Hitched!

“Hijacked! The hell you say!” This new, masculine voice came from behind the open curtains separating first and tourist classes. “Don’t worry, Robyn, somebody’s gettin’ cute. We’ll see if the FAA thinks it’s so damn funny.”

Rand sat down suddenly, his arm pressing Maxine back against her seat. “There’s a guy with a gun comin’ up the aisle,” he said, a touch of Southern steel creeping into his mid-Atlantic accent. “Lean back and keep quiet. Don’t do anything to attract attention.”

The flight attendant’s shaky voice rose above the babble with a boost from the intercom. “Please, keep calm and nobody will be hurt. Do everything they say.”

“How the hell many are there?” Rand muttered, not turning to see. “Jeez, I don’t believe this!”

A man shoved past, heading for the front of the plane. Turning at the forward seat in first class, he glared back at the hapless passengers. Maxine caught her breath on a little moan at the sight of the guy’s menacing expression.

It didn’t help that he was waving a pistol around in one hand while exhibiting a hand grenade in the other. “Everybody shut up!” he roared, red-rimmed eyes glowing. “Next person who opens his mouth will get a grenade shoved down his throat.”

Maxine snapped her teeth together with a click. In her immediate vicinity, all sound ceased except for the snuffling of the child in the seat behind. Those in tourist class apparently couldn’t hear the man’s warning, though, for it was beginning to sound like pandemonium back there.

“Goddammit!” The hijacker strode back down the aisle, still brandishing his weapons. Rand leaned slightly in, his shoulder touching hers until the man had gone past.

“Two of them.” He was looking at her, but she knew he was thinking out loud. “I hope to God nobody gets any bright—”

The intercom crackled and a new voice came on, a voice rough and threatening. “You people shut up and listen! We’ve got guns and grenades and we’re ready to use them unless we get some damn cooperation!”

He’d convinced Maxine, and everybody else, as well, it seemed. Suddenly she could have heard a pin drop. There was something utterly persuasive about his threats. Wide-eyed, she couldn’t help counting on Rand Taggart for reassurance. He shook his head in silent warning, then took her hand and squeezed it.

He must think she was on the verge of hysteria or something. She wasn’t that weak or stupid…but there was some comfort to be found in his steady grip nonetheless. She didn’t pull away.

“Listen up,” the disembodied voice continued. “I’ve got a gun pointed straight at the captain’s head and my partner will keep you folks in line out there or else—you got that? Try anything and I will surely shoot the shit outa this pilot, in which case we’re all dead meat.” He didn’t sound as if he cared.

The intercom went dead. Rand grimaced. “I’m taking him at his word,” he said. “If everybody keeps cool, we should be all right.”

Small comfort. “Do you think—”

The intercom cut her off. “This is your captain speaking.”

Maxine felt a leap of hope at the new, confident voice—hope dashed by his next words.

“If everybody will just remain calm and cooperative, I’m sure we can work something out with these gentlemen. The seat-belt sign will remain on and I’d personally appreciate it if you’d all stay buckled up. Mr….?”

“Smart-ass,” the other voice snarled. The sound of a blow, a groan.

When the pilot spoke again, his voice was no longer calm and assured. “This gentleman h-has instructed me to, uh, has given me a new flight plan. Sit tight and pray. We have plenty of fuel and no intention of doing anything foolish.”

“Oh, gosh…” Maxi swallowed hard. “This isn’t sounding very good.”

THE WOMAN in the front row likely agreed, because she burst into hysterical sobs. Rand didn’t say a word, just leaned back and closed his eyes. At least his own problems were taking a back seat, what with overwrought passengers, weeping children and erratic flying patterns.

Not that there was a helluva lot he could do, which was frustrating. Beyond occasional comforting words for the woman in the seat next to him—Maxine something-or-other—he was powerless. When this whole thing started, what little color she had in her face had disappeared, apparently never to return.

“Can’t we do anything?” she finally blurted at him.

“Like what?” She must be nuts.

“You’re a man. Men are supposed to know these things.”

He felt his temper soar. “If you think I’m gonna get shot trying to be a hero, you’ve got the wrong guy.”

“I probably do.” She settled back, radiating disapproval.

Well, hell. What did she expect? Now he had something new to brood about.

