Siberian Treasure

25

Marina looked at the Mirage sitting on the end of the runway. She’d flown one twice, and although it was bigger than the SR-22 with which she had logged more than 1000 hours, it had more than a few advantages over that. It could fly higher and carry more weight, to name a few.

And they wanted her to fly it?

Her kidnappers wanted her to fly a plane.

Why?

Marina didn’t remember the question coming out of her mouth, but she must have spoken it, because her captor replied, “You have the skill, and I am most certain you will do your best to ensure that we have a safe trip. I will be watching you very closely.”

Ah yes. The very same tactic employed by bank robbers and other felons: have the hostage drive the car while they keep a gun on him. It provides for fewer distractions and better security, from the felon’s point of view.

“Where are we going? Do you have a flight plan?”

“You will find all you need inside.”

By now, they had reached the plane. A shadow moved inside the little craft, shifting into the shape of a man, who yawned and stretched before he opened the plane door. It opened toward the ground to display built-in steps.

“Is he your guard dog?” Marina asked, and suddenly she thought of Boris. The canine would be frantic when he returned to the motel room to find her gone. The sense of struggle in the air would be evident to him and he would know she’d left under duress.

“Inside.” She felt a jab at the base of her back and it brought her back to the matter at hand. Boris would be fine. She, on the other hand, was going to be in a bit of a mess for the foreseeable future.

Glancing back at MacNeil, Marina gave a little smile and was rewarded with a wry expression in return. They were in this together, and they hadn’t been hurt or killed yet, he seemed to say. Onward and upward.

Literally.

Inside the Mirage, she slid into one of the pilot seats and began reviewing the flight plan, which had been on the small console between the two seats. Someone knew what they were doing.

The plan was a visual one, which meant that it was not filed with Air Traffic Control and she would not be relying on instruments during flight. They would also be flying at a lower altitude than the Mirage was capable of; a precaution, she assumed, on the part of whoever had planned it, because if they flew at a high enough altitude, say, over 18,000 feet, they’d have to file the plan with ATC. Which meant that they’d get a four-digit Squawk code; something she could potentially use to alert ATC that they were being hijacked or kidnapped. So using a code to notify the ATC wasn’t going to work. She’d have to think of something else.

Marina wondered if it was either of these gentlemen, or if someone else had prepared their route. If they hadn’t prepared the flight plan, that could mean neither of them were skilled pilots. Which left some room for her to get creative.

Marina turned her mind from questions she couldn’t answer, and focused on refamiliarizing herself with the plane, which was a 2004 model and the newest, most feature-laden aircraft she’d ever flown. Despite the fact that they were being kidnapped, it was going to be a rush to fly it. The flight plan indicated that they were going to be flying at about 14,500, and heading northeast of James Bay.

She checked all the gauges and controls on the digital screen, confirmed that it was fueled, and finally settled in her seat.

“Where exactly are we going? I need to know if I’m going to fly this thing.”

“Our final destination is near the Arctic Circle.”

“The Arctic Circle? That’s going to take at least two days!” she said incredulously, looking at the man who had taken the seat next to her. “We’re going to have to stop to refuel at least … three times. And—”

“We will not fly so far. You will follow the plan and land where you are directed.”

“What, are we taking dog sleds from there? And don’t you think we’re going to be a little cold?” Marina asked, gesturing to her bare arms. At least the plane had the comforts of heat, as well as a pressurized cabin.

He shoved a heavy hooded coat at her, but replied in annoyance, “Your duty is to fly this plane. Your questions will be answered at the appropriate time. You have no choice but to cooperate.”

She didn’t, did she?

Marina set her jaw and draped the coat over the chair behind her back. She found a pair of warm gloves in one pocket, and a hat in the other. At least she wouldn’t freeze when they landed.

At least, right away.

Her mind raced as she settled back in her seat. As the CIA had learned, she didn’t embrace bald orders without a fight, or without considering all the alternatives.

