Who’s the prisoner? Maybe there was a scuffle aboard? Maybe there was a mid-flight security incident. Maybe an attempt to hijack or force land the plane?

Udall’s computer beeped.

What the hell? Now this doesn’t make any sense. What’s this?

A security warning popped up on Udall’s monitor.

He was not authorized to learn the prisoner’s identity.

Udall cursed under his breath as he reached for his phone.

What kind of flight was this? Who was the prisoner?

-Chapter 43-

Jade Falls, Washington

Miles away, at the crash site, Robert Lazarus Yacine was cold and wet.

If he could feel, he was alive.

He blinked at daylight and the small fires licking everywhere in the soft rain as the storm subsided. He coughed, nearly gagging on the stench of burning plastic, metal, and rubber.

Rain trickled into his eye, down his face, and into his mouth. When he tasted it, he knew it was blood. His head throbbed. It had to be a nasty cut. His neck hurt but his adrenaline was pumping.

He could deal with the pain. He was all right.

The plane was in pieces at the edge of a forest. While Yacine remained cuffed and shackled, the crash had freed him from his seat, which had broken from the floor. He undid his seatbelt and after some contortions, got to his feet and stumbled, crab-like, through the wreckage, chains chinking as he counted the dead.

The nearest body was missing its head.

It was the man who’d sat behind him; RCMP Corporal Terry Cox, according to the ID that Yacine fished from his pocket. No handcuff keys. The man who’d sat beside Yacine, Deputy U.S. Marshal Moss Johnston, had no pulse or handcuff keys, but he did have a lot of cash.

U.S. cash.

Both pilots were impaled in the trees.

That’s four dead, two to go.

What about Dark Eyes?

Yacine scanned the wreckage, glimpsing a hand under the twisted metal of a wing. Dark Eyes had a bloodied face. Twisting, turning and crouching, Yacine reached for the man’s wrist to feel for a pulse, not sure he had one before he heard moaning coming from nearby.

Yacine left Dark Eyes.

The gum-snapper, his taunter, was near the tail.

A long strip of metal fuselage was embedded in his legs, slicing deep into both above the knee in a near-amputation.

A brilliant pool of blood was forming under him.

“Help me,” he pleaded. “Please.”