Collision

36

The pilot stirred awake. Voices jabbered in the kitchen. Two men. Vochek. Talking about… taking the plane. He could smell the tomato soup he’d started to heat and he thought that his nose was the only part of his body working normally. His neck ached, he could barely see, and his hands weighed heavy, as though his flesh had converted to iron. He groped his front pocket for his cell phone-gone. But he remembered the scattering of panic buttons in the safe house. Pressing the button would send a silent alarm to the Homeland office in Dallas and an alert to the Plano Police Department.

He heard whoever was in the kitchen leaving, and he staggered to his feet, fell to his knees, and started to crawl for the alarm button in the bookcase.

The plane was already fueled and loaded, and Pilgrim was going through the flight check when sirens approached.

“Pilgrim.” Ben pointed over Pilgrim’s shoulder. “We got to go. Now.”

At the front entrance of the air park a police car screeched past the gate, sirens flashing.

“Let me explain to them.” Vochek reached for the door.

“Ben, don’t let her.” Pilgrim kicked in the engines, hurried the plane onto the runway. “We can’t risk that you might not be persuasive.”

The police car wheeled onto the grass around the runway as the jet coursed down the concrete.

“He’s going to pull onto the runway,” Vochek yelled.

“He’s not suicidal.” Pilgrim gunned the plane.

The plane hurtled toward the police car. A second patrol car followed the first, both onto the runway.

“Oh, Christ,” Ben said.

The jet powered forward. Straight toward the cars, which both lurched out of the jet’s way as time ran thin. The plane’s wheels rose; the cars fell away beneath them.

“The officers didn’t get out of the cars so I knew they wouldn’t stay parked. Common sense,” Pilgrim said.

“Your common sense gave me a goddamned heart attack,” Ben said.

The plane’s radio began to squawk.

“They’re going to order us to land,” Ben said.

“Explain that we’re on a Homeland Security emergency. Your boss got juice?” Pilgrim asked.

Vochek nodded. “She can clear our path. She can also stop us cold.”

“Then she gets us cleared all the way to New Orleans. Otherwise, consider the possibility we’ll be shot down.”

She reached for the radio and asked air traffic for an emergency patch to Homeland Security. Three minutes later Margaret Pritchard was on the line.

“Agent Vochek.”

“Here. With Mr. Choate and Mr. Forsberg.”

“Please repeat.”

“Mr. Choate and Mr. Forsberg have surrendered and are in my protective custody.”

“Understood.”

“We want to deal, Ms. Pritchard,” Pilgrim said. “We can give your office everything it needs on the biggest covert group in the government. But we get to fly to New Orleans, no problems. That’s what Vochek wants and what we want.”

“I’ll make sure your way to New Orleans is cleared,” Pritchard said, resignation in her tone.

“Thank you, Margaret,” Vochek said.

“One thing,” Ben said quickly. “Part of the deal. You tell Sam Hector that we’ve surrendered to Homeland Security and are being questioned by you in a secure location. The media and the Dallas police don’t know.”

The silence went on so long they thought she’d disconnected the line. “Why do I need to feed him a lie?” Pritchard asked.

Ben gave Vochek a pleading look. “We have some serious evidence against Hector,” Vochek said. “It would be best for now if he believes these two pose no threat to him.”

“I understand.” The line to Pritchard clicked off, and the only noise from the radio was traffic chatter, directions for Pilgrim to rise to a certain altitude. “Will she lie to him?” Ben asked.

“I don’t like that she didn’t give us an assurance,” Vochek said. Ben and Vochek, sitting in the back of the plane, leaned back in their seats. Texas slowly unfolded beneath them as the sunlight began to die. Exhaustion claimed Ben-he hurt all over his body-and he closed his eyes.

He heard Vochek say, “Why?”

“Why what?” Pilgrim asked.

“Why the Cellar? Why was it created?”

“I don’t know.”

“You joined it and you never asked?”

“Ignorance has its advantages. They didn’t hire me for my brains.”

“Don’t,” she said. “You killed for the CIA. And then for the Cellar.”

“Yes. More stole and spied than killed.”

She went quiet and the hum of the engines became like a blanket. Ben thought of Emily; she hated flying, never would have set foot in a small plane.

“Killed, stole, spied. Which did you do the most?” she asked.

“Does it matter?” Pilgrim said.

“You only killed the bad,” she said. Ben could feel the tension coming off her in waves. One did not normally banter with a man who murdered.

“I killed,” Pilgrim said, “and it’s all bad. I had to train myself not to vomit after I killed. But I won’t feel one second of regret for killing Hector.”

“If Hector is guilty,” Vochek said, “and I’m not saying he is, by any means-you can’t kill him. We need him alive.”

“I’m not terribly interested in what you need. I’m telling you what’s going to happen.”

“You’re not working for this Cellar anymore.”

“I don’t work for you, either.”

She poked Ben with her finger. “Open your eyes. Tell me why Hector would risk this takeover of a covert group.”

Ben considered. “A man like Hector only risks his business to save his business. So whatever he’s doing, it has to be something that helps him maintain his bottom line. He’s had a lot of deals lost, a lot of contracts shuttled away from him. He told me a few days ago he’s in the business of making fear go away. So maybe he needs fear to be back in a big way.”

They fell silent as Texas passed beneath them and Louisiana appeared. Ben closed his eyes, exhausted, dozed. He dreamed of Emily, of the soft pressure of her hand in his. Peaceful and quiet. He awoke with a jerk at Pilgrim’s words: “There’s another plane coming up fast on us.”