The Last Man by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (most romantic novels .TXT) 📕

and listen carefully. We are trying to avoida bloodbath. A bloodbath is bad optics. We are also trying to avoid a circularfiring squad. Remember that. The most likely order you will receive is to takeout the tires.”

He paused to let that sink in.

“A team, you’re with me. We go inthe door to the passenger compartment. Follow my lead. Bloodbath directivestill applies, especially because I’m going to be standing in front of you. Butalso because we want the girl intact, if at all possible. We take her first,remove her to Car Number Four, rear seat, two men with her at all times. Allother prisoners are cuffed, bagged, and removed to the wagon, but only afterthe girl is secure.”

He took his finger off the TALKbutton.

“That seem clear?” he said to thedriver.

The guy shrugged. “It’s clearenough to me.”

Max depressed the button again.

“We don’t want a fight,” he said.“But if they want one, we give it to them. First priority is the girl. Everythingelse is secondary. We’ve got about thirty guys out here tonight. As far as weknow, they’ve got two men plus the pilots. Okay? It’s a mismatch. So we gofast, hard, professional. We’re going to close them out early. We won’t givethem an inch of wiggle room.”

He put the radio back on the dash.Now, he could hear the engine of a jet plane approaching. In another moment, hesaw the lights of the plane descending out of the sky. It came down, movingalong the massive runway.

“Roll it,” Max said, and thedriver put the Jeep in gear. Now they were racing across the cracked concrete,a long line of vehicles, all of them moving fast.

The plane was just ahead, parked,waiting, its lights blinking in the deep darkness. It was sleek, a dark color,blue or black, with no obvious markings. The pilots had stopped it aftertaxiing a short distance. They had probably noticed that the runway was akin tothe surface of the moon.

The Jeep pulled up about thirty yardsfrom the passenger door. Max jumped onto the tarmac, pulling the pistol fromhis belt holster. To his left, black SUVs circled in front of the plane, facingit, taking a three-car wedge formation, blocking it from the front. Doorsopened, and gunmen took positions behind them. To his right, more SUVs andanother Jeep did the same. The paddy wagon was here in his group.

Men in black, helmeted, visorsdown, weapons out, ran to the passenger door. If a fight was coming, it wascoming right now.

Max walked to the plane. He took histime. The men boarded the plane in seconds. The door was already open and thepassenger stairs were down. Max jogged up the steps, ready for anything. Heducked through the low doorway.

The interior of the plane was setup like a living room, with plush leather chairs, something similar to a sofa,and a low coffee table mounted to the floor. A large, broad-shouldered blackman sat on the sofa with a print copy of The Wall Street Journal. Thepages were all over the place.

The man was as big as Max, or evenbigger. He had a closely cropped beard. He wore a plain black, long-sleevedshirt, blue jeans, and a black baseball hat with SRT in white letters on it. Despitehis sheer size, he didn’t seem to have an ounce of fat on his body. He seemedrelaxed, as if he’d had a pleasant flight.

He looked at Max. “Hi. Can I helpyou?”

“Who are you?” Max said.

The man shrugged. There were fourDark Waters troopers on here now, all with guns trained on him. It didn’t seemto bother him at all.

“I’m Luther Sykes,” he said. “ApexDigital Management. This is my plane. I think a better question would be, whoare you?”

“Is anyone else here?” Max said.

“Just me and the pilot,” the mansaid.

Max’s back was to the door of thecockpit. There was another door behind the black man. Max gestured at it withhis gun. “What’s that door?”

The man shook his head and raisedhis eyebrows. “That? That’s the bathroom. Uh, I left kind of a big one in thereearlier. The water pressure on these planes leaves something to be desired, ifyou know what I mean. And I had a big salad for dinner. I don’t think I’d go inthere if I were you.”

One of the men went over andkicked the door in. He looked back at Max.

“Nothing.”

The door to the cockpit opened. Awoman came out. She had flaming red hair.

“This plane is governmentproperty,” the woman said. “It’s owned and operated by the FBI Special ResponseTeam.”

Max gestured at the black man withhis head. “He said he owns it.”

“I told you who we are,” the womansaid. “And you are?” Her eyes were intense, angry.

“Never mind who we are.”

“I want you to know something,”she said. “It’s an act of sedition for private entities to interfere withUnited States government business. I’d to see some identification.”

Max shook his head. He would havesmiled, but things were too serious for that. The girl didn’t seem to be here. Therewas no fight, but there was also no girl. How could that be? They were going tohave to take this plane apart, from top to bottom. They were going to have totake these two in and make them talk.

And that raised issues, a lot ofissues.

“Lady…” Max began.

“We’ve radioed Washington, DC, aswell as the Miami FBI field office,” the black man said. He said it mildly andmatter-of-factly, as if he didn’t care one way or the other. He was justsharing information.

“We’re expecting backup units toarrive any minute.”

How? That was the questionMax wanted to ask. There was no way in here. If the backup units were comingfrom the Miami office, they had a long drive ahead of them.

Just then, the plane itselfstarted to shake. From outside came the heavy WHUMP WHUMP WHUMP of helicopterrotors.

“Oh,” the woman said. She smiled.“That must be them now.”

She went to the doorway and lookedout. “Huh. Imagine that. They sent AH-64 Apache gunships. I forgot to mentionwe also have friends at Joint Special Operations Command.”

She looked at Max. Max didn’t likethe confidence in her eyes.

“I think I’d have your guys droptheir weapons, if I were you. Have you