Chapter 3
Trigger drove the small airline cart toward the silent plane sitting on the tarmac.
It loomed large and foreboding. There were no other planes or vehicles around it and no lights on inside the cabin.
The sun had gone down and darkness was quickly setting in.
The plane was parked well away from the terminal and there was no cover for Trigger and his men as they approached with the requested food and water.
The concrete under the back hatch was stained red with the blood of the men and women they’d dumped outside.
The entire first-class cabin had been assassinated, the bodies disposed of after they’d landed.
And there had been at least one other passenger murdered and dumped since they’d arrived in Venezuela as well.
Trigger wasn’t going to let that happen again, not if he could help it.
It was eerily quiet as they approached the airplane, but when they parked under the right side, near the entrance the catering companies used to restock the plane, the hatch slowly opened.
Looking up, Trigger saw a shadowy figure dressed all in black standing near the opening—but he couldn’t take his eyes away from the woman who also appeared.
Gillian. He’d bet his life on it.
Her long hair was hanging limp around her pale face.
She had on a pair of jeans and a dark blue wispy shirt that fluttered in the slight breeze of the evening.
He watched as she took a deep breath, as if enjoying the fresh air, before the man standing next to her shoved the barrel of a rifle into her side.
She flinched away from him and looked down at him, Grover, and Lefty.
The last crew who had delivered supplies had brought a ladder with them and used that to reach the hatch. It wasn’t ideal, but since it worked once, Trigger figured they might as well not cause any suspicion by asking for a different delivery method.
“Do you have the food and water?” the woman called down.
Trigger nodded.
“And the toilets?” she asked.
“After these are delivered, they’ll start draining the tanks,” Trigger said, adding a Spanish accent to his voice.
The man standing next to her said something too low for Trigger to hear, and she nodded.
“Just like last time, one of you has to climb up the ladder and hand me the boxes. You can’t come onboard, and if you do anything suspicious, you’ll be shot.
Then they’ll kill one of the hostages as well in retaliation. ”
Her voice trembled slightly, and Trigger’s adrenaline poured through his body.
He knew he could leap into the plane before the asshole standing guard could kill him, but there were still five more hijackers.
They’d certainly take him out before Grover or Lefty could get inside.
Not to mention, it would put all of the civilians in danger.
He had to be patient. The moment would come for the hijackers to die, but now wasn’t that time.
The woman licked her lips and got down on her knees in front of the opening. “Okay. Just move slow. Don’t give him a reason to shoot you or anyone else. Please.”
This was definitely Gillian; he recognized her voice.
He nodded at her and turned to his teammates.
Lefty and Grover met his gaze and they communicated easily without words.
They would play this safe, but if the shit hit the fan, they were all ready to act.
They had several weapons hidden on their bodies and could draw and shoot in seconds if need be.
Trigger set up the ladder and climbed a few rungs. He reached down and took the box Lefty was holding for him, then stepped up the rest of the way to the opening of the plane.
“I’m Gillian Romano, and that’s Andrea Vilmer,” the woman said as she reached for the box.
Trigger nodded. He approved of her doing what she could to share the names of the people still inside. She reached for the heavy box and the hijacker next to her backed farther into the plane, so Trigger couldn’t get a good view of his face.
Frustrated that Gillian and Andrea had to do the heavy lifting of the boxes, Trigger could only watch as they and the other women nearby struggled to move the boxes from the hatch into the bowels of the plane.
“Thank you, Janet. Maybe there’s something sweet in there for your daughter, Renee,” Gillian said as she handed another box to a woman behind her.
“This one’s heavy, Alice,” she cautioned as another box was handed to another woman.
“Maybe Leyton and Reed will help move the boxes to the back for the men. I know Charles will appreciate getting the water, with his cough and all.”
With each box she handed off, Gillian recited names. Maria, Camile, Rebecca, Mateo, Alejandro, Muhammad…she’d done an amazing job of remembering the names of the other hostages on the plane.
Trigger was impressed. Intentional or not, she was doing her best to not only humanize the other captives, but to let him know who was still alive inside the plane.
