Page 52 of Hot Intent

The only passable road in the area was the main one back toward Baracoa, so that was the one he followed. Just north of Baracoa, a secondary road cut inland, eventually curving south to rejoin the main highway in the mountains. It was for this he headed.

The sky stayed thankfully empty of helicopters. He must have done a number on the bird back there. As he reached the south end of the flat plateau of plantations and farming co-ops, he spied a long puff of dust in the distance behind him. The good news was the vehicles were so far back he couldn’t even count how many there were. The bad news was that even the cloud of dust looked pissed.

The road rose out of the long valley into hills and he banged along, trying not to get thrown out of his seat while looking for the turn-off he wanted.

There. The intersection loomed just ahead. He careened around the corner and screeched to a stop. Leaping out of the cab, he used a big palm leaf to rub out his tire tracks hastily. It cost him precious time, but he hoped it would throw the convoy behind him off his track at least temporarily.

The quality of this road was significantly worse. More than once he tested the limits of the truck’s heavy-duty suspension. He almost got stuck crossing a swollen stream, but the spinning tires caught at the last minute and hauled him up onto the slippery far bank.

He stopped again to erase his tracks from the mud and then proceeded onward. His entire world narrowed down to walls of green growth crowding him, and him watching his rearview mirror. Whenever a patch of sky opened up overhead, he scanned it anxiously for helicopters. His hands ached from gripping the steering wheel, and the tops of his thighs were sore from banging into the steering wheel’s bottom rim.

The afternoon passed in a green haze, and as night was falling, he finally emerged into a decent-sized intersection. He’d reached the main highway again. Gratefully, he turned south. The quality of the road didn’t improve much, and the tree cover was substantially less. His nerves stretched tighter and tighter.

If he was insanely lucky, the Cubans had pegged him for a simple thief and hadn’t thrown their whole damned military at him. But he wasn’t counting on that much luck. At some point, they would put up another helicopter and his run of luck would cut off.

It was not long after dark when he spotted blinking lights in the distant sky. He pulled the truck over quickly underneath a tree and hopped out to throw what downed tree limbs he couldlift over it to obscure its profile. He crawled under the truck and prayed its warm engine would hide his human silhouette on any infrared radar the chopper might have.

He didn’t have long to wait to find out. The helicopter, a small two-seater, landed in a field maybe a hundred feet from his position. Swearing, he rolled out from under the truck and crept away fast as a soldier disembarked from the passenger side of the helicopter.

The terrain sucked for cover. It was open country with only small rocky outcroppings, and the wide, grassy pasture stretching away from him sadly lacked for bushes or tree cover. He could low-crawl on his belly through the knee-high grass without being seen, but that was about it. Sticking to the few shadows he could find, he eased around behind the soldier carefully.

A bold idea struck him. It was crazy. Stupid, even. But it just might work. He waited until the soldier’s full attention was lasered in on the truck. The guy had a weapon drawn and was approaching the vehicle cautiously. Alex darted behind the soldier’s back, sprinting for the helicopter.

Even if the guy turned around and spotted him, now, the soldier couldn’t safely fire toward the ‘copter and its flammable fuel tanks. Not to mention, it was the guy’s ride out of here.

Alex closed the last few yards to the passenger door. Sure enough, the soldier behind him shouted. The pilot, not understanding, looked out his own door toward his colleague, who was waving his arms frantically. It was the opening Alex needed.

He threw open the passenger door and slid into the seat, pointing his pistol at the pilot. The guy lurched and shouted incoherently at him. Alex held up an imperative hand to silence the pilot.

Tersely, he explained in Spanish, “I know how to fly this. I can kill you and toss you out, or you can take me where I want to go and no one will get hurt. You have my word on it.”

The pilot babbled a little bit, but put his hands on the controls. Alex watched the guy like a hawk as he strapped himself into the passenger seat. The bird lifted off jerkily.

“Easy, buddy. No need to kill us both because you’re panicked.”

The pilot keyed the radio transmit button on the collective, but Alex swatted the guy’s hand away, tsking. He reached across the guy’s body and yanked the plug for the guy’s headset and microphone out of its plug, and then efficiently turned off all the radios, the radar identification system, and the exterior lights.

The pilot’s eyes widened.

“I wasn’t kidding,” Alex shouted over the engine noise. “I don’t need you alive to fly this thing. So be cool. Okay?”

The pilot nodded, the fight gone out of him.

Dammit, Katie was a lousy influence on him. He should’ve killed this guy the minute he opened that door. But here he was, giving the pilot a shot at being smart and saving his own life. Still, he watched the Cuban like a hawk and his finger never left the trigger of his pistol.

“Fly south,” he ordered. “Gitmo.”

The pilot looked alarmed but banked the bird left and pushed the throttle forward. Without any navigation aids turned on, he and the pilot were going to have to find Gitmo the old-fashioned way. By looking down at the ground.

The trip was tense, but shockingly fast. In less than twenty minutes, the mountains fell away beneath them and the ocean came into view. It was pitch dark below. Power was still out to most of this end of the island. But off to their right, a faint glow lit the horizon. Alex punched up the GPS function on his cellphone to verify that Gitmo was a half-dozen miles or so to the west and the probable source of that electrically powered glow.

“Fly that way,” Alex pointed.

The pilot whined a little about getting shot down, but Alex ignored him. The Americans would let them land. A major hurricane had just turned the entire island on its head. Nothing was ops normal right now.

Following the coast, the sprawling naval facility came into sight. Pockets of light here and there on the base indicated where emergency generators were up and running.

“Land in the first open space you see inside the fence,” Alex instructed.

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