Around them, many of the passengers were climbing beyond the point of no return on the hysteria scale. Maxine, although she’d shown no signs of losing it, was obviously scared to death. Hell, so was he. He should be more understanding.

He kept his voice low and easy. “Did you say you live in San Antonio?”

She gave him a startled glance and shook her head.

“Maxine,” he said reproachfully, “I can’t take your mind off your troubles if you refuse to talk.”

She responded with a quick, uncertain smile. She really did have a nice mouth—wide, full lipped. Almost lush. It was a wonder he hadn’t noticed that before.

“I live in Chicago,” she said a bit vaguely. “Mostly.”

“Are you going to visit friends in Texas, then?”

“No. I have a job interview there.” She licked her lips nervously. “What do you do, Rand?”

“As little as possible.”

“Ah.” Her expression seemed to relax a little. “Independently wealthy, I suppose.”

“Depends on what you mean by wealthy. He kept his tone neutral. He didn’t intend to tell this stranger that he’d probably thrown away more money than she’d ever see. “I’m on my way to visit my family.”

“Parents?”

“That’s right. And two aunts and uncles who live nearby.”

“Do you have a close family?”

“Close enough, I guess. How about you? Do you have much family?”

“One sister, and she’s…well, she’s kind of in trouble at the moment.”

“That’s too bad.” He didn’t want to pursue this line of questioning. He wasn’t particularly interested in her or her sister, would never see her again once this was over. He had plenty of problems of his own without getting caught up in hers.

But looking into her vulnerable face, he couldn’t bring himself to break off the conversation. At a loss, he finally said, “I have a sister, too.”

“Has she ever been in trouble?”

Rand laughed. “Clementine? She’s been in trouble since the day she was born, but probably not the kind of trouble you mean.”

“Clementine. I don’t believe I’ve ever heard of anyone with that name. Except, ‘Oh, my darling,’ of course.”

“She used to hate it, but now that she’s older, she kind of likes it.”

“Older like…?”

“She’s twenty-one.” He knew she wasn’t interested in hearing about his sister, but he was struggling to keep the conversation going. “How old are you?” About his age, he figured.

“I’m twenty-five.”

“No kidding.” Idiot. You can’t tell her you thought she was at least five years older than that. Damn shame Clemmie couldn’t get hold of Maxine for a few hours and do something about that frumpy exterior.

“Excuse me, sir.”

Rand glanced around to find one of the ashen-faced flight attendants standing in the aisle, holding a basket with cans of soda and tiny bags of pretzels. “Would either of you care for a drink or a snack? It’s not much, but this was supposed to be a short flight.”

“They wouldn’t let you use that big cart, huh?” Rand guessed.

She nodded. “He said if they needed to get through the plane in a hurry, they didn’t want that thing in the way.”

“Which makes sense, I suppose.” He took a couple of cans from the basket and handed one to Maxine. “How’s it going up front?”

The flight attendant licked her lips. “Okay, I guess. They’re obviously doing drugs, though, and you never know where that will lead.” She made a face.

“Maybe if they get enough of that junk in them, they’ll fall asleep.”

“God, I hope so, but it just seems to make them more squirrelly.”

The beefy man across the aisle—an insurance salesman from Dubuque, Rand recalled, Larry something-or-other—leaned into the quietly spoken conversation. “Why doesn’t the captain do something?” he demanded, his face reddening. “We’ve got them outnumbered, for God’s sake.”

The woman in the maroon-and-gold Alar uniform was rendered speechless by this asinine criticism, so Rand jumped in.

“Good idea. You make the first move.”

“Me? I—we—ah…” The man’s bluff had been called and his bravado evaporated.

A bit of color had returned to the flight attendant’s cheeks and she gave Rand a grateful glance before moving on.

Rand turned around to Maxine, who studied him without expression.

“Maybe we should gang up on those hijackers,” she said defiantly. “If we’re going to die anyway—”

“Nobody’s going to die,” he said, appalled.

“Is that a promise?”

“It’s a prediction. Why don’t we just settle down and—”

“May I have your attention, ladies and gentlemen.” The pilot’s voice burst from the intercom. “Time to buckle up. We’ll be landing in about twenty minutes at—”

The sound was cut off to a chorus of “Landing where?” Maxine and Rand looked at each other. He smiled. She didn’t.

