“
¿Es este el?
”
“
Si, El Tigre.
”
“
Bueno.
”
“What do you want?”
His slow smile was chilling because of the genuine joy in it. He answered me in English with a thick accent.
“I want what’s in your head,
Señor
.”
“Cool. You can have it. I don’t want it anymore.”
His smile turned into a grin.
“
Gracias, mi amigo.
”
“
Denada.
”
He walked back toward the Cadillac and got in.
“
Ponlo en el coche, nos vamos.
”
The twins pushed me into the back of the car next to Anka. Antonio and his men sat on the bench seat facing us. When the door closed, the SUV started moving out of the parking garage.
“Are you okay?” I asked Anka.
She said nothing in reply, but I felt a slight increase in pressure from her shoulder against mine. I had no idea what she meant by that.
“Where are you taking us?”
Antonio’s smile returned, but he didn’t answer. So, I tried again.
“Look, I’ve already agreed to help you get this…thing out of my head. You don’t need to play tough. I’m not trying to resist.”
El Tigre
didn’t look at me, but at Anka.
“He doesn’t know?”
“No.”
The laugh that erupted was as genuine as the smile and equally terrifying.
“What don’t I know? Anka?”
“You don’t know that this can’t be taken out of your brain.”
“You mean it’s permanent? Then what good am I to these guys? What good am I to you?”
Anka looked at Antonio to see if she should answer. He just kept staring at me with his gleeful smile, so Anka told me the truth.
“It is permanent. It will be with you as long as you live. But they can study your brain to figure out what Dr. Grosskopf did and how they can replicate it.”
I looked at her for a while, I guess my face showed her that I didn’t understand the ramifications of her explanation, so she clarified for me.
“Corey, they’ll test you for as long as they can learn something from you alive and then they’ll cut out your brain to finish the process.”
I instantly regretted giving up so quickly and I started looking around for a way to escape.
“Don’t, Corey.” Anka read my mind, “We can’t get away and no one knows where we are. My boss isn’t coming to save us. It’s over.”
I couldn’t believe that she’d be giving up too. I figured that she’d fight to the last moment. Maybe, I thought, she was planning something but didn’t want to let the Cubans know about it. That must be it, I reasoned, she wouldn’t concede. I relaxed into the seat and felt her press against my shoulder again. I guessed that it was confirmation of my logic. She was still fighting, just not right now. Now was the time to be patient.
Cubano Tango
After learning that my future likely held torture, pain and then de-brainification I found I didn’t have much more to say. We sat silently for the rest of the trip. The Cadillac wound on to the freeway and then east toward the airport. I thought about what I could do, what MMA or Parkour skills I could employ to affect our escape. After my spectacular failure in the parking garage I was hesitant to trust my abilities too much. I figured that the problem wasn’t as much with my mimicking ability, but with my physical capabilities. My brain perfectly matched what I saw on the Parkour video, but my fingers lack the strength to pull me up a sheer wall like the guys on YouTube. That makes a world of difference in how I employ this ability. It’s less like a superpower and almost more of a liability. I can’t know that I’m physically capable of doing something until I try it, but I’m not trying things until I need the ability. I suddenly remembered “The Greatest American Hero” from when I was a kid.
“What are you whistling? Stop it.” Antonio sounded angry.
“Sorry,” I apologized. I didn’t realize that I’d started whistling “Believe it or Not (I’m Walking on Air).”
I glanced over at Anka to see her smiling. At least she enjoyed it.
We arrived at the airport and I still didn’t have a plan to get away. I hoped that Anka was working on something brilliant because I had nothing. The driver pulled the Escalade up to the drop-off zone at PDX and we piled out of the back. The twins kept close to us so we had no space to run off into the crowd. We all trooped into the terminal and Antonio led us to a side door where a guard checked his identification. After a brief radio conversation, we were admitted to the corridor. I never even knew this Spartan hallway existed at the airport, but we walked through, past security, past all the shops and restaurants, and past the gates. At the end we stepped out onto the tarmac facing a private jet.
“You will, of course, be my guests on our flight to Cuba.”
“Of course,” I said, defeated.
We climbed the stairs into the jet and the twins led us to our seats. Antonio spoke briefly with the pilot before coming back to join us. He smiled and sat down.
“May I use the restroom?” Anka sounded sullen and defeated.
“Of course, it’s just back that way.”
“Thank you.”
“
Denada.
”
Anka got up and walked to the back of the plane while I desperately struggled for some plan that would keep us in Portland and, more importantly, not dead in Cuba. Before long the jet started to taxi toward the runway. The pilot came over the intercom and announced something in Spanish that must have been an alert to buckle up since Antonio and one of the twins put on their belts. With a gesture from
El Tigre
the other twin went to the back and knocked on the door to the bathroom. Just as he knocked, Anka opened the door and brusquely pushed past him.
“It’s time to buckle up.”
She sat without looking at me and put on her safety belt. I followed her lead because I didn’t have anything better to offer. After several minutes of taxiing we got to the runway and the pilot announced something else. I’m guessing it was that we were cleared for takeoff since he revved the jet engines and we sped down the runway. Just as I started to get that heavy feeling from the plane starting to climb I heard the pilot again. This time he sounded worried.
