Share

Chapter Nineteen

Author: Louise Dawn
last update Last Updated: 2021-12-29 05:51:14

As Max pulled up, Johnny jerked open the door and surged out. He ran for the already cordoned entrance. Slater and Donnie dragged him back as Max dug in from the front. Johnny was living a nightmare.

“Don’t touch me. Don’t. I was just with her. Yesterday, I held her. She was alive, and I just spoke with her, a few minutes ago. I heard her voice.”

“I know, bro. Stay with the vehicle; Slater will hang with you. You hear me, bud?”

Johnny struggled and stared at the pathetic array of flashing lights lining the entrance. With no integrated emergency services and a lack of resources, many incidents in Kenya had poor response times. Lack of specific training of emergency personnel, poor coordination, and a lack of standard operating procedures were invariable challenges when it came to militant attacks. They’d all arrived too late.

“I need to see her.”

“I can’t let that happen.”

That was Max’s way of saying he expected a plane-full of deceased flight crew and passengers… no survivors.

Johnny swiped at a damp cheek, then studied the moisture on his fingers. He’d never cried before, not even when his uncle died. Especially not when his mom died. He didn’t care if he begged. He had to hold her one last time. “Sir, I need to see her. Let me see her.”

“Shit, man. You don’t want to do this. I’ll take care of it.” Max pulled in a rough breath. “I’ll take care of her.”

“No.” Johnny pushed back unsteady legs.

Slater stepped alongside. “I’ve got Johnny’s back. He’ll get his shit together. He has to; it’s a crime scene, right, big man? They ain’t gonna let a raving lunatic in, and you’ll get your ass thrown in jail if you ram your way through those Kenyan officers. Here’s a shirt. You left your giant-ass boots behind, so watch for thorns.” Slater passed him a T-shirt, and Johnny pulled it on with shaking hands.

“If we’re doing this, put your game face on and zip up your pants. I ain’t gonna help out with that situation.”

“Screw you.” Johnny forced out the words as the team stepped up to the cordon. The lone officer glanced at his bare feet.

“He’s with us.” Max flashed credentials, and they were through. A police inspector approached. Johnny recognized him. He’d attended a terrorism response class that MIT2 ran four months before in Garissa, a city east of Nairobi.

“Inspector Kamathi.” Max shook his hand and exchanged pleasantries.

The inspector led them to the hangars. “We’ve only just arrived. Figured we missed the bastards by five minutes.”

The first wave of carnage littered the private terminal, and they skirted the bloody trails. Exposed skulls indicated the Scythian’s scalping path.

“Survivors?” Max asked.

“In here? None so far. Seven dead. We’re shutting down all the freeways and exit points. We’ve barely cleared the aircraft; we haven’t yet assessed casualties onboard.”

Then they were back in the sunlight, exiting onto the airport apron. The Airbus sat centered in the shining commotion. A body lay under a tarp at the bottom of the stairs. The panted legs and shoes indicated a male. Johnny’s heart pounded in a sticky rhythm. Not Lizzy.

The inspector gestured to the dead man and the discarded handgun lying beside him. “This was the only guard on the property. Looks like he tried to stop them from boarding the aircraft. Poor bugger didn’t stand a chance.”

That was all they’d had. One lone man with a Ruger pistol standing between them and death. Walk up the stairs. One foot in front of the other.

Lizzy was in there—waiting for him—he owed her that. He owed her family that. Johnny clutched at the rail, then climbed the steps towards hell.

Butchery and bullet holes. The carnage that was the front galley had him pausing to suck in a breath. Bloodshed and gore were part of the job. Seeing it, living it, stopping it, causing it—wiping out terrorist cells. Death was a familiar friend. But this was different. Personal. Surreal. A brunette lay mangled on the floor, her pooled blood drying in the sticky heat. Someone’s daughter. His eyes ran over the sightless expression of terror, the smudged cherry-painted lips frozen in yawning death. The portion of her scalp above her left eye was hacked off.

