Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-Six
Ramon kept watching out the window. One dot became two, and then the dots came close enough that he could make out fighter jets. “Did we catch an escort coming into US airspace?”
“I don’t think they’re here to escort us.” Bear sat across the aisle, directly in line with Holmberg, where Ramon could see the nerves on Bear’s face. The Norwegian might have missed that, but his expression had also changed.
The Dominatus accountant was nervous.
“Is this a response to the request for negotiations?” Ramon shook his head. “Don’t tell me Dominatus has some kind of policy of not negotiating with terrorists, or people who disagree with them.”
“This certainly won’t be a negotiation.” Holmberg looked out the window.
“They’re here to kill you and all of us along with you? Because you’re just a small part of their operation. You played your role, and it’s over?”
“As opposed to what exactly?”
Ramon leaned forward. “Tell me what I need to know about them. Tell me how to destroy Dominatus now, once and for all. I’ll transmit that information to people who will do it. They’ll see this through to the end, and you’ll die knowing you did something good for once.”
“You know nothing about me.”
“I know you don’t want to die. That you’d choose instead to live and go back to your life.
That you like things the way they are.” Ramon didn’t know where that came from, but he decided to just go with it.
“It isn’t your choice to be traded like this and murdered along with the rest of us.
How about, just this once, you defy everything you were taught and step out of line? Take a stand against them.”
“How noble.”
Ramon said, “When death is staring you in the face, maybe nobility is all you have to cling to. Knowing your life meant something, and that you stood for something good. That you saved lives instead of destroying them.”
Holmberg stared at him. Then he looked out the window.
“Think fast. Time is running out.”
At least, that was the impression he was getting.
Ramon glanced at Bear. “How far are we from where we’re going?”
“Not far. Twenty minutes, maybe.”
“Can we outrun these guys?” Dumb question, but it was out of his mouth now. In the space of a few breaths, he’d been wise and stupid.
Maybe he should take his own advice and get his life on the right footing before it ended. Stand for good, and admit that everything Kenna had said about God, sin, and salvation was true.
The airplane shuddered.
Ramon asked Bear, “Turbulence?”
“Only a matter of time before they shoot us down.”
Ramon leaned over and peered out the window. “Those planes are closer now.” Too close for his liking, actually. Would they bump this plane and force it down? “Do we know what they want?”
Bear looked at his phone. “The reply came in. Send a picture of Holmberg dead, and we’ll leave you alone.”
The Norwegian whipped around in his seat. “You lie.”
“See for yourself.” Bear handed over the phone. Holmberg took it awkwardly between his bound hands, and Ramon ended up holding it for him. Which gave him a look at the screen.
Bear had been truthful about the reply.
“They want you dead.” Ramon let Holmberg see the screen for a few moments longer, then tossed the phone back to Bear. “Care to stick it to them in your final moments?”
Let the guy think they planned to agree in order to save themselves.
“You’re going to do it.” Holmberg looked around, his expression pleading. “You’re going to kill me?”
Bear shrugged. “Decide quickly, but I’m not letting Dominatus take any more of my men from me.”
Holmberg glanced across the aisle, at the other guys that Ramon couldn’t see unless he twisted all the way around. His jaw set. His eyes went dark with the knowledge that this was it—decision time. He was facing the end.
But did he go down like a lamb being slaughtered, or did he fight to the end?
“Tell us what we need to know,” Ramon said. “Before we’re all killed.” Sure, it was self-serving, but it was also real life. “We can work something out. Get us all out of this.”
Holmberg stared at him. “Get me a computer.”
Bear unclipped his seat belt and took a laptop handed to him by Hollace, who sat directly behind Ramon. He opened it on the table in front of their captive and sat beside him, probably so he could see what Holmberg was doing the whole time.
“Make it fast, before someone out there in our escort gets an itchy finger.”
Bear had only just finished saying that when the whole plane shuddered again. Turbulence lifted the plane in the air for a second. If Ramon had been holding a drink, it would have spilled in his lap. Instead, all he could do was wait while Holmberg typed on the keyboard.
“There.” Holmberg sat back, defeat in his body language. “That’s the server where I keep all their financial information. It’s all there. Everything.”
All the secrets of Dominatus. Ramon wanted to snatch the laptop and get Maizie access to the whole cache of information in one go.
Instead, he sat where he was, trying not to look like they had just gained a win.
Given the squadron of fighter jets surrounding them with their missiles locked on, it wasn’t time to celebrate.
They weren’t out of danger yet.
“You think they’ll stand down?” Ramon asked Bear. “We can’t destroy the organization quickly enough to get these guys to back off in response.” He looked around, a plan coalescing in his mind. “With some supplies, we could make it look like Holmberg is dead.”
“They’ll still fire on you.” Holmberg lifted his chin. “They’ll just do it to ensure that I’m gone.”
