Second Chance Gold (Buck Reilly Adventure Series Book 4) by John Cunningham (best novels to read for beginners txt) 📕

I was doomed. The receipt had today’s date on it—and something written on the back. I recognized Jack’s scrawl: “I warned you.”

I put both hands against the plane and took a few deep breaths. I suddenly remembered why I’d come here just now, the importance of which had just soared way beyond the desire to rid myself of Jack and Gunner. I reached into my pocket and pulled out my keys.

My immunity was on the line. I needed to connect Jack and Gutierrez to the Cubans before that package reached Booth.

A quick glance in every direction revealed nobody, so I moved quickly to Betty and said a prayer. My keys jingled in my hand. The small black key I’d kept on the ring for sentimental reasons was squeezed between my thumb and index finger. I pushed the key toward the lock—it slid in and turned.

The lock clicked open.

“Hi, old girl,” I said. “Can’t tell you how sorry I am to see you like this—I mean, you look great, but with Gunner …”

The hatch popped open with a squeak and I stepped quickly up and in. She felt so small—the Beast was much larger. I pulled the hatch down and breathed in. The smell was different.

“Fresh leather,” I said. “And look at the headliner. They did a good job with you.”

The silver locker on the starboard side of the fuselage had a padlock on it. I pulled at the lock but it was solid. I’d need bolt cutters to get in there. I remembered the Gulfstream G-4 jet I’d last seen Gunner on. He had secret panels with weapons inside—machine guns, small missiles, grenades. These lockers were more obvious but were bound to contain similar hardware.

What was it he’d said at the airport? “Once a gunner, always a gunner?” I shrugged. That applied to assholes, too.

Up front I climbed into the left seat, which was constructed of fabric and frame, almost like old car seats—but the instruments in front of me, the throttle levers, the closeness of the flight deck were oh-so-familiar. All I had to do was rifle the flight log and I’d find out who owned the plane.

I looked up over the instrument panel and saw a black Jeep coming around the airplane hangar at high speed.

Shit!

How many planes were tied down here? Five? Six? Most hadn’t budged since we’d arrived a couple of days ago. An electric charge shot through my extremities.

I leapt up, scraped my scalp on the low bulkhead—

What could I do?

The storage locker!

I was through the fuselage in two steps. The sound of a car door slammed outside, then another.

The storage door was locked!

My hand shook as I fumbled the keys and nearly dropped them. I jammed the black key in— it turned. I ripped the door open—my old anchor was on the deck, the compartment was crowded with ropes, the space so tight I barely fit.

There was no interior door handle!

I pulled hard at the top of the door, moving my hand at the last second. It didn’t click.

I heard voices outside.

With my nails clawed into the seam where the rivets bonded two pieces of metal together, I pulled. My fingers slipped off. I pulled again—ripped a nail, but the locker door was now closed.

My heart throbbed in my ears and I was soaked in sweat.

The sound of the hatch on the fuselage squeaked open.

I’d left it unlocked!

I felt the weight of the plane shift—one man, then another.

Damn, Betty. Silence.

I reached down for the Danforth anchor and braced for the storage door to fly open—fucking Gunner was a brute.

The door didn’t open. Instead, I heard a click.

I was locked in.

It wasn’t the sound of the twin Ranger engines that calmed my breathing—it was the vibration of my old plane, refurbished and roaring down the runway.

Betty was alive.

I felt my lips stretch into a smile, albeit a short-lived one. What the hell was I thinking? I might be dumped into the Caribbean Sea at any moment.

The rattle and bounce of the tail wheel jostled me in the cramped locker. The tail lifted, the bounce stopped, and we were aloft. Betty banked to port and I fell hard into the side of the locker, my face pressed against the fuselage. We ascended to the sound of the cables that pulled the trim tabs and elevator rattling in my ears.

As the minutes passed, I considered my options. Fighting with Gunner was pointless. I’d been a moderately successful Golden Gloves boxer back in the day, but he was an animal. My only defense with him was the truth.

I could offer to help! The French maritime historian—damn—would I make it back to meet her for dinner tonight?

What was I thinking?

Would I be fish food by tonight was a more pertinent concern.

The hatch suddenly opened—the light was bright, and Gunner stood in front of me. Smiling.

“Listen, Gunner, it’s not what—”

He raised a gun and extended it toward me.

“Wait!”

My eyes focused on the gun. There was a snap—my entire body convulsed.

Everything went black.

A sensation of my skin aflame tormented me until a slit of light reached deep into my consciousness. My eyes cracked open.

I was alive. And not on fire.

“About time you woke up, Reilly.”

My eyes slowly focused and my head fell to the side. Gunner was seated in a chair, holding a beer can. Another one was smashed flat into a disk on the side table—a bedroom table. I was lying down on a bed. Where am I?

“Had to Tase your ass four times to keep you still,” he said.

I tried to lift my arms, but they were constrained. So were my legs.

My lips smacked together, dry as a desert creek bed.

“Water,” I said.

Gunner smiled, guzzled the rest of his beer, put the can against his forehead, and crushed it flat against his skull. He belched.

“The hell were you doing in my plane?”

I moved my tongue around in my mouth attempting to produce some saliva.

“I don’t give a shit about the