There was a small cheer from the others of the detail, a small but fiercely dedicated team of men and women Elliot had handpicked. Tomàs grinned and nodded, heading for the back of the plane. He returned a couple of minutes later balancing a tray of filled champagne glasses like a professional waiter, handing them out to everyone.
“I forgot mine!” he said with a shake of his head, returned to the galley, and came back with one last glass. “To Ariana’s homecoming!” he proposed, lifting the glass to his lips.
Ariana laughed merrily and took a long gulp of champagne, as the others echoed Tomàs’ toast before joining him in drinking.
* * *
Tomàs drained his glass and set it down on a table. He leaned back against the bulkhead and folded his arms, watching the others as they sipped and talked, Ariana’s happy laugh ringing out again as she answered Emma’s questions about her homeland.
You’re going home all right, princess, he thought privately. Just not in quite the way you expected.
* * *
It came on so gradually, a creeping sense of lassitude, that at first Elliot thought it was just his tiredness catching up with him. He’d had a long couple of weeks, making security arrangements for the trip, arranging for Ariana’s move into her new apartment, plus doing some background checks on her future colleagues at Johns Hopkins. Setting his champagne glass down on the table between his seat and Ariana’s, though, he was a little alarmed to find that he didn’t seem to have any feeling in his hand. He watched with growing dread as the glass clanked hard on the surface, his hand no longer properly under his control.
Lifting his hand toward his face, it felt as though it weighed a hundred pounds; it took an immense effort. It took even more of his strength to turn his head and look at the others, to see Emma slumping back in her seat with her eyes closed, champagne spilling across her lap from her fallen glass. Ariana sliding bonelessly to the floor in the middle of the aisle, her glass shattering beside her.
“Drugged,” Elliot managed to force out through a tongue that suddenly felt too big for his mouth. His eyes fell on Tomàs still standing, watching them with a sardonic smile on his face. “You.”
“Me,” Tomàs unfolded his arms and stalked forward with lethal grace.
“Why?” Elliot managed to gasp out with the last of his strength as Tomàs’ powerful hands clamped on the sides of his head.
There was no answer. Only a sickening crack and then blackness.
Chapter Two
Tomàs let Elliot’s body drop from his hands then glanced around. Everyone else had succumbed to the tainted champagne sooner; Elliot was a big man and the drug had needed a little longer to take effect. Methodically, Tomàs moved through the cabin, repeating his murderous actions on each unconscious member of the security detail. As for Ariana, he lifted her away from the shards of broken glass onto a seat and left her there, slumped over. She’d remain unconscious for at least a few more hours, plenty of time for him to carry out the rest of his plan. Indeed, he hadn’t intended to make his move quite so soon, but everyone having a drink at the same time was just too good an opportunity to pass up, especially since Ariana had fortuitously asked him to get the champagne. The pilots wouldn’t come into the cabin to look for them; they were hired professionals who had orders to stay in the cockpit unless necessary. Still, Tomàs took the time to arrange everyone to look as though they were merely sleeping and kick the broken glass shards under a seat so they weren’t immediately visible. Just in case. He was a meticulous man who didn’t leave anything to chance.
Turning on his phone to check the time, he switched on the GPS function and brought up a map, checking their position. Plenty of time to wait; they were still flying over the United States — they hadn’t even crossed from Georgia into Florida airspace yet. He poured himself a fresh glass of untainted champagne and settled into the seat opposite Ariana to sip on it slowly, mentally running through the steps he would need to take to complete his plans, considering every possibility that might prevent his success.
It was a little more than three hours later when his phone pinged softly, alerting him that the plane had passed a certain point in the southern Caribbean and it was now time to prepare for the last stage of his plan. Getting up, he moved steadily through the plane, collecting what he would need.
Picking Ariana’s unconscious body up, he methodically stripped her of her clothes. She’d already removed her shoes, shoes he was well aware contained implanted tracking devices since he’d taken new pairs to the electronics shop which installed them. As far as he knew, the same precautions weren’t taken with her clothes, but again, he didn’t intend to take chances. Everything came off, including her watch and the small gold studs in her ears. Stripping the clothes off Emma’s body, he put Ariana in those instead. Ariana was a couple of inches taller and Emma was more heavily muscled, but the simple outfit of black pants and blouse fit well enough. Emma’s shoes were too small, though, so he left Ariana barefoot. He’d get shoes for her once they were on the ground.
Carrying Ariana to the rear door, he laid her limp form on the floor while he opened an overhead bin and took out a harness of straps and a packed parachute.
It was the work of a couple of minutes to attach the harness to Ariana. Leaving the parachute on the floor beside her, Tomàs made his way to the cockpit door, knocking firmly on it.
The door opened after a moment. “Señor Fuentes, que pasa?” the co-pilot said with a cheerful smile upon seeing him, half-standing in polite greeting.
“Just coming forward to see where we are, Esteban. Please, sit down,” Tomàs gestured with a smile, and the co-pilot nodded, turned his back, and began to ease back into his seat.
The man didn’t even have the time to process his imminent death as Tomàs’ knife slashed across his throat. Paulina, the pilot, glanced at them, her mouth opening to shout with horror — a shout that never sounded. There was only a horrible gurgle as Tomàs cut her throat open too, his heavy, razor-sharp combat blade parting skin and muscle like butter. The pilot’s eyes glazed over as her lifeblood spurted from her slit jugular, dead before she could even think of fighting back.
Ignoring the blood sprayed all over the instrument panels, Tomàs sheathed his knife and leaned forward. He’d undergone a solid week of training for this exact moment, knowing that he would have to perform a long sequence of complex commands from memory alone. He brought up the already-active autopilot and keyed in co-ordinates, overriding the automatic safety warnings that popped up. He murmured the rehearsed steps under his breath until, at last, he was certain the job was done correctly. Turning on his heel, he swiftly left the cockpit, leaving the two dead pilots slumped over in their seats as the plane turned onto its final course.
Moments later, Tomàs shrugged on his parachute and fastened the straps; lifting Ariana and attaching her harness to his front, he checked the GPS on his phone again.
Just a few more seconds… Now! Slipping the phone into a pocket and zipping it closed, he yanked the emergency release handle on the door. Instantly, the wind sucked hard at him, threatening to whip him and Ariana out into nothingness, but he was an experienced parachutist and had braced himself against the doorframe.