At first the door didn’t budge, so Eli and Jed joined Ben in the pushing, Jed pressing a large shoulder into the stairs on the inside of the door. Then, once a tiny break in the seal formed, the three-hundred-mile-an-hour wind did the rest, pulling the door out and then down, the hydraulics of the door slowing the process enough to prevent the door from slamming and ripping off the frame of the aircraft as Jed had worried. The plane yawed left and Ben stumbled, but Terry quickly and expertly got control and seconds later the G700 began to drift upward until the side of the Boeing filled the doorway. As the pilots maneuvered the G700 doorway in line with the Boeing’s cargo door, the wind whipping past the open cabin was loud but less intimidating than Ben had expected. Finally Terry had the plane stabilized, bobbing up and down six or eight inches at a time as if in a boat on gentle seas, in sync with the Boeing.

“Ready?” he asked Jed.

“Easy day,” Jed said, smiling tightly and reached across the gap to the Boeing’s external cargo door control panel, the wind whipping his heavily muscled arm around enough that he needed to steady himself with a shoulder in the doorframe. Jed’s big hand found the rectangular vent door handle, which was recessed to sit flush with the skin of the closed four-by-six-foot cargo door behind it.

Ben heard Jed exhale, then watched him depress the twin buttons in the handle and turn the lever.

CHAPTER
THIRTY-FOUR

COCKPIT

TRANSAMERICA FREIGHT BOEING 717 N6677L

LEVEL AT THIRTEEN THOUSAND EIGHT HUNDRED FEET

1629 HOURS LOCAL

The jet yawed suddenly to the right and a warning horn sounded. Nate reached for the yoke, but the autopilot corrected the yaw almost immediately.

“What have you done?” the copilot Smith screamed.

The aft cargo door warning light flashed red in sync with the whoop sound from the alarm blaring on the warning panel. Nate silenced the annunciator and turned to his copilot, where he saw two things simultaneously that stopped the breath in his chest. The first was a demonic red glow in Smith’s eyes, and the second was the glint of silver from the knife in his copilot’s right hand.

Nate reflexively tried to block the strike and felt the blade bite into his forearm, pain exploding like fire as it cut fast and deep. His middle fingers and pinkie suddenly released themselves from the fist he’d formed as the blade severed nerves and tendons. Blood sprayed the control panel and spattered the windscreen when Smith yanked the blade back.