He landed on the arm where he’d been shot and winced in pain. Yulana sprang to her feet like a cat, then helped him stand up.
They’d dropped into a mobile-home park. A big Hispanic guy, alerted by the sound of gunfire, had just come out of his trailer holding his car keys, keys to a faded blue 1965 Chevy sitting in the driveway. Kit and Yulana stumbled out of the darkness toward the man.
“Keys,” said Kit, pointing the gun into the man’s face. The gun was empty, but the Hispanic man didn’t know that.
The man looked at the gun, looked at Yulana, then looked at Kit and his bloody arm. He didn’t appear to be either frightened or impressed. He finally tossed him the keys and said, “Try not to wreck it. And don’t get blood on my upholstery! It’s custom tuck-and-roll.”
“If they don’t kill me, I’ll return it with a cash bonus,” said Kit, dead serious.
“Who’s they?”
“Russian Mafia. There’s a whole bunch of them on the other side of your wall.” Kit’s eyes dropped for just a moment to the man’s waist. A chrome-plated .357 Magnum revolver was tucked into the front of his pants. As Bennings’s eyes met the Hispanic man’s, Kit’s demeanor morphed into pure bloodlust killer mode. His eyes now looked… deranged? Psychotic? He bore them into the man as a warning not to go for his pistol.
Perhaps the Hispanic man had spent time in jail, or perhaps he’d just rubbed elbows with the criminally insane, but he seemed to recognize the power behind Kit’s gaze.
“The Russians are some bad mothers,” said the man. He wasn’t afraid, and he looked hard at Kit, sizing him up. He then gestured with his head, “Better get your asses out of here.”
Kit and Yulana piled into the car, and when Kit turned the key, it rumbled to life with the kind of sounds that made street racers all warm and fuzzy. So what if it didn’t look like much? It was a four-on-the-floor and ran like a lizard.
Ran, in fact, all the way to the outskirts of Albuquerque, using mostly side streets.
They stopped at an all-night convenience store for snacks and simple medical supplies. Back in the Chevy, in the backseat, Yulana bandaged his arm as he ravenously consumed ready-made sandwiches and energy drinks.
“The bleeding is not so bad,” she said, finishing.
“Your turn.”
She looked confused.
“The cut on your back from when Buzz took out the chip,” said Kit.
She turned her back to him and lowered her blouse. He rubbed antibiotic ointment into the nasty gash where Buzz had used his pocketknife to cut out the tracking chip. He then gently applied bandages.
“Okay, you’re golden. Until we can get you stitched up proper so you won’t have a big-ass scar.”
She turned around to face him and slowly buttoned her blouse. Somehow Kit pulled his eyes from her and fished a tablet computer from his backpack. He logged into a GPS software program.
“The key is K-I-T-1,” she said.
He smiled. “If I can’t remember that one, then I’m hopeless.” He entered the key, and the signal popped up on the screen. His eyes narrowed and mouth tightened into a frown.
“The bomb is on the move. And I mean it’s moving; it must be on a plane, probably a small jet.”
He looked up at her. So at least his instincts regarding Yulana were correct; she was on his side after all. The GPS tracking was working perfectly. He felt guilty for having suspected her after all she had done. It was the sole positive thing he could latch onto on a day that had seen radical swings of momentum.
“What a rotten piece of luck. Popov has the e-bomb! We barely got out of Sandia before the bastard grabbed it. It’s like winning a gold medal, but it gets snatched before you make it to the reviewing stand.”
How would he explain this to Padilla? To anyone?
“No, it’s worse than that,” he went on. “I’ve lost my bargaining chip to get Staci back. And I’ve got no one to blame but myself.”
As he watched the device continuing to head west on the tablet screen, his eyes grew heavy. He hadn’t slept in days and couldn’t think clearly. Blood loss was minimal, but he felt woozy, anyway. A thousand thoughts were rushing through his brain, when Yulana leaned in and gently stroked his cheek. He snapped out of his hyperactive thought process and was suddenly calmed as he lost himself in the sweet depths of her eyes.
She tenderly touched his hand. Bennings felt a powerful desire to take Yulana Petkova right there in the backseat of the Chevy. He let that desire wash over him for about two seconds before forcing his cerebral nature to take over again. Stay focused on the mission, was a concept drilled into his brain, so he pulled his hand away from hers.
“You know what I want to do with you right now?” he asked.
“I can guess.”
“I want to go steal a plane.”
She showed slight surprise, then broke into a smile. “Yes. That’s what I was thinking, too.”
CHAPTER 31
Kit Bennings flew VFR, visual flight rules, under the stars in a Beechcraft Baron stolen from Double Eagle II Airport on the west side of Albuquerque. Yulana had watched in amazement as Kit used a simple screwdriver to get them past the door lock and into the cockpit. As with most planes, the pilot’s operating handbook was conveniently left in the aircraft. She and Bennings had quickly reviewed it and then engaged the master switch, magneto switches, fuel selector, boost pump, and starter switch and were in business, no keys needed, thank you very much. Within minutes they’d become airborne. She’d smiled when she thought of how many laws she’d broken since she met Kit Bennings.
After getting the feel of the plane, Kit programmed in the rest of the flight and engaged the autopilot. The cockpit of a Beechcraft Baron was quiet enough that they didn’t need to wear headphones in order to communicate. He looked tired; Yulana wasn’t sure whether she should let him sleep or keep him talking.
“Do you trust the autopilot?”
“I’d trust it more if I had used it before. So I think I’ll skip taking a nap.”
Okay, so keep him talking, she thought. “Do all American defense attachés know how to steal airplanes?” she asked.
“This one does,” he cracked. He looked over to her, as if formulating a question. “Can all Russian female scientists manipulate men so easily?”
“All women know how to fake it with men. You must know that.”
He laughed. “Sorry, I’d forgotten.”
She paused, then, “So there is no real Mrs. Bennings?”
“There was, a long time ago. The marriage lasted five years. I can’t blame her, because I was deployed so much. So she found comfort in the arms of—”
“Another man?”
“My best friend.”
“Ouch.” She hesitated, then, “Did you love her?”
“Yes, ouch, and yes, I loved her. Deeply. So I lost my two best friends.”
She thought about that. “How sad for you. It was different for me because I never loved my husband and never thought of him as a best friend. I was dating him for intellectual, rational reasons. He seemed like a good Russian man, and I thought he might perhaps make a proper life mate and father. You see, I’m an engineer—I don’t care about money, I care about stability, I care about things working properly. My friends kept pushing me to marry, but I resisted since I wasn’t at least ninety percent convinced.
“But then he refused to use a condom one night. We’d both been drinking. He forced the issue and hit me. It was the first time, but not the last. I should have ended it then, but I got pregnant and we married. He gifted me with a beautiful daughter and taught me a bitter lesson about self-respect, so I choose to only feel sorry for him and not to hate him.