Killer Summer

70

The hijackers had closed up the Learjet and camouflaged it well. Summer used her key. The Lear was dark inside, suggesting it was empty, but she stood there a moment before climbing the stairs and then shut herself inside.

She hadn’t thought through any of this. Everything for her was minute to minute, and she feared her lack of planning would backfire. Her mother would have worked it out logically step by step. Her father, on the other hand, would have tried to talk his way out. She was some hybrid of the two, a stranger in her own strange family.

The jet’s soundproofing made the drumming in her ears all the louder. This was the first chance she’d gotten to stop and think and she couldn’t think. She felt removed. She felt numb.

She headed straight for the battery switch. The batteries had to be engaged in order to use the CD, the TVs, or any of the outlets. Next, she headed for her father’s seat. She slid back the wood panel and nearly squealed with glee when she saw the red LED on the Airphone flashing. It had powered up.

“Come on!” she encouraged the red to change to green, signaling a connection to the satellite.

She counted backward from ten.

Had the antenna broken off? Had they covered it with pine boughs?

On the count of four, it changed to green.

She snatched up the receiver and dialed.

For a moment, there was nothing on the other end. Then came static and soft pops that went on far longer than she thought appropriate.

Finally, the phone purred in her ear. It was ringing.

“Hello?” her father’s voice said.

She’d meant to speak, to say something-anything-but the sound of him choked her, and she couldn’t get a word out.

“Dad…” she gasped, but far too softly.

She could see him clearly: his face, his smile. She had a mental picture of him in the hotel suite. She thoroughly regretted every ounce of grief she’d ever given him, felt so badly for making him pay for her mother’s death when he’d only tried to help her understand it. She loved him so much but never expressed it, always taunting him to fill the void, an impossibility. Her accusing tone, her reckless blaming him for her problems, the bitterness with which she dealt with him: it all washed over her in a wave of self-loathing.

“Sum…?”

Her vision blurred.

Just the sound of his voice…

“Yeah…” she choked out. “It’s me. I’m on the plane.”

A very long pause. “Oh, thank God!”

She thought he might be crying as well.

“We landed… kind of… crashed into something. There’s a river. There’s three of them…”

She rambled through a quick, disjointed explanation, laced with apology and begging for forgiveness.

“I don’t know what to do,” she finally said.

“You… Jesus… Listen, they won’t hurt you.”

“You don’t know that! They’ve got Kevin, I think… I’m pretty sure…”

“I won’t let them hurt you,” he said.

It wasn’t so much what her father said as the way he said it that gave her pause. She knew better than to interrupt. She needed him to talk, and to just keep on talking.

“I want you to… You’ve no idea where you are… none?”

“No. The woods, a big river. Kevin said it was the Middle Fork, but he doesn’t know that for sure. There’s a log cabin on top of the mountain with a huge cliff. We took off the same direction we landed the other day, so that’s toward Sun Valley, right? I don’t know, we could be anywhere. I lit a fire… a big fire. Someone should be able to see it. But it won’t last long. Can you get someone to look for it?”

“A fire! Of course I can. You lit a fire? That was good thinking, Sum.”

“What do I do, Dad? What am I supposed to do?”

Static on the line interrupted them.

“Isn’t there some kind of locator or something on the plane?” she then asked.

There was no answer. She pulled the phone away from her ear, making sure the light was still green.

“Dad?”

“I’m here. I need to talk to them, Sum. I need to start a dialogue.”

“Forget it! I am not going there. Doesn’t the GPS know where we are?”

“The GPS?” He sounded distracted. “Yes, of course. Are you on the Airphone? Is the panel lit? There’s a color map in the middle of the panel with a readout for latitude/longitude. Can you see it?”

“I don’t want to let go of the phone.”

“Put the phone down, Summer, write down the coordinates, and read them to me. It’s important.” He added that last bit in the same condescending tone he used to use to let her know how stupid she was. She resisted her immediate reaction of turning against him.

