Finest Hour (27 page)

On the other hand, maybe a distraction was exactly what she needed. If she could focus the man’s attention on a two-hundred-and-fifty-pound giant stomping up a small staircase, perhaps she could sneak up behind him and gain the advantage. Once he was cornered, the guard would surrender, and they could tie him up or something. The “or something” probably included Tanner whacking him on the back of the head, but at least there wouldn’t be any killing. All in all, she decided it was an excellent plan.

Samantha glanced toward the First Class cabin. The cubbyholes were plenty big enough for her to duck into. She took a small step to the right, but as she did, her foot landed in the puddle of water that had spilled earlier. The sole of her sneaker slid sideways, and she fell across one of the seats.

The Mexican spun, tightening his grip on the Spectre submachine gun.

“What the hell?” he hissed, with a thick Hispanic accent.

“It’s just me,” she said softly. Samantha left her rifle lying across the seat as she slowly stood back up.

“How did you get on this plane?”

She feigned a yawn. “I was sleeping.” She gestured toward the cockpit. “Up there.”

His brow furrowed. “Try again, chica. I checked the plane.”

“I was hiding,” she said with an innocent smile. “I’m so little, you probably just missed me.”

“Step out where I can see you better.”

She glanced down at her rifle. There was no way to get it in hand in time.

“Okay, sure,” she said, raising her hands and sidestepping away from the seat. “I’m only a kid. No reason to hurt me.”

“What’s your name?”

“I’m Samantha. What’s yours?”

He paused. “I’m Mateo.”

“That’s a nice name. It reminds me of a bull.”

The man smiled and offered a polite nod.

“You saw us come off the plane, didn’t you?”

Samantha saw no reason to lie.

“Yes, and it’s very pretty.”

“That means that you saw Mr. Vega.”

“I don’t know who Mr. Vega is,” she said, eying the cabin for a way to run. “Was he the one wearing the pink shirt? If so, it wasn’t a great color on him, not that I’m any kind of fashion expert.”

“Come on,” he said, waving the machine gun. “Out you go. I don’t want to have to shoot you.”

Samantha slowly stepped off the plane, careful not to make any sudden moves.

“You’re gonna shoot a kid for not liking a pink shirt? That’s a little extreme, don’t you think?”

Mateo looked up the ramp and then back out toward the tarmac, weighing his options.

“I won’t be any trouble, if that’s what you’re wondering,” she added.

“Believe me, that’s what everyone says when I have a gun pointed at them.”

“Really? Do you capture many people?”

“A few here and there.”

“Your job must be very interesting.”

“At times.”

She paused. “I don’t suppose you’d consider letting me go.”

He shook his head slightly. “If I let you go, Mr. Vega would have my hide, literally. I’m afraid we’re going to have to go and see him.”

She nodded. “Sure. I understand.”

“If Mr. Vega says it’s okay to let you go, then I’ll let you go.”

“And if he doesn’t?”

Mateo motioned for her to go through the door that led out to the tarmac.

“Better that we don’t talk about that.”

Tanner waited a full sixty seconds before creeping to the top of the stairs. Samantha had left the door open, and he carefully squeezed out, stepping over the small bunk. He inched forward and peeked around the corner. The forward service galley was empty, but Samantha’s rifle lay across one of the seats. He tiptoed up to the bulkhead and leaned around to look up the jet bridge.

It too was empty.

He stepped over to the service door and peered out through the small window. Samantha and one of the Mexicans were on the tarmac, heading toward the underbelly of the airplane. The guard held a Spectre submachine gun in both hands, but he was being careful to keep the muzzle pointed away from her.

Tanner hurried back onto the plane and bee-lined it for a window on the opposite side of the service galley. To his surprise, the entire gang was now standing on the starboard side of the aircraft. One of the cargo doors had been lowered, and they stared up at the open hole, clearly frustrated by what they were seeing.

The guard and Samantha came into view, and she was immediately taken to the man in the pink shirt. He smiled and talked to her for a short time before pointing up at the cargo hold. She shrugged and walked over to stand beneath the door with her arms outstretched. The guard who had marched her out stepped closer and carefully lifted her into the air until she was able to scramble up into the hold.

Tanner stepped away from the window and took a moment to consider the situation. Going head to head against four armed men wasn’t likely to end well. To successfully rescue Samantha, he would need to improve the odds a bit first. And the best way to do that was to whittle them down one at a time.

But how?

He couldn’t very well wait for one of them to take a pee break. Nor could he readily sneak up on them. From their vantage point, they had a decent view of nearly every direction. The first step, he decided, was to try to draw one of them into the terminal.

Tanner turned and hustled up the jet bridge and into the gate area. Sunlight flooded in through the large plate-glass windows, but it was far from the usual efficient airport hub. Carry-on bags, purses, computer cases, food wrappers, and drink cups were scattered everywhere. Piles of bones and dried skin lay clumped on the seats and along the walls, no doubt people who had found themselves stranded. Splashes of blood and vomit stained many of the once bright yellow arches that framed the long terminal. The stench, which had already been bad, now brought tears to his eyes.

Despite being surrounded by all manner of filth and gore, the occasional distant crash confirmed what Tanner already suspected. The place wasn’t completely empty. For now, he thought that the sunlight beaming in through the windows was likely bright enough to keep away the infected. Even so, it didn’t mean other dangers weren’t lurking around every corner.

He walked to the nearest terminal window and stared out at the airfield. The man in the pink shirt and all but one of his guards were looking up at the open cargo hatch. The missing guard was the same one who had captured Samantha, and Tanner could only assume that he had gone in with her. Why they had sent a twelve-year-old girl into the hold remained a mystery. For the moment, though, he thought it might actually work to her advantage by keeping her out of the fight.