Johnny’s head turned on its own volition, drawn to the place he’d last spoken to Lizbug. He stepped left, towards the peppered cockpit door hanging off its hinges. The first officer lay over the controls. Blood was strewn across the right side of the cockpit. The captain’s seat looked untouched. Johnny’s eyes drifted to the floor, imagining where Lizzy had tried to hide—where she’d curled up in terror.

He stepped back out. After a cursory examination of the flight attendant’s body, Max stood up from his haunches.

“The captain isn’t in the cockpit,” Johnny said.

“He’s missing,” the inspector confirmed.

Johnny nodded towards the cabin. “The others, are they in there?”

Slater placed a hand on his shoulder. “Why don’t we head back to the truck?”

Johnny didn’t pay him any heed. Max had grown still, spotting something down the aisle. The bulkhead obstructed Johnny’s view.

“Stay here,” Max commanded. Slater pulled Johnny back as Max moved deeper into the aircraft. Shoving forward, Johnny launched into the cabin and leaped across the seats. Max knelt before another crew member strewn in the aisle. Bloodstained and golden-haired. Johnny barely registered barreling down the aisle or howling out the pain.

Slater tackled him from behind. Knee buckling, Johnny kept on going.

Max wrestled him away. “It’s not Lizzy. It’s not her!”

He didn’t believe them and kept fighting.

“Look. It’s not her.” Max let go, and Johnny sank to his knees. The broken woman was taller than his Lizzy. Still so fragile and small. He tucked a remaining bloody strand behind her ear.

Where is she? Where’s my girl? Pushing off, he headed towards the luxurious lounge ahead. A female passenger lay dead in her seat. Mid-fifties. Her two-person protection detail lay across the floor. Local police stood nearby. Ignoring the whispers over the woman, Johnny broke into the rear cabin—laid out as an economy cabin capable of seating twenty-five passengers. He counted five bodies, the paid entourage for the female VIP seated in the front area. The back galley sat empty. What was left to search? Lavatories. Showers. Rest areas. With Slater’s help, Johnny systematically searched the plane. By the time they’d worked their way up to the front, the newly acquired manifest listed a full count of who was supposedly onboard—Max ran through the list with the inspector, and they both swore.

“The deceased female VIP is the US Ambassador to Kenya’s wife, Mrs. Jenna Clark.”

“Oh, shit,” Slater said.

“His son, Mason Clark, was also onboard and is now missing, along with Captain Stuart Williams and Miss Lizette Steyn.”

Walking out onto the stairs, Johnny sucked in gulps of air. Was she still alive? That also meant that the Horse Lord had her.

Not for long. If the Scythian wanted a hunt, he’d be tracked, captured and gutted—James Cane style.

Continue to read this book for free
Scan code to download App

Latest chapter

  • Stain on the Earth book Two of the MIT2 Series   Preview - Book Three

    Make sure to check out “Fire in the Knight,” book three of the Mobile Intelligence Series. Find out what happens to Charlotte Quinn and Donnie Wilson!Saint Julian’s, MaltaWith no sign of potential witnesses in the hall, the man pulled the apartment door shut with a soft click. He adjusted his hoodie and ran down the steps before stepping onto the damp pavement. The sun had set and on a wet November night in Malta, the streets surrounding Spinola Bay were practically deserted.It was time to settle in and wait. The mark—Joseph da Silva—had only just sat down for dinner at one of the nearby restaurants. It would be at least an hour before he returned to his rental villa facing the water.With quick and efficient movements, the assassin made his way to the docked speedboat. Villas and hotels pressed together around the inlet, stacked like LEGOs around the small cove. He ignore

  • Stain on the Earth book Two of the MIT2 Series   Chapter Forty Nine

    WyomingThree weeks laterRay huffed out a snore as she rolled over to her side on the wooden porch. Scratching her velvety neck with his foot, Johnny took a swig of beer. The setting sun provided the perfect backdrop to Lizzy’s sweet profile as she strummed softly on her guitar.She paused, then swore. “Gosh, dang it.”“The finger again?”“Or lack thereof.”“Don’t push it. Give it time.”Lizzy stuck out her tongue, and Johnny grinned. She made a pretty picture, sitting cross-legged on the rocking chair with her hair twisted in a cute bun at the nape of her neck. Not quite long enough, tendrils fell around her face, dancing in the autumn breeze. Back to her normal weight with flushed cheeks—an outside observer would never guess at the trauma she’d experienced just a couple of months before. Dragging his chair closer, Johnny leaned i