“I can’t,” she whined.

“Summer… please…”

She pulled the receiver away from her ear, but even a few inches made her feel alone. She smacked it back against her ear and stretched the wire instead. Making it to the aisle, she squinted at the illuminated instruments panel.

“You’ve got to do this for me,” he said.

“I’m trying.”

“And don’t forget the bag in the closet. There’s a GPS in there as well, a portable. And a radio, handheld, an aviation radio. Planes continually monitor the frequency. They’ll be able to hear you. Get me the coordinates and read them into that radio. Listen, go get that bag right now and then give me the coordinates over the phone.”

“I can’t!”

“You have to, Sum. You need that bag, I need the coordinates. It’s easy, you can do this. Stay in the plane, turn off the batteries to conserve power, and use the handheld to broadcast. Everything you need is in the plane: food, water, blankets. You’re there alone, right?”

“Yes. Can I lock the door? I couldn’t figure out how to lock it.”

“No, it doesn’t lock from the inside. You could probably hold the handle, which would keep the key from turning. The thing is… Now, listen to me… I need those coordinates, okay? You’ve got to do this for me.”

She looked to the front of the jet. It seemed impossibly far away.

“I want to go home,” she said. “I’m so sorry, Dad. I am so, so sorry.”

“Summer Sumner, you listen to me. You’ve done incredibly well. There is nothing to be sorry about. We’ll come get you and your friend. This is going to work out okay. But I need to speak to the men who flew the plane. I need to speak to the guy in charge, the guy with the dark hair. You’ve got to figure out a way to get him on this phone. In the jet. I can call back.”

“Forget it,” she said.

“They’ll listen to me, Sum. We’ve got to make this happen.”

“They’ve got Kevin! They’re not listening to anybody. For all I know, they killed the cowboy.”

“What cowboy?”

“Wait a second…” Her heart raced even faster, as if that were even possible.

“You didn’t say anything about any cowboy,” he said. “What cowboy?”

She tried to focus, but her thoughts were like a scratched CD: they kept jumping back, playing a riff, then leaping forward again.

“I need to speak to the guy in charge, the guy with the dark hair,” she was repeating in her head.

“Summer? Are you there?”

She’d frozen. She couldn’t speak. The copilot had seemed so familiar-especially his voice-and now she could place it: he was who’d called her father’s BlackBerry.

“SUMMER! I NEED YOUR COORDINATES! PUT DOWN THE PHONE AND GET ME THOSE COORDINATES!”

Pause.

“Summer? Sum…?”

“I need to speak to the guy in charge, the guy with the dark hair,” repeated again in her head.

She dropped the phone, spun a full circle, and marched, trance-like, into the cockpit. She looked to the right, saw a logbook with a pen shoved in its spiral spine. She tore out a sheet of paper, wrote down the string of numbers, double-checking them against the navigation screen.

She returned to the Airphone.

“Sum? You there? Sum…?”

“I’m here.”

That shut him up.

“Do you have them?”

“I’ve got them.”

“Read them to me.”

“What did you mean, ‘the guy with the dark hair?’ ” she asked.

“What are you talking about?”

“No, Dad, I’m the one asking you what you’re talking about? Who said anything about dark hair?”

“You’re imagining things. I didn’t say anything of the sort.”

“You just said it!”

“Read me the coordinates.”

“What’s going on, Dad? He called you, right? In the hotel. Your BlackBerry. The call I answered. I know him… Who is he?”

She had it, then. She slumped in his chair.

She recalled him sitting there on the phone as they were about to land. He’d said, “Listen, I would if I could, but this is my last trip on it.”

How could he have known that? He’d said nothing to her about giving up the Lear. He had a trip to New York planned, another to Toronto. He’d talked to her about going with him on the jet.

“I need the coordinates, if I’m going to help,” he said. “That, and I need to speak to whoever’s in charge.”

“The man with the dark hair.”

“If he’s the one in charge, sure.”

