the crash site, Robert Lazarus Yacine, was cold and wet.
If he could feel, he was alive.
He blinked at daylight and the small fires licking everywhere in the soft rain. He coughed, nearly gagging on the stench of burning plastic, carpet and rubber.
Aside from cuts and bruises, Yacine was unhurt. The plane was in pieces at the edge of a forest. While Yacine remained cuffed and shackled, the crash had freed him from his seat, which had broken from the floor. He undid his seatbelt, got to his feet and stumbled through the wreckage, chains chinking as he counted the dead.
The nearest body was missing its head.
It was the man who’d sat behind him; RCMP Corporal Terry Cox, according to the ID Yacine fished from his pocket. No handcuff keys. The man who’d sat beside Yacine, Deputy U.S. Marshal Moss Johnston, had no pulse or handcuff keys, but he did have a lot of cash.
Both pilots were impaled in the trees.
That’s four dead, two to go.
What about Dark Eyes ?
Yacine scanned the wreckage, glimpsing a hand under the twisted metal of a wing. Dark Eyes had a bloodied face. Yacine felt for a pulse, not sure he had one. Then moaning sounded nearby.
Yacine left Dark Eyes.
The gum-snapper, his taunter, was near the tail. A long strip of metal fuselage was embedded in his legs, slicing deep into both above the knee in a near-amputation. A brilliant blood pool was growing under him.
“Help me,” he pleaded. “Please.”
Chains jingled as Yacine probed his pockets, finding the ID of Marshal Arlo Phife. Yacine grinned when he found handcuff keys in Phife’s pants and freed himself. Then he opened the luggage of his escorts and changed from his prison greens into jeans, a button-down shirt and a leather jacket. He returned to Phife and took his boots, lacing them onto his feet. Snug, but they’d do for this terrain.
“Help me, please,” Phife pleaded.
“Hang on there, partner.”
“Thanks, man, than --”
Yacine took Phife’s head in his hands gritted his teeth and twisted hard, watching Phife’s eyes balloon as vertebrae snapped.
All of them were dead now.
Yacine found binoculars in the cockpit. He climbed to the highest point and scanned an eternity of forests and mountains until he spotted a road and a town, miles off.
Smiling, he started in that direction.
At that moment, some seven to ten miles south of the crash site, in a small double-wide perched on a hill crowned by ponderosa pine on the shore of Ice Lake, Nancy Dawson answered her phone.
“It’s Eileen,” her daughter-in-law’s voice broke, “I’m at the hospital with Craig.”
“The hospital, but he looked so well on Sunday?”
“He was good, but he woke up in the night, in pain, so we brought him here to Harborview. Then he got worse and worse. It’s bad. Doctor Pollard said to call you now because, because, I’m sorry, Craig doesn’t have much time left. They’ve moved him up the national list but they don’t think he’s going to make it.”
Nancy’s hand flew to her mouth. Craig, her only child, the father of her grandchildren, had severe chronic kidney disease.
“I’m on my way. Eileen? Can you hear me?”
“Yes.”
“You tell Craig I’m coming now!”
“OK.”
Garrett floated to consciousness in the rain-misted gloom, recalling the earth rushing up to hammer the plane.
Now, as he lay in the wreckage, he could not sense his right leg, pinned under a wing. He shifted his position to see below his hip. His legs didn’t look bad. His brain flashed with images of someone helping.
Where did they go?
“Everybody OK!” Garrett called, unbuckling his seatbelt, extracting himself from the debris. His voice echoed. No one answered and no one aided him as he struggled to stand, massaging his leg until circulation returned.
Good.
He was sore but could move. Brushing blood and dirt
If he could feel, he was alive.
He blinked at daylight and the small fires licking everywhere in the soft rain. He coughed, nearly gagging on the stench of burning plastic, carpet and rubber.
Aside from cuts and bruises, Yacine was unhurt. The plane was in pieces at the edge of a forest. While Yacine remained cuffed and shackled, the crash had freed him from his seat, which had broken from the floor. He undid his seatbelt, got to his feet and stumbled through the wreckage, chains chinking as he counted the dead.
The nearest body was missing its head.
It was the man who’d sat behind him; RCMP Corporal Terry Cox, according to the ID Yacine fished from his pocket. No handcuff keys. The man who’d sat beside Yacine, Deputy U.S. Marshal Moss Johnston, had no pulse or handcuff keys, but he did have a lot of cash.
Both pilots were impaled in the trees.
That’s four dead, two to go.
What about Dark Eyes ?
Yacine scanned the wreckage, glimpsing a hand under the twisted metal of a wing. Dark Eyes had a bloodied face. Yacine felt for a pulse, not sure he had one. Then moaning sounded nearby.
Yacine left Dark Eyes.
The gum-snapper, his taunter, was near the tail. A long strip of metal fuselage was embedded in his legs, slicing deep into both above the knee in a near-amputation. A brilliant blood pool was growing under him.
“Help me,” he pleaded. “Please.”
Chains jingled as Yacine probed his pockets, finding the ID of Marshal Arlo Phife. Yacine grinned when he found handcuff keys in Phife’s pants and freed himself. Then he opened the luggage of his escorts and changed from his prison greens into jeans, a button-down shirt and a leather jacket. He returned to Phife and took his boots, lacing them onto his feet. Snug, but they’d do for this terrain.
“Help me, please,” Phife pleaded.
“Hang on there, partner.”
“Thanks, man, than --”
Yacine took Phife’s head in his hands gritted his teeth and twisted hard, watching Phife’s eyes balloon as vertebrae snapped.
All of them were dead now.
Yacine found binoculars in the cockpit. He climbed to the highest point and scanned an eternity of forests and mountains until he spotted a road and a town, miles off.
Smiling, he started in that direction.
At that moment, some seven to ten miles south of the crash site, in a small double-wide perched on a hill crowned by ponderosa pine on the shore of Ice Lake, Nancy Dawson answered her phone.
“It’s Eileen,” her daughter-in-law’s voice broke, “I’m at the hospital with Craig.”
“The hospital, but he looked so well on Sunday?”
“He was good, but he woke up in the night, in pain, so we brought him here to Harborview. Then he got worse and worse. It’s bad. Doctor Pollard said to call you now because, because, I’m sorry, Craig doesn’t have much time left. They’ve moved him up the national list but they don’t think he’s going to make it.”
Nancy’s hand flew to her mouth. Craig, her only child, the father of her grandchildren, had severe chronic kidney disease.
“I’m on my way. Eileen? Can you hear me?”
“Yes.”
“You tell Craig I’m coming now!”
“OK.”
Garrett floated to consciousness in the rain-misted gloom, recalling the earth rushing up to hammer the plane.
Now, as he lay in the wreckage, he could not sense his right leg, pinned under a wing. He shifted his position to see below his hip. His legs didn’t look bad. His brain flashed with images of someone helping.
Where did they go?
“Everybody OK!” Garrett called, unbuckling his seatbelt, extracting himself from the debris. His voice echoed. No one answered and no one aided him as he struggled to stand, massaging his leg until circulation returned.
Good.
He was sore but could move. Brushing blood and dirt
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