Chapter 60
“We seem to be flying low to stay below radar,” Joe said. “We won’t have to worry about depressurization. But those missiles have solid rocket boosters and high-explosive warheads. Let’s try not to hit any of them.”
Kurt stood. “With a little luck we won’t have to fire a shot. If you’ll handle the lights, I’ll deliver the surprise.”
He clicked the safety off his weapon, and stepped out from behind the locker full of survival gear.
Joe moved to the control panel on the wall, which included the switches that operated the interior lighting. As Kurt stepped into the aisle, Joe switched off the lights. The cabin went pitch-dark. After counting to five, Joe flicked them back on.
The men seated against the wall of the plane were surprised by the sudden darkness, but not particularly alarmed. It was an old plane. Things happened. Maybe even the pilots pressing the wrong button.
Their sense of calm vanished when the lights came back on and they found a tall Caucasian man with a submachine gun standing directly in front of them.
Kurt looked over the group, aiming the weapon at the men, while raising a finger to his lips in the international symbol to keep quiet.
The crewmen, belted in and unarmed, froze in place. Kurt felt a tiny moment of euphoria. He had no desire to kill these men. In a different time and place they’d be allies, but he quickly realized a problem. One of the seats was empty.
He turned as the unaccounted-for crewman lunged at him from behind one of the stacked missiles. A blur was all he saw of a metal chain being swung at his head.
Kurt snapped his head back on instinct. The links of metal whipped past his skull, missing him by inches, but wrapping around the MP5 and tearing it from his grasp.
The gun flew across the deck as if thrown from a slingshot. Kurt didn’t bother to go after it. He lunged for the attacker, slamming him against one of the carts and blocking him from swinging the chain with an arm bar.
With his right arm immobilized, the man slammed his left fist into Kurt’s side, hitting him just above the kidneys. The impact was stunning, but Kurt ignored the pain. He twisted his body, wrenched the man’s arm to the side, and flipped him into the fuselage wall.
The crewman pushed off the wall, lunging for Kurt with both hands, but Kurt grabbed him and slammed a knee into his gut. The man doubled over, but made a valiant attempt to get back into the fight. A right cross to the jaw knocked him woozy. He fell to the deck and stayed down.
With one man down, Kurt spun, expecting the others to have unbuckled and jumped from their seats to mob him. To his great surprise they sat compliantly with their hands in the air. Held there by Joe’s arrival and his own MP5.
Kurt was glad to see it. “Better late than never,” he joked.
“I was adjusting the lights for the proper mood,” Joe said.
Kurt found a roll of duct tape and quickly taped the hands, feet, and mouths of their prisoners. Then he retrieved his weapon, checking it for damage. It appeared to have only surface scratches.
“We’ve taken the cargo hold,” Joe said. “But the cockpit isn’t going to fall as easily.”
“How many up there?”
“Two pilots and the flight leader,” Joe said.
“Maybe a navigator on this old bucket, but I didn’t see one.
Either way, we have to get through a closed door to get the drop on them.
And while we didn’t want to start shooting back here, we really don’t want to open fire up there.
Not if we need the plane to remain flyable. ”
It was a dilemma made particularly difficult by the fact that they were traveling along the deck at breakneck speed. The slightest forward push on the control column and they’d end up hitting the sea while going several hundred miles an hour.
“Let’s be quick about it,” Kurt said. “If everything is running on schedule, the shooting is about to begin.”