Part 12 (1/2)
”I meant it as a compliment,” she said sincerely. Ling folded her arms and studied me. ”You helped us. We will take this risk.”
”Thanks.” Then I noticed something about the airfield. I stopped, tilted my head, and thought about it for a moment. It was stupid, but it could work. ”Maybe we don't need to land. That way if I screw up and attract any attention, you guys are still in the clear.” I pointed at a large green sign on a nearby hangar. ”I've got an idea.”
The hangar had a padlocked chain on the door, and was clearly closed for the winter. Ling followed my finger and read the sign.
Skydiving Lessons and Rentals ”You can't be serious.”
”Ms. Ling, serious is my middle name,” I said with a smile.
I woke up looking at Albert Einstein again.
”Good evening, Mr. Lorenzo,” Dr. Bundt said over the noise of the Cessna. The good doctor had come to the rear of the plane and sat next to me. ”We'll be pa.s.sing over Flagstaff in thirty minutes.”
”Groovy.” I yawned and stretched. At least I had managed to get a couple of hours of sleep. The view out the window showed that it was nearly dark. Perfect. ”I'll get ready. We'll need to pick a good spot. We've got to avoid witnesses, but someplace close enough that I can catch a ride into town.”
”Understandable. You have done this before, I a.s.sume?”
”Jumped out of an airplane? Yeah, a few times.” When Big Eddie had commissioned me to rob the Cape Town Diamond Exchange, my team had inserted with a HALO jump. We had practiced a mult.i.tude of times, jumping five or six times a day in the week leading up to the actual heist. Of course, one of Eddie's men had landed on a wrought iron fence and disemboweled himself, so I couldn't exactly say that it had been flawlessly executed. I changed the subject. ”How's your patient?”
Ling was forward of us, sitting on the floor, leaning on the fuselage, next to the unconscious form of Valentine. The table had been removed, and Valentine was stretched out. He still looked like s.h.i.+t.
Dr. Bundt shook his head. ”At this point, I do not know. He'll live, but I do not know what shape he will be in. The boy has seen some serious trauma, and has been heavily medicated for quite some time. He still hasn't woken up.”
”Well, when he wakes up, the kid and I need to talk.” It was not a request.
”It may not be that simple, I'm afraid. Not everyone comes back fully from that kind of trauma.”
”He's tough,” I said simply.
”If only that were all there was to it. You see, when someone faces something so horrible, when something breaks inside their-”
I cut him off. ”Whatever, Doc. I know how horrible works. Some people wimp out, let the hurt, the evil, own them. Others lock it up and hide it, and some people are really smart, and they keep it, and learn to use it as a weapon.”
He paused, studying me. ”And I a.s.sume that you are the latter?”
I had already said too much. ”Don't bother to psychoa.n.a.lyze me, Doc. You're wasting your time.”
”It is what I do,” he said simply. ”But if I were to make an educated guess, in a professional capacity, I would say that you had a very horrible childhood, violent, poor, probably a criminal background, most likely abusive. I can tell that by your reputation and behavior. You trust no one. Your natural instinct is to dislike everyone you meet. Your first reaction is to view them either as a threat or something you can use to your own advantage. Basically, you are what I believe you Americans would refer to as an a.s.shole.”
”I'm the nicest a.s.shole you'll ever meet. You know I'm not paying for this session, right?” I moved over to check my stolen parachute.
He followed me. ”But that's not all you are. I can only a.s.sume that you had some respite, some brief time where you actually learned to love. Where you actually learned about family and loyalty, and that not everyone in the world existed just to prey upon one another. I can tell this by the way you speak about those that you consider your own. For them, you are very protective. Perhaps those good times were somehow taken from you, rendering you bitter and full of hate for so long-”
”I'm not one of your freed slaves in need of fixing. Now if you'll excuse me . . .” I hoisted the parachute and headed forward.
His bony hand clamped down on my wrist. ”Mr. Lorenzo, if I can ever be of a.s.sistance . . .”
I sighed, crouched uncomfortably in the cramped compartment. He meant well. ”Dr. Bundt, just so you know. When I was a kid, I watched my old man beat my mother to death. I stabbed one of his eyes out with a fork when he came for me next. The judge that put my dad in prison took me in and gave me a home. He was a good man. A few years later, some sc.u.mbags killed him for his watch. So I hunted them down and murdered every last one of them. I've spent the time since hurting people and taking their stuff. So there really isn't much you can tell me that's going to fill me with warm fuzzies, if you know what I mean.”
”See? I was actually pretty close,” he said happily.
I gently removed his hand from my arm. ”Score one for psychiatry.” I moved toward the c.o.c.kpit. Ling was asleep, still holding Valentine's hand. I'd suspected there were some feelings there, at least on her side of the equation. Antoine and Shen watched me carefully step over them as I made my way to the c.o.c.kpit.
