Brain(86)

The cars had been rented under fake ID and heavy disguises. The owners of this house would come home to discover a slightly damaged rental BMW in their garage, and their normal car parked in their side yard, and nothing else missing. It would give them something to talk about at parties.

I had the name and address of the owner of the SUV we’d stolen. If it got trashed during our escape, I’d mail some cash to the guy.

It seemed everything was going great until we turned into the airport parking lot and Ranger told Brain, “I see one of Ivankov’s people sitting in a delivery van pretending to eat lunch. You okay in there, Brain?”

“Yeah, I’m good, and the priority is getting her off the island — Plan B is in effect. I won’t try to leave the plane until I get the all clear from you as you leave.”

“No!” I protested. “It’s just one guy. We can take him out and still leave with you!”

I heard Brain in my ear, the voice of reason. “Ranger saw the lookout, we don’t know how many people the asshole brought with him. Maybe they’re watching the hangars with an assumption it’s how you’ll get off the island, or maybe they know which plane we came in on and it’s surrounded and we just don’t know it. We’ve talked about this, you know you have to go with them.”

“No, I don’t know it. Not yet. There’s nothing to say the three of us can’t drive into the hangar, get on the plane, and fly away. The other two are going by boat no matter what.”

Gonzo and Bash would drive to a remote part of the island, run from their cars into the woods, and turn to wolf so they could easily outrun my enemies. I hated they were having to do the final leg of getting away, but had been assured they could run fifteen miles through the woods with no problem, make it to their stash of clothes, change to human and dress, and then walk the final quarter mile to the yacht we’d hired, and meet us in Cancun.

The yacht was stocked with food and clothes for all of us for five days, just in case, as Plan B put the rendezvous point in Jamaica, and then we’d all go to Cancun together. However, I wasn’t prepared to leave Brain behind.

“Brain, leave the plane and walk out to us. We can all make it to the boat, together.”

“It’s too risky.”

“I love you. Don’t make me leave this island without you.” Yeah, it wasn’t playing fair, but I didn’t give a fuck.

“Ranger?” he asked.

“You told me not to put her in danger more than I absolutely have to. We’re across the road and down the street right now. You coming out puts her at risk, but if you walk to us down the street and aren’t followed, I think we can minimize the threat. Might put you in more danger, though.”

Right, because if they didn’t know he belonged to us, they’d figure it out when he came to us.

“Go out the airport side of the hangar,” I told him, “walk to the post office, and we’ll be in the parking lot there. The guy’s in the hangar parking lot. Play your cards right and he likely won’t even realize you’ve left the building.”

“We’ll be in the shopping center across the road from the post office,” Ranger amended. “Otherwise, her plan should work.”

“Okay, ya’ll drive somewhere else while I get a good look at everyone in the vicinity. Then I’ll destroy the electronics so no one can get info off the hard drives or from the memory. I’ll let you know when I’m ready for you to come back.”

Forty minutes later, he told us he was disconnecting his equipment, meaning we’d be out of communication via the earpieces. Ranger pulled the burner phone from the glove compartment, removed it from the signal blocking sleeve, put the battery in, and turned it on. He handed it to me, and I called Brain’s burner.

He answered, and I said, “We’re about ten minutes away, we’ll head that direction and go ahead and park.”

“Kay. See you soon.”

We didn’t hear from him for thirty minutes, and I was getting antsy. I breathed easy when the phone finally rang, but my heart sank to the bottom of my abdomen when I heard Ivankov’s voice.

“Ah, Ice. Such a pleasure to hear your voice, again. I’ve waited such a long time for you.”

His thick accent made me want to puke, but I kept my voice steady and asked, “What do you want?”

“I have your man, here, and we’re all in the aeroplane together. I assume you have a pilot?”

I glanced at Ranger, deciding on my best plan of action. “The pilot should be along in the next hour or so. He isn’t with me at the moment.”