Page 50 of Marcellus: House of Drakos
She noticed that tears appeared in Olivier’s eyes. “No,” he said. “Nothing.”
Marcellus looked stricken, too, as he was helpless to do anything but watch the slowly unfolding disaster. “How could this be happening?” he said out loud.
Then both planes whose pilots had been struggling to keep afloat, began to spiral.
Freddy placed his hands on his head.
Kalayna covered her mouth.
Juliet and Sharon, who had run out to see what all the commotion was about, looked on in horror as the spiraling turned into a freefall.
And then, when they thought it couldn’t get any more horrific, both planes collided midair, causing an instant fireball of an explosion, and then they nosedived into the field across the street. Directly in front of the boss’s mansion.
The reporters ran from the security gate to the scene across the street, with many of whom broadcasting the disaster on live TV or live over social media.
Freddy and Olivier, the two heads of Drakos Aeronautics, ran out of the gate and across the street as well, to confirm that both were their planes.
But that was already confirmed in Marcellus’s eyes. He couldn’t miss that bigDthat was plastered on all of his planes for nothing in this world. It was his trademark.
“Good Lord,” Savannah said again.
Freddy and Olivier made it back inside the gate, with the press hounding them all the way across the street. They wanted answers already. But the press was forced to remain on the outside of that gate as Marcellus’s gate security let the two bosses in and kept the press out. But their little appearance across the street was bound to make headline news around the world.
“Is it ours?” Juliet asked her son.
“It’s ours,” Olivier said.
“Any survivors?” asked Sharon.
But Freddy could only shake his head.
“Oh my,” said Sharon.
And then Scottie’s phone rang. He wasn’t going to answer it, but something inside of him pushed him to do so. He answered. “Yes?”
“Put your Daddy on the line.”
Scottie recognized that voice as the voice of the kidnapper that had called him to first report Niko’s abduction. He quickly handed the phone to Marcellus. “The kidnapper,” he said.
Marcellus quickly answered the call. “Yes?”
“Thought you outsmarted me, didn’t you? Thought you’d get your precious little baby boy back and that would be the end of it, didn’t you? Now the news won’t be about your daring rescue, but about the fact that another one of your shitty-ass planes failed again. Six onboard this time. All presumed dead. And you thought it was over? How stupid can you get?”
Marcellus’s heart nearly stopped. “You had nothing to do with this crash,” he said as if it was a fact.
“I didn’t? That’s news to me.” Then the caller began laughing. “I can do anything I want to you,” he said, “and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it, Mr. Drakos.” And then he ended the call.
Marcellus was terrified. This was getting scary crazy.
Then he looked at Olivier. “Contact the FAA. Tell them it is my recommendation that they ground every Drakos plane. And they do it right now,” he added as he began hurrying for the entrance. Savannah hurried behind him.
His sons were stunned. They had thousands of planes in those skies. “All of them?” Olivier was horrified.
“All of them,” Marcellus ordered. Then he glanced back as he walked. “Now!”
Olivier and Freddy looked at each other. They could not believe it. It reminded them of Nine-Eleven, when all air traffic came to a screeching halt. Only it was their planes alone. They could not believe it!
But Olivier and Freddy got on their phones. They both saw that look of terror in their father’s eyes: Something they’d never seen before. They did as they were told.
