sean’s identity to his uncle. The two guards crossed themselves at the sight of the man they had witnessed El Jefe carve to pieces some months earlier.
And that was the final and third plus point. Their strong belief in God sent them straight to their maker. Sean didn’t need another invitation. With the gunman’s hands busy crossing himself, Luis’ Desert Eagle which had been sitting on Sean’s lap, blew a hole through the door of the Corolla and cut the guard almost in half. Before the second guard had a chance to finish his left hand cross, Sean had sent him to hell, heaven or wherever the scum prayed to go.
“Did you get the rifle?” asked Sean, ignoring the two guards had even existed. His mind was on the clock and time was running away.
Luis nodded and walked painfully back towards his car to retrieve the weapon. Sean wasted no time and jumped out of the Corolla, stepping carefully over the latest casualty of the drug wars and retrieved the corpse from his trunk. As he was about to dump the body into Luis’ trunk, he considered the options. He now had another two potential shooters to frame.