Deadly Dozen: 12 Mysteries/Thrillers (33 page)

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

Phoenix, AZ

November 5

3:45 p.m. local time

Facts were facts: Hale had a three hour head start. And Phoenix was her last chance to get him before he left the country. She didn’t want to chase him all around the world.

But she would if she had to.

By the time they landed at Phoenix Sky Harbor International she had her plan in place. Gaspar had slept all the way from wheels up to wheels down. He had denied being in pain, but the crevices etched deep in his face revealed the lie. His limp had gotten worse, too. He’d refused to explain the extent of his prior injuries or how Hale’s shots might have interacted with them. He’d waved away her concerns. But the stiff upper lip act wasn’t fooling her. And it was making her feel worse, not better.

A small nerdy desk jockey agent from the Phoenix FBI field office waited with ground transportation, as Cooper had promised. “Agents Otto and Gaspar? I’m Agent Picard. This way, please.”

They followed him out to the standard black SUV. He offered keys.

Gaspar held out his hand.

“I’m number two,” he said.

Picard’s eyes widened behind his glasses. He swallowed, and offered a quick rundown. “This vehicle is special-task-force equipped. Firepower in the back if you need it. Fully wired. Activate if you want backup. I’m assigned to you as long as you need me, but otherwise you’re not being monitored. There are extra phones in the console for quick response teams. There’s a cooler with food and water. The GPS is pre-programmed. Access it with your security code. Anything else you need?”

“That’ll do it, thanks,” Kim said.

Picard nodded. “Good luck.” He returned to his own vehicle.

Gaspar opened the cooler and pulled out two sandwiches and two bottles of water. They settled in. Kim plugged in her smart phone to charge its dead battery. Within seconds, a text came in from Cooper containing a seven letter GPS security code. She entered it into the system. The pre-programmed map showed the fastest route to Coolidge Municipal Airport. An hour’s drive time. Fifty eight miles.

#

“We might not be too late,” Gaspar said. “He’s in a private plane. Private planes fly slower and have less fuel on board. The flight would have taken them longer. Maybe required a stop enroute.”

She’d already figured all that out while he was sleeping, but she liked that he was starting to think strategically again. She said, “Be good if you’re right.”

“Check for private jets on the way in and which ones landed in the last half hour?”

She pushed a few buttons on the specialized GPS system and was able to locate airport radar. “Shows flight plans for a helicopter departure. Waiting for inbound passengers. Then nothing else for the remainder of the day.”

He said, “Helicopter?”

She nodded. The only thing Kim hated worse than flying was flying in small planes. And the only thing worse than small planes was helicopters. They crashed. Constantly. People survived chopper crashes, but plenty died, too. Survival rates were higher with water crashes. Unhelpful in the Arizona desert.

And Gaspar would never manage a chopper. She’d be on it alone.

Only one choice.

She collected unjacketed hollow points from the SUV’s supply chest and stuck them in her pocket. She couldn’t risk more firepower inside a chopper. She wanted penetration sufficient to reach vital organs and stay there. Incapacitate. But not instantly. No head shots feasible.

The onboard radar beeped and identified a Learjet incoming westbound at 3,500 feet. Control tower access. Female pilot requesting permission to land. Cleared for final approach.

Kim met Gaspar’s gaze.

He recognized the pilot’s voice, too.

Sylvia Black.

What?

Now Hale’s reckless attack in the alley seemed less foolish.

Gaspar said, “Hale grabbed Sylvia this morning because he needed a pilot, not a hostage.”

Which confirmed one set of suspicions Kim had flushed out inflight. Sylvia had never been a dispensable pawn in Hale’s game. She was an integral actor in a long term criminal enterprise. She said, “Hale and Sylvia planned to meet Archie Leach at Wallace’s place. They planned to kill us in their crossfire.”

“How long have we got?”

“They’re on final approach. Five minutes, maybe?”

Gaspar accelerated.

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

Landing conditions were close to perfect. Winds were blowing straight down the runway at 10 knots. Clouds at 6,000 feet. Sylvia turned to line up with the runway. They would land, switch to the waiting chopper, and take off again. Maybe to a final destination in the mountains? Somewhere the Learjet couldn’t go?

Gaspar put the pedal to the metal and raced the Learjet to the runway.

He didn’t make it.

Too far.

Sylvia landed and taxied fast and came to a stop close to a waiting Huey. She and Hale walked from jet to copter. Just the two of them. No third party. No Reacher.

Kim was puzzled, briefly. From the air Hale must have identified the SUV as an FBI task force vehicle. He should have aborted the landing and flown on. He would have been out of U.S. airspace before Kim could have done anything about it.

Therefore Hale knew who was on the ground, and why.

The Huey’s rotor started turning.

Gaspar slammed the SUV to a stop.

Kim opened her door.

Gaspar asked, “Do you know how to disable a chopper?”

“I’ll think of something,” Kim said. “But feel free to chime in with ideas.”

She slid out of the truck and ran through the downdraft from the whapping blades and the storm of noise from the turbine. Sylvia was in the Huey’s pilot’s seat and Hale was about to climb in on the navigator side. He had one foot on the ground and the other on the Huey’s step.

Kim drew her gun.

She called, “FBI! Stay where you are!”

