Chapter 18
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When they left Scarlett’s safe house, Flint rode shotgun and Drake took the wheel. They cleared the driveway and turned east toward the loop.
“Gaspar, have you located them yet?” Flint asked.
Drake accelerated up the on-ramp and merged into the westbound lanes. Evening traffic was not too heavy. He worked his way to the outside lane and held the speed high, but low enough that he shouldn’t attract unwanted attention.
“Show me where they are.” Flint pulled up a map on the SUV’s GPS and Gaspar fed the overlay onto the screen. “How far ahead?”
“Twelve miles, give or take,” Gaspar replied. “Maybe fifteen. They’re moving at the limit. Probably trying to stay within tolerance of the overhead speed traps.”
“They’re confident,” Flint suggested. “They don’t think anyone’s coming after Patterson.”
“Yeah, well we won’t show them otherwise.” Drake kept the SUV traveling with the flow of traffic.
“I need ears inside that car,” Flint said.
“I’m pulling up the specs now,” Gaspar replied. “It’s a late model Chevy with cellular telematics on the head unit. We can do that. Hang on.”
Over the comms Flint heard Gaspar’s keyboard clacking and a fan fighting the Miami heat. Drake kept the SUV heading west, closing the gap.
A moment later, Gaspar said, “Patching the cabin audio to your earpieces.”
Flint heard a small click in his ear and then road noises.
Tires humming on highway pavement. A blower fan running on low.
The background sounds of the sedan’s interior recorded through whatever cheap microphone the manufacturer had built into the sedan’s head unit for hands-free calls.
A moment later, he heard the conversation.
“The Bell was in the air about six hours, give or take, right?” The audio feed didn’t tell Flint which of the two goons was speaking.
“Plus however long they were on the ground,” the second goon replied.
“That’s a lot of time for conversation,” the first one said. “Patterson. You hearing me back there?”
“Yeah.” Patterson’s voice was steady as if he knew he was being heard even if he didn’t know who was listening.
“What did you tell the pilot? We can’t have him spilling his guts to his girlfriend,” the first one said.
“He was a pilot, not a partner. I don’t talk to taxi drivers,” Patterson replied wearily. “You don’t need to worry about him.”
Flint gave Drake a quick glance across the console. These guys must have had eyes on Patterson for a while. They knew he’d flown out hours ago. From Langford.
After a mile or so of silence, Patterson spoke again. “Where are we going?”
The first goon, the chatty one, replied with a chuckle. “Club Med. Ever been there before? You’ll enjoy the spa like experience.”
“They’re still on I-10 westbound,” Gaspar said through the SUV speaker.
“Any clue where they’re going?” Drake held the SUV steadily about ten miles over the limit staying with the flow of traffic.
Flint had pulled up a wider map view on the GPS and scrolled through the countryside west of I-10.
“They just got off the interstate at 36 South,” Gaspar said.
“What’s down there?” Flint asked.
Gaspar replied as if he were searching through the maps, too. “Pasture. Some small towns. A few private air strips.”
“Can you pull the satellite images?” Flint asked.
“Yeah, but it’ll take a minute,” Gaspar replied. “Hacking satellites is trickier than traffic cams.”
“Patterson got into that car at the airport without a fight,” Drake said while they waited. “They had a gun on him, but he was a cop for a long time. He knows getting into cars at gunpoint rarely ends well.”
Flint considered that. “Hours of conversation time with you on the way from the Lazy M to Houston, and not a word about why he was in Langford this morning, either. He’s been holding back.”
“Why?” Drake wondered aloud.
“Dunno,” Flint replied. “He came to Houston looking for his brother. Whatever he found in Langford could be what’s behind this.”
Drake worked the lane around a slower truck. “Just to be clear, we’re driving toward an airstrip with a plane and two kidnappers to recover a man who’s been lying to us. That what we’re doing here?”
“Seems like it.”
“Found it.” Gaspar came back through the speaker.
“A private airstrip about eighteen miles south off highway 36. Single grass strip, one hangar, one taxiway. There’s an aircraft on the runway with the engines running.
It looks like a twin-engine turboprop. I can see the heat coming off the exhausts. ”
“Any idea who owns it or where it’s going?” Flint asked.