Antonio and the twins looked at each other sharply and then looked at us. The pilot screamed something and then the plane lurched to the left. I felt the moment when the right wing touched the ground. The grating sound vibrated the whole plane for a moment before the wing snapped off and the jet started to roll over. After it flipped upside down, the left wing caught on the tarmac and stopped the roll. We were all hanging from our seat belts and stunned. I felt the pressure across my lap as I was trying to reorient my mind and body to being inverted.
The pressure disappeared and I dropped to the ceiling of the cabin. Anka picked me up and whispered urgently.
“We have to get out of here.”
I followed her in the darkened plane toward the back. Just as we got to the rear door the, now familiar, concussion of an explosion hit us from the front of the plane. I looked back in time to see the nose of the jet disappear in flame. Anka yanked on the door handle and kicked it open before dragging me through. We rolled on the ground for a moment before running.
She pulled at my sleeve and directed me to run straight back behind the jet with the nose pointing away from us. I glanced back over my shoulder to see the giant black plume of smoke billowing up from the burning wreckage as another explosion destroyed the back half of the plane.
We sprinted across the runway toward the high grass surrounding it, Anka pulled me down into the shallow ditch and we laid flat on the ground.
“Um…What the hell just happened?”
Anka giggled, “I texted my boss when I was in the bathroom.”
“What? Why would you do that?”
“He wants me dead, remember. I told him that I thought the Cubans had tried to kill me and now they were taking us to Cuba and requested immediate evac. He must have traced the GPS on the phone and sent another drone in to kill us off.”
“Wow. I’m sorry I ever doubted you.”
“Don’t be. I didn’t think of it until I was in the bathroom. I really thought we were going to die in Cuba.”
“Me too. Now, how do we not die in Portland?”
“First thing is we need to stay here until the drone leaves. Can you see it?”
I army-crawled around to try and get a view of the burning jet. At first I couldn’t see the drone at all, but eventually I noticed it hovering low and off to the right. Fire trucks were getting close to the scene from the left, and as soon as they got there, the quad-drone drifted off and disappeared over the Columbia to the north.
“I think we’re clear. Now what?”
“I don’t know,” she giggled again.
“Do you really think this is funny? We almost blew up!”
“I know. I’m sorry. I just can’t help it. Have you ever done anything this crazy?”
“No, but I’ve usually counted that as a good thing. You know, the whole not-blowing-up aspect of my life is one of my favorite parts.”
Anka’s giggle transformed into a deep, long laugh that infected me. Soon we were laying in the tall grass listening to the firefighters extinguish the plane that nearly carried us to our deaths and laughing uncontrollably.
After gasping for breath for a few minutes, I rolled over closer to Anka so we were shoulder to shoulder. I looked her in the eyes, our faces just a few inches apart.
“Thank you. I know you didn’t have to do any of this. I know I’d be dead if it wasn’t for you. Thank you.”
For a moment I thought she was going to cry. I thought I’d said something wrong or offensive. I started to think back through all of it to see if I could find the terrible mistake. As I was cataloging my shortcomings she kissed me.
Fire, grass and dead Cubans all disappeared with that one, simple kiss. Her lips reached out, so I leaned my neck toward her. After a moment I pulled back, trying to show respect and restraint when all I wanted to do was grab her and pull her close. She, apparently, had similar thoughts. As a small space opened between our lips, I felt her smile. She reached over and grabbed the back of my neck and pulled me close, kissing me fiercely. She half-rolled toward me and I matched her so we were facing each other in the grass. We pressed our bodies against each other and kept kissing deeply.
I lost track of time, but I’m guessing it was several minutes later when she pulled back a few inches and breathed her response to my previous statement.
“You’re welcome.”
I was about to dive in for another kiss when the fireman shouted nearby. I nearly crapped my pants.
“Are you two alright? Were you on the plane?”
Anka thought and acted more quickly than me.
“Yes, we ran over here to get away from the explosion. Is everyone okay?”
“I’m sorry miss, everyone else on board is dead. I’m surprised you two escaped.”
“We were in the back by the bathroom when it happened. We had time to get out the back door and run.”
“Well, you’re lucky. Let’s get you looked at to make sure you’re okay. Then the FAA will need to interview you about the crash. Standard operating procedure.”
“Of course.”
Anka pulled me up with her and we followed the fireman back to the engine that was just finishing with the inferno that was a plane. They gave us some oxygen and took our blood pressure while we waited. Eventually a paramedic unit arrived and carted us back to the terminal. They checked us out and determined that, other than some bruises, we were fine. We were then escorted through more of the back hallways of the airport to a set of offices. There we were deposited in a waiting room to be debriefed by the FAA.
“What do we tell them?” I asked in a whisper.
“The truth. Antonio Gutierrez was flying us to Cuba on his private jet. The cockpit exploded, so we jumped out.”
“Why would we be going with him?”
“Because he told us to. The FAA will know enough about Gutierrez to know that people don’t deny his requests.”
“But why us? Won’t they report us to some other government organization?”
“I hope they do.”
“What?”
“My boss has tried, on two occasions, to kill me. As long as we remain clandestine, he can keep trying to kill us without risk. But, if we get on the government radar, he’ll have to deal with us through official channels. We can’t fight him on our own. Maybe this way we can figure out what’s going on.”
“Did you plan all this?”
“Nope, but the opportunity came up and I figured we might as well take it.”
“So we’re just going to tell them everything?”
“Well…”
“About…” I gestured toward my head.
“I don’t think we need to go into that. I can just say you’re my informant. You have expertise in computer-human interface that I’ve been using on my mission.”