The Einstein Pursuit

52

The instant Rita regained consciousness, she screamed for help.

Payne and Jones hurried through the glass doors that separated the main hall from the lawn and broke into a sprint. They spotted her in the yard, stumbling toward the house. She had fear on her face and bruises on her neck.

Payne reached her first. ‘Where’s Mattias?’

‘He’s gone!’ she cried.

‘Gone? What do you mean, gone?’

‘Someone took him!’

Payne scanned the yard but saw no movement of any kind. With weapon in hand, he charged forward toward the bench, the last place Sahlberg had been seen. Jones waited with Rita until Fell and Grossman arrived a few seconds later.

‘Take her inside and alert security. No one leaves the house until we’ve cleared the grounds. Is that understood?’

‘I can help,’ Fell insisted.

‘You’re right, you can — by following my orders.’

Fell nodded. ‘Understood.’

As Payne approached the bench, he could see that the rappeling line was taut, which meant someone was still using it. He peered over the edge, but his view was blocked by a rocky outcropping some twenty feet below. Without a moment’s hesitation, he grabbed the rope in his hands and used it to lower himself down to the ledge. There was no harness, no safety line of any kind. It was only Payne’s upper-body strength that kept him from tumbling to his death.

When he reached the ridge, the rest of the journey came into view. Far below him, two shadowy figures were about to make the final drop to the beach. Payne could see their destination: a small seaplane anchored just off shore. He leaned as far out over the cliff as he could, hoping for a clear shot at the plane’s engine. He fired once but missed.

He steadied himself and aimed again, but he knew it was a next-to-impossible shot with his pistol. That wouldn’t have been the case with his sniper rifle. Using the Barrett and its Trijicon optics, he could have accurately gauged the distance and overcome the outside factors of wind drift and the effect of the waves. Unfortunately, that gun was still in its metal case in the house. There was no time to get it now.

He fired twice more with his pistol.

This time he hit something.

The silhouette closest to the wall looked up and spotted Payne on the narrow ridge. He quickly drew his own weapon and started firing.

Rocks splintered all around Payne as Masseri’s bullets missed him by inches. Making matters worse, he knew he couldn’t return fire. There was too great a risk of hitting Sahlberg in the exchange. For the moment, his only choice was to pull himself back to the top of the precipice. He grabbed the rope with both hands and began his ascent.

Thirty seconds later, he reached the top of the cliff. He was helped to his feet by Jones.

‘What were you shooting at?’ Jones demanded, unable to see anything below due to the ledge and the fading light.

‘There’s a plane anchored along the shore. I tried to take out its engine.’

Suddenly the seaplane roared into life. This time it was Jones who reacted. He ran further down the lawn, as far as he could go until he reached a thick wall of shrubbery that signaled the end of the property, and tried to read the registration numbers on the side of the plane. Gray smoke poured from beneath the plane’s manifold, but it wasn’t enough to stop the aircraft.

‘Anything?’ Payne yelled.

‘He’s smoking but Oscar Mike,’ Jones shouted back.

It was military slang. Oscar Mike meant on the move. It was Jones’s way of saying the seaplane was still able to take off. Thankfully, it also reminded Payne of his options.

He pulled out his phone and dialed the commanding officer at Camp Pendleton, who he had emailed on the flight out to let him know he would be in the area. ‘Colonel Smith, this is Jonathon Payne … Yes, sir, I told you I might call … No, sir, the honor is all mine … I hate to ask, but I need a favor. I need to borrow a Yankee, and I need it right now. I’ve got an unknown runner carrying one of ours, flying southbound from my location, and pursuit is essential …’

He paused as he waited for a response.

Jones hustled back to his side.

Payne covered the mouthpiece on the phone. ‘Where are we?’

Jones glanced at his watch. Along with the time and date, it also provided an array of information such as ambient temperature, elevation, and global positioning coordinates. He read off the longitude and latitude, which Payne relayed into his phone.

Thirty seconds passed before he got his answer.

‘Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. The honor is still mine.’ He grinned and hung up the phone. ‘We’ve got ten minutes. They’re sending a Bell Venom to pick us up.’

Jones laughed. ‘Just like that?’

Payne nodded. ‘I guess saving his son’s life finally paid off.’

‘It’s about time,’ Jones said as he remembered the incident in Afghanistan, ‘because his kid is a real asshole.’