“See?” he said encouragingly. “In an hour we’ll be off this plane and going about our business again.”

“From your lips to God’s ear,” she said with feeling. “In the meantime, keep talking, will you? Tell me the story of your life…anything to keep my mind off them.”

THE HIJACKERS apparently changed their minds with disturbing frequency because minutes stretched into hours while the plane continued on a meandering course through the sky. After a while, Rand found himself running out of things to say and he still couldn’t loosen Maxine up enough to do more than nod or answer “Yes” or “No.” She did show an annoying tendency to ask personal questions, however, which he turned aside with growing impatience.

He wasn’t a man who talked about his personal business, especially when he was ashamed of it.

The hijackers took turns exploding out of the cockpit to wave guns and grenades around, to make threats. Singly, they’d stalk to the back of the plane, get everybody all worked up to screaming and crying, then turn and stalk back, to disappear inside the cockpit again.

Finally the insurance man across the way got fed up for real. “We really oughta rush ’em,” he whispered hoarsely to Rand. “They’re gonna get us if we don’t get them first.”

That thought had occurred to Rand, too, but had quickly perished. Whatever those two hijackers were doing in the cockpit wasn’t making them sleepy it was making them mean—make that meaner. They gave every indication that they’d as soon shoot the passengers as keep an eye on them.

“Take it easy,” he tried to calm the jittery man. “Nobody’s been hurt yet. Why start something we may not be able to finish?”

“Yeah, well…” The man subsided, mumbling.

The next time one of the gunmen appeared, he took one look at the insurance salesman, apparently didn’t like what he saw, raised his pistol and fired point-blank.

At the same instant, the plane banked into a sharp descent, throwing the gunman off-balance. The bullet panged into a vacant seat in the first row, sparing the insurance salesman. The first-class cabin erupted in shrieks and cries, so the hijacker fired a couple more shots after the first, playing hell with the upholstery.

Rand shoved Maxine against the window and turned to shield her with his body. In the aisle, the hijacker was swearing and making all kinds of threats, ending with a bellowed, “You think I don’t know what’s going on out here? You want to jump me, right? Try it! I’m begging you to try it! Hell, I might just throw this grenade and get it over with.”

Fully believing the end was near either from bullet, grenade or a crash landing, Rand braced himself for the worst. So much for his own petty problems. He wasn’t going to live long enough to—

The wheels slammed down onto solid earth. The plane vaulted into the air and landed again, heavily. The odor of burning rubber permeated the cabin.

“Please!” The word was just a gasp from Maxine. “You’re crushing me! Let me up!”

Why the hell not? If the hijacker hadn’t thrown the grenade by now, maybe he wouldn’t. “Sorry.” Rand straightened. A quick glance forward produced an exclamation of astonishment.

The hijacker wasn’t there. And hurtling past the window was a landscape Rand didn’t recognize: sand and cactus and a few stunted trees.

But first things first. “You okay?” he asked Maxine. “I didn’t mean to crush you but I was afraid—”

“Shit!” The insurance salesman was hyperventilating. “He’s crazy! Did you see that? He tried to shoot me!”

Rand grimaced. “Buck up, fella. You survived to tell about it.”

The man groaned. “I think I’m gonna be sick.” He stumbled to his feet and staggered forward to the rest room, bouncing side to side with the motion of the plane.

Into a tense silence, a petulant voice intruded. “Grandma, I’m hungry!”

Jessica, the little girl in the seat behind them. A tug on his sleeve made Rand start; the child stood in the aisle, looking up at him plaintively.

Maxine’s smile didn’t mask her concern. “Honey, you have to sit down.” She dug around in her shoulder bag. “Here.” She held up a candy bar. “You can have this if you’ll get back into your seat and—”

“Jessica!” The little girl’s grandmother sounded panicky. “Get back in this seat at once!”

“Choc-late!” Jessica escaped her grandmother’s clutches and lunged for the chocolate bar. She grabbed it, then fumbled at the wrapper.

Rand tried to take it from the chubby hands. “Let me help you, hon.”

“No, let me help.”

The hijacker had crept up on them all unseen. Now he reached for the candy bar.

Jeez, this guy would take candy from babies? Talk about rotten!

