Judgment at Alcatraz by Dave Edlund (carter reed .txt) 📕

When they were twenty yards away, she pressed the trigger twice, sending two bullets into one of the tangos, hitting the middle of his chest. The other gunman squeezed off a volley of gunfire into the shop. But his finger pressure on the trigger ended a second later when she placed a single bullet between his eyes.

The echo of gunfire soon faded. She eased from her cover and returned her red dot optical sight to Sacheen. But the federal agent was still in the way.

“Drop your weapons!” Danya shouted across the courtyard.

Sacheen reached out and pulled Toby in next to Flynn.

“No,” she said. “Not gonna happen. We’re gonna get on that helicopter. Just the four of us. And you can wave goodbye as we fly away.”

“The pilot’s dead. How do you think you’re going to leave?”

“You’re not the only one with surprises.”

Unseen by Danya, another pair of assailants emerged from the sally port, having taken the pathway down from the cell house. They were jogging toward the shouting and gunshots, and as soon as they set foot in the courtyard, they saw Danya and opened fire.

Rounds splintered wood from a display shelf she was leaning against, but she was unscathed. She snapped off a trio of shots toward them, and then dove deeper into the store for cover.

That was all the break Sacheen and Leonard needed. They shoved Toby and Flynn into the idling Eurocopter. Toby craned her head toward the children, shouting to be heard above the whine of the engine, her voice filled with angst.

“All of you. Into the restrooms. Go! Now!”

The small concrete building beside the courtyard appeared to be built like a bunker. It would be a safer location for the children if the shooting continued.

A short skinny boy wearing a Boy Scout uniform had removed his neckerchief and wrapped it around the leg of another child to staunch the flow of blood. A second child held a bloody hand against the side of her head, while a third had her arm cradled in a bulky sweatshirt.

Most of the kids moved toward the door, but then hesitated. With longing in their eyes, they watched as the door to the helicopter was closed.

Toby pressed a hand against the window and mouthed, Go.

Leonard kept his gun aimed at his two prisoners while Sacheen took hold of the controls. Increasing the turbine power, she soon had the aircraft rising straight up for fifty feet, and then dipped the nose and skimmed over the water. Leaving Alcatraz Island behind, the helicopter accelerated as it traveled east, and then turned north. Sacheen flew low and followed the contours of the land.

“You’ll never get away,” Flynn said, trying to sound more convincing than he felt.

“Looks to me like we’re doing just that,” Leonard replied.

“They’ll track you by radar from the airports in San Francisco and Oakland. They’ll know exactly where you land this bird. Local law enforcement will be on you before the rotors stop spinning.”

Sacheen didn’t bother with the pointless dialog, preferring to concentrate on her flying.

“You think we haven’t thought this through, Mister FBI man?” Leonard said. “That we don’t know what we’re doing? No one will track this aircraft, because it’s flying too low.”

The helicopter skirted over the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge. The cars passing beneath were no more than fifteen feet below the skids. Just ahead and to the right were dozens of large cylindrical tanks for storing oil and petroleum products.

Sacheen nudged the cyclic, and the Eurocopter hugged the shoreline, flying between a point of land and a large tanker unloading its black gold at the end of a pier. She angled over San Pablo Bay, and then turned east. She was flying recklessly fast, and it was making Leonard nervous. He had flown with Sacheen countless times before, including in rotary wing aircraft. But never like this, where the water was close and there were obstructions—land, bridges, buildings—too close.

If Leonard was nervous, Flynn and Toby were terrified.

“You’re going to get us all killed!” Toby had one hand in a death grip on a handle mounted to the sliding door.

Sacheen pulled back and to the left on the cyclic, causing the aircraft to slew north as the Carquinez Bridge loomed ever larger through the front plexiglass dome of the helicopter. The massive twin steel bridges—one a cantilever design, and the other a suspension bridge—presented a tight interlocking network of steel cables and I-beams, an impenetrable barrier for any aircraft.

On the left side of the helicopter, Flynn found himself looking down into muddy waters flowing out of the Carquinez Strait. Then they were flying level again, across the narrow Mare Island Strait. To both sides, Flynn and Toby watched as industrial facilities and ship docks passed by at a blistering pace. After covering a little more than a mile, the channel flared.

Sacheen followed the delta, hopping up to gain just enough elevation to clear the occasional bridge. As she continued flying on a northerly route, the shipping channels gave way to meandering streams. They were entering the California wine country.

Finally, Sacheen cut inland across broad marshlands and flat fields covered with wild grass. Two intersecting runways lay ahead—Napa County Airport.

Chapter 23

Danya rolled behind the checkout counter in the gift shop as bullets split the air above her. She was aware of the increased pitch from the turbine engine melding with the deeper whump of rotor blades biting into the air. The helicopter was leaving, and she was helpless to stop it.

She turned to her side and edged her head around the corner of the counter, only to be rewarded with another barrage of gunfire. Some of the bullets gouged chunks of wood from the cabinetry above her face.

The two terrorists split, one continuing on a direct path through the colonnade, while the second detoured past the shot-up drones on the far side of the restrooms, angling to flank their target. The small gift shop offered little protection from bullets, and the space was so confining she would