“How many left?” Patricia asked.
“One injured, two uninjured and Esteban,” Julia said.
“Who was hiding in the plane until he noticed it was sitting on top of an inferno,” Elle said.
Julia couldn’t not look anymore. She went to her knees beside Elle to spy through the windows of the car. Esteban was running down the stairs, gun in hand.
Another burst of gunfire to their left caught their attention. Julia gasped. Ryan was hit. She watched blood blossom on his leg before he dove behind a pile of junk.
“He’s fine,” Callum said tightly before they could ask.
Julia wasn’t so sure, but she didn’t argue. Instead, her fingers curled around the door handle in front of her and she held on tight enough to make her knuckles turn white. She saw movement to the right and watched as Joe crouched as he ran up the airplane steps. A minute later, he appeared again and ran for the hangar.
One of Esteban’s men saw him and opened fire. The bullets sprayed the side of the plane, barely missing Joe.
“Elle?” Julia whispered with growing horror. Things had just gotten a whole lot worse. “That’s the plane’s fuel tank, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, the idiots hit the tank,” Elle said in the same tone.
Julia fought the urge to run towards Joe, screaming a warning. The plane’s fuel was trickling towards the fire beneath it. And Joe was much too close. Her mind threw up every fact she’d ever learned about aviation safety. She was grateful that her freaky need to make sure she was secure before she travelled had given her the data.
“Planes rarely explode,” she said, more to herself than anyone else. “The fuel usually burns and the body of the plane goes on fire. There might be a fireball, but they rarely explode unless there’s been a build-up of fumes in the tank.” She looked at Elle. “But the tank was full, right? The pilot refuelled in Cusco, didn’t he? There’s no space for fumes to occupy.”
“No,” Callum said. “We didn’t want to tip Esteban off that we were leaving the country. We planned to refuel over the border before carrying on home.”
Her eyes shot to the plane. “So the tank has plenty of space for fumes to build up. We have to warn them,” she said to Callum, aware of how hysterical she sounded.
“How?” he said.
She had no answer. Joe was out there. Close to the plane. With men shooting at him. And his phone was dead.
“We need to move back,” Callum said. “Everybody in the car. Julia, you’re driving. Move it. Now!”
As Julia clambered in behind the wheel, another thought made her stomach heave. “Where’s Esteban?”
Callum’s expression was tight. “The bastard is in the hangar.”
“With Joe,” Julia whispered as she put the car in gear and drove around the building, away from the blaze.
Chapter 31
Joe spotted Esteban running for the hangar, and took a minute to check inside the plane. All three members of the crew were dead. Assassinated by Esteban’s bullets. As he ran through the cabin, he stumbled on two large crates and his heart stopped beating for a second. The crates were marked as full of ammunition. Esteban had obviously thought to kill two birds with one stone when he’d hijacked their plane in Cusco. He’d planned to use it to get Patricia and the treasure, and to transport his illegal weapons one step closer to Lima.
Now, those weapons were sitting in a plane that was resting on a burning car. And there was nothing Joe could do about it. The crates were too big, and the priority was protecting the team.
Protecting Julia.
With one last glance at the crew members who’d been brutally slaughtered for doing their jobs, he ran down the stairs and headed for the hangar.
A burst of gunfire came at him from the left, almost hitting his head before he threw himself to the tarmac and fired. Three bullets. He’d hit the guy’s arm. His attacker retreated, but the damage to the plane was already done. There was fuel leaking from the tank. And it was heading straight for the fire beneath it.
It was past time to end this thing.
Joe ran for the hangar, hugging the wall at the side of the gaping doors, all too aware of the heat at his back telling him time was running out fast. Esteban wasn’t even trying to hide; he was over at the door on the opposite side of the building from the entrance the planes would use, and was shouting at his last remaining men.
“Get the woman,” he told them. “Stop fighting the men and get the woman.”
It was too late. Esteban had lost. He just didn’t know it yet.