“There’s another one?” He said before he swiped the phone and pushed play.
Chapter 8
The director sat in the only forward-facing seat, with Mila on his right. Behind the pilot and co-pilot, four former Royal Marines Commandos sat two by two across from each other. The twin-engine AS365 N3+ helicopter whirred and purred as it lifted off and he watched Il Ferdinand get smaller and smaller until it was nothing but a dot in the distance. It was some time since he’d traveled by copter — the last time, in fact, was what he swore would be the final time.
Helicopters tended to be a loud, crude means of travel, nothing like travel by luxury yacht, but this was something else. Fast, quiet, comfortable. He could even hear the sound of his own voice without shouting and that was a plus because helicopters were usually so loud passengers not only had to wear headsets to communicate but to keep the drone of the engines from deafening them.
In truth, he hadn’t even thought about traveling by helicopter. Not many could fly from Sicily, scoop them up from the middle of the Mediterranean, and get them to Malta without having to refuel several times. The Dauphin was an exception, with a range of about 500 nautical miles and a cruise speed of 145 knots. “Almost six times faster than Il Ferdinand,” Mila said, grinning. “I told you that you wouldn’t hate this.”
That she seemed to be reading his mind at times was one of many reasons his infatuation with her had lasted so long. Brains, beauty and personality were rare qualities, rare qualities indeed. Rarer still was a woman of such substance who could kill a man seventeen different ways with her bare hands.
“Transit time, about 2 hours and 39 minutes,” the pilot said over the intercom. “Pretty close on fuel by then so no go rounds or sightseeing.”
It was the director’s turn to grin. He didn’t plan on sightseeing. He planned on using the hours saved to get his house in order.
“Relax or you’re going to have a coronary,” Mila said, tittering beside him in her short skirt and bikini top. When he didn’t listen, she pushed him forcefully back against the soft leather of the plush seat and kissed him full on the lips, climbing onto his lap. “Whatever, I wonder, shall we do for two whole hours.” She pushed his fingers into the soft moist place beneath her belly button. “Any ideas?”
Before things got too hot and heavy, she jumped up and closed the thick privacy curtain between the cockpit and the passenger cabin. The leather satchels and hard cases she stepped around on her way to and from the forward area contained much of the director’s personal armory. Machine guns, grenades, and pistols mostly, but also a Mile Maker customized by TrackingPoint to his exacting personal specifications and then further modified to perfection. Having seen the precision guided firearm in live field tests, he knew his custom model was as close to the $40K off-the-shelf version as a Ferrari 458 was to a Volkswagen Jetta.
The custom-milled steel barrel still fired .338 magnums, but the basic rounds were the only components that were stock, if the shooter used them at all and usually they didn’t, preferring rounds they poured and sculpted themselves. No other weapon in the world could shoot around corners and over hills. No other weapon could shoot at Lincoln’s eyes on a penny from a mile away and hit not once but every single time regardless of wind and weather.
Stock models accomplished these feats using lasers, microprocessors, a Linux-based operating system and Recon Jet shooting glasses that connected to the smart scope. His one-of-a-kind custom coupled infrared, ultraviolet, and night vision with onboard radar, sonar and military-grade facial recognition software, and could be operated by radio control from a custom app on a smartphone. It meant not only could the shooter kill someone from a mile away, but the shooter could be miles away when the deed was done.
“Mind if I go to work?” Mila said, glancing back to the other occupants of the passenger compartment. “A girl’s got to earn her keep.”
The four commandos continued staring straight ahead, as if they hadn’t heard her say anything. It wouldn’t be the first time they’d seen Mila give him a go round or likely the last.
“Where was I?” she said, teasing him with the tip of a finger pushed against his lips while coaxing his hand back to where it had been inside her.
He could have stopped her from climbing back on top of him, but he didn’t. “Not too loud. Don’t want to distract the pilot.”
She pushed his hand deeper inside her. “I’ll try, but no promises.” She purred and nibbled his ear. “Besides, I know you like it when I scream…”
He knew what she was doing was as much about power as it was about anything else. He didn’t mind giving her control over him in this way and so he tried to give himself over to her. While her nimble hands worked his buckle and zipper and pants, her lips and tongue worked against his.
“Eyes front,” she whispered. “No distractions, just me.”
Her lethalness was something only she and he knew for a certainty and her public exhibitions were as disarming as they were alarming. Nothing like keeping a chained tiger in public view for people who thought the tiger was a fuzzy sex kitten.
“You’re too good to me,” he said between her kisses and caresses. “Too good.”
Chapter 9
Scott slipped out of the security office, moving low behind Edie. The hall looked empty, but neither of them were taking any chances. The extra magazines in his pockets clinked a little louder than he was comfortable with as he went to his full height.
He heard Master Chief Robert’s voice in his head. “Scott, I don’t know who to trust. I’m trusting your man, er woman, here, because you did, and I’m trusting you because so many people seem to want to kill you, and because you saved the lives of a lot of good men today. Damned luckiest swinging dick walking, if you don’t mind me saying. If you’re seeing this things haven’t gone exactly according to plan, but they never do, do they?”
His pulse quickened at the thought of what was ahead and yet he couldn’t stop thinking about what was behind either. He entered the stairwell with Edie, feeling stronger, less clouded. The surgery he remembered wasn’t actually his first. He’d been knocked out cold for the first, and the second was something Edie and the chief cooked up for the benefit of Peyton who was given a ringside seat to the spectacle while handcuffed to a hospital bed with armed guards on either side.
The goal was to make her think he was completely out of play and having her think she’d incapacitated him by ripping apart both his hands was one way to do it. But there was more, much more. Letting Peyton think she got herself onto the same medivac chopper as him gave her opportunity and letting her slip away from her guards gave her a chance to do whatever she was going to do.
Obviously, she was supposed to try to slip away while being tracked to whatever accomplices she was working with or whatever her true goal was. Deciding to come back for him wasn’t something they counted on, but the protective detail should have been enough to keep him safe. Peyton herself was wounded, a series of nasty stabs to the chest from a long thin blade. “Someone was very angry when they did that,” the chief said, “Her accomplice maybe — the ringer for Midshipman Tinsdale. But why?”
“Can you keep up?” Edie whispered.