“Sorry, Champ, I’m fresh out of trust.” While they’d been speaking she’d been inching toward him. Now, Michelle whirled and connected a kick to his head sending the man flying backward. Yet before she could strike again, he’d recovered and slammed a foot into her shoulder, sending her back on her ass. She leapt up and avoided another blow, managing to duck under his swing, and delivered a hard shot to his kidney. Amazingly, it didn’t drop him. He staggered back, breathing hard, but with his defenses still intact.

“You’re good,” she called out over the plane’s engine.

“Maybe not as good as you,” he admitted. He looked over his shoulder. “Michelle, you need to get out of here.”

“Why, so you can fly off with the drugs?”

“I’m doing nothing criminal. You have to trust me.”

“I told you, I’m fresh out.” She leaped and her foot connected with his chest. He fell back and unfortunately landed next to his gun. He grabbed the pistol, took point blank aim and-

Michelle dove back into the cockpit and slammed the door shut as a round from Champ’s pistol exploded through the glass. Michelle frantically scanned the controls. She’d watched Champ go through his flight checklist when they’d gone up. Now that attention to detail paid off. She released the foot brake, pushed the throttle ahead and the Cessna shot forward.

Another bullet came winging through the cockpit and this time Michelle could not get out of the way. She grunted in pain as the slug bit hotly into her arm leaving a bloody crease before exiting out the opposite window. She rammed the throttle ahead and the Cessna picked up speed, zipping down the concrete toward the main runway. Champ sprinted after her, his gun waving in his hand. He sent another shot at the plane’s tail but missed.

“Stop,” he screamed. “You don’t know what you’re doing. Stop!”

Michelle had no intention of taking the Cessna off the ground. She throttled forward at the same time she stood on the right foot pedal throwing the small plane into a one-eighty. Champ stopped dead as the plane turned directly at him. He raised his gun to fire but instead turned and ran. As fleet as he was Michelle had to throttle back to keep from running over him. As the plane bore down on him he screamed and threw himself sideways, rolled down an embankment and crashed into a set of gasoline drums.

Michelle cut the throttle, engaged the brake, jumped out and raced down the embankment. She didn’t wait for Champ to attempt to get up. She launched herself from halfway up the rise and landed on top of him, her elbow slamming into the back of his head. Champ let out one groan and then his eyes closed and his body went limp.

“You’re not dying on me, Champ,” she said furiously as she rolled him over and checked his pulse. “Prison is calling, you stupid genius freak.” His breathing was steady and his pulse strong and he would no doubt wake soon with a monster headache and an overpowering desire to call his lawyer. She looked around, spotted some cable hanging on the exterior wall of a storage shed, and used that to tie him up.

She searched his pockets, found his cell phone and car keys and ran back to the plane. Throwing the door open she climbed in, cut the engine, jabbed one of the keys into the bale nearest her and checked it. Heroin, she was almost certain. She stuffed some of it in a bag she pulled from a storage compartment in the plane. As she was turning to leave, a sound caught her ears from the back of the plane, behind the bales. Then she saw one of the packages move a bit.

She began heaving the bales out of the way. At the very rear of the cabin something was wrapped in a blanket. And that something was squirming.

Michelle pulled at the blanket and it finally fell away, revealing a tied-up and gagged Viggie.

Michelle quickly freed her and they raced off the plane.

“Mick-” Viggie began.

“Tell me later. Now, just run.”

They reached Champ’s Mercedes and climbed in. Michelle called Merkle Hayes at home, woke the man up and gave him a rundown of what had happened. “Get to Babbage Town with everybody you can,” she screamed into the phone.

“Holy shit,” was all the lawman could manage to say.

Michelle fired up the car and gunned the motor. With a wide-eyed Viggie hanging on to whatever she could, Michelle laid rubber down the entire length of the small parking lot before hitting the road, hanging a left and accelerating, leaving behind an unconscious genius ripe for a long prison sentence and a Cessna full of heroin courtesy of the CIA. She hit a hundred on the straightaway and kept her foot mashed to the floor.

CHAPTER 84

SEAN CROUCHED DOWN behind a low hedge. What he was seeing destroyed what little hope he had of surviving tonight. Men in black body armor with MP5s-clearly government guns from across the river-were talking with two of the security guards left at Babbage Town.