  • Stain on the Earth book Two of the MIT2 Series   Chapter Forty Eight

    John kept to his word. Two days later and he was ready to be checked out of the hospital. Lizzy giggled as he waddled over to the bathroom. The back of his gown left little to her imagination.“Don’t laugh. It’s not funny. You’d think they’d have a larger gown for taller patients.”“I don’t think it’s your height, baby.” Lizzy laughed. “You look like the incredible hulk, hulking out of teeny human clothes.”Donnie walked in, grinning at John’s bare ass. “And the beard gives him a yeti vibe.”“I need clean clothes.”Lizzy spent a day in the ward, under observation. Charlie was kind enough to bring Lizzy a change of clothes the day before, but she’d mistakenly packed an old pair of John’s pants that no longer fitted around his muscled waist.“Relax, big man. I have your lumberjack clothing ready and waiting.”&ld

  • Stain on the Earth book Two of the MIT2 Series   Chapter Forty Seven

    Swiping at her mud-caked vision, Lizzy stumbled through the fence towards Charlie’s barn. When she’d flown off the porch steps, her immediate relief at seeing the deputy running towards her turned to horror when Muller’s bullet sliced through the man’s neck.Lizzy veered, then stumbled as a second one zipped past her cheek.Instead of heading for the road, she zigzagged across the field towards farm outbuildings that could provide cover. Her feet slipped, and she went down in the sloppy mud. Scrambling for purchase, she staggered towards the tree line before spotting the wooden barn. This time, tree bark shattered to the left of her, and she swung right, not daring to glance back.The farm was a ghost town. Charlie and her foreman were up at the hospital for her father’s third heart surgery. The rest of the staff had left early to set up a food stall at the Sunday farmer’s market in town. Still, a farm hand popped out from beh

  • Stain on the Earth book Two of the MIT2 Series   Chapter Forty Six

    “The storm could’ve damaged the phone lines,” Donnie yelled over the thrumming blades. Max ignored the logic, knowing in his gut that his family was in trouble and Johnny was either disabled or dead.His teammate should’ve made mincemeat out of Muller’s slimy ass and contacted Max by now. None of the mobile phones were being answered, and the landlines were dead.The colonel’s orders were to allow local law enforcement and the FBI to run the mission. But if Max was the first to arrive, he’d ignore that directive, just as he’d ignored the orders to stay on base until SOCOM briefed a fully manned black ops team.Defying orders, Donnie and Max threw on battle rattle and relied on a friend and chopper pilot to give them a ride. Now MIT scrambled to cover their men’s asses. They’d departed on a mission on American soil that was not fully authorized. Max didn’t give a shit. His pregnant wife and child w

  • Stain on the Earth book Two of the MIT2 Series   Chapter Forty Five

    Max hung up the call to his wife and strode into the meeting room. Abby wasn’t resting or eating as well as she should. Screw trying ever again for a third kid. This pregnancy was the most stressful shit Max had ever experienced, and that included going head-to-head with suicidal extremist bastards.Those worrying thoughts screeched to a halt as soon as Max saw his boss standing in the far corner. Max and Donnie had been pulled out of morning training and asked to meet one of their analysts—Jace Martin—on base. Jace was in the room but so was Colonel Jack Hearst. Was it to do with Slater’s replacement? Max doubted it, as he stood at attention. Donnie fell in beside him. The look on the distinguished MIT mogul’s face had Max’s skin itching.“Sir. It’s good to see you. What brings you to Utah?”“Erik, we’ve fucked up. Not just MIT but every agency in the northern hemisphere. Close the door and sit.&

More Chapters
Explore and read good novels for free
Free access to a vast number of good novels on GoodNovel app. Download the books you like and read anywhere & anytime.
Read books for free on the app
SCAN CODE TO READ ON APP
DMCA.com Protection Status