Protocol satisfied.

Legalities completed.

Hale didn’t stop. He was too close to an escape planned over too many years. Or maybe Kim’s voice had been swallowed up by the Huey’s noise.

Gaspar had driven up very close to the front of the Huey, but the bird could clear the truck for lift off. That was the nature of helicopters.

Kim aimed and fired.

Bullets hit rotors and ricocheted.

Hale braced himself halfway into the cabin and returned fire. Covering fire. Not aimed. He was trying to keep Gaspar inside the SUV and hold Kim back until the Huey could get in the air.

The turbine spooled up and the blades increased their speed. Runway dirt whirled and danced. The Huey went light, and then weightless. It rose steadily. Hale was still on the step, one foot inside, holding on with one hand, and firing with the other.

Kim had no chance to get on board.

She did not feel relieved.

She aimed.

She fired.

Four shots directly at Hale’s receding body.

Two missed.

But one hit him in the hip and a second in the thigh.

He fell.

Forward, into the helicopter’s cabin.

Shit!

Sylvia lifted ever higher.

No target now except the chopper itself.

Kim emptied her clip into the tail. Solid hits. But no result.

Sylvia turned the Huey straight toward the SUV.

Gaspar’s was at the SUV’s weapons locker. He had a rifle. He braced. He aimed.

He fired.

Straight at Sylvia as she flew directly toward him.

The first shot hit the windshield and deflected.

The second shot deflected.

Bulletproof. The Huey was armored for war zones. The Learjet was not. They’d stopped for armored transportation.

Where were they headed?

Gaspar fired again. He hit the glass in precisely the right spot to take Sylvia’s head off.

The bullet deflected.

The Huey raised higher and higher overhead. It turned south, toward Mexico, toward the mountains.

Kim took a sniper rifle from the rack. She steadied herself against the SUV. She aimed. She fired.

She hit.

No result.

She stared at the retreating helicopter.

She’d lost.

She’d failed.

They were gone.

Then the Huey’s blades slowed.

The tail dipped low.

Kim’s bullet had damaged the Huey.

Maybe just enough to force Sylvia to land.

Maybe not enough to make her crash.

She fired again, and again, and again. She hit the Huey every time. It started to swing and falter. It lost power. It started to come down.

“Get in!” she yelled to Gaspar. “Drive!” They scrambled into the SUV.

The Huey started to fall.

Gaspar closed the gap. The Huey lost its rotors. Began to dive.

Gaspar reached the runway’s end and kept on going over the flat gravel apron. Kim watched the Huey fall and crash on the desert floor.

Fifty feet away, Gaspar stopped the SUV.

Kim jumped out and ran. Gaspar limped behind her.

Kim felt the heat. Smelled the fuel.

Sylvia was bloodied but alive. She was unbuckling her seatbelt, trying to rise. Hale had his pistol in his hand.

Sylvia opened her door and got her left leg out.

Hale shot her in the back.

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

Afterward Kim figured the standoff lasted less than ten seconds, but at the time it felt like ten hours. Hale was still alive, but he couldn’t move. He was wounded in the leg, by her handgun rounds, and shaken by the crash. He stayed in his seat. Small tongues of flame were starting up. The desert air was shimmering with heat and vapor.

She walked toward the crippled Huey. Gaspar tried to stop her, but she shook him off. She said, “Hale, I can help you. Hang on. I’m coming for you.”

Hale lifted his gun, like a great effort, and aimed it at her.

“Are you insane?” she called. “You can’t get out of there unless we help you.”

The flames bloomed bigger, twisting and racing, searching out air and fuel. Gaspar came after her, slowed by his wounds. He called out. She couldn’t understand his words, but she knew he was warning her to stop before the Huey exploded.

The fire was roaring now. There was black smoke and the stench of kerosene.

Hale fell out of his seat, to the cabin floor, then to the step, and then to the ground. He tried to crawl away, but he was dazed and his hip and leg were too badly wounded.

He stayed where he was.

Kim rounded the tail section. Gaspar came up beside her.

“We have to get out,” he said.

“Hale! Hale!” she called over the roaring flames.

Hale heard her. He rolled on his back. He stared at her.

He aimed his gun at Gaspar’s chest.

Instinct.

Muscle memory.

Training.

Kim stopped, braced, and fired.

Once, twice, three times.

Hale lay still.

Gaspar pulled her back.

She stood a moment longer, looking at the first man she’d ever killed.

#

Washington, D.C.

November 6

5:45 p.m.

Twelve hours later they were sitting in a coffee shop across the street from the Hoover Building. FBI headquarters. Cooper’s lair. They had completed their formal encrypted reports to Cooper, detailing all the news fit to print about the last five days. They had divided the paperwork into two separate halves: the Reacher file and the Harry Black investigation.

They would leave it to others to testify about Black. They themselves were under the radar, and would stay there. Their personal involvement in the Margrave mess, as they’d come to call it during private conversations, was completely redacted. They didn’t know how Cooper had managed to spirit them out of the evidence trail, and they didn’t want to know. Both agents were grateful, but neither said so out loud.

Kim’s last task was to copy everything to her personal secure storage.
Paying my insurance premium,
she called it. She hit the send button and watched the upload and closed the laptop’s lid.

She said, “That feels good.”