“I’ll message them back. Attempt to negotiate.” Bear looked at Holmberg. “With this information, we can finally destroy them.”
“Congratulations.” Holmberg bit out the word.
Bear got up, taking the laptop with him.
He passed it across the aisle to one of his guys.
Hazel, their tech, was probably already looking at the information.
Copying everything from the server, just in case there was some kind of signal embedded in the log-in that Holmberg had used, which might initiate a program that would start destroying everything stored on the server before they could see it.
Ramon wanted to shake his head. At himself.
He’d been hanging out with Maizie too much if he was thinking like this.
There was no reason for Holmberg to do something like that, unless he planned to martyr himself, and either way, he figured MSI would be pulling the trigger.
He’d given up hope, so what did it matter?
He looked at the other man. “You did the right thing.”
At least, he hoped Holmberg had actually given them what they needed.
“I’ll die with pride.” Holmberg lifted his chin. “Is that it?”
“Something like that.” Ramon looked at the planes out the window, again so tempted to pray that it seemed like the words settled on the tip of his tongue.
As he watched, the aircraft banked away from them and flew off.
“They left.” He looked at the other guys. “The ones on this side just flew away. How about that side?”
One of the men over there said, “The planes on this side did as well. They’re gone.”
He didn’t seem surprised.
Ramon frowned, which Bear caught when he exited the cockpit.
“It’s taken care of.”
Ramon stared at him.
“What?”
Holmberg said nothing. He just stared out the window. Did he know he’d been played?
Ramon had been played as well. “You needed me to act natural, so you didn’t let me know you had pilots on speed dial?” That, or this man would never see Ramon as one of them.
“Don’t take it personal.” Bear settled into his seat across the aisle. “We have what we came for.”
He didn’t mean Holmberg. He meant the information. “And the message board?”
“Hazel does good work.”
Ramon swallowed. All of it was a play. A pretty elaborate scheme to get Holmberg to believe they were going to kill him—that he’d die either way. By Bear’s hand, or in a fiery plane crash courtesy of Dominatus.
And it had worked. He’d given up the information.
Holmberg started to chuckle under his breath, and it bubbled up into laughter that spilled out of his mouth.
Ramon’s ears popped. The plane dropped out of the clouds, and he spotted a mountain range topped with plenty of snow. On the wing, the moisture from the clouds started to harden into ice but didn’t stick around and wound up running off in streams.
It took less than fifteen minutes to descend, and then the flaps lifted on the wings.
He heard the landing gear deploy and tried to guess their location from the terrain.
Somewhere in the Rocky Mountains, so past the Midwest. Maybe Montana, or Wyoming more likely, given how long they had been going south.
The plane bumped onto an asphalt airstrip with only a handful of buildings in the surrounding valley.
All around the plane was a wall of mountain peaks, making him feel like they had landed in a bowl that occurred naturally in this part of the country.
Wide enough at the base for a facility. Or a military installation.
“Where are we?” Ramon looked at Bear. “What is this place?”
“One of Schnell’s installations. We relieved him of it and dispatched his men right after he was arrested. But before he dropped off the radar.” Bear tipped his head. “You don’t happen to know what the president did with him, do you?”
“Why? You need a pen pal?”
Bear chuckled. “Just curious. I know they’ve got black sites where they hold dangerous enemies of the state. I figure he’s in one of those, and we’ll never see him again.”
“So along you come to scoop up his assets. Just like at the platform.”
“You make that sound like it’s a bad thing.” Bear shrugged.
“You have a cell around here for this guy?” Ramon motioned at Holmberg.
Bear just lifted his brows.
Ramon shook his head and looked out the window. Three military-style Humvees headed across the grass toward the runway.
When they were able to open the door, cool air rushed in from outside.
Definitely high altitude. High in the Rocky Mountains, at a secret base formerly occupied by the military.
He definitely needed his phone back. The rest of the Banbury Investigations team was going to be interested in this.
Bear’s phone rang, and Ramon descended the stairs, listening to the guy behind him say, “Uh-huh,” and “Nuh-uh,” over and over. Then, “Got it.”
When they stepped off the bottom step, facing off with the private security guys who had approached in their vehicles, Ramon finally got a look at the whole place. This was a massive military training facility, no doubt about it. They’d scored huge in getting their hands on it.
But how had they even known it was here?
Bear dragged Holmberg forward and said to one of the men, “Get a secure video connection set up. The president wants to talk to this guy.”
Ramon turned to him. “That’s who was on the phone?”
Bear ignored him.
Ramon dragged his shoulder around, making everyone around them—except their captive—reach for their weapon. Ramon lifted his hands. “We’re cool. But I want an answer to my question.” This was unbelievable. “You guys are taking orders from the president?”
Bear said, “Welcome to MSI.”