“You said he was.”

“Summer, you’re in shock. You’re not thinking clearly. Come on, sweetheart-kiddo-you’ve done amazingly well. Phenomenal. Keep it up. Just read me the coordinates, would you please? Sweetheart…?”

The torn piece of paper trembled in her fingers.

“What have you done?” she gasped into the receiver.

The static hissed and popped. There was a snake in her ear, the devil’s tongue.

“Now, you listen to me, Summer, you’re in shock. It’s completely understandable, expected. You’re inventing things. It happens. But you’ve got to clear your head, okay? I want to help you.”

“You… asshole!”

“Now, you listen to me, young lady…”

She pushed the END button. Tears began flowing as she stared at the receiver in her hand. It represented him. It represented everything wrong with him. She beat it against the seat’s console and threw it against the fuselage. Pieces of plastic broke loose.

She stood and moved toward the closet, but in a drunken, disconnected way. These weren’t her feet, her hands; this wasn’t her. She stumbled, fell into another seat, and buried her face in her hands.

She didn’t remember coming to her feet again. She found herself facing the closet. She fumbled in the dark for the case and found it. It opened by twisting two metal tabs. She rummaged through the case and withdrew two devices. She couldn’t see well enough to know what they were, but both were small and electronic.

A loud noise came from the front. The door was opening.

The jet was so well insulated, she hadn’t heard anyone approaching. Only now, as the key activated the opening mechanism, did she know.

She hurried down the aisle, only to slip and fall. She banged her head against an armrest and dropped both devices. Leaving them, she crawled ahead on hands and knees and reached for the door handle just as it was raising up and the stairs were lowering.

She threw her body on the handle, forcing it back down.

From the other side, a mumble of men’s voices.

Seconds later came a rustling from the jet’s right wing. She kept her shoulder against the lever, preventing it from moving. She squatted down to get a better look out the right side. She couldn’t see anything, but someone was out there crawling around the fuselage. Then she heard two loud snaps, one directly beneath her, the other directly overhead.

The shattered Airphone’s LED changed from green to blinking red. They’d snapped off the antennas, rendering the satellite phone and no doubt the plane’s other instruments useless.

The door lever pushed against her. She kept her shoulder against it. It was the last place she wanted to be.

More banging around outside. With each sound she flinched.

He was out there on the wing.

There was more sound: metal on metal.

Something was going on out there. She focused. It was coming from the rear of the plane. From…

The emergency exit.

The same hatch through which she and Kevin had fled the plane.

Again, the front door’s lever attempted to move. Again, she braced against it.

But her attention remained on the rear of the plane, where obviously someone was opening the door from the outside.

She spotted the handheld GPS and radio she had dropped on the carpet. She stretched out and kicked the GPS beneath the first seat. She then hooked the radio with the toe of her sandal, noticing for the first time how scratched up her foot was.

Keeping her shoulder to the door handle, she saw things get light at the back of the plane.

Paralyzed with fear, she left the radio on the carpet a few feet from her.

The plane’s captain stepped into the aisle. He aimed a small but blinding light at her.

“We’re not going to hurt you,” he said. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

The flare gun.

Her father kept a flare gun for emergencies somewhere on the plane; she’d heard him mention it to William before. The closet briefcase? Had she been so eager to find the radio that she’d missed the gun?

“Step away from the door and keep your hands where I can see them,” the pilot said.

“Or else what?” she called out. “I thought you weren’t going to hurt me.”

“Don’t be a smart-ass.”

She kept her shoulder against the handle.

“Too late,” she said.

If she could get past the pilot, if she could get her hands on that case in the closet, maybe, just maybe…

“I’ll hurt you, if necessary. I saw what you did to… to my associate. Now, keep your hands where I can see them and step away from the door.”

Her knees wobbled, her arms and legs shook, tears threatened once again. She hated herself for it.

“Do not test me,” the man said, his voice ominous and chilling.

Summer stepped away from the door.