The Freedom Broker (Thea Paris #1)(51)
She nodded. Her body was battered, but she didn’t have any serious injuries. The alarming scent of jet fuel mixed with acrid smoke kicked her into action. “Out!”
Their quickest escape route was through the front, but they needed to help Peter and the flight attendants. Thick smoke filled the cabin. She pulled off her sweater and used it as a filter to help her breathe. She rushed toward the main cabin, Rif right behind her. Debris cluttered the floor. Coffee mugs, smashed glass, and a laptop computer rested near the first flight attendant’s seat.
She stumbled over a duffel bag lying on the floor but caught her balance by slamming a palm into an overhead panel. The smoke limited visibility. Rif tried to open the exit door, but it wouldn’t budge. The fuselage had twisted during the landing.
“This way,” Rif told Brianna and Peter, moving on to the red release handle on the overwing emergency escape hatch. He tossed the hatch through the waist-high opening, then helped the others step onto the sharply tilted wing.
Thea hurried through the cabin to find the second flight attendant. The woman’s neck was bent at such an unnatural angle, she didn’t need to check for a pulse. She stumbled back to the hatch, bending almost double to thread her body through the emergency exit. Rif offered her a hand, then led her off the wing’s trailing edge.
They leapt to the ground and sprinted upwind from the crash. Seconds later, an oxygen bottle exploded, igniting fuel leaking from the breached wing tanks. A ball of orange flame laced with angry black smoke erupted, throwing a wall of heat and bits of burning aluminum in their direction.
Thea dove into the sand beside Rif, arms covering her head. A series of smaller explosions scattered debris and scorched the sand around the fuselage, ringing the jet’s gaping wreckage with ugly black soot.
Thea pushed herself into a sitting position. Her lips were dry and swollen, her eyes irritated and burning. Tears streaked down her face. The broken jet was engulfed in a raging inferno, melting into the sand, forever grounded, a hollowed-out carcass. The bodies of the pilots and the other flight attendant had been cremated, their ashes lost in the unforgiving winds of the Kanzi desert.
Rif offered her a hand up. She accepted, grateful. Without his piloting skills, they’d all be dead.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Nikos’s view of the arid dunes surrounding the airstrip was clouded by red earth kicking up as the Cessna Caravan touched down. The plane lumbered to a stop, and the grit hovering in the air dissipated. A Kanzi flag on a lone pole waved in the brisk wind—half red, half black, with a green circle in the middle, representing “through the mud and the blood to the green fields beyond.” No green fields today, though: soaring temperatures and dry conditions had left any local crops desiccated. The surrounding area was a barren wasteland.
The Cessna had landed in the western region of Kanzi, where the harsh climate made the land inhospitable, though it provided the perfect location for a rebel training camp. Shots could be fired and grenades could explode without causing any alarm. The only people who roamed the surrounding desert were the nomadic tribes, and they knew better than to venture near this encampment.
“Welcome home.” The flight steward opened the exit door while the co-pilot ran around the spinning propeller to unload Nikos’s luggage. Four soldiers in fatigues stood armed with the newly supplied AK-47s beside a pair of Toyota Land Cruisers.
As difficult as the conditions were here, Nikos considered this country his home. He might have been born in New York City, but Ares had come into being in Kanzi. For years he’d kept his two identities separate, never merging. But now he was taking the ultimate risk, revealing himself. He planned on tricking one devil to exact revenge on another, fulfilling his destiny, bringing his story full circle after twenty long years.
He strode over to the lead truck and climbed inside, the air-conditioning providing a welcome respite from the unrelenting heat. They headed for the camp, the truck bouncing up and down on the uneven terrain.
Fifteen minutes later, they entered the military encampment, and the Land Cruiser stopped in front of a large canvas tent with a sweeping overhang. A massive figure stood beside two young boys dressed in matching Nike shirts.
The General.
Nikos stepped out of the truck and came face-to-face with his former kidnapper for the first time in twenty years. The man walking toward him had been his abductor and his savior, but today they shared a common bond—a hatred of Christos Aristotle Paris. So when Nikos had reached out via encrypted satphone with his proposal, the General had agreed immediately.
At six foot one, Nikos was hardly a small man, but standing next to this giant, echoes of his twelve-year-old self resurfaced. Somewhere inside, his rigid self-control faltered for a second.
No, things were different now. He was the power player, the General only a pawn. The weathered warrior had gray hair near his temples, deep crevices etched in his ebony face, and his tribal scars had left his skin looking like the hide of a rhino. His immense bulk had softened, the buttons of his uniform fighting against his belly. He also had a slight limp from that long-ago firefight, when Kofi had betrayed the General and shot him in the leg.
In contrast, Nikos was fit and in his prime, a feared arms dealer who could order someone’s death with a casual whisper into the right ear.
Nikos had become the giant.
The General waved his large hands toward the boys. “My grandsons—we’re just spending time together before they head back home this afternoon.”