The men hadn’t yet seen Tanner, but if his plan was to work, he needed to get their attention. He centered himself in front of the terminal window and jumped up and down, waving his arms like he was calling in a rescue plane.

No luck. The men refused to look up. Perhaps the glass was reflective on the outside, or maybe they were accustomed to seeing a fully grown man flap his arms. Whatever the case, they weren’t paying him any attention.

All right, he thought. Time to step it up a little.

Tanner did a quick assessment of the gate area. The only things heavy enough to suit his needs were the long rows of chairs and an automatic garbage compactor. He went over and nudged the compactor with his boot. It felt as weighty as a gun safe, definitely too heavy to lift.

That left the chairs. He lifted one end of a long row onto his shoulder, dumping several dried cadavers onto the floor in the process. When he had it steady, he turned to face the window and charged. The metal frame hit good and solid, and he fully expected the window to shatter into a million pieces.

It didn’t. Instead of shattering, the center of the window cracked outward like a giant spider web.

Despite failing to send a waterfall of glass sprinkling out onto the tarmac, he now had the Mexicans’ full attention. The guards immediately swung their guns up, ready to pepper the window and finish what Tanner had started. At fifty yards, the machine pistols weren’t the best weapons for the job, but given enough rounds, they could most certainly get the job done.

Tanner ducked out of sight an instant before the window exploded as dozens of rounds tore through it.

He crouched down and peered out from beneath the chairs. One of the guards had broken away from the group and was ducking under the belly of the plane. It looked like he was headed for the service door, which could only mean that he was coming for Tanner. Ambushing the guard would have been easy enough to do—simply crouch behind the check-in counter and blast him with the shotgun as he came up off the jet bridge. But the sound of gunfire would put the other men into full alert mode. It might even cause them to flee, leaving Samantha in a very dangerous predicament.

No, he thought, it was better to leave a little uncertainty to things. If the guard didn’t come back within a few minutes, and there were no sounds of trouble, the rest of the team might believe that he had simply found something worth investigating. Hell, it was an airport. Maybe he had stopped for a Nathan’s hot dog or one of those cinnamon buns that could lure chubbies from an adjacent county.

Taking anyone out quietly was a challenge, but it was even more so when they carried a submachine gun. Not only would he have to surprise the man; he would have to do so while within striking range.

Tanner looked for someplace to hide. There was plenty of clutter, everything from chairs to garbage cans to a service cart that had crashed into one of the supporting pillars. None, however, looked suitable for an ambush. Another option was to simply curl up and play dead. For that to work, however, the man would have to walk past him, and given the expanse of the gate area, that was difficult to guarantee.

He decided to hide behind the metal door that led down to the jet bridge. It was such a large doorway that when the door was folded back, he thought there was a good chance that the man might walk right through it without even noticing that it had a door at all. Samantha would surely have pointed out that he was way too big to hide behind a door, but he had learned a long time ago that hiding was less about disappearing and more about getting people to look in the wrong direction.

And that required a little misdirection.

He scooped up a couple of dried remains and carried them over to the middle of the terminal walkway. Then he clicked on his flashlight and stuffed it down into the mass of bones, hair, and clothes. The bodies were so decomposed that they were nearly unrecognizable, just a clump of “something.” The glowing light was designed to make the mass that much more mysterious. It wouldn’t hold a person’s attention for long, but a few seconds were all he needed.

Tanner placed his shotgun on the counter and moved behind the door. If the fight went poorly, he could have it back in hand quickly enough. He lowered his pack to the floor and shoved it out of the way.

As he heard the man stomping up the metal service stairs, he felt his adrenaline begin to kick in. His hands trembled slightly, and his breathing became shallow and rapid. His body was getting geared up for a fight. Within seconds, the service door at the end of the jet bridge clanged open. There was a short pause, followed by heavy footsteps coming up the ramp.

As the guard approached the terminal door, he slowed and became more cautious, giving Tanner a chance to size him up through the small gap near the hinges. Besides having forearms the size of railroad ties, his most noticeable feature was a thick black mustache that made him look like a buff version of Geraldo Rivera.

The man stopped when he was halfway through the doorway.

Tanner held his breath, waiting.

Geraldo was no fool, and he took his time studying the situation. The long row of chairs still leaned heavily against the broken window, but there was no obvious threat in sight. His eyes were drawn to the mysterious clump in the walkway.

“You think you’re funny, el cavron?” He pulled the Spectre close to his body and leveled it toward the mass as he slowly advanced. “Maybe I show you you’re not so funny after all.”

As soon as Geraldo passed the threshold, Tanner drove the heavy door forward. The edge caught him squarely in the chest, pinning him against the frame. Tanner grabbed the muzzle of the machine pistol, jerking it free and flinging it out into the terminal.

Geraldo roared and kicked off the wall as he pushed against the door. Rather than meeting force with force, Tanner sidestepped, letting it slam open. The man stumbled forward, his hands instinctively reaching out to keep from falling. Tanner fired a short left hook as he passed, rupturing blood vessels and splitting the flesh along his cheek.

The man stumbled sideways, blindly firing punches. But Tanner had already sidestepped, and the blows swished harmlessly through the air. Grabbing a handful of Geraldo’s thick black hair, he jerked him forward, pulling him into a low roundhouse kick. The sharp edge of Tanner’s shin cracked against his knee, dislodging the man’s patella and buckling his leg.

Geraldo began to collapse.

Tanner shuffled closer and hooked a forearm under his neck. The guillotine choke was a nasty hold, one that could lead to unconsciousness and even suffocation. But Tanner had no intention of choking him to death. Instead, he leaned back and jerked up as hard as he could, crushing the man’s throat. It was akin to breaking a chicken’s neck, albeit in this case, one with a very thick mustache.