”We're getting close,” the pilot said without turning around. ”This area's actually really forested. Where do you want to get out?”
”That's the highway below us. I just need to be close enough to run to it. Pick me a good, open field where I won't break my neck, and I'll try for that. I'll get ready, you just give me the signal.”
The pilot nodded. As I turned back around, Shen spoke.
”Was Doctor Bundt trying to a.n.a.lyze you?”
It took me a moment to respond. I could count the number of times that Shen had initiated conversation in the last week on one hand. ”Yeah, apparently my psychological profile says I'm an a.s.shole.”
”I could have told you that,” he said, and actually grinned. Shen extended his hand. I shook it. He had a grip that could bend rebar. ”It was a pleasure working with you.”
”Yes, I thought I was going to have to kill you at first, but I would work with you anytime,” Antoine said simply. ”It was an honor.”
Well, I'll be d.a.m.ned.
”Thanks guys, but this is only a detour. I'm not dead yet.” I pa.s.sed forward a note that I had written some instructions on. ”When you get to Santa Vasquez, the man you need to speak with at the airport is Guillermo Reyes. He runs all of the smuggling through that area. Tell him I sent you, and he'll arrange for new tail numbers and transponder. Don't let him give you any s.h.i.+t. Shen, would you help me at the door?”
Shen moved to a.s.sist as I struggled into the chute. I had checked it on the ground in Montana, and it had appeared to be relatively new, in good condition and packed correctly, rigging seemed nice and tight, and if it wasn't, at least I wouldn't have to worry about it for very long. My Suunto watch had an illuminated altimeter, and had always been very accurate in the past. The light was fading, and I was planning to open low enough that hopefully I would minimize any witnesses.
I was dressed in jeans, a baggy grey long-sleeve s.h.i.+rt, and the same boots I had been wearing in Tickville. The holster for my STI 9mm was a standard concealment rig, nothing really jump capable, so I fixed that by zip tying the STI's grip to my belt. I had a pouch for the suppressor, and I hoped that it would hold, same with my two spare magazines. You may think something is securely attached to your person, but hitting the ground after a jump has a tendency to separate a lot of gear from their owners.
”There's a good pasture ahead. Looks fairly flat. The highway is one mile to the west,” the pilot shouted. ”Get ready.”
I noticed Ling watching me. We had woken her. Her black eyes were difficult to read.
”If you don't hear from me in six hours, a.s.sume I'm dead,” I said as I pulled the stolen goggles over my eyes. ”I'm sorry about what I said earlier.”
”No, you're not. But thank you for saying so. Good luck, Lorenzo,” she said, smiling, still holding Valentine's hand. ”See you in Mexico.”
Shen opened the door behind me. The roar of the pa.s.sing airstream was deafening. The pilot pumped his fist in the air. It was time to go. I gave the Exodus operatives a wave, and stepped backward into the hundred mile-an-hour sky.
It had been awhile. The feeling was terrifying and exhilarating at the same time. The wind tore at my clothing, battered my face, and sucked the moisture right off my grinning teeth. I could only vaguely see the color and texture of the ground. The sun was setting, and I knew that the odds of someone seeing the grey, terminal velocity blur that was my silhouette was slim. I held my arms at my side, clenched tight, legs extended, head down as I tore through the air at absurd speed.
There was the highway. The headlights were beacons. I could see the field that the pilot had picked out, a giant strip a slightly different shade of brown than the rest of the countryside. The numbers on my altimeter were changing rapidly. I'd changed the ground level on it before jumping, which was good because Arizona was a lot closer to the sky than Saint Carl.
Jill would really love this. She's never jumped before. I can only imagine how fun she would think this is.
Strange, the thoughts that wander through your head when you're streaking toward the ground at a speed sufficient to turn you into a red paste. Here I was, taking a stupid risk with a very high potential for death, and I was thinking about Jill. Well, that was understandable, since she was the best thing that had ever happened to me. Someone like me certainly didn't deserve someone like her. h.e.l.l, someone like me didn't deserve to be alive at all, let alone happy. It was probably best not to think such bad karmic thoughts while whistling through the air, flipping gravity the bird.
Pay attention. The ground was closer now, and every fiber of my being told me to deploy the chute. I'd disabled the automatic deployment preset. I checked my alt.i.tude again. Still a little too high on the horizon. A single police report that might show up in a government database would defeat the purpose of this idiotic stunt. I waited.
I flared my arms and legs out, feeling the current change over my body, turning myself into a giant air brake. The ground was close, screaming toward me. Ground! Ground! I told the panicky part of my brain to shut up. NOW!