Jessica lunged for the chocolate. “Mine!” she screamed, holding the bar in both hands and backing away. She whirled around, then dashed down the aisle as fast as her chubby little legs would carry her.

The gunman straightened, swaying with the roll of the plane, and his arm came up. All Rand could see was the revolver rising, a finger already tightening on the trigger.

CHAPTER TWO

JESSICA’S GRANDMOTHER let out a bloodcurdling screech and leaped into the aisle, blocking it. Her frantic gaze met that of the gunman and she screamed again. She turned, then stumbled after Jessica, blundering into the curtain.

“Crazy old bat.” All the gunman’s attention was riveted on the floundering woman. His lip curled and he squeezed the trigger.

Rand acted purely on instinct. Grabbing the gun hand, he shoved it up and the bullet whistled harmlessly into the overhead luggage bin. Struggling into the aisle, he wrestled for the gun, slowly forcing the hijacker back.

In the cramped space, the man teetered, swore. Balance gone, he made a panicky grab for the last straw—Rand, who fought off the grasping hands.

The hijacker toppled backward, bouncing off the metal arm of a seat on his way down. He landed flat on his back, his head striking the floor with a solid thump. The gun popped free, ending up at Rand’s feet. The hijacker didn’t move.

Breathing hard, Rand bent to retrieve the weapon. The plane lurched, bounced, skidded, knocking him to his hands and knees—but he had the gun. He struggled up, to find Maxine kneeling in the aisle seat. Her eyes behind the ugly glasses were wide and scared.

She gave voice to the obvious. “You could have been killed!”

“You wanted me to do something, didn’t you?”

The insurance guy, back from the rest room, pointed to the unconscious man in the aisle. “He’s out cold. One down and one to go!”

Rand hefted the comforting weight of the pistol in his hand. He didn’t give a hoot in hell what the insurance guy had to say but for some reason thought Maxine’s opinion might be useful. “Now what?”

“How about this,” she responded promptly. “You stand in the entryway beside the cockpit.” She’d obviously given their situation some thought. “I’ll scream my head off, and when the other hijacker comes out to see what’s going on, you get the drop on him.”

Rand groaned. This sounded like a recipe for disaster. “There’s gotta be an easier way.”

She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him. “You think of it, then. This plane is going to stop soon and when the guy up front sees what you’ve done to his partner—” She made an appropriate slashing motion across her own throat, complete with sound effects.

Her point was well taken. A gun battle inside an airplane would not be a good idea. After a moment’s consideration, he said, “You sure this’ll work?”

“As sure as you were that we’d be off this plane three hours ago.”

She had him there. “Lacking a better idea…”

The level of hysterical wailing in tourist class steadily increased, although first-class passengers appeared too stunned to join in. Jessica’s shrieks soared above all else, but he deliberately shut out the racket. “You.” He indicated the insurance agent. “Keep an eye on that guy. If he so much as blinks, slug him.”

“Hard enough to make him see stars for a month,” the man promised. He dragged a heavy hardcover book out of his seat pocket and held it at the ready.

“All set?” Rand looked at Maxine.

She took a deep breath and nodded. The woman wasn’t short on nerve.

Satisfied, Rand stepped over the unconscious hijacker, then crept toward the front of the airplane. The revolver gave him confidence, although he hadn’t held one in years. His father and great-grandfather had taken pains to teach him how to handle firearms when he was just a kid, before the days of political correctness.

The plane came to a final grinding stop. Holding his breath, Rand placed an ear flat against the cockpit door and strained to hear. Nothing. He turned and positioned himself to the side, where he’d be hidden when the door opened. Maxine, standing near the flight attendants’ galley on the left, looked to him for a signal.

He nodded and she nearly split his eardrums.

“Eeeee…! No! Stop! Don’t come any closer! I’m warning you! Aaargh! Eeeeee…!”

The cockpit door slammed open so hard that it banged against the barrel of Rand’s pistol. For a moment he couldn’t see Maxine and terror swamped him. If he screwed up and she was the one who got hurt—

“Dammit, what’s goin’ on out here? I’ve had just about enough of—”

Rand shoved the door with all his strength and raised the pistol, fully prepared to shoot the crap out of the hijacker. Instead, he looked into the blank face of a man who didn’t know what had hit him…a man slowly crumpling, knocked silly when the heavy door connected solidly with his head.

