“Block that plane!” Bolan told the Metro pilot. “Put us down right on the runway!”
“Will do,” the pilot responded.
Ed Scanlon and Jayne Bahn were riding on a bench seat directly behind Bolan and the pilot. As she glanced out the window, Bahn pointed to the ground below.
“Looks like we’re right on time for the party,” she said.
Bolan shifted his gaze and saw half a dozen armed men in suits piling out of a trio of unmarked sedans that had pulled up to the Far East terminal, which, in turn, was located directly adjacent to a larger warehouse complex. Another handful of AHP vehicles was racing toward the facility, rooflights flashing.
“We’re putting the captives at risk,” Scanlon complained. “Anybody on board that plane’s going to know what’s going down.”
“This is the hand we were dealt,” Bolan said. “I don’t see any other way to play it.”
“Besides,” Bahn interjected, “those captives will be in a hell of a bigger fix if we let that plane off the ground.”
The FETC cargo plane had finished taxiing and was just beginning to pick up speed when the Metro chopper swooped down into its path. The runway was too narrow for the plane to have any chance of veering past the chopper, leaving its pilot with no choice but to ease off on the throttle and apply the brakes.
By the time the plane had come to a stop, the chopper had landed and Bolan was already scrambling out, clutching his .44 Desert Eagle. Bahn and Scanlon were right behind him.
“Fan out!” Bolan shouted.
Bahn moved left, taking cover behind a cargo tram parked just off the tarmac. Scanlon, meanwhile, went right and positioned himself next to one of the fifty-five-gallon drums spaced at intervals along the inner edge of the runway. Bolan went straight, crouching as he passed under the nose of the cargo plane.
Once he’d reached the door to the cockpit, he stopped and waited. The turbines continued to drone, making it impossible for him to hear what was going on inside the plane. Like Scanlon, he was concerned about the safety of the defectors, but he doubted that they would be harmed up front. More likely, he figured, they would find themselves with a hostage situation, with the REDI operatives using their captives as bargaining chips in hopes of securing at least a safe getaway for themselves.
Less than a minute later, the jet’s engines suddenly fell silent. Moments later, Bolan heard the cockpit door opening.
“Hands on your heads!” Bahn ordered from behind the tram.
Apparently her command was quickly adhered to, because several moments later Bahn gestured to Bolan and shouted, “Go ahead!”
Bolan cautiously moved out from beneath the plane and leveled his gun at the cockpit doorway. A uniformed pilot stood in the opening with his hands raised high while another man placed one hand on his head, leaving the other free to lower a swing-mounted staircase. Neither man looked Korean to Bolan. He figured them for Chinese-Americans.
“What’s this about?” the pilot asked, his voice trembling.
“As if you didn’t know,” Bolan said.
Once the staircase had been lowered, the Executioner motioned for the two men to climb down. Bahn, meanwhile, broke from cover and raced toward the plane. Scanlon did the same.
“Go ahead,” the FBI agent said once he’d caught up with Bolan. “I’ve got them covered.”
Bolan slowly made his way up the staircase. Bahn followed close behind.
“There’s no one else,” the pilot called up to them. “It’s just us two.”
“We’ll see about that,” Bahn murmured.
The crewmen, as it turned out, were telling the truth. After reaching the vacant cockpit, Bolan and Bahn warily ventured into the rear cabin, only to find it empty. And when they continued on to the rear hold, all they could see were endless stacks of packed cargo boxes stamped with the Far East insignia. None of the boxes was large enough for anyone to conceal anyone, and there was no place among the stacks behind which to hide.
“Just our luck,” Bahn muttered once she’d finished inspecting the hold. “We’ve got the wrong damn plane!”
Bolan lowered his .44, doing his best to rein in his frustration. “Maybe we got here ahead of them. Maybe they didn’t get a chance to wrangle aboard yet.”
“That or maybe they already flew the coop.”
By the time they’d made their way out of the plane, Scanlon was waiting for them alongside one of the plainclothes officers that been the first on the scene. He confirmed Bahn’s worse-case scenario.
“Missed the bastards again.” Scanlon gestured at the other officer, he added, “He says they already flew out on another jet. Five freaking minutes ago.”