Tracie dropped to one knee and sighted down the barrel of the Beretta. “Drop it right now!” she screamed, knowing Mitchell would never do so, but hoping to at least throw the crazed officer off guard. She didn’t dare shoot because the angle was wrong — there was every possibility the slug would strike Wilczynski and she would end up killing the man she was trying to save.
Mitchell glanced back in surprise at Tracie, his eyes wild, and Wilczynski took advantage of the opening, pounding a fist into the side of Mitchell’s face. Tracie could hear bones crack and she wondered as she waited for Mitchell to fall whether the broken bones were in Wilczynski’s hand or Mitchell’s face. Or both.
But Mitchell didn’t fall, and he didn’t drop the gun. He hung on, grappling with Wilczynksi, the two men jockeying for position. The B-52 again began yawing to the left as one of the fighting men jostled the yoke. “Dammit,” she muttered under her breath, itching to put Mitchell down but still without a clear shot.
Then the situation went from desperate to out of control. Mitchell released his grip on Wilczynski, taking another fist to the face but slugging Wilczynski in his wounded shoulder with the butt of his gun. Wilczynski’s eyes rolled up in his head and he slumped back, but before Tracie could squeeze off a shot, Mitchell pulled the trigger. The bullet caught Stan Wilczynski on the side of the head and knocked him sideways, blood misting.
Tracie didn’t hesitate. She fired, and Mitchell slumped against the B-52’s instrument panel like a rag doll. She fired again and the second shot hit home as well. She fired a third time, and Mitchell’s body crumpled to the floor. She kept her gun trained on him, breathing heavily.
There was no doubt Mitchell was dead.
It appeared everyone was dead inside one of the most complex aircraft ever manufactured.
And she didn’t know how to fly.
14
Stan Wilczynski had a headache. A bad one. It wasn’t like waking up after having a few too many cold ones at the OC, and it wasn’t like the dull throb at the back of the skull he was prone to getting when overtired. It was more like someone had taken a ballpeen hammer to the side of his head.
He groaned and tried to roll over. Maybe if he could sleep a little longer the damned headache would go away. But he couldn’t turn onto his side. He was stuck. Must have gotten twisted up in the sheets. He opened his eyes reluctantly and the pain intensified, a battering ram blasting through his head, building and building until he was afraid his skull would explode.
He blinked hard and his blurry vision doubled and tripled, and it occurred to him with sudden, terrifying clarity that he was dying. He closed his eyes again, willing the pain to go away. It lessened slightly. Thank God for small favors.
Then he realized someone was talking to him. It was a woman’s voice, but it was not a voice he recognized. The voice was tense, worried, speaking to him calmly but insistently. Even with the pain blasting through his head, Stan could sense the intensity behind the words. He kept his eyes closed and concentrated hard. “Stay with me,” the voice was saying. “You can do it. Stay with me and breathe.”
And Stan remembered.
He wasn’t in bed at all. He was in the cockpit of a B-52. He had been flying that female CIA agent back to Andrews Air Force Base from West Germany when Tom Mitchell had gone stark, raving mad, murdering poor Nate Berenger and then shooting Stan. He remembered struggling with Mitchell for his weapon. He couldn’t remember how the struggle had ended, although it seemed suddenly clear he had lost it.
Their passenger must have subdued Mitchell and was now trying to save his life. He didn’t want to open his eyes, having no desire to re-experience the agony associated with doing so a moment ago, but he knew he had to. He screwed up his courage, praying for strength. Then he blinked his eyes open, doing his best to ignore the accompanying flash of pain.
The CIA agent — he tried to recall her name and couldn’t — knelt over him, holding her blood-soaked jacket to his head. Stan knew the blood was his and tried to ignore it. He felt light-headed, weak and disoriented. He focused on his rescuer and her stunning red hair, and after a moment three blurry CIA agents became two, and then one. She was still talking to him, calm and encouraging, but her ashen face gave away her concern. “Welcome back to the land of the living,” she said tightly.
“Great to be back,” he mumbled. “But I’m not sure how long I’ll be here.” He felt woozy and his stomach rolled. “How bad is it?”
“I’m not going to lie to you,” she said. “It’s bad. I’m not even sure how you’re conscious right now. Mitchell’s second shot struck you in the head.”
“Who’s flying the plane right now?” he asked, struggling to stay conscious.
“No one. I managed to straighten the wings and return us more or less to a straight flight path, but we’re slowly descending.” Her voice sounded thin and reedy and she was clearly fighting panic.
“Have you radioed for help?”
“Not yet. I’ve been a little preoccupied.”
“Right. Sorry about that.” Stan nodded and instantly regretted doing so. The pain in his head, which had diminished slightly, returned full-force. The battering ram had taken a break and a sledgehammer took its place. He closed his eyes and concentrated on settling his upset stomach. He knew if he tossed his cookies, the pain would explode and he would probably lose consciousness. If that happened, he doubted he would ever reawaken.
Stan forced himself to focus. The lure of sleep was almost overwhelming; he wanted nothing more than to let go and leave this nightmare behind. But it was obvious the CIA agent wasn’t a pilot and would never be able to land the B-52 herself. It was impressive that she had managed to straighten the wings — the BUFF must have been in the slightest of rolls — but after that she had clearly run out of ideas.
He opened his eyes. The pain rolled back in like a massive tsunami but stopped just short of unmanageable. “Let’s get this big hunk of metal on the ground, shall we?” His vision blurred and then cleared.
She sighed, her relief palpable. “Absolutely. What do I do first?”
“You get the hell out of my way and let me fly.”
15
The badly injured pilot was out of his seat, crumpled on the floor, and Tracie knew sliding him upright would be a risky proposition. He had already lost a lot of blood by the time she reached him, and she had been forced to pick one of his two bullet wounds to apply pressure to. The choice had been easy — the head trumped every other part of the body in terms of importance — but blood continued to ooze sluggishly from his shoulder wound whenever he moved.
She would have to let go of the jacket she was pressing against Wilczynski’s skull in order to lift him. He was not a huge man, but she was much smaller, and although she had no doubt she could lift him, she knew she could never manage it one-handed.
The same thought seemed to occur to Wilczynski and he said, “Wait. We have a first-aid kit aboard the aircraft. I think you should bandage my head wound before we try to do anything else.”