Based on the way her so-called co-pilot was looking at the array of controls, she wagered she knew more about the plane than her companions. He appeared to be trying to hide his fascination and awe of the dash that was crammed full of dials, gauges, and buttons.

She had more than a hunch that he knew next to nothing about flying. So they’d see whether she had a choice to cooperate or not.

Marina chose the time to make her move carefully.

They’d been in-flight for well over an hour, having reached their altitude. The sun had begun to rise, and they were just below the clouds so she could see the terrain below: vast, empty, no mountains or hills in sight. Very few signs of civilization; no large cities. Some small towns, but nothing to worry about.

They were near Elsas, Ontario.

Removing her hands from the yoke, under the guise of a stretch — which was not all that difficult to fake, considering the only sleep she’d had was when she was out cold in the back of the truck — Marina craned her neck to look toward the rest of the cabin. It was laid out just like a six-seat limo, with four seats facing each other in the back.

MacNeil was sitting in the facing seat to her right, with Bran directly in back of Marina’s seat, which made it easy for her to catch MacNeil’s eye without Bran noticing. It was a swift-moving, sliding glance, but their gazes snagged. She made sure hers was full of meaning.

As she settled back in her seat, Marina heard MacNeil cough. It was the first time he’d done so, and she knew that was his response that he’d read her signal. Good. She might have to drag him off the plane, but at least he wouldn’t be panicked.

Of course, she didn’t expect that a guy like MacNeil would panic about much anyway.

She allowed the Mirage to fly along for another fifteen or twenty minutes before slipping it out of auto-pilot and putting her plan into motion.

A quick in-drawn breath was enough to catch the attention of George, the previously-unnamed kidnapper who sat next to her. But Marina knew well enough not to over-play. Just that in-drawn breath, and an adjustment to an instrument that looked like she’d had to react quickly … and then nothing. Studied casualness.

She felt George’s eyes on her. He’d turned toward her, but said nothing. She could tell he wondered … and she took care to tighten her mouth and add a little frown between her brows.

A few more minutes, and she changed her facial expression as she stabbed quickly at a different instrument and at the same time banked the plane quickly to the left, then righted it, all so quickly that it appeared she was correcting the sudden swoop and not causing it.

“What is it?” George asked.

“Nothing. I thought … I am not as familiar with this plane, and I thought for a minute there was a problem with the vacuum pump.” She made her words light, but kept that little tension in the top of her forehead. “There’s no—“

She did it again while George was distracted by her speech: pitched the plane downward and then leveled it off quickly, causing her captor to fly forward, then back into his seat. She tried to keep the smile from edging the corners of her mouth at the expression on his face.

Marina had learned to fly aerobatics, and preferred that kind of thrill to any roller coaster Cedar Point might ever conceive. She was fully aware, having experienced it herself, that motion sickness was common among aerobatic pilots in training. In fact, it was so common and fairly expected that when Air Force pilots trained, they were not allowed to clean up if they vomited. Nor were they relieved of duty.

Those who continued flying despite being ill were lauded and kept on, but those who were not able to continue were not.

Marina herself had flown enough aerobatics that she was immune to the motion sickness problem, and found that as long as she flew a few hours regularly, she kept that immunity up.

She was counting on George and Bran — and, unfortunately, MacNeil — to be on the other end of the spectrum, and hoped neither of the kidnappers would have had the fortitude to make it through the Air Force training.

If Marina felt any regret for putting MacNeil through the same, she didn’t dwell on it. If it didn’t kill him, it’d make him stronger. Besides, it would give her a good sense of just what he was made of.

She banked the plane to the left, and then to the right, in quick succession, ignoring George’s frantic demands to know what was wrong. Instead, she kept her face tight and her eyes focused outside the windshield as if she was just as terrified as he was. That in itself was a battle, to keep the exhilaration from showing in her face.

After leveling the plane for about three minutes, during which time she responded to George with a clenched-jaw, “Be quiet! I’m just trying to keep us in the air!” she slipped the plane into one of the aerobatic routines she’d learned.

