'But I still don't understand,' Ben replied. 'If you wanted to make an example of Angelo, if you wanted to' — he hesitated for a moment — 'to kill him, you've had loads of chances. But you haven't been doing that. You've been helping us. You've been saving us.' As he spoke, Ben felt a surge of hope. Maybe Danny was in two minds; maybe he couldn't bring himself to do what he felt he had to do.
But that hope was instantly crushed.
'You don't get it, do you?'
Ben stared at Danny, his stomach tied up in knots again, and shook his head.
Danny's face remained stony hard. 'The hijacking. That was our main plan. We were to fly the plane directly into the oil refinery. It would be on every television screen in the world, and when we let it be known that the son of the refinery owner was on the plane, the plight of my sister would be known by everyone.' His eyes narrowed again. 'We were not expecting the hurricane, and so we had to move fast. Everything went perfectly, until you got involved.'
He glanced meaningfully at Ben. Ben jutted his chin out and stared back.
'Of course, we always knew our plan was risky; we always knew there was a chance it would not work. That's why I remained in the cabin. In the event that we landed safely, I was to apprehend Angelo and carry out the second part of our plan.'
'And what's that?' Ben demanded.
Danny looked as if he was considering whether to reply. In the end he shrugged, as if to say, What harm can come of it? 'My aim since then has been to get Angelo safely to the oil refinery. That is where we are headed now. We have bought the services of a—' Danny searched for the word, the first time Ben had seen his English falter all day. 'A mercenary. As we speak, he is planting explosive devices at the refinery. When we get there, he will make a videotape of Angelo tied up. After the explosion, he will distribute the videotape to news outlets worldwide, while I let them know why this has happened.' He glanced over at Ben once more. 'Angelo's father has done terrible things to us, Ben,' he whispered. 'The world must see how he pays the price.'
Even as Danny spoke, Ben felt the words 'You're insane' forming on his lips. He kept quiet, however — some kind of sixth sense told him that would be a very bad thing to say to Danny, especially now. Instead he asked the question that was burning in his mind.
'What about me?'
Danny's face twitched. 'You're in the wrong place at the wrong time,' he said. He sounded genuinely regretful.
Sounds like the story of my life, Ben thought to himself. He didn't say it out loud, though. His mind was working overtime as he tried to think of a way to get out of the car, to raise the alarm and stop all this from happening. 'You haven't got any argument with me,' he said. 'Why don't you just let me out? Whatever you have to do with Angelo doesn't need to involve me — I hardly even know the guy.'
Danny smiled a sad little smile. 'Nice try, Ben,' he said quietly. 'But you're too resourceful for me to let you go free. You might even have escaped the panthers if I'd left you back there. So I decided to bring you with me. You've been a good friend to Angelo over the past few hours. And it's only right that good friends should be together at the end, isn't it?'
Ben blinked as the implication of what Danny was saying sank in.
'I'm sorry, Ben,' Danny continued without looking at him. 'You shouldn't really have to die. But I can't risk you messing this up. You'll be with Angelo when the refinery blows. You don't need to worry about it. It'll be quick and painless. The explosion's going to be very, very big. It will all be over for you in a second.'
And with that, Danny increased the speed of the pick-up, his face a picture of concentration as he negotiated the road and the storm and tried to keep the truck from being blown from side to side in the howling, powerful gales.
Chapter Thirteen
As far as he could tell, the refinery was completely deserted now. He was glad he had taken the worker's uniform, however, because the yellow hard hat protected his head from the debris flying dangerously around in the terrifyingly strong winds. Even so, he had to keep his head down and his forearm across his eyes in order to move further into the metal jungle with any kind of safety.
The noise of the wind seemed to bounce off the huge metal towers and canisters that surrounded him. It was as though there were sirens all around him, shrieking impossibly loudly, warning him not to go any further. 'Danger!' the gales seemed to shout. 'Danger!' The mercenary put that fanciful thought from his mind. He was here to do a job. It would have been a lot easier without the storm, but he wasn't going to let a freak of the weather get in his way. He'd only received half his money so far; the rest was payable when the refinery became a fireball. He had to make sure that happened; and he had to make sure he was a long way from there when it did. A long way away and a good deal richer — as soon as the tapes reached the media. He concentrated on that one thought as he pushed onwards.
He was in a covered area now, its vaulted roof supported by huge metal girders. The wind still blew through it, but it was a little less severe. He didn't slow his pace, however. The whole structure was creaking ominously, as though its skeleton was being pushed to breaking point. It was almost a relief to get back out into the open air. Ahead of him, looming in the near-distance, was a large container tower, bigger than the rest, dominating this part of the immense refinery like a skyscraper in the middle of a village. He grunted in satisfaction: this was where he was headed. The first device needed to be placed against the shell of this tower to cause maximum devastation. He would be destroying others, too, but this was the important one.
Minutes later he was at the base of the tower. A metal ladder stretched up to the top of it, but before he climbed that he needed to prepare the device. He sheltered as best he could from the wind behind the wall of a small Portakabin, then opened his bag and felt inside.
He had five blocks of C-4 plastic explosive in his bag, each of them weighing 500 grams. They were small — not much bigger than a bar of soap — but it was a powerful variety and he knew it would be enough to rip through the shell of the oil container. Once that happened, of course, the thing would go up like a rocket. He pulled out one of the blocks, then fished around for one of the tiny fuses he had carefully constructed the previous day. The fuse itself was only a little bigger than the block of plastic explosive: a black metal box with two sharp prongs sticking out of it. Inside there was a powerful magnet and an electronic receiver — small, but with a long range. It needed to be, if he was going to get far enough away to activate the fuse remotely.
Once the device was prepared, he clutched it firmly in his hand and approached the ladder.
The mercenary didn't need to climb too high, but it was still a precarious business as he clutched the ladder with one hand, the device with the other and braved the powerful winds that almost seemed to be trying to knock him off. By the time he reached the bottom of the canister, he was sweating profusely and his muscles ached from the exertion. He held on tight as he stretched out the hand which held the bomb and clamped the device firmly to the metal of the massive canister. To his satisfaction, the device stuck fast. He clutched the ladder with both hands and slowly, carefully, climbed back down.
One down. Four to go. Everything was proceeding according to plan. He turned his back on the main tower and went in search of the remaining locations.
Danny and Ben travelled in silence. There wasn't much more to say.
Night was beginning to fall and the pick-up's headlamps shone brightly. They illuminated the bits of vegetation and who knows what else that were swirling ahead of them, as well as lighting up the road. At one point, Ben was convinced he saw the huge cylindrical shape of a massive snake crawling over a fallen tree. A python? He shuddered. He vaguely wondered too what had happened to the cabin crew and other passengers from the plane. He had seen no sign of them as they drove towards the outside edges of the Everglades. He supposed they had found transport out, like themselves, but he didn't really dwell on the question. There were more pressing matters now, after all.