Running from the Devil - Jamie Freveletti

8

BANNER’S MEETING ENTERED ITS FIFTH HOUR. MIGUEL AND THE members of the military were gone, and Whitter was slumped in his chair and had untied his tie completely. On the wall a flat-screen television, set to CNN and muted, flashed a map of Colombia and some photos of people that Banner assumed were Colombian. It was the tenth time they’d seen the stock footage.

Dispatching Miguel solved the immediate problem of search and rescue, and the meeting turned to intelligence gathering. The remaining attendees aired the information they knew about the flight, and now it was Stromeyer’s turn.

“I’ve analyzed the data from the manifest. There are two or three interesting characters among the passengers.” Stromeyer handed around a copy of the plane’s manifest. Four names were highlighted.

“First. Manuel Cordova Sanchez is listed as the copilot. He is a Colombian-trained pilot, his license is up-to-date, and his credentials more than adequate.”

“So what’s the problem?” Banner said.

“He is not, and never has been, an employee of British Airlines. He boarded the plane in Miami, using false identification and claiming that the real copilot was ill. He was ill all right. The police found him in his hotel room, dead.”

“So he gets into the cockpit, threatens the pilot, and flies the plane into the mountains.”

Stromeyer nodded. “That’s the current theory.”

“Wouldn’t the pilot resist? He’s got a whole plane to assist him,” Whitter said.

Stromeyer shrugged. “Depends on what was used to threaten him. He’s in charge of the plane, and perhaps he felt that the passengers stood a better chance to live if he didn’t resist.”

“Isn’t there some action he could take?” Whitter said.

“Yes, but nothing that would help if the hijacker has already made it to the cockpit. One protocol suggests he put on his mask and send the plane into a deep dive, which causes rapid depressurization and renders the passengers and any hijackers in the main cabin unconscious. But the copilot has his own mask and could use it to stay alert. Honestly, if there are any survivors, then whatever the pilot did was correct.”

Whitter sighed. “I see what you mean.”

“And the others?” Banner pointed to another highlighted name. “What about these two, Carlos and Consuelo Rivera?”

“Let’s talk about them last. The next, very interesting, name is Cameron Sumner.”

“Why does that ring a bell?” Banner said.

Stromeyer nodded. “I’d heard it before, too. He’s a licensed jet pilot. He flew private jets—Gulfstreams, Lears, like that—for various corporations located in Florida. One of the corporations paid for him to train in bodyguard techniques and weapons with us at Darkview.”

“Do you have a picture of him?” Banner said.

Stromeyer slid a passport photo at Banner.

Sumner’s face was only vaguely familiar. “Did we send him to Iraq?”

Stromeyer shook her head. “No. His Darkview evaluation sheet says that he was focused, intelligent, extremely proficient in firearms, and damn near unflappable. We made an offer to him, but he chose to continue flying for the suits. That is, until last year. Last year he became a trainer and monitor at the Southern Hemisphere Drug Defense Agency. He was stationed in Key West, where he oversaw training of personnel for the Air Tunnel Denial program.”

“The what?”

“The Air Tunnel Denial program, or ATD. It’s a joint program administered by the United States and Colombia designed to identify and intercept drug running aircraft that enter into U.S. or Colombian airspace.”

Banner stared at Stromeyer. “Are you telling me that the United States has an entire program set up to review suspicious aircraft entering Colombian airspace, and they are still unable to locate a commercial airliner downed in Colombia?”

Stromeyer shrugged. “It’s not as crazy as it sounds. The ATD program is administered from various air bases in both the United States and Colombia, and concentrates its attention on smaller aircraft that fly at low levels. Its mission is to identify the suspicious plane, establish visual and radio contact with it, and order it to land if it appears to be a drug transport. The planes used for drug transport are small private planes that can land in the remote areas using short runways. There was no reason for ATD personnel to be suspicious of a large commercial jet.”

Whitter groaned. “Reason won’t come into it. The press will eat us alive for funding a program that is supposed to spot suspicious aircraft activity and yet doesn’t even notice a huge jet lumbering off its course.”

Much as he hated to, Banner agreed with Whitter. The mistakes were piling up in this disaster.

The gentleman from the Department of Transportation spoke up. He looked to Banner like either an accountant or an engineer. He wrote on a pad lined with tiny grids that he’d brought himself, and he carried a sheaf of papers with him.

