Stuart Woods_Stone Barrington 14

shouted, as the aircraft partly descended from the clouds to the south, but before he could get off a shot, it climbed into the clouds again, and from the noise, seemed to be turning north. In desperation, Thomas began firing at the sound, and Holly joined in.

    T eddy heard the whistle of bullets, much closer than he would have liked, and a tear appeared in the right wing. He thought he had the aircraft stable now, headed north and climbing. The firing stopped.

    H olly popped out the magazine and dug in her pocket for the spare Dino had given her. “Are you out, Thomas?”
    â€œYes, and I don’t have any more ammo,” he replied.
    She rammed in the fresh magazine, racked the slide and listened. The sound of the engine had grown a little fainter. “Where is the fucking thing?” she yelled.
    â€œMore to your right, I think,” Thomas said. “He seems to be headed north.”
    Holly raised the weapon and emptied the magazine, knowing that her chances of hitting anything were remote. “That’s it,” she said finally. “I’m out, and Teddy is gone.”
    â€œGood,” Stone said quietly.
    â€œWhose side are you on?” Holly demanded.
    â€œThere aren’t any sides now,” Stone said.
    The thick cloud around Teddy began growing brighter and suddenly, like flipping a switch, the airplane was flooded in sunlight. He was on top of the clouds, and he leveled off. How high was he, he wondered. He had been airborne for what, two minutes, three? The ultralight could climb at about five hundred feet a minute, so he must be a thousand, maybe fifteen hundred feet high. He kept the airplane just above the clouds, in case a helicopter or another airplane appeared. If that happened, he could duck back into the undercast and change direction. He eased back on the throttle to what seemed a decent cruise power setting, not wanting to waste fuel by running at full throttle.
    The tank held five gallons of fuel, enough for about two hours of cruise. The prevailing winds were from the southeast, and that would help his speed and extend his range a bit. The GPS told him he was making forty-one knots over the ground, or the sea, whichever he was over. He did a damage assessment.
    As far as he could tell only two rounds had had any effect. One had struck the wing, and the tear was getting worse. He slowed the airplane, bringing the ground speed down to thirty-five knots. He sure as hell didn’t want to stall the thing at a low airspeed, but the fabric of the wing had now stopped tearing, and that was good.
    He pulled up his trouser leg and looked at his right calf. He could see an entry wound and an exit wound, and the exit wound was bleeding profusely; his shoe had begun to fill with blood.
    He took off his belt and made a tourniquet just below the knee, and the blood stopped flowing. That would hold him until Nevis airport, he reckoned, and he had a first-aid kit in the Cessna, which was secured in its hangar. He stopped thinking about the pain and concentrated on keeping the ultralight level and on the GPS line to St. Martin.

60
    H olly grabbed a map from the glove compartment of Thomas’s car and turned it over, for a display of the Caribbean, then she got out the satphone and called Lance.
    â€œLance Cabot.”
    â€œIt’s Holly; Teddy’s gone.”
    â€œGone? You mean he’s dead?”
    â€œNo, though I think I hit him.”
    â€œHe’s on an island; how can he be gone? Does he have a boat?”
    â€œNo, he had an ultralight airplane.”
    â€œYou mean one of those spit-and-baling-wire contraptions?”
    â€œMore like aluminum and nylon, but you get the picture.”
    â€œI don’t understand; how far could he get in one of those things?”
    â€œI’m looking at the map now.”
    Stone spoke up from the back seat. “It’s probably good for a couple of hours of flying at forty or fifty knots.”
    â€œStone’s a pilot, and he says it can fly for a couple of hours. From my map, I’d say that Barbuda, Antigua, St. Kitts and Nevis are all within his range. Guadeloupe is a lot farther.”
    â€œTell me exactly what happened.”
    Holly gave him a nutshell explanation. “Most of those islands have airline connections,” she said. “You should check those first.”
    â€œNo, he would avoid the airlines; he has to have an airplane stashed somewhere.”
    â€œI guess