“What’s so funny?”
“Before nightfall you’ll be so parched and insane from thirst that you’ll be drinking the shit-filled water from the toilet.”
Jenkins shuddered as Kincaid’s high-pitched cackle filled the cell.
07:20 AM
It was another blistering hot day as Luke and Sophie stood by the chain-link fence next to the metal gates guarding the small private airstrip; the tarmac shimmered with a heat-haze, making the main office in the distance appear like a mirage. A small crowd had gathered. Luke touched his firearm for reassurance. “They’re probably friendly.”
“How do you figure that?”
“They’re civilians trying to escape.”
How are we going to get in? She asked, pointing at the padlocked gates. Luke eyed a nearby truck. She followed his line of sight. “How are you going to start it?”
He jumped in the cab. “Friends in low places,” he said and yanked wires from under the dash. “Misspent youth. The noisy diesel engine clattered into life, he smirked. “Jump in.”
She hopped up into the cab, and he shifted the stick into gear. “I still don’t see how this is going to get us into the airstrip?”
He concentrated on the gates, and once again, she followed his line of vision, “Oh no…” she held on tight as Luke revved the engine, slipped the clutch and catapulted across the street, smashing through the gates easily. They dragged underneath with a terrible screeching of metal, alerting the crowd by the main office.
A short fat guy raised a rifle, as did the other armed members of the crowd. Luke alighted from the truck cab, with his hands raised. “Get back in your truck.” said the fat man. “And drive away.”
“We wanna escape — same as you,” Luke said evenly.
“Let me see…” said a lanky pencil thin man standing on the wing of a private jet. “How much they’re willing to pay?” he said.
“Hey, you already agreed my price,” a blonde woman said indignantly.
“There’s only one seat and it’s going to the highest bidder.”
“That’s disgraceful,” said Sophie in disgust. “Take a larger plane, then you can take more people.”
“Listen, lady, I ain’t no charity, I’m getting me out of here. Now, if I can make a few bucks auctioning the other seat, well, that’s just the American way. So do we have any higher bids?”
“I’ll give you my house!”
“In plague city, uhuh, I don’t think so.”
“I’ll give you my car.”
“Why would I want a car when I’ve got a plane? I’ve told you; it’s cold hard cash. No more bids? OK Blondie, I’m all yours.”
She glared at him angrily, and then trotted over to the small-two seater Cessna TT. The crowd surged towards him, and he waved his pistol threateningly at them. “Don’t tempt me, I’ll shoot.”
Luke said; “Fly it low, man, and away from the major airports, otherwise—”
“Are you a pilot?” he asked. The others in the crowd turned hopefully towards him.
“No, but—”
“Then shut the fuck up. I’ve been doing this for years. It’s going to be pedal to the metal up, up and away.” He opened the aircraft door, clambered into the driver’s seat to leave the blonde woman standing on the wing.
“I don’t think I want to go…,” the blonde woman said nervously.
“Don’t go. Stay. I don’t care. But, I’ll tell you this, I’m keeping your money and I’ll sell the seat to someone else.”
“Me!” shot up a hand.
“No, me!” said a man, yanking the previous bidder back so hard he fell over onto the cement. A lady stepped on him to raise herself and catch the pilot's eye.
“Me, sir, I’ll do anything to get out of Florida!” she begged.
The pilot looked her up and down and sneered. “Not my type.”
A young man pushed the lady out of his way and she tripped over the prone man still on the ground. “I’ll do it, anything you desire, just get me out of here!”
The blonde-haired woman noted their desperation and reluctantly climbed in.
The crowd groaned, but the youth jumped on the wing. “You ain’t going anywhere without me.” He walked towards the door and the pilot raised his pistol and shot him in the stomach, the boy staggered back, looked down in disbelief at the blood pumping from between his fingers and fell off the wing.
Sophie gasped at the dead teenager and shuddered at the pilot’s cold-heartedness, but the message got through to the crowd and they backed away as the single engine propeller chugged into life.
“Come on,” Luke said galvanizing the crowd. “Let’s see if one of the private jets has been left unlocked.”
The gang spread out, rattling handles, when Luke eyed a nine passenger Citation XLS-seater high wing luxury jet, he muttered a silent prayer as he looked heavenward, he tried the handle and it opened. “Cool!” he turned to the others. “Over here, this one’s unlocked. We can all get on it.”
“You’re gonna fly us out of here?” Sophie asked in surprise.
“I’m going to do my damndest,” he said and smiled confidently.
“Don’t tell me, ‘Friends in low places — misspent youth?’”
“Well, if you’re going to crash it, make sure it’s into the Four Points Hotel,” a scruffy ex-soldier grumbled. “Jumpin’ Jack’s commandeered it; made it his campaign head-quarters.”
“General Malloy is here in the zone? Are you sure?” asked Sophie.
“I served under that bastard in Iraq. I’d recognize him anywhere, even in a hazmat suit. An army buddy of mine has been watching them set up. The communication post is on the roof. Long and short wave antennas, satellite dishes, you name it, they got it. It’s how they organize the death squads so efficiently.”
Sophie explained to the crowd Luke’s lack of credentials as a flyer, yet they all scrambled aboard anyway. Luke flicked some switches and the dials flipped into life. His eyes flicked around the instrument panel familiarizing himself with them. “Altitude, wind-speed, knots, fuel…” he read out to himself.
Luke watched the light aircraft taxiing up the runway, and he followed suit. The pencil thin pilot revved the engine, shot down the runway and climbed as high and as fast as the craft could handle.
Sophie sat next to Luke in the co-pilots seat and kept her eye on the departing Cessna as it zoomed up into the clear blue sky and on its way to freedom.
She said to Luke. “Do you know what you are doing?”
“More or less, how hard can it be?” He grinned at her winningly, and pulled back on the control yoke, making her head thrust back into the headrest. “When we reach maximum speed it will pretty much take off on its own, at least that’s the theory.”
He trundled down the runway, at full throttle, gradually gaining speed, but they were fast running out of space. “C’mon… c’mon!” He growled willing the jet to reach optimum airspeed.
Sophie watched the light aircraft in front as it soared higher and higher into the early morning sky, when a surface-to-air missile whooshed from the direction of the ocean towards the Cessna and blew it to kingdom come.
Luke swiftly pushed forwards on the throttle and his aircraft slowed, enough to abort take-off, but not enough for them to miss the perimeter fence. “Not again!” he yelled. He could hear his passengers in the back screaming and he aimed for the gates. “Breath in,” he joked to Sophie as the fuselage of the jet squeezed through the gap in the gates, and the wings cleared the top of the fence by a whisker, then they were out of the airport and speeding down the street, where they overtook a lone army jeep.
“Holy shit!” said the startled driver as the wing passed over his head. He screeched to a halt leaving a trail of rubber behind him. He took a few moments to recover, then gulped and picked up his radio handset. “This is Bravo-William One. You are never gonna believe what’s heading your way, over.”