Shadow Tyrants

FIFTY-TWO

The moment that the rear cargo door opened, a hurricane blast ripped at Juan. As he struggled to keep his grip on the Caddy’s tie-down strap, he caught a glimpse of Taylor being sucked toward the growing chasm of the open door by the sudden decompression. Only the strap wrapped around her wrist kept her from being flung into the freezing slipstream and plummeting to the sea below.

After a few moments, the air pressure in the cargo bay equalized with the outside atmosphere. Juan dropped to the floor. Taylor was on her hands and knees as she was buffeted by the wind curling in through the open cargo door. The body of the dead guard was swept across the floor and out into the gaping abyss.

Juan looked back and saw Eddie was still in the elevator cab, wedged against the lip of the door. Air roared through from the main cabin above, then died down quickly.

Juan knew Taylor’s intention. The decompression. The portable oxygen tank. At this altitude without emergency oxygen masks, he and Eddie had about sixty seconds before they passed out from the thin air. Then, Taylor could take her time killing them.

She was shielded behind the Bugatti and biding her time until they were unconscious. There was only one way out of this.

“Tiny!” Juan shouted into his mic over the roar of the open door. “Tell me you have control of the plane!”

“We’re in the cockpit,” Tiny said. “The pilots are dead. Linc and I have masks on, but emergency oxygen in the rest of the plane is out of commission. Descending now. It’ll take three minutes to get down to a breathable altitude.”

That was too long. “Keep going. But when I tell you, pull up sharply.”

“Acknowledged.”

Eddie still had his pistol, but Taylor’s defensive position was secure. She’d be able to gun him down before he could get a shot.

“Over here!” Juan yelled to him. He was already beginning to feel light-headed.

Eddie crawled over, and Juan handed him the end of the strap he was holding.

“Hold on to this, and give me suppressing fire.”

Eddie nodded and stood up to fire, plugging the Bugatti with rounds to keep Taylor’s head down.

Juan jumped to his feet and sprinted to his target — the button to release the Bugatti’s retractable cargo restraints.

Taylor saw him come into her line of fire at the same time that Juan flipped up the cover and slammed the button. She had a clean view of Juan and, with a venomous leer, she drew her pistol to fire.

Juan shouted, “Tiny, pull up now!” He latched onto a handhold on the side of the bulkhead.

The A380 instantly went into a steep climb.

Taylor’s eyes went wide. She dropped the pistol and desperately tried to unwrap the strap that was knotted around her wrist.

She didn’t move fast enough. The Bugatti, freed from the bolts in the deck, rolled backward, yanking Taylor by the strap. She fell to the floor and futilely clawed at the metal plating as she was dragged by the accelerating sports car toward the yawning gap.

She let out a high-pitched scream as the car dropped out of the cargo hold and disappeared into the sky, taking her with it.

“Tiny,” Juan called out through his tunneling vision, “take us down.”

“Acknowledged.”

The plane nosed into a dive.

Juan staggered to the cargo door button and slapped his hand against it.

The door began to close. Juan slumped to the floor, breathing as slowly as he could. He saw that Eddie had already passed out by the Cadillac.

When the door was sealed, the air pressure in the cargo hold began to rise again. Within seconds, Juan was able to breathe normally. Eddie awoke, looked at Juan, and gave him a thumbs-up.

“You all right down there?” Tiny asked.

“We’re fine,” Juan said. “Natalie Taylor and the Bugatti are gone.”

“Both pilots are dead. We’re on our own now. I told air traffic control in Cyprus that the previous emergency called in by the pilots was a false alarm, so we won’t be returning to the island. Where should we go?”

“Find an out-of-the-way place for us to land near the Oregon,” Juan said. “I’m ready to get off this flying dinosaur.”

Tiny found an abandoned Egyptian air base on the Sinai Peninsula with a runway long enough for the A380 to land. It was miles from the nearest town. They would be far away by the time anyone came to investigate why Carlton’s private airliner had landed in the remote region.

Since the plane came with its own ground transportation, they decided to drive away in style. Tiny and Eddie stretched out in the backseat of the Cadillac while Linc piloted the car out of the cargo bay with Juan in the front passenger seat.

The sun and breeze put them all in a better mood as the Caddy sped down the desert highway. They’d even helped themselves to some of the food and beverages from the A380’s galley for a post-mission snack.

While everyone else ate and drank, Juan used the satellite phone they’d brought along.

“This is the Party Express calling Max,” he said.

“Here we thought you were dead because your trackers all but stopped moving,” Max replied, “and now we find out you’re living it up.”

“I’d bring you the Cadillac we’re driving, but you wouldn’t have anywhere to drive it on the Oregon. However, we did manage to find four bottles of 1947 Macallan scotch from Xavier Carlton’s liquor cabinet. We figured that was the least he owed us for all this trouble. Where are you?”

“Approaching the north end of the Red Sea. Not too far from you. Raven and MacD chartered a flight down here. We should be able to rendezvous with all of you in a few hours.”

“What about the Colossus ships?”

“They’re set to enter the Suez Canal tonight. The plan is to go in the same flotilla, so I convinced another cargo ship to give us their spot.”

“Good work,” Juan said. “We found out the location for the Colossus ships to link up.”

“Where?”

“Great Bitter Lake. Apparently, they didn’t want to wait for Colossus 1, 2, and 4 to traverse the entire canal before they made the connection with Colossus 5, which should arrive from Cyprus at the north end of the canal just as we’re entering from the south end.”

“So we can’t wait to stop them in open water,” Max said ominously.

“Afraid not.”

Juan understood Max’s uneasiness. Great Bitter Lake was nearly halfway between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. To keep the artificial intelligence from becoming fully operational and taking over computers around the world, they were going to have to mount an assault on the Colossus ships in the middle of the Suez Canal.