Terror Flower (River Sunday Romance Mysteries Book 5) (22 page)

“How long did he live?”

“Only a few hours. We had our meal and sat and talked about Allah and other foolishness and then I knifed him. When I left the spot I was sure that no one else would know of the plane until I was ready.”

He nodded toward Owerri up forward. “I knew that a substantial civil war was going on in an African country to the south so I went there to discuss my new weapon. Actually I was looking for just the right partners. Someone who could plan with me a great raid on the United States.”

“You found the Snake?”

“You are very wise. The Snake was the only customer that had the imagination for the attack I wanted to make.”

“How did you find the Snake?” Tench kept him talking hoping that Smote was well on his way to planning his escape.

“You forget that my mechanical expertise preceded me and I had many contacts. It did not take long to find Marengo.”

“Where did rebels out in the jungle get the money to help you restore the old plane?”

“Marengo got it by selling Strake’s cars.”

“Strake never knew?”

“Strake couldn’t do anything. We made sure of that.”

“You killed his family off one by one and then threatened his last daughter Julie,” Tench said, his tone even though he was brimming with disgust for this murderer in front of him.

“Even Strake had a conscience you see. Marengo knew his man. Strake became our prisoner, trapped by his fear of what we would do to the girl. We got the money easily, shipped the plane here in parts, and put it back together all restored.”

“Your bomber was disguised as auto parts. I saw part of a cowling that day at the bridge.”

“Yes.”

“Then you waited for the best time to attack.”

“That came along when we heard of the air show and it turned out to be scheduled ironically on the twenty-first of August. We all thought that was an auspicious date for our mission.”

“Got to admit it ties in. That’s the date of Owerri’s revolution, when her family was murdered.”

“That’s why we know we’ll succeed.”

“Succeed how?”

“We will burn many Americans with the gasoline they hunger for. Instead of in their cars, it will burn them to death in a great fire.”

“You guys will get yourself killed too.”

“A good way to die.”

“For your fatherland.”

“You would die for your country, wouldn’t you, Tench?”

“Not by murdering innocent people,” said Tench.

“Well, you will be with me so you will die for your country anyway. I must go. It’s been good talking with you. I wish we’d have time to have more discussion of the interesting machinery in this plane. Americans are good inventors.” He stood up and walked towards the cockpit.

In the dim light, silhouetted by the plane’s dash lights, Tench saw Owerri’s dark figure stand up, the flight manual in her hand, as she moved to the other pilot seat and motioned Stagmatter to sit in her vacated place.

Chapter Twenty-one

5AM Saturday August 21

In front of the plane Tench heard the mechanics start the engines of the two pickup trucks. He felt a tremble in the fuselage of the bomber. He realized the men were pulling the bomber further out into the field.

Suddenly the big plane lurched, then tipped backward on its tail spine. The nose went up, tilted into the air several feet. The plane shuddered and Tench slid sideways towards the tail. Julie slid against him, her father not far behind her, and, further towards the front of the bomb bay, Smote did not slide but fell over on his side. He was apparently more securely bound to the wall frame of the plane than the rest of them. Doctor Owerri was standing in the pilot compartment doorway and fell forward, losing her balance on the steps. She grabbed at the side of the cockpit frame and pulled herself up. Now she wore the pilot’s suit that he had seen piled outside on the concrete floor of the hanger. He met her eyes and saw the depth of hate there. Owerri wanted to kill.

Tench heard yelling outside and, from the pilot’s compartment, Stagmatter yelled out the cockpit window to his ground crew.

“You must slow down the trucks. You will pull her apart before we can even take off.”

Men rushed behind the bomber and, starting the engine on a tractor mounted hoist in the hanger, lifted the back of the plane until the nose came down and the bomber once again sat correctly balanced on its tricycle landing gear.

