Guilty Minds

I saw three people approach the glass doors from inside and then emerge into the rain. Two large male figures, both in black rain ponchos with hoods up, flanking one smaller figure, a woman. One of the men was holding an umbrella over the woman’s head. They were being considerate, which surprised me. Was she their hostage or not? Was she being taken against her will or going voluntarily?

The man who wasn’t holding the umbrella was walking in front of the other two, moving more briskly than the others. He half-walked, half-ran. Then he clambered up the short flight of steps and into the plane.

I took out the Maglite, grasped it backhanded, pulsed it with my right thumb a few times to get their attention. Both of them turned to look at me, squinting in the darkness to make out my face.

Then I angled the beam slightly to one side and pulsed it on, then off. Pointing it directly at them would blind them-five hundred lumens would do that; a beam that bright was downright dangerous to the cornea-but I only wanted to see their faces. A cone of brilliant light flashed on for a brief moment and then faded away, but it was enough for me to confirm that the woman was Kayla.

And her escort was the bald man.

Curtis Schmidt.

35

Had he recognized me?

“Excuse me,” I said to Schmidt. “We’re gonna need a CRM for your flight plan.”

Schmidt said, “Huh?”

“Your CRM, sir. We never got the filing.”

I was talking officious nonsense.

“You’re not cleared for takeoff,” I said. “We need you to hold short of Bravo.”

With a swift sudden movement, I grabbed Kayla’s free hand and yanked her toward me. I was counting on her recognizing me up close-she’d texted me, after all-or at least going along compliantly.

“That way,” I said to her, pointing. “Run.”

“Heller, you goddamn son of a bitch,” Schmidt said in his high choked voice, lunging at me.

I backhanded the flashlight to the right side of Schmidt’s head, aiming for the temple and a quick knockout. But he had jerked his head around to his left, and I hit his cheekbone instead. I felt something crunch.

He winced, yelled, but he kept on coming at me, swinging his right fist at my head. Which was stupid: He should have tried to wrest the flashlight out of my hand. I had a weapon, and he didn’t, at least so far as I knew. I had the advantage, and he should have removed it from me.

So I pressed the advantage as best I could. He shouted something at me, something obscene, and I swung again, hard, whipping it up from waist level, scything through the air, slamming into his chin from beneath his open mouth, cracking his teeth together hard.

Schmidt shook his head like an enraged bull and took up a boxer’s stance. His left fist shot out and clipped me on the chin. My head rocked back. I saw stars.

“Watch out!” But I knew he was readying the right-handed knockout blow. Boxers are dangerous, but they’re also predictable, and they rarely think about anything below the belt. So just as he stepped forward to get the range he wanted, I stomp-kicked him in his left knee with my right foot.

It connected. His knee hyperextended, the pain immense, he leaned over at the waist.

A woman’s cry: Kayla’s.

I glanced up in time to see the second guy charging out of the plane and down the steps. He fumbled under his poncho for something. Not good. It had to be a weapon.

I grabbed Schmidt, who was screaming in agony and staggering around. I got hold of the hood of his poncho and yanked, hard, pulling him in toward me, a human shield.

I could make out the second guy’s silhouette in the darkness. I could see a gun in his hand. He was maneuvering to take a shot without hitting Schmidt.

I intended to make it hard for him.

The second guy moved in closer, now ten feet away, his gun extended, angling the weapon around to miss Schmidt.

That was when I hit the Maglite’s power button with my right thumb, aiming it at his eyes, hitting him in the cornea with five hundred lumens, dazzling him. His hands flew to his eyes and the gun went off, a wild shot, the round pitting the asphalt five or six feet to my left.

Now I shoved Schmidt to the ground and reached out to grab the barrel of the second man’s gun. It was blisteringly hot. I yanked and twisted it out of his hand and immediately dropped it, too hot to handle.

I drop-kicked the second man in the groin. It wasn’t original, but it worked.

He bellowed in pain and tumbled to the ground near Curtis Schmidt.

I leaned over and scooped up the gun in my burned hand, this time by the grip, and ran toward where Kayla was standing, a few hundred feet away.

She was crying. “Come on,” I said, taking her by the elbow and leading her toward the Suburban. “I need you to run.”

But she stood still, weeping. I couldn’t make out what she was saying except for “Oh my God.”

“Come on,” I said, gently this time, taking her hand. “Hurry. You’re safe now.”

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