“Mr. Whitter, I think you need to be prepared for the eventuality that we may never find this jet. Especially since it landed in a mountainous region with significant jungle coverage. In the last ten years in the United States alone, fifty-three plane crashes have never been recovered.”

“In what type of terrain?” Banner said.

The man shrugged. “All types. One involved a Learjet that crashed only a few miles from a regional airport. Hundreds of searchers on foot and multiple helicopters were deployed for three weeks. That plane, all eight tons of it, has never been found.”

“Where did it crash? Alaska?” Whitter said.

“New Hampshire.”

“You have a missing plane in New Hampshire?” Whitter’s voice registered shock.

The DOT official looked pained. “We do. Of course some UFO enthusiasts have added it to their roster of unexplained events. But their claims are grounded in ignorance. They don’t know, or don’t believe, the statistics.”

Banner rubbed his forehead, where a headache began forming.

Stromeyer reached below the table into a briefcase and pulled out a small tin. She slid it across the desk to Banner while she turned to Whitter.

“Mr. Whitter, wait until you hear the rest of my report. The ATD program isn’t the only one the press is going to excoriate us for,” she said.

The tin contained aspirin. Banner opened it and chugged two down.

Whitter held his hand up to stop Stromeyer. “Great, Ms. Stromeyer—”

Both Banner and Stromeyer interrupted him. “Major Stromeyer,” they said in unison.

Whitter took a breath. “Major Stromeyer, let’s talk about the other problem areas last. Right now, tell me why was this guy flying to Bogotá?”

“He was scheduled to give a quarterly report to Colombian authorities about the Air Tunnel Denial program. What’s interesting is that he requested and received clearance for two pistols to be transported in the cargo hold.”

“Did he now?” Banner said. He circled Sumner’s name over and over again.

“That does seem like an odd request,” Whitter said. “Why would he need guns for a speech about monitoring radar? Do you think he was involved with the hijacking?”

Stromeyer shook her head. “Doubtful, but the request is odd and we can’t overlook the possibility.”

“What about these other two?” Whitter pointed at the manifest list.

“Ah, yes, the Riveras. Both Colombian nationals flying home after a two-week stay in Miami. The Colombian government reports that Carlos used to be a midlevel operative in the terrorist Colombian National Self-Defense paramilitary group, or the CSD, before he was captured by the Colombian army. Now that the CSD has agreed to peace talks, he is one of the first of the former terrorists to claim benefits under the funds set aside by the U.S. and Colombia to aid in repatriating former CSD. Problem is, he was seen outside the real copilot’s door the morning before the flight. He appears to have aided the terrorists by killing the real copilot. So the first beneficiary of our new program to end terrorism ends up using the funds we paid him to expand it.”

“Shit,” Whitter said. He pointed to the tin still on the desk. “Is that aspirin?”

“Be my guest,” Stromeyer said. She slid the tin toward Whitter.

9

THREE HOURS AFTER LEAVING THE AIRSTRIP, RODRIGO AND THE passengers detonated their first land mine. The lead passenger never knew what hit him. One moment he had stopped to hack at the foliage, and the next he blew up, his body thrown several feet into the air with the blast. Shrapnel hit the two passengers next to him, cutting their faces.

The passengers screamed and charged backward. The panicked people ran right into the guerrillas, pushing them aside in the chaos. They poured back down the path like rats fleeing a fire.

Alvarado heard Luis roar from the middle of the pack. “Stop, you stupid fools!” He shot his machine gun into the air.

The people kept running. Several other guerrillas followed Luis’s lead and peppered the sky with bullets in an attempt to slow the stampede. Alvarado used his gun as a club and clubbed the people who pushed past him. Alvarado saw Luis, now standing in the middle of the path, hammering the trees with shot. Low-lying branches cracked and tree branches and bits of bark and leaves flew onto the people, frightening them even more.

Luis roared threats. “Stop running or the next round will kill you all!”

The passengers kept moving. They clawed at one another, each trying to get ahead of his neighbor. They flowed off the path and into the tree line.

“Stop moving! Stay on the path! The mines are laid in patterns. You keep running and you will hit another!” Alvarado screamed.

Tall Man yanked one of the passengers back onto the path just as another plunged off it and triggered a second land mine. The resulting explosion blew off the passenger’s arm from the elbow down.

The passengers froze. A woman sank to her knees and put her hands over her eyes.

