your seat, put your seat belt on.” Jesse said in a raised voice.
One wing dropped lower than the other. She secured herself in the seat. “What’s wrong with the plane?”
Jesse clicked some switches on the instrument panel. “Either we’re having engine trouble or Eddy was able to hit the plane, and we just didn’t hear it over the sound of the motor.” He stared through the windshield. “Either way, I’m going to have to crash-land this baby.”
Abigail’s heart seized with terror as she stared through the windshield, watching the treetops grow ever closer.
Jesse stared out at the ground below as the plane lost altitude. He searched the landscape for a flat spot that could serve as a landing strip. What he saw was mostly forest and mountains.
“You know this area. Is there any place close by that would be flat enough to land on?”
Abigail stared through the front windshield. It took her a moment to respond. “Everything looks different from up here. Veer off to the west. I think there’s a grassy patch on the other side of that cluster of trees.” Her voice trembled as she spoke, a sign that revealed the level of fear she was battling.
The plane continued to sputter and lurch up and down as though traveling on waves. Jesse changed course. He dropped altitude as they drew near to the trees. He could see the flat spot Abigail had referred to. When he checked the gauges, he saw that they had lost substantial fuel since takeoff. The gas tank might have been hit. But some other damage was making it hard to keep the wings level.
The plane drew even closer to the ground, skimming the treetops. The strip of land was not very long. He’d be pushing it to try to get the plane stopped before they ran into the trees on the other side.
He nose-dived the plane, then leveled it off and dropped the landing gear. The wheels touched the ground, and the plane bumped along. The landing was so rough his body felt like he was being shaken from the inside and the outside at the same time.
The aircraft remained on the ground, but continued to rumble toward the trees. The entire cockpit vibrated as the trees drew closer. The nose of the plane shot through them. They rolled along, cutting through the trees that were far apart. Branches snapped until the larger trees served as a sort of net that stopped them. The body of the plane thundered and shook.
Both of them sat, clinging to their chairs while the dust settled, and the plane stopped creaking and groaning.
“If there’s a fuel leak, there could be a fire,” Jesse said. “You need to get out.” He had to find that hard drive, or all of this would be in vain. Lee had died before he could tell Jesse where in the plane he’d hidden it.
Abigail leaned to push on her door. “My door won’t open. There’s a tree in the way.” Her voice was filled with anguish. She slumped back in her seat and stared at the ceiling. Her lower lip quivered.
Jesse reached over and stroked her shoulder. “It’s all right. We’re on the ground now.” He tried to sound reassuring, but they were far from being, literally or figuratively, out of the woods. He stood up from his seat and took a step toward the cargo area. “You can get out from my side.”
“And what are you going to do?”
Her accusatory tone got under his skin. He was an honest man. “There’s something I need to locate.”
“You said yourself this plane could catch on fire.”
He had no time to argue with her. “I’ll explain later. Get outside and tell me if you can assess why we went down.” He didn’t mean to sound harsh, but time was of the essence.
She scowled but shifted over to his seat and pushed open the door.
Jesse scanned the cargo area. He flung open several storage drawers, not finding anything that looked like a hard drive. Maybe Lee had taped it underneath the control panel. He hurried toward the nose of the plane and ran his hands underneath the control panel. Nothing. He flung open a storage box behind the copilot seat and rifled through the contents. Not there.
The pilot-side door screeched open and Abigail stuck her head in. “There are flames shooting out.”
He stopped his mad search long enough to register what she had said. A thunderous noise that sounded as though it was contained within a bubble surrounded him. A small explosion from the fire. More, bigger explosions might follow.
He needed to find that hard drive.
Smoke filled the interior of the plane. He coughed. His vision blurred.
He felt Abigail grab his hand and drag him out of the plane.
When his vision cleared, he saw a wall of flames by the plane’s engine. Smoke began to rise in the air. He coughed, feeling a sense of defeat.
He hadn’t found the hard drive. The cartel would be set on revenge even more because of their loss of product. He wasn’t sure they had fired shots at the airplane. It didn’t seem like they would risk the drugs burning up, but then again, if he got away in the plane they’d lose the drugs for sure and he could identify the three men.
Abigail rose to her feet. “It looks like it’s too wet for the trees to catch on fire. The fact that it’s been a wet spring will keep the fire from spreading.” She still sounded shaken and upset.
Already the fire was dying down. That single burst of flame must have consumed all the oxygen and fuel. Part of the plane would still be intact when the flames died down, though the interior had filled with smoke.
Smoke rose up in the air. Probably not enough to be noticed by anyone in Fort Madison, the little town they’d hiked in from. The three men who had been after them would see it and know where they were located. They hadn’t flown that far before landing.
Still trying to clear his mind, he placed his hands on his hips. What now? They needed to get off this mountain before the thugs found them. “Can you guide me back down to Fort Madison?”
She crossed her arms and glared at him, then angled her body so she had a view of the smoldering plane.
“Look, I understand your suspicions, and I’m sorry I wasn’t up-front with you.” The less she knew the better, for her own safety. “I’m a drug enforcement agent. I was set up by another agent so it looks like I was working with drug dealers. I needed to get this plane back. It has evidence that could clear me.”
“And you came up here all by yourself? Don’t you people usually work as a team? Even if you are a DEA agent, I’m sure they end up on the wrong side of the law all the time.”
Without the evidence, he had no idea who in the home office would even believe that he’d been framed. As far as the agency was concerned, he’d gone rogue. Though DEA work involved a level of deception with undercover work, he knew it was for the cause of justice. He was a man who always tried to do the right thing. It bothered him that his character had been so smeared by Lee’s frame-up. The only thing that bothered him more right now was the way Abigail was looking at him with suspicion.
“Look, we both need to get out of here and back to civilization as fast as possible.” He took a step toward her.
Her mouth twitched, and she narrowed her eyes at him.
“Please trust me. I’m one of the good guys.”
“Trust you?” The word seemed to upset her, when he had hoped that it would build a bridge between them.
“Abigail, what are you going to do? Those men are armed and they still have gear and food.”
Again, she studied him for a long moment, probably considering her options.
He took a step toward her. “I need your expertise to get out of these mountains as fast as possible, and you need my protection in case those guys do catch up with us.”
She stared at him, her mouth drawn into a tight line. “I wish I had my backpack.” She turned