Chapter 12 #4
Her eyes opened. Unfocused. Struggling.
“Where—” She blinked. Tried to sit up. The seat belt held her. “What happened?”
“You fainted. Low blood sugar probably. We’re on the plane to the facility. You’re safe.”
The lie tasted like ash.
Britta’s eyes tracked around the cabin, taking in the cream leather seats. The dark wood paneling. The windows showing tarmac and sky.
Then her gaze landed on Alan.
Recognition flickered. Then confusion. Then—
“You…” Her gaze went to his suit. Yes, the one that made him appear to be a Secret Service agent, along with the fake pass he’d used to get past the guards at the entrance to Winchester Marshall’s estate and then blindside her close protection officers.
He and Vlad, who really looked the part as long as he didn’t open his mouth.
“You put something over my face.”
Alan’s breath caught. “Miss White—”
“You drugged me.” She grabbed at the seat belt. Fingers fumbling with the buckle. “Let me out. Let me out!”
“Britta, please—”
“Don’t call me that!” She yanked at the belt. It wouldn’t release. Her breathing came faster. “You—Pilot! Stop the plane!”
Alan caught her hands. Gentle but firm. “Listen. Calm down.” He pitched his voice low. “It’s just us. You, me, and the pilot.”
She stared at him. Her face going pale. “What did you do?”
“I’m trying to save your life.”
“By kidnapping me?” She held up her zip ties.
Yeah, Vlad had added that accessory.
“By getting you away from the people who want to kill you.”
The plane turned onto the runway. Stopped. The engines built to a scream.
Britta’s eyes went wild. She looked at the door. At the cockpit. At Alan.
“Please.” Her voice cracked. “Please don’t do this. Whatever this is—please.”
Something in Alan buckled. Sixteen years of lying. Sixteen years of playing roles and following orders and doing terrible things for what he’d told himself were good reasons.
And now this. A twenty-six-year-old woman begging for her life because Alan Martin had made a choice he couldn’t unmake.
“It’s okay,” he said quietly. “It’s going to be okay. I promise. Trust me.”
The plane accelerated. Hard. Britta grabbed the armrests. Her knuckles went white.
The nose lifted. The ground fell away.
Sebastian Municipal Airport shrank below them. The Atlantic spread out to the east. Endless blue.
They were airborne.
The tracker under Alan’s arm would be spiking now. York would be watching the readout. Would know something had gone catastrophically wrong.
Too late. No going back.
Britta pressed against the window. Watching the ground disappear. Her breathing too fast. Hyperventilating.
Alan sat down beside her. “Breathe. Slow. In through your nose. Out through your mouth.”
“Don’t tell me how to breathe.” But she tried. Struggled for control. “Where are you taking me?”
“Fisher Island.”
“That’s where my father is.”
“Yes.”
“Then why—” She stopped. Her expression shifted. Understanding dawning. “You’re not taking me to him. You’re taking me at him.”
Smart. Too smart.
Alan didn’t answer.
The plane leveled off. Three thousand feet. The engines quieted to a steady drone.
Britta turned from the window. Looked at Alan directly. “Who are you? Really.”
“Someone who made a mistake.”
“What kind of mistake?”
Before Alan could answer, the cockpit door opened.
The pilot stepped out. Mid-forties. Graying hair. Hard eyes that had seen too much and cared too little.
He held a headset.
“Tomas wants to talk to you,” he said in Russian. Then switched to English for Britta’s benefit. “Now.”
He extended the headset.
Alan’s blood ran cold.
“Take it,” the pilot—Petrov—said.
Alan reached for the headset. His hand shook. The tracker would be registering cardiac-arrest levels by now.
He put the headset on.
“Hello, Alan. Let’s talk about what happens next.”
Alan looked at Britta. She was pressed back in her seat. Eyes locked on him. Terrified but listening.
She knew. He didn’t know what. But she knew.
“I have someone here who wants to talk to you,” Tomas continued.
Alan stilled. What?
“Hello?”
His body went rigid, his breath locked in his lungs.
“Hello? Who is this?”
Timea.
“Um…this is—”
“Enough. That’s enough,” said Tomas.
Alan had gotten his voice back. “Let me talk to her.”
“Finish the job. She’ll be waiting.” He hung up.
Alan handed the headset back to Petrov.
No. That couldn’t have been her. York had promised.
Tomas was lying. Alan hadn’t heard Timea’s voice in years…there was no way…
But a fist went around his heart.
The pilot smiled. Went back into the cockpit. Left the door open a crack.
Just the engine drone and Britta’s ragged breathing.
“What did he say?” Britta’s voice cracked.
He looked at her and saw a young woman who’d trusted a badge and a suit and gotten this instead. A young woman who trusted her countrymen.
Who didn’t deserve to die because of a vendetta.
But…what choice did he have?
For the first time in sixteen years, Alan told someone the complete truth.
“There’s a bomb on this plane,” he said quietly. “And unless I can figure out how to stop it, we’re both about to die.”