The trucks began to pull the bomber forward again, but this time more slowly. Before long the bomber was stopped near the mansion. Hoses were run from the stand pipes of the underground fuel tanks and attached to the bladders inside the plane to top them off. Tench watched as one of the Africans who had been guarding them methodically twisted the hoses on to the filler pipes for the bladders. Then he listened as the fuels began to spurt into the rubber bags, the fluid sloshing against the insides. He watched them fill, the rubber sides moving outward. The smell of the fuel was intense. The plane itself would fly on aviation fuel but he suspected that bringing large quantities of that out to the farm would have aroused suspicion. After all, Stagmatter was hiding the airfield here and did not want to draw attention to it. Tench thought that the aviation fuel was already loaded into the plane’s flight tanks. The fuel that was being loaded now was the readily available gasoline that had been procured by the trucks, simple automobile fuel that was easy to explain as for the classic cars but was just as powerful as any other gasoline in incinerating the people on the other side of the Bay.

The bladders were soon pumped so full that the Africans had to move sideways to get between them from the front of the plane to the back. Tench could see Smote across in the dim light as his friend worked at his ropes. Smote sat against the fuselage wall and Tench could see his arms working as he tried to cut the lines. Tench was doing the same on his own bonds.

The African guard had begun his prayers and was not watching them closely.

After about twenty minutes Smote winked at Tench. Tench took this to mean that Smote had found a way to untie his hands.

Julie and her father had been secured again to the fuselage and stuck behind the closest large bladder. They lay flat on the floor but her head was near Tench, not more than four feet away.

He whispered to her, “Can you make a diversion?”

Her hand tapped on the fuselage wall signifying her understanding.

He nodded his head to Smote and hoped that he could understand this was a time to make a break. Smote for his part nodded back, what Tench took to be a yes.

Tench moved his eyes towards the guard and then towards to Julie.

Smote winked.

Tench mouthed the word diversion and hoped that Smote’s poor English would understand the syllables. Smote nodded again.

Tench watched as Smote leaned forward and untied his feet, carefully placing the rope back over his feet. The guard still looked toward the ceiling of the plane, still praying. Tench decided to talk to the guard.

“You came into my garage one day,” Tench said.

The guard dropped his eyes and looked at Tench, his face impassive. Tench saw him grasp the rifle he was holding, a bolt action single shot probably taken from Strake’s extensive collection of antique guns.

“Don’t you remember?” persisted Tench.

“I do,” the man said.

“You’ll go back to your home and be a mechanic there?” asked Tench.

The man smiled.

“You’ll make lots of money,” Tench added.

The guard nodded.

“Why do you want to kill me?” asked Tench.

“I follow my leader and it is his wish,” the man answered, softly, nervously.

“You sound like you don’t like killing.”

“It is not the way of God, but it is necessary.”

“Is Marengo your relative?” The family arrangements could be complex in Africa. Strake had told him that his oil lease deals sometimes had to go through several layers of cousins before being agreed to since so many had claim to the lands.

Tench added, “Your family must want you home and safe.”

The guard nodded.

“Will men hurt your family if you do not kill Americans?”

The guard looked away. “You must keep quiet now, Mister Tench. Be still.”

“When you go home, you will have money. The soldiers will not hurt your family because you can pay,” continued Tench.

The soldier looked at him. Tench had his attention.

Suddenly Julie kicked her father and he emitted a grunt, a loud one and began to cough. The guard stood up and walked toward the older man. Julie pushed herself back so the man could get in between the bladder and her to see what was wrong with her father.

“He’s dying,” she said.

The African looked at her. “I do not know,” he said. He began to move back to his guard spot.

At that moment Smote, who had moved his feet underneath him, sprang forward and grabbed the guard by the neck. The African did not have a chance to cry out as Smote’s hands deftly broke the guard’s neck. With only a small gasp the man stopped struggling and Smote lowered him noiselessly to the aircraft floor. Then Smote pushed the still shaking but dead guard behind the bladder past Julie and her father. Her father had stopped coughing.

“Get out of here,” whispered Tench. “Get help.”

Smote went to the back of the plane about ten feet from Tench and opened a small door in the floor. Tench remembered that this door had been open before with a ladder going to it while the plane was in the hanger.

