Play Along

I stare out at the sea below us as we fly way up high. Such a beautiful, tranquil setting and yet we are in the midst of a nightmare. I turn around and look over my shoulder again, half expecting a chopper to be chasing us. I know they don’t have the resources, but my military training leaves me on stand by every time.

“Why wasn’t it him? Why wasn’t he on the damn chopper?” She runs her hands through her hair in frustration.

My angry eyes flick to her. “Something you could have checked before you raised hell.”

She glares at me. “You are a fucking wimp. Do you know that? Drop me off. They saw me point the gun at you. Go running back and beg for forgiveness.” She shakes her head. “Blame me.” She seems to come to a decision before she lets me speak. “You need to get away from me, anyway. You are in more danger with me around.”

I shake my head with fury. Unfucking believable.

“I mean it,” she yells, her eyes continually switching between the sky in front of us and back to me.

My face remains solemn and emotionless.

“I made a promise to your mother,” she snaps.

My eyes fall her way and I screw up my face. “What?”

“I told your mom that I would look out for you.”

“That was just a figure of speech,” I snap. “She didn’t mean for you to literally look out for me.”

“Yes, she did. I know she did.” She pauses for a moment. “What were you going to do? What was your brilliant plan, huh?” she yells over the loud sound of the blades above us.

I shake my head. “When I got him alone, I was going to break his neck or smother him or something less fucking dramatic than your Lethal Weapon strategy. He trusted me, and I could have killed him when I got him alone, but you have fucked up every chance of that happening, haven’t you?” I tap the side of my head angrily. “So stupid.”

She rolls her eyes. “Oh yes, that sounds really safe. Like his guards would have let that happen. You would already be dead if it were up to your plan.”

“At least I would have targeted the right person.” I sneer.

She fakes a sarcastic smile.

We sit in silence for twenty minutes and I continually glance behind us at the ocean.

Nobody is following us, but I know it’s a false sense of security. The storm is brewing.

“What are we going to do?” She sighs.

I shrug and we fly for a while longer as I troll my brain for a logical plan. If I bring us down on the water, we have more chance of not being found, but then I have to get Rosh to dry land safely which would be risky. If I fly directly to the mainland we will continue on the radar of the ship. I know they can still see us now and know exactly where we are. I have to fly up the coast for at least a couple of hundred kilometres and then go inland. There is no other choice. I glance over my shoulder and finally come to a decision. I hit the satellite navigation system and wait for my coordinates. They come up and I make a turn to the right.

“We will land and hide the chopper. There is another small chopper on the ship, but there isn’t another pilot on board and you took out the other one. We have about an hour, I reckon, before someone can get in the air to look for us.”

She watches me intently.

“There is probably a tracking device on this one.”

Her eyes widen in horror and she starts to look around frantically.

“You won’t find it, but they will know where we land.”

“So we land and run?” she asks.

I nod as I remain deep in thought.

“Where are we landing?”

I flick some switches and put the headphones on as we veer even farther to the right. “Columbia.”

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