Black Sun

CHAPTER 70

Hawker was riding shotgun in a Bell JetRanger as it crossed the Everglades of South Florida and descended toward the tarmac in an isolated corner of Miami International.

Someone in the NRI or CIA had telegraphed his whereabouts to the State Department, part of the cover he would now maintain. As a result, U.S. marshals and members of the FBI were undoubtedly searching for him, possibly even in Miami. To keep the cover clean he would have to stay on the run. He was used to that.

As the JetRanger descended, Hawker gazed across the flat expanse of Florida. The air was warm and humid, an incredible difference from frigid Washington. To the west the sun was setting, a giant orange ball once again, falling through the hazy sky.

The latest estimates had the poles returning to normal after thirty-seven days, and a similar event as not likely to occur for another five thousand years.

In the meantime, the aurora that had sprouted over central Mexico was being watched closely, guarded by an impressive phalanx of military hardware but left alone. All involved agreed that ignorant interference in the device would only risk its failure.

Yuri had been carried back to San Ignacio and buried on holy ground, a martyr unknown to most of the world. Perhaps as it should be.

The JetRanger touched down at the center of the helipad. The pilot pointed across the ramp, to an old, unadorned cargo jet.

Hawker shook the pilot’s hand and grabbed his pack. He jumped out of the helicopter and made his way across the apron to a forty-year-old DC-8, retrofitted with new engines.

The plane carried no markings. But the men who stood outside it were most definitely retired military. Thirty-year vets by the look of things: weathered, confident faces, gray buzz cuts and steely eyes.

Hawker walked up to them.

“There’s trouble,” the captain said. “You must be our passenger?”

Hawker nodded.

“My name’s Samuels,” he told Hawker, shaking his hand. He pointed to the man across from him. “This is Halle, my copilot. And for God sakes don’t tell us your name. We’d have to go through six months of brainwashing to get it out.”

Hawker smiled; there was something undeniably positive about these men. And he had a sense that they’d been told he was one of the good guys.

“What’s the plan?” Hawker asked, assuming something had been set up.

“We take you anywhere you want to go,” Samuels said. “I have ten thousand miles of gas and a tanker standing by in every direction in case for some reason that ain’t enough for you.”

The captain looked across the airport to the setting sun. “What I don’t have is time. We have to be wheels up by sunset, with or without you. So, whoever the hell you are, you’re cutting it damned close.”

Hawker glanced over his shoulder. The sun was just touching the horizon. If he was right, the FBI was on its way, chasing a hot tip as to his whereabouts, someone’s bright idea to make sure he didn’t change his mind. It was okay; he had no intention of changing it now.

“Let’s go,” Hawker said.

“Where to?”

“I’ll tell you when I decide.”

The captain nodded and ushered Hawker aboard.

Taking a seat in the passenger compartment of this particular aircraft was not much different than being part of the cargo, so Hawker chose the jump seat behind the pilots instead.

He strapped himself in as they ran through the checklist and received expedited taxi clearance.

Several minutes later the roar of the engines announced the beginning of the takeoff roll and the big DC-8 rumbled down the two-mile strip of concrete.

Three-quarters of the runway behind them, the plane rotated and finally broke free from the earth.

The old bird climbed at a steady pace, engines roaring, the cabin shaking and rattling around him. He felt a sense of kinetic energy, of freedom and gathering momentum. His world had changed. It had been painful and destructive, but he’d come out the other side. He wasn’t sure what the future held, but he would rush forward to meet it, much as he was rushing forward now, surrounded and enveloped by something greater than himself. He was part of life once again, instead of death. And for the first time in years the darkness had left his soul.