This story is part of an ongoing series.
The chronological order of my stories is listed in WifeWatchman's biography.
Feedback and
constructive
criticism is very much appreciated, and I encourage feedback for ideas.
This story contains graphic scenes, language and actions that might be extremely offensive to some people. These scenes, words and actions are used only for the literary purposes of this story. The author does not condone murder, racism, racial language, violence, rape or violence against women, and any depictions of any of these in this story should not be construed as acceptance of the above.
***
Dedicated to Laura Branigan. Beautiful lady. Amazing voice. Gone too soon.
Part 15 - The Wedding of the Century Redux (continued)
"Very good, Iron Crowbar." said Mort Springer. "You really are as good as they say you are. I'm impressed."
"Why are you
doing
this?" asked Muscone.
"Are you kidding?" said Springer. "Most of the TCPD, all of its top leadership, and a lot of the FBI and its leadership, gathered together in one place. How could we resist that opportunity?"
"They'll notice we're gone." I said. "They'll disperse."
"We'll see about that." said Springer. He then came over and sat down to my left. There wasn't a lot of seating room. "Getting rid of all of you will help the next phase of our plans. You got to Westboro's gold before we could find it, but there's more for us out there, like you wouldn't believe."
Why does killing an entire wedding party help you find any more gold stashes?" I asked.
"It's not gold." said Springer. "But... we need to know what you know about that, and about your Operations Commander's sister's death. You probably don't know anything, but I believe in being thorough."
With that, he brought out a small wallet from his jacket pocket, and extracted a syringe full of a clear, dark blue liquid. "Ah, I see you recognize this. It's the same drug you injected into Trent Ridge. Yes, we found pieces of his body soaking in sulfuric acid in Coltrane County. Not a damn thing to prove you did it... not that it matters now... but there was enough of him left to identify, and to determine what killed him."
He stabbed the needle into my back, just below the neckline of my shirt, and began injecting the liquid.
"Aaaugh!" I gasped as I felt pain begin to start up. Then I said "Do me one favor?"
"What?" said Springer, stopping the injection.
"Inject the rest of it in my lower back. Right over where I was injured." I said.
"You're nuts." said Springer. "It'll only make your back hurt worse. But here goes." He injected the liquid into my back, just over the girdle, until the syringe was empty.
"Thank you." I said. And then, with a movement faster than he could react to, my hands came around from behind my back. My left hand grabbed the syringe and as my other hand grabbed his neck, and I stabbed him in the eye with the syringe!
"AAAUUGH!" Springer screamed. I was already up and moving around him, wrapping my arm around his neck. With a violent twist, I snapped Mort Springer's neck, then dropped his body to the floor.
I rushed up to the cockpit. William Drew was only beginning to realize what was going on, and it was too late for him. I grabbed him by the neck, snapped it, then pulled his body out of the pilot's seat and dropped it to the floor.
The plane had begun diving, but I knew enough to be able to level it out. Then I engaged the auto-pilot, and went back to the cargo cabin and used the bobby pin I'd used to get out of my own handcuffs to free Muscone.
"You just carry bobby pins as a matter of course?" asked Muscone.
"One in my holster, one in my belt in back, and one in my belt under the buckle." I replied. "Saved our asses when I was cuffed to that nuke, too." (
Author's note: 'The Nuclear Option', Ch. 03.
)
"Don, you just eliminated two highly trained Navy SEALs without breaking a sweat." said Muscone. "And what was that drug he injected you with?"
"That... was aspirin." I said. I took a small pillbox out of my jacket pocket, selected one (red pill or blue pill? you make the call), and swallowed it.
"Now what?" Muscone asked. "It could be rigged to blow if we get too low, like that helicopter Westboro made you fly." (
Author's note: 'A Tiny Slip', Ch. 02.
)
"I doubt it, but you may be right." I said. "They wanted the plane to explode either on contact with the ground, or very close over it."
"Here, put these on over your suit." I said, handing Jack a pair of coveralls with the cargo company's logo on it. "I suspect they were going to wear them, in case they were caught after jumping out of this plane."
I put the other coveralls on, then went over and took one of the parachutes and helped Muscone into it, then checked to make sure it was correct.
"Once you're out of the plane, you pull this handle here..." I said, pointing at the handle over the strap over his chest. "... and the chute will deploy. If it doesn't, pull this handle on the reserve. If they both fail, don't worry about it... you'll only have about two seconds left."
"Very reassuring." said Muscone.
"Your correct answer is "All okay, Jumpmaster!" I said. I then put the other parachute onto my own back, feeling some pain at the places where I'd been injected with the blue liquid.
I sat in the pilot's seat. "We're headed southeast." I said. "Ah, there's the State Line River up ahead. I'll follow it north, and we'll jump out near BOW Enterprises."
"What about the plane?" asked Muscone.
"I'm going to take the autopilot off before I jump." I said. "It should crash into empty farm fields. These bastards apparently have a homing device secreted at the wedding site, that the plane would home in on. I've disconnected it at this end, but just to be sure, I'm going to point the plane the other way."
"When did you learn to fly a plane?" Muscone said. "Is it like flying a helicopter?"
"The gauges are similar." I said. "But the controls are not. But I did some training on an Xbox simulator, and I'm going to take plane flying lessons... if we survive this..."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
1:15pm, Saturday, March 28th. Laura parked her Mercedes-Benz in the VIP parking area, and she and Paulina Patterson got out of the front seats. Carole and Tasha poured themselves out of the back seats. Golf carts drove up to drive them to the wedding area.