Smote stuck his head over the top edge and leaned down to see where the guards were outside. Then using his hands he flipped himself down and out of the plane. In a moment he was gone.

Tench worked fast on the rope around his wrists but he was still firmly fastened. He needed more time. Another African climbed up the stair in the open bomb bay door . He called to his friend now hidden and motionless, stuffed behind the fuel bags. In a few moments he found him and let out a yell. Then he ran to the small back door
Smote had used and jumped down to the ground.

“Prisoner has escaped.”

Tench heard Marengo’s voice, “Find him, bring him back.”

A man shouted, “There he goes.” Tench heard two shots and then silence for several minutes. Then he heard the running of heavy boots and more orders being yelled, each from a different voice. The boot noise moved away from the plane

Chapter Twenty-two

6 AM, Saturday August 21

The clumping of Doctor Owerri’s flight boots moved in front of him as she climbed out of the bomber. Tench opened his eyes and said, “Doctor Owerri, you disappoint me.”

She stopped and stared at him. He said, “Taking revenge on innocent Americans for what your own government does is pretty cowardly and lame. That doesn’t fit with the history of your family, the family you talked about in your speech and your book. You had me convinced that you were working for something good.”

Her hands held the edge of the bomb bay with her long legs halfway out of the plane.

Tench kept going, “Cowards kill people by shooting them in the back, hitting the innocent when they are not looking and then they say it’s getting back at the bully. That’s the one they are really afraid to tackle though, the real bully.”

“You don’t understand anything, Tench.”

“What don’t I understand? You mean you believe in some god that hates Americans, some religion that you are doing this for?

“No gods are worth the effort. I speak only of what I can see, of what I can know of, what I can depend on,” she said.

Then she screamed at him, “The oil is the enemy. The oil is the corrupter.”

Tench said in a quiet voice, “So for that you guys took advantage of Strake.”

“I had the plan, Stagmatter had the weapon, Marengo had Strake’s money. Perfect.”

“Taking advantage of a man completely drugged, you mean,” argued Tench.

“Yes, you’ll die as part of the perfect plan.”

Tench said, “I can understand Stagmatter wanting to die. He’s not right in the head. You, on the other hand, are a smart woman, too smart to kill yourself for anything.”

“I will die gladly as a pilot, as part of the plan. I’m not a victim like you. I will die a soldier’s death. I will kill but not be killed worthlessly as my brother and my family were.”

“Back to the old home again like in your speech? You’ll all be happy again, that the way you see it?”

“Yes, you are too stupid to know about these things.” She smiled as if her thoughts made her happy.

He looked at the flight suit that she had on and smiled.

“You even look like a snake, Doctor Owerri. Tell me are you a real doctor or is that fake too?”

“To be the warrior in the jungle, that is no longer enough. I learned that. The money was coming in to build the government army and we could not fight it in the jungle. Like your government says so often we had go out and stop the money. So we had to come here with the design to stop the money flow to our government.”

“Killing a bunch of innocent people is going to stop government support of your country’s leaders? I don’t see how?”

“People will see that supporting such regimes causes people like me to occur, causes the hatred that spawns our activities. The money will stop.”

“You say you are a snake, yet your flight suit is black like the black colors of the early European prophets who came to your country,” Tench pointed out.

She was nervous with her answer. “Those were not religious. They were men and women who loved our land and us. They had no ideas of conquest like other Europeans and the Americans.”

Tench said, “I don’t think the cause is really the oil. I think this is revenge for the killing that your government did and you are just blaming Americans. Your government made the real money and graft, but it’s easier to take the blame out on us. Your people are responsible for centuries of corruption and greed long before we came along. ”

She smiled. “Have it your way. You die anyway.”

“You know, Doctor Owerri, I’m not as educated as you. Seems like to me, though, that those black dressed people you think so much of and those Africans you say are your family, would be different. I think they’d take someone who shot a man in the back or killed innocent children and castrate ‘em and throw them out of the tribe. You know what else, I think they like Americans would see it the same way.”