Midnight Runner - Jack Higgins [98]
"Lousy flying weather," Dillon said. "Are you sure you want to do this?"
"Oh, yes." She took the keys from her pocket and unlocked the Airstair door and opened it. The steps came down and she went up. Rupert gave Dillon a push.
"Up you go."
Dillon moved awkwardly because of his bound hands. Rupert pushed him down the aisle and sat him in one of the rear seats by the window. There was a toilet and luggage space behind him and an inflatable life raft.
"Now be good."
He moved to the Airstair door and closed it one-handed, facing Dillon and still menacing him with his gun. At the same moment, the port engine burst into life, followed a little later by the starboard. The plane started to roll forward, Kate Rashid increased speed, then lifted up into the rain no more than fifty feet above the row of beech trees at the end of the runway.
She climbed very quickly to three thousand feet. Way below, there was gray cloud, in some places black and heavy with more rain and mist, as they crossed an area of marshes and coastal beaches and headed out to sea.
All this Dillon could see from the window at the same time that he was extracting the knife from the inside of his right jump boot. He got his hands round the handle, positioned the knife, and the razor-sharp edge sliced through the masking tape immediately. He replaced the knife in his boot, pulled away the tape, and sat waiting.
She turned and said over her shoulder, "Now, Rupert," went down to about two thousand and reduced speed.
Rupert lifted the locking bar and opened the Airstair door. There was a rush of air. He leaned over, the Walther in his left hand, and pulled Dillon up and forward.
Kate Rashid glanced over her shoulder again and she was laughing. "You can rot in hell, Dillon."
Dillon said, "For God's sake, no," and half-slipped to the floor.
"Now don't be silly, old friend, make it easy on yourself. Just get up." Which Dillon did, at the same time he was drawing the Colt from the ankle holster, ramming the muzzle into the side of Rupert Dauncey's head, and pulling the trigger.
There was an explosion of bone fragments and blood, the hollow point cartridge doing its work, and Dauncey dropped the Walther and fell back against the side of the door. Dillon pushed and sent him out into space. He grabbed at the Airstair door and closed it.
He turned and found that Kate Rashid had put the Eagle on automatic and was reaching for her purse. She took out a small pistol, but he lunged, wrestled it from her, and tossed it to the back of the plane. She was hysterical with rage and clawed at him. Dillon slapped her face.
"Stop it! Pull yourself together! It's over." She was in the left-hand seat of the dual-controlled plane and he clambered into the right. "Take us back."
"To hell with you."
"All right, I'll do it."
Dillon switched from the automatic pilot to manual control, banked to port, and started toward the coastline, two or three miles away.
Unlike most planes, the Black Eagle sported an ignition key. She reached for it now and switched it off, then pulled out the key. The engines stuttered to a halt. She pushed open the quarter-light in the window beside her and tossed the ignition key out.
"There you are, Dillon. We'll go to hell together."
"That was very stupid. But it's surprising how far you can glide in one of these things."
She looked out at the mist as they descended to the distant shore. "We'll never make it. We're going into the water, and even if you could land this thing on water, a light aircraft like this will only float for a minute and a half."
"Very true, but there's a life raft back there--and I do happen to know how to land on water. Do you?"
"Damn you, Dillon!"
They were down to six hundred feet, and he said, "Let me tell you. Keep your landing gear up, full flaps. Light winds and small waves, land into the wind; if it's a heavy wind and big waves, land parallel to the crests."