“I can’t read the plane’s tail ID from this angle. But they probably didn’t file a flight plan anyway,” Gaspar replied. “I can go check other satellites to see how long it’s been sitting there and maybe where it came from, if you need it.”
“Let’s not waste time on that now. What are we getting into when we arrive?” Flint asked. “Any vehicles nearby? More muscle in the area?”
“One SUV is parked next to the hangar. One man standing there, like a sentry. Two men are standing by at the aircraft.”
Flint was already pulling up the map. “How long before we get there?”
“You’re about twenty minutes out,” Gaspar said. “The sedan is roughly twelve minutes out.”
“So they’ll be there eight minutes before we are,” Drake said as he pushed the accelerator closer to the floor.
“Probably less than that. Once they hand him over, that aircraft isn’t going to sit on the apron that long.”
The SUV’s speedometer climbed. Drake worked through traffic on the inside lane and took the highway 36 exit as quickly as possible without flipping the vehicle over.
Flint had studied the map. “There’s an access road south of the airstrip. Comes in from the east. Should put us on the tarmac without going through the main gate.”
“Gaspar, can you confirm that?” Drake asked, weaving through light traffic to close the distance between them and the sedan.
“The access road is a gravel maintenance track,” Gaspar replied. “It runs along the south end of the property and ties into the runway at the hangar.”
“Okay, we’ll go in from there,” Flint said.
“They’re on the property now and coming up the main drive,” Gaspar said through the speaker.
The conversation in the sedan had dropped to nothing. They seemed to be focused now on whatever the endgame was.
Then one of the goons said, “Keep quiet. Do as you’re told. We’re getting out.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Patterson replied angrily. “I’m not getting on a plane with you. Forget it.”
The sedan slowed. Flint heard the engine throttle down and idle through the earpiece. When the doors opened, the sedan’s microphone caught the wind blowing across the runway and the higher pitch of the plane’s engines idling in the near distance.
Heavy footsteps approached the sedan. Another man said, “Took you long enough.”
“Traffic was bad out of Houston,” one of the goons replied.
“Get him on board,” the new man said.
Drake sped along the access road as fast as he dared. Gravel hammered the SUV’s undercarriage.
Moments later, he raced off the gravel track onto the south end of the paved parking area without slowing down.
The hangar was on their left. The aircraft was straight ahead, maybe two hundred yards off. Still running, with three doors open, the sedan was parked between them and the aircraft.
A man standing at the hangar saw the SUV coming and shouted something Flint couldn’t make out. The two men by the aircraft turned toward the noise.
The two men from the sedan had Patterson by each arm, practically dragging him along.
Drake brought the SUV broadside to the pavement and stopped hard. Flint jumped out of the passenger door, weapon ready.
The first shot came from the man near the hangar. It punched through the rear quarter panel of the SUV behind Flint.
Drake came out the driver’s side and put the engine block between him and the shooter. He returned fire across the hood and dropped the shooter. No more gunshots came from him.
Flint moved up the parking area toward the sedan. The tall guy who had been driving let go of Patterson’s arm and brought a pistol up from his hip. Flint put two clean rounds into his chest, and he folded onto the gravel.
The other goon, the chatty one, pulled Patterson sideways, using him as cover, and started backing toward the aircraft. Patterson went with him because there was nothing else he could do.
The two men by the aircraft were moving now. One stayed at the airstair with a rifle, shooting toward Drake at the SUV. The other came down the tarmac toward Patterson at a fast walk, weapon ready.
Flint stayed low and moved along the line of the sedan.
The heavyset goon was still backing toward the aircraft with Patterson in front to shield himself from gunfire. The man coming down the tarmac from the plane met them halfway.
He grabbed Patterson and turned to rush him toward the airstair.
Then he looked at Patterson’s face up close and stopped walking.
He said something to the chatty goon from the sedan. They exchanged a few angry words Flint couldn’t hear.
The older man jerked Patterson along as he turned toward the aircraft and called out. The man at the airstair lowered his rifle for half a second to listen, then raised it again and kept shooting.
In a flash, Flint came up over the trunk of the sedan and put two rounds into the man’s back.
He stumbled and went down on one knee, but he kept hold of Patterson. The chatty goon was already running for the airstair, taking cover where he could find it.
