Braddock stood near the end of the ramp, looking down. Scotty and Hugo Aanked her. The slipstream roared off the back of the plane, cold air tugging at their clothes, but the pilots were keeping the descent steady and even, barely a tilt to the Aoor. She watched for an open parachute, but there was only the glittering sea, dark blots of rock here and there. A cursory look through the hold and the mercs had come up empty, but there were lots of places to hide.
“She main hae jumpt it,” Scotty said.
Braddock glanced at him, frowning. Possibly, Chloe could have bailed even as they’d been watching Moncada bleed out… But if the girl had already jumped, she’d be klicks from Demar, paddling around by herself. Chloe still had the keys, but she wouldn’t have time to equip a retrieval before Braddock’s team arrived at the site. If she were Chloe, she’d wait to jump until they were closer.
Does it even matter? The keys likely weren’t even necessary at this point; they could blow up whatever lock or puzzle they found. Braddock hated loose ends, though, especially when they sometimes popped up again to cause trouble.
We’ll keep looking. Braddock turned away from the wide open space and started back toward the front, the boys falling in behind her. She nodded at Juan Alvaro, who signaled to some of his team to get going on the crates and pallets. The chute-extraction system meant they just had to get things unhooked, and clear the rails in order. The biggest pieces would have their own chutes, but much of the equipment was grouped together in daisy chains—a pull on the first crate’s drogue chute would rip the item out into the sky, pulling the line of boxes down its rail after it as the main chute unfurled. An automatic extractor popped the chute on the final crate, and the whole chain would drift down to the island. The pilots would swing as low as possible to keep the groups tight and they’d need every hand to shift the cargo quickly… but surely the mercs were smart enough to shove things off a plane. She’d keep Scotty and Hugo with her, they’d perform a more thorough search. Things were moving smoothly, there was nothing to get bent out of shape over. If Chloe had jumped, no great loss. If she was still on board, Braddock wanted a word.
* * *
They found a row of parachutes hanging off the east wall and took two. Sully hoped to God that whoever had packed them was certified. He hadn’t jumped in quite a few years, but as long as everything was folded right, it was as easy as falling. Nate was pulling a face, not happy about the plan, but they had the map, the plane was descending, and—
And there’s the third reason. Braddock and her goons were walking away from the ramp, up the middle of the plane, looking around with narrow, suspicious eyes. Sully kept his head down until she’d gone past. The knifework on Moncada had been a dead giveaway that his ex was on board; no better reason to bail. He didn’t hate Jo, he’d been kind of an asshole to her a while back and had always regretted it, but the feeling was not mutual, and he was at the top of her shitlist. She could have the plane, he and the kid would—
Shit. The kid had stopped in his tracks, was staring after Braddock’s retreating figure with his jaw clenched. Sully knew that look from the inside, knew that Nate was all up in his feels about Sam and not thinking straight. The perfect storm for dumb ideas.
“Don’t even think about it.” Sully had to lean in to say it, the blast of the engines and the open door nearly burying his voice. The mercs were unhooking chains of boxes from their netting, cutting zip-ties off stuff, clearing rails. They had one guy standing guard, facing the wrong way. They had to go, now.
“And she just gets away with it?” The kid wouldn’t even look at him, too busy shooting daggers at Braddock.
Sully stepped into his line of vision. “Listen to me. This is not the place to pick a fight, okay? I’m trying to protect you, kid. Put one of these on and let’s go.”
Nate finally looked at the parachute and Sully nodded: good enough. He edged forward behind a drape of empty netting, Nate right behind. Sully used the long shadow’s cover to put on his parachute, over the strap for the map carrier. He pulled the buckles tight, and patted the ripcord’s handle. He was golden. If the chute was packed wrong there was always the reserve, but god only knew how long it had been since these things had been assembled, reserves could get stiff…
He turned to see how the kid was making out—and there was Nate, not wearing his chute, stepping out into the middle of the hold, and putting his hand on a big crate at the front of a long line of ’em. He grabbed the crate’s ripcord handle, turned his back to the open ramp.
And like she had eyes in the back of her head, like she could sense a challenge, Braddock froze at the other end of the hold.
“Hey! Did you kill my brother?” Nate shouted, over the scream of the wind.
No! They’d made it, they had the map, they were literally seconds from escape. The sight of Braddock had knocked the sense out of him.
Braddock’s thugs both raised their pieces, and so did a couple of the mercs, but Braddock only stared at Nate.
‘I said, did you kill my brother?!” Nate screamed. “Sam Drake!”