It was fifteen minutes of loops, banks, and steep turns, and it was certain to turn the stomachs inside out of every man on the plane.

She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from grinning in delight when George finally succumbed, bending forward to rest his head against the other yoke. That was the worst thing to do, but she wasn’t about to share that little tidbit with him.

Marina settled for bumping the plane up and down as if it were going over the moguls in the snow below so she could take a good look at the man sitting next to her. Yes, the gun butt was sticking up between George’s bottom and the seat, forgotten.

A quick look toward the back told Marina that MacNeil wasn’t doing much better than George; and she couldn’t see Bran. But she managed to catch MacNeil’s attention again and gave a quick nod. He coughed, but she wasn’t sure if that was his signal or a precursor to him retching all over the floor.

But someone puked as she turned back quickly. A quick glance told her it was Bran. And that pushed the beleaguered George over the edge.

Marina did another loop for good measure, then made her next move. With a measured shift, she twisted the yoke to the right, and as George flew up off his seat in the same direction, she snagged the gun from under his rear and dropped it on the left side of her chair in one motion as smooth as the plane’s loop.

“Marina.” She heard a choked voice from behind. Gabe. She righted the plane and cast a quick look back. He caught her eyes, then, holding his hand over his mouth, he flipped open his seatbelt and lurched across the small cabin toward Bran.

She couldn’t see what happened next, but Marina assumed Gabe was relieving Bran of his weapon, so she kept the plane steady for a moment so as not to jar him out of his calculated move.

When she glanced back around, she saw Gabe back in his seat, fumbling with his seatbelt with one hand, clutching the gun in the other, and retching over the side of the armrest.

The plane was going to be hell to clean up.

Once the plane was flying level for more than five minutes, Gabe recovered from his bout of motion sickness. Now that he and Marina had the weapons, it was short work for him to take control of George and Bran, who hadn’t realized they’d lost their guns along with their dinner until it was too late.

Marina kept the plane straight and level as easily as if they were out for a Sunday jaunt while training one of the guns on George. She appeared to have gotten over her reluctance to hold a weapon at this juncture. When she turned toward the back as if to see what he was doing, Gabe assumed she’d put the plane on auto-pilot.

Still a bit weak queasy, he assisted Bran in moving the handcuffs from his pocket to his wrists. Bran barely resisted; he was covered with vomit and his face was speckled with tiny red dots from the force of his puking. Gabe was thankful for the fact that he hadn’t had anything to eat since that long-ago piece of pizza in the hotel room, and had therefore been content with little more than dry heaves.

After Bran was cuffed with his wrists behind the seat so there would be no unexpected distractions, Gabe made his way to George and half-dragged, half-pulled him from the front seat to a back seat and cuffed him in a similar manner.

“Sorry guys. We’re not going to be as accommodating as you were for us.”

Once he was sure they were immobilized, Gabe dropped into the seat next to Marina, taking care not to step in George’s vomit.

“That was some fucking ride.”

“I’m sorry.” She didn’t sound the least bit remorseful. In fact, she dashed him a cocky grin, which made her exotic features all the more attractive.

He couldn’t decide whether to be pissed off and tear a chunk out of that shapely ass, or kiss the hell out of her for her quick — and creative — thinking. Annoyance won out, for it was obvious she had loved every minute of the discomfort she’d inflicted on them. Including him. “Couldn’t you have faked something else?” he asked. “Like low fuel?”

“Then I would have had to land, and we might not have been able to disarm them. I thought it would be better to disable them first.”

Couldn’t fault that logic. “Speaking of landing ….”

“I’m going to try and contact a nearby airport and see if we can land there. We can get something to eat and clean up and maybe rest.”

“I’ll let Bergstrom know where we are so we can get these guys into custody.”

“Yes. But I want to get some info from them if we can, because I think we ought to finish the flight and go to wherever they were taking us. It’s the only way to find out what’s going on.”

“What about your career?” Admittedly, he had to work to keep the sarcasm from his voice. Hard.