The rifleman at the airstair shifted to Flint and laid a burst of fire across the trunk of the sedan. The rounds hit across the metal in a tight line.
Flint dropped behind the rear wheel.
“Hangar’s clear,” Drake said over the comms. “Coming up on your right.”
The chatty goon reached the airstair and went up it two steps at a time. The rifleman at the airstair was still shooting.
Patterson was on the gravel six feet from the older man’s body.
Flint came around the rear of the sedan at a run. The man at the airstair saw him and shifted aim. Flint went down behind the sedan’s front wheel and put two rounds through the plane’s open door into his target. The man dropped backward into the cabin. The airstair began to retract.
The aircraft had started rolling and was now picking up speed.
Flint got up and ran toward the airstair. The engines spooled higher and the aircraft pulled away, gaining distance. Flint kept firing as he ran. He shot into the fuselage, a tire, and the engine housing. None of it slowed the plane.
The airstair came fully up. The door sealed. The plane swung onto the strip and went to full power.
Flint stopped running and stood on the gravel with the pistol at his side. He watched the aircraft accelerate away from him down the grass runway. The engines got louder as the plane picked up speed. The tail came up. Then the wheels.
Moments later, the aircraft cleared the trees at the end of the strip and banked north.
Flint watched until it was small enough to lose against the early evening sky before he turned back toward the sedan
The lanky driver was dead on the gravel where Flint had dropped him. The older man was facedown six feet farther on. Drake came up the pavement from the hangar with his weapon down.
“You hit?” Drake asked.
Flint looked himself over. His jacket sleeve had a clean hole through the loose fabric at the elbow. “I’m fine.”
Drake walked to the bodies and crouched to check for a pulse. Nothing.
“I cleared the hangar. Tools, fuel drums, a tug. Nothing to worry about.”
Flint said into the comms for Gaspar’s benefit, “Twin propeller. I didn’t get the ID numbers on the tail.”
“I didn’t either,” Drake said as he walked over to their SUV to assess the damage.
Flint followed for his own inspection. The side panel near the back wheel had a hole through it. The rear window was cracked.
Drake bent down and looked under the chassis and stood up again, dusting his hands together.
“It’ll drive,” Drake said. “Not for long. But it’ll get us away from here.”
Flint walked across the pavement to Patterson who was standing over the older man’s body, looking down at him. He turned when he heard Flint coming.
Flint crouched next to the body and patted the pockets. He collected the man’s phone and wallet and put them in his jacket.
In the man’s inside breast pocket he found a printed photo. A man in his mid-fifties standing on a sidewalk in daylight. He was looking off camera. The hair was long and gray. The face was thin and hollow under the eyes.
Flint handed the photo to Patterson.
Patterson studied it for a long moment. “Kyle’s not as heavy as me. He looks rough.”
Flint folded the photo and returned it to his pocket. Then he walked over to the sedan driver’s body and went through the pockets there too. He found a phone, wallet, and a folding knife.
Drake was still at the SUV checking the rear tire, which was slowly losing air. “We need to go before we get stuck here.”
“Your rental. It’s still at the airport in Langford?” Flint asked Patterson. “Got anything in it we need to collect?”
“My notes. The atlas was in the sedan they tossed at your house, but I have a backup of most of it and a second atlas. Phone records. Credit card records. The photo frame I took from the Keane house,” Patterson replied. “Some other things I’m not ready to talk about yet.”
“They’ll go to your rental as soon as they figure out where you left it,” Flint said. “They’ve been one step ahead of you for a while.”
“Then we should get there first,” Drake said as they piled into the SUV.
Flint settled into the front passenger seat and said aloud, “Gaspar, you still there?”
“Yep.”
“We’re headed to Langford. This SUV won’t make it.”
“There’s a charter strip thirty miles east of you. I can have a plane on the ground waiting in forty minutes. You can use it as long as you need to from there,” Gaspar said. “Do you need a pilot? Or is Drake okay to go?”
“I’m good to fly. No need for a pilot,” Drake replied. “Thirty miles east in forty minutes. On our way.”
Patterson had settled into the back seat.
Drake turned the SUV around on the pavement. The rear quarter panel ticked against something with every revolution of the wheel, but the vehicle kept moving. He came off the parking area onto the gravel track and drove toward the county road.