Sully swallowed. If the kid pulled the cord, that whole line of boxes was going to get sucked out, and half of them were still locked onto their rails.
Sully ran out from the safety of the shadows, made a last pitch for the kid to snap out of his suicidal posturing. “Nate! Come on!”
As soon as she saw Sully, Braddock signaled her mercs and they opened fire, rounds blasting through the shuddering hold. Nate dove for cover, yanking the ripcord on the heavy crate.
“Goddamn it!” Sully pulled the handle on his own chute. No choice! The drogue popped—
—and then he was off his feet and Aying into the wide blue sky, leaving Nate to whatever he could manage for himself.
* * *
He’d meant to put on the chute, but seeing Jo Braddock walk through the plane, Nate’s mind went to static… and then he was overcome by a burning, righteous indignation that doubled with every heartbeat and packed his brain like sealant foam. There was Jo Braddock, walking tall, clad in video game merc gear, on the hunt for gold that she’d killed to find. She had murdered Sam. How could it be that his brother was gone and she was still breathing, free to do what she wanted? The question loomed so large that it pushed out every other thought—Sully, Chloe, the map, the gold.
Maybe she didn’t do it. Sully lied to get what he wanted, fact. Nate thought he’d been telling the truth about what happened to Sam, but he really was a dope if he still took Sully at his word.
They’d gotten close to the ramp, behind a line of crates and bags still attached to each other by some complicated system of straps and carabiners. The big box closest to the ramp had its red ripcord handle sticking up, ready for launch. When Nate saw it, he didn’t think too much about what he was doing. He was still focused on Braddock, on whether or not she was Sam’s killer. The handle wasn’t a weapon, but it was a threat, and Nate had to know the truth and he had to know it now.
Nate stepped from the safety of the shadows and grabbed the red handle, just as Jo Braddock stopped walking. Like she’d felt him there.
“Hey! Did you kill my brother?” He had to scream to be heard over the chaos of the slipstream and the shrieking whine of the engines. Cold air whipped his hair around, icy fingers dragging at his clothes.
A bunch of guys pointed guns at him, but Nate only watched Braddock.
She studied him, her eyes glittering like a spider’s. “I said, did you kill my brother?! Sam Drake!”
Braddock’s eyes widened, she was going to answer—and then Sully ran out of the shadows, yelling his name, and everyone with a gun opened fire.
Sully popped his chute and Nate dove for the nearest crate, jerking the handle on the box, his only play.
A small nylon circle popped out of the packed chute bag and unfurled into the crashing turbulence outside, instantly catching the air and stringing out a cord of nylon webbing—
—and the crate was jerked off the ramp, and then half the daisy chain of boxes behind it leapt off their rail, dragging the net off the wall and straining the ties of the crates still strapped down. The main chute caught the turbulence and blew up. A thousand pounds of equipment was suddenly half airborne, whipping through the hold like a giant clumsy snake, still anchored by half its length.
Chaos, as loose crates tumbled through the suddenly tilting hold, the plane’s engines stuttering then roaring. Nate dove under a heavy plastic box coming for his face, rolled on the tipped Aoor into a stretch of hanging net, now yanked wide and tearing off rivets along the north wall. A merc with bushy eyebrows got hit with a rolling box and was crashed out of the plane, screaming as he fell away.
Nate came up and shots thundered through the roaring wind, clanging into the metal wall behind his head. One, two guys were trying to get a bead on him, arms hooked through hanging straps on the south wall. Nate ducked and the chain of boxes hit the Aoor as the pilots fought the shifting weight, then bounced up again.
Nate jumped and ducked as everything not strapped down Aew through the hold, and more rounds were fired in his general direction. The heavy tail kept lengthening as boxes were ripped from their straps by the increasing weight. The connecting lines stretched between the crates, knocking down mercs and unsecured cargo. Nate caught a glimpse of the Scotsman between boxes, grim-faced and waving his gun, but a heavy pallet headed his way and he had to duck. There’s one less guy shooting…
Except Braddock’s MMA guy was still on his feet over to the left, and he had his semi trained on Nate.
Nate darted nimbly between the Aopping death crates—and then he was slamming face down into the metal Aoor, his foot tangled in the thick nylon straps wrapped around a heavy wooden box.
He raised his head, saw the fighter still aiming at him, finger over the semi’s trigger, goodbye—
—and then he was jerked backward by his foot, whipped out of the roaring hold and into the air. Something heavy whacked the back of his head and that was all he knew.