Flight 12 to Rome: A Nick Bracco Novella Read Free Page B

you earlier, but I am an FBI agent you know.”
    They hit turbulence and Nick felt the plane come out from under him. He clutched the armrests as the fuselage bobbled in the sky.
    “Bobably jus urbance,” Jess said.
    Nick looked at her. “What?”
    “Bopity moor uterlent,” she slurred. Her face seemed to slant to the right, melting like a Salvador Dali painting.
    Nick was too slow to realize what had happened. He glanced at his drink, then at the flight attendant peeking at him through the corner of her eye. He jammed a finger down his throat desperately trying to purge the drug from his stomach, but again he was too late. His finger felt fat and gooey, and he couldn’t find his esophagus. The motion of the plane made him tired now and he could tell consciousness was leaving. The last thing he remembered was the flight attendant jabbing a syringe into Jess’s neck and watching her head drop onto the tray table with a thud.
    * * *
    Even before he opened his eyes, Nick felt as if he were speeding down a rollercoaster. Every little jiggle the plane made caused his stomach to roll up and down. His hands were clammy and his eyelids were resisting his commands. He was slumped down like a drunk and hadn’t the power to sit up.
    When he finally managed to open his eyes, there was a woman sitting next to him, pointing a gun. His gun. It was the athletic woman who boarded with Kyle Church. Her crooked nose seemed even more severe close up.
    “Welcome back,” the woman said quietly.
    They were in the last row on the right side of the plane. In the middle three seats sat Jess and Kyle Church with their heads back, snoring.
    Nick forced himself to sit up, rubbing his neck from the uncomfortable position he’d slept in.
    “How much they paying you?” Nick asked, while cracking his neck from side to side.
    “Five million each.”
    “So, what’s that, thirty million dollars for a doomsday device?”
    There was a tone of sarcasm in her voice that seemed to belong there. “You’re very funny, Agent Bracco. You trying to figure out a number? Let’s just say there are more of us than you. A lot more.”
    Nick blinked dry eyes. “So five million dollars to destroy the planet. Nice.”
    “Don’t patronize me. You think you know all the answers, but you don’t. You only know a small portion of the equation.”
    “Enlighten me.”
    “Well,” she shrugged one shoulder, “the country who owns the device can defend itself properly from any enemy.”
    “Yeah? What if the enemy are your own citizens? Then what?”
    That stopped her. She had to go off script and it seemed to annoy her. “It makes no difference who the enemy is. Maybe this will prevent the United States from getting involved in everyone else’s business.”
    “You have experience with foreign policy?”
    Nick could see her clearly now. Her eyes were dark pockets of intensity and her chin jutted out with sharp edges.
    “The question you’re asking is, ‘Do I work for the U.S. government?’”
    “Okay?”
    “I used to, but that became an act of futility. You needed a two-hour meeting to decide where the vending machine should go. It’s a miracle anything gets done.”
    “And yet here I am, on this plane, sniffing out your ill-conceived plan.”
    “A nuisance, that is all.”
    Nick’s head was beginning to clear and he realized the flight marshal was still loose. He might’ve drunk himself to sleep, but he was free.
    “And what about the three hundred passengers?”
    “No one will be harmed,” she said.
    “Except for the millions of people exposed to the contents of the device.”
    The woman’s face contorted into a sneering glare. “You keep obsessing about this little canister. What makes you think it will ever be used? We’ve had nuclear warheads available for decades and no one seems interested in deploying them.”
    Nick scratched the back of his head. “You really don’t understand foreign diplomacy, do you?”
    “Or maybe I choose to