Ice Storm - Anne Stuart [46]
But of course he was. The only thing that could distract him was Genevieve, and at this hour she was probably lying in bed next to him, sound asleep.
A few minutes later Isobel snapped the phone shut, tucking it back inside her bra. Mr. and Mrs. Smith were bringing their adopted child back to the U.K. via the Bilbao to Portsmouth ferry, a nice, leisurely ride where no one would think of looking for them. Someone would meet them at the ferry terminal with the proper IDs.
How Peter would get an updated photo of Killian was beyond Isobel’s comprehension, but she didn’t doubt he could do it. He could do anything. In the meantime, she needed to get them to the northern port from wherever they were going to land. She pushed herself out of the chair and headed for the cockpit door.
It was locked. “Bastard,” she muttered under her breath, rattling the latch. “Open the goddamn door,” she snapped.
There was a low murmur of Arabic, and then Killian’s voice, clear and cool. “What do you want?”
“I want you to open the door.”
“Don’t be tiresome.” Did his tone sound odd? She couldn’t be certain. “Go and sit down. We should be landing before long.”
“Landing where? I need to make arrangements.” She rattled the door again.
“We can make arrangements when we land, Sarah. In the meantime take care of little Benjamin.”
She froze. As a code it was far from sophisticated, but the message was clear. Something was wrong, and it didn’t sound as if Killian was going to be able to fix it.
Which left things up to her. She still had the Swiss Army knife, and the engine noise was loud enough to cover her work. In less than a minute the lock clicked open, and she pulled the gun from her waist and pushed at the door.
Killian was sitting in the copilot’s seat, handcuffed, and the pilot was holding a pistol to his head. “Go back in the plane,” the man ordered. “Or I’ll shoot your friend.”
“Looks like you’re going to shoot him anyway,” Isobel said, not moving. Killian appeared singularly unalarmed, a fact that annoyed her.
“He’s worth more alive than dead, and I like money. You, however, don’t matter.” The plane must have been on autopilot, for he turned away from the controls and aimed the gun at her.
A mistake. Killian slammed his head against the pilot’s, so hard the man jerked in his seat, and a moment later the two of them were down on the floor, sprawling into the plane, Killian’s hands still bound. Isobel stepped back, out of the way. If she came too close she could be pulled into it, and if she tried to shoot the pilot they could end up with a depressurized cabin. Besides, she might miss and get Killian, which would be a great tragedy to someone in this world, if not to her. She watched, unmoving, as the pilot slammed his elbow into Killian’s unprotected stomach.
She’d witnessed violence before, participated in it. The strange silence of this life-and-death struggle gave it an eerie sense of unreality, as the unpiloted plane flew through the desert night. She ought to do something, ought to stop them, but some small part of her was taking a savage delight in watching Killian get the shit beat out of him.
Except that he was winning. He had the man under him, his knee on his neck. The cracking sound was unmistakable, and then the pilot lay still in the narrow walkway.
Killian rose, falling back into the seat, slightly out of breath. “Get the keys to the handcuffs, would you, princess?”
She didn’t move. “I think I like you better when you’re tied up.”
He didn’t even blink. “It didn’t stop me from killing him, and it wouldn’t stop me from killing you. Can you fly a plane?”
“No. Can you?”
“Of course. I was going to wait until we were closer to landing before I killed him, but you did have to blunder in and precipitate things, didn’t you?” He sounded vaguely annoyed. “Next time, remember I don’t need rescuing.”
“Next time, I’ll let you die,” she said, kneeling