And she knew now, he always would.
***
Catriona begged, pleaded, and finally bullied her way in to see Brandon.
After an hour of searching, she’d learned he’d been sent to a larger medical facility off base. Then she’d paced for more torturous hours in the waiting area before being told he’d come out of surgery, but only family was allowed in to see him.
Once upon a time, she would have backed quietly into the shadows. But not any longer. She wasn’t blood related, but the only way hospital staff could keep her from him was to call in security, phone the cops.>“Hey, did you ever see that movie where a special-ops guy is lowered from one airplane to another to save the president?”
Rocha stared at the winch and shook his head. “Yeah, and I thought it was bullshit Hollywood glitz. Besides, that was a different kind of plane than this. I don’t think that would have a chance of working unless the back ramp was down. You can’t just open the doors from the outside, and the props are way too close anyway.”
“Valid points”—which was why he had a team, to think through all angles—“but if the ramp is still down… If Sullivan didn’t close it after takeoff because he’s a fighter pilot, unfamiliar with the cargo plane… If we flew at just the right altitude above him so he can’t get a visual on us…”
Cuervo asked, “What makes you think that he just won’t crash the plane once the PJ boards?”
That part was easy. He’d had a wealth of training on getting inside a person’s head after all his time in therapy. And from the start, he’d had the general’s number—an intense narcissist. Once he was face-to-face with the guy, he knew just how to play the bastard. “I don’t believe that anything is more important to General Sullivan than General Sullivan. He won’t risk a crash landing. If he was on a suicide mission, he would have shot himself back in his office.”
Decision made, Liam charged up the deck to the communications sergeant. “Get me a patch to NORTHCOM. I need to get clearance for a change of plans.”
Chapter 19
For the millionth time, Rachel looked around the cockpit and toward the back of the plane for a way out. Although that seemed an unlikely occurrence.
Even if she knocked the general unconscious, grabbed his gun, or clawed his face until he bled to death, she was stuck in an airplane she couldn’t land. The back ramp was still open, but it was a long, long way down into the darkening sky. Panic had shifted into a dull numbness.
Bump. The cargo plane bounced, then settled.
Hell, the general could barely even fly this aircraft. Every few minutes he pulled his attention from the early-night sky to the instrument panel. The plane would lurch, drawing him back to the yoke. The general would curse the airplane again.
Bump.
Right on time.
“This airplane blows,” he shouted over the roar of wind through the back. “I don’t think they rigged it right.”
Sullivan looked down again, searching for something. The airplane jolted.
Bump.
He gripped the yoke tighter. “Autopilot? How’s the damn autopilot work?”
Like she would actually answer? Shivering, Rachel turned her head and looked out the window at the dim shadow of a fighter jet that had been trailing them just off the wing for the last thirty minutes. It stayed on her side of the plane, where the general couldn’t see. She wasn’t ready to surrender. She was willing to fight. But she feared the decision might be out of her hands.
How much longer until the fighter shot them down? The jet was there to shoot them down. She accepted that and wondered why Sullivan hadn’t considered it. Granted, he didn’t seem to be thinking all that clearly.
Bump. “Fuck!”
Hysterical laughter bubbled inside her. She clapped a hand over her mouth, but she couldn’t hold it back. It just flowed and flowed out of her until tears ran down her face, blurring the stars winking to life outside the windscreen. Starlight, star bright, first star I see tonight… She gasped for air. Okay, she was on her way to a major panic attack.
But what did that matter? She was about to die anyway. All her great intentions to fight her way out of this were just that. Intentions. She needed something with a lot more firepower.
It wasn’t as though Liam would come swooping in to save her. She couldn’t even leave him a message about how much she loved him and how deeply sorry she was for fighting with him earlier. How she wished she could go back and treasure up every minute they’d had together. How she wished she hadn’t wasted the past six months they could have spent together. He wouldn’t know any of that even if she could write it down, since paper and the rest of this plane would be at the bottom of the ocean very shortly.
Bump.
She considered just jumping out of her seat and making a mad dash toward the back after all. Maybe she could grab a parachute. She knew how to jump from a plane. Well, not with a parachute, but she’d been lowered on a cable with her dog countless times on search and rescue missions.
God, she’d had an amazing life, but she could have had more. She wanted more. The waste, the futility, clanked inside her again and again until the sound became an almost tangible part of the roaring wind.