Luis stormed up to the injured man, who lay groaning in the leaves next to the path. Luis shot him in the head.

The shot echoed through the mountains. The people left remained still. Only the sound of Luis’s heavy breathing, and a woman gasping, could be heard. Everyone else stood like statues, unmoving.

Rodrigo marched over to the gasping woman. About sixty, with graying hair, she sat on the path, her body heaving in its attempt to get air.

Luis yelled at her. “What is wrong with you?”

The woman spoke between gasps. “Heart condition. I lost my medication in the crash. I need a hospital. I can’t continue.” Luis pointed his gun at her. She sat up as straight as she could and looked him in the eye.

“May God have mercy on your soul,” she said. She pulled a rosary out of her pocket. She clutched it in her hand while she stared Rodrigo down. He looked at the cross, then at her.

“If you can’t continue, you stay here.” Rodrigo turned to the passengers. “Now get back in line. All of you!” The passengers formed back into a line along the path, stepping carefully. All evidence of the last minute’s panic was gone. They huddled next to one another as if afraid to move.

“You.” Luis pointed to a male passenger. “My English is not so good. You understand Spanish?”

The man nodded.

“Good.” Luis switched to Spanish. “Retrieve the machete. You will be the new leader. Only this time, if you see a piece of nylon line strung across the path, you do not disturb it. You understand me?”

The man nodded again.

“And watch for a cone-shaped object. These mines are called Chinese hats and they are more powerful than the ones that were just detonated. Translate this for the passengers.”

The passengers listened to the man and nodded as a group. They waited while the new leader retrieved the machete. Tall Man braced a passenger, holding him up by his arm. They proceeded forward, leaving the dead to the mountain.

THE SOUND OF AN ENGINE crashing through the brush made Emma lift her head. The noise grew closer. She grabbed the pack with one hand and retreated deeper into the jungle. She fought through the trees, moving up the side of the mountain. She stopped one hundred yards above the airstrip, lowered herself to the ground, and peered through a break in the trees. From her new location she could see the strip but was hidden enough to be safe. Below her, the motor’s noise grew louder and louder. She watched a jeep as it burst from the tree line onto the strip.

The jeep circled the wreckage once and then stopped. Three guerrillas stepped out, each carrying cone-shaped devices. They placed the first device at one end of the wreckage. One guerrilla attached a nylon string to it. He ran the string along the ground, at a height of about six inches. Fifty feet later, the man attached another cone-shaped device to the string, and then moved fifty feet again. Soon the cone-shaped devices formed a rough triangular pattern around the main part of the wreckage.

Two of the guerrillas drove the jeep up the dirt road until it was out of Emma’s sight. She heard it stop, but couldn’t see it. The guerrillas reappeared on foot. They stopped at each metal disk and attached string to it. They unwound the string as they walked across the road, stopping only to attach the string to a bush or tree on the other side. When they were finished, several strings spanned the road at various heights. They stepped over each line and waited at the top of the hill for the last guerrilla to finish.

The last guerrilla left on the strip bent over the final cone. He reached into the bag that sat next to him and removed an old-fashioned oven timer. Emma could see the familiar white shape and the large dial on the front. The guerrilla bent forward again over the last cone, blocking Emma’s view, while he worked with the timer. After thirty seconds the man gave a yell and started running. He slowed at each line of string, taking care to step over. When he reached his two buddies they all fled up the road. Emma heard the sound of the jeep’s engine fade as it drove away.

The timer sat on the dusty earth, ticking downward.

“Oh, God, they’re going to blow it up,” Emma said.

She grabbed her pack, which felt like it was filled with lead, and tried to fling it over her shoulders as she ran straight up, into the trees.

She didn’t get very far. The heavy foliage slapped at her face, and the ground-cover vines grabbed at her ankles. The pack caught on a nearby tree branch, and no sooner had she wrenched it free than it caught on another two steps later. She’d wasted twenty seconds fighting the jungle. She’d never get far enough away unless she chose an existing trail.

Emma spun around and ran down toward the strip. She skidded and slid down the side of the mountain until she reached the bottom. She took a quick glance around before she stepped out into the sun and the heat. The glare from the light reflecting off the plane’s metal body made her squint. The wreckage lay in front of her. It looked like a disjointed piece of metal sculpture. The smell of decay, burned hair, and the still-smoldering rubber was so strong that she was forced to put a hand over her nose and breathe through her mouth.