The insurance salesman rushed up “We got him!”

The pilot barged through the door, rumpled and a bit crazed. Dried blood crusted his forehead, but he didn’t appear to be seriously hurt. He stopped short at the sight of his tormentor sprawled on the floor. “What the hell!”

The co-pilot joined them, taking everything in at a glance. “Where’s the other one?” he demanded.

“In first class, dead to the world.” The insurance guy pointed.

Rand finally got a word in edgewise. “Where are we?”

“Mexico,” the pilot said. “It’s a miracle we’re still alive. Those guys wanted to go to Argentina. By the time they finally agreed to a fuel stop, things were getting desperate.” He slapped the other pilot on the shoulder. “It’s a damn good thing you remembered this old airport, Joe.”

The co-pilot shrugged. “My dad used to fly in and out of here in the fifties. This place was an early Cancún, apparently.” He didn’t look as if he fully believed what had happened, even now. “We’d better get the door open and see what the hell we’ve landed in.”

Rand had more immediate concerns. Where was Maxine? Still hiding in the galley? “Here.” He thrust the revolver into the salesman’s hand. “Take over.”

Turning away, he finally spotted Maxine struggling up the rapidly filling aisle. She was lugging her suitcase and his, his briefcase slung over her shoulder. He pushed his way to meet her, so relieved that he nearly put an arm around her.

She leaned close to be heard. “I don’t know about you, but I want out of here.”

“You and me both.” But now new worries set in. Neither friends nor family were aware he was on this plane and publicity was the last thing he wanted. Was there a way to avoid all the hoopla surrounding a hijacking?

“When the door opens…” she began.

“Just part of the crowd.” He tried to shield her from the press of frantic passengers stumbling over the unconscious man in the aisle as if they didn’t even know who he was.

Suddenly the airplane door blew. Instead of leading the charge to escape, Rand stepped aside, drawing Maxine with him. A dozen or so passengers rushed to the opening where the door had been.

No jetway awaited them, just a too-short metal stairway leading down to a graveled field. The first step was a good six feet below the door, but that merely slowed the stampede instead of stopping it.

Two Mexican officials trying to climb into the plane were instead shoved out of the way by the mob. At the first break in the exodus, they tried again with better results. Shouting in a mixture of Spanish and broken English, gesturing grandly, they forced the passengers back until they could drag the two still-unconscious hijackers to the door and pass them down to colleagues waiting on the stairs.

By then, the flight attendants had gained the upper hand, and the evacuation proceeded in a more orderly manner. When the time came, Rand moved into the line, drawing Maxine with him. At the door, he lowered her to the first step, tossed out the luggage and leaped down beside her. When they reached solid ground again, dry heat hit him a hammer blow.

Even in growing darkness, he could easily see that they’d landed in the middle of nowhere. Off to his right, a few lights glowed in the distance, evidence of civilization. Other than that, all he could make out was a small concrete block building at the edge of the field and an overabundance of cactus and rocks.

The pilot had it right; this was insane. The hijacked plane, on the small size by commercial standards, dwarfed the two private planes parked nearby at the edge of what appeared to be a vast network of crumbling pavement.

Maxine’s whole body sagged. “I never thought we’d get off that airplane alive.”

He slid an arm around her shoulders and squeezed. “Hey, don’t cave now. You were great. Hell, we were great.”

She managed a shaky smile. “We weren’t bad at that. Do you suppose—”

“That way, señor.” A uniformed Mexican official bustled up, indicating that they should join the flow of passengers toward a metal shack on the edge of the field. “My colleagues wait to interview all the passengers. We must determine the facts surrounding this crime.”

Rand and Maxine exchanged dubious glances. “We don’t know a thing, but we’re happy to cooperate,” he assured the officer. Once out of earshot, he had a different message for her.

“Look,” he said in a low voice, “I don’t want to get any more mixed up in this than I have to. I’m going to ask that insurance guy if he’ll take the responsibility for bringing down the bad guys.”

“You’ll never get away with it.”

“I will if you’ll go along with me. Nobody really saw what happened except you, me and that salesman. Jessica and her grandmother were heading the other direction, if you recall, and those up front were cowering, not watching.”

“Yes, but—”

“Maxine, please do this.”