He wished he could reassure her. Tell her that he understood what she was doing, that she was so strong and he admired her.
But he couldn’t. All he could do was keep handing her the damn boxes filled with food and water.
He wasn’t ready for Lefty to hand him the last box. It hadn’t taken enough time. He hadn’t been able to see enough of the inside of the plane…and he definitely hadn’t had enough time with Gillian.
“This is the last one,” Gillian told the man in the shadows as she handed it off to someone behind her. “You said if they delivered the supplies within two hours, you’d let ten people go.”
Trigger wanted to tell her not to antagonize the hijacker, but he had to keep his mouth shut. It wouldn’t be hard for the man with the rifle to realize he wasn’t a native Spanish speaker and that something was up. He had a part to play, just as Gillian did. But that didn’t mean he liked it.
Refusing to budge from the ladder, he stilled, waiting to see what would happen next.
The man gestured to someone inside the plane and before Trigger knew what was happening, a man in his mid-thirties was standing at the opening of the plane, looking down at him.
“Be careful,” Gillian was saying. “Don’t fall as you go down the ladder.”
With no choice, Trigger had to back down the ladder as the first hostage made his way off the plane.
As each person arrived at the bottom of the ladder, Lefty and Grover pointed them back toward the terminal. Each one took off as if the hounds of hell were at their feet, and Trigger couldn’t blame them. It was obvious they were relieved to be away from the plane and from the hijackers.
But something was bothering him about the civilians who’d been chosen to be set free. Typically in hijackings, the freed were often women, children, or the infirm. Only two of the hostages set free were women, the others all men. Healthy, relatively young men.
People who might be able to put up a struggle and possibly overcome the hijackers.
Trigger understood the thought process behind letting the young, healthy, and strong free, and it pissed him off.
Looking up at the hatch, he saw Gillian once again come to the edge.
For a second, he wanted to encourage her to scramble down the ladder.
To get the hell out of there. But somehow he knew, even if it was the right thing to do—which it wasn’t—she wouldn’t do it.
She wouldn’t bail and leave the others behind.
For just a moment, their eyes met. Her brows came down, she licked her lips, and he saw her mouth his name in question.
He nodded once—then a black-clad arm reached around Gillian’s chest and almost took her off her feet as she was wrenched backward. She let out a small sound of surprise as she was hauled away.
The hatch slammed shut, and Trigger heard the lock engage as it was secured.
“Fuck,” Grover swore as he and Lefty grabbed the ladder and secured it back to the utility cart they’d driven out to the plane.
“You couldn’t see much, could you?” Lefty asked.
Trigger shook his head. “No. They played it smart. Using the forward door meant the galley blocked the view of the rest of the plane.”
“I’m assuming that was Gillian?” Grover asked.
“Yeah,” Trigger confirmed.
“I heard some of what she was saying,” Lefty said. “She was trying to give us as much information as possible as to who was still alive onboard, wasn’t she?”
Trigger nodded. “I think so.”
“We’ve got the passenger manifest,” Grover reminded the men. “We’ve already got the names of everyone onboard.”
“Right, but not who was shot and who wasn’t,” Trigger told his friend.
He’d found that people reacted in very different ways to danger.
Some froze in terror. Others freaked out.
And the very rare few seemed to remain calm and process the situation carefully…
like Gillian. She was obviously frightened, but had pushed her feelings to the side to try to help others.
“It was pretty ripe in there,” Lefty muttered. “I could smell it even from where I was on that ladder.”
For some reason, his friend’s words irritated Trigger. “It’s not like they can help it,” he bit out. “It’s fucking hot during the day and they’re not running the engine for power. And let’s not forget the toilets weren’t meant for the number of people using them for days on end.”
“Whoa!” Lefty said, holding up his hands. “I wasn’t criticizing. Just making an observation.”
Trigger took a deep breath and held on as Grover drove them back to the terminal. “I know, sorry.”
“Hugo should be freed sometime tonight. We’ll stall them by saying the paperwork is still being done or something, but we should be ready to make our move early in the morning,” Grover said.
Trigger nodded. That was the timetable he was working toward as well.