No Room for Error: A Lexi Carmichael Mystery, Book Seven Page 15

  Still, given the condition of the rest of the plane and our survival, I’d have my best chance of finding someone or something intact back in there. I staggered forward to crawl inside when I heard moaning nearby.

  I changed direction and walked around the large hunk of fuselage to the other side. Wendy lay there, trapped under a long piece of aluminum. Her eyes were closed and blood pooled at one corner of her mouth.

  “Oh, no.” I bent over the metal and tugged at it, but in my weakened condition it was too heavy. I looked around and saw a sturdy branch broken in the crash. I slid it under the metal piece and levered. My muscles screamed in pain, but I managed to push it off her.

  Exhausted, I dropped the branch and knelt at her side. I was breathing so hard I worried I might pass out. I took a minute of deep breaths to calm down before pressing my finger against her neck.

  Her pulse was erratic, but she was alive.

  “Basia,” I shouted.

  “Coming. Where are you?”

  “On the other side of you. I found Wendy.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Basia joined me. “Oh, God.” She pointed at Wendy’s left leg. A jagged shard of metal had impaled her shin just below the left knee.

  I moved closer to get a better look. I examined the wound and lifted it slightly to see if it had gone all the way through to the ground. It hadn’t. The wound looked grisly, but fortunately it wasn’t bleeding too badly.

  “It’s not gushing blood, so that’s a good thing, I think,” Basia said.

  “Agreed. I don’t think we should pull it out. It will likely do more damage than help. I also don’t think we should try and move her. She’s probably in shock.”

  Basia nodded. “We’ll have to cover her up and raise her legs like we did for Finn. Find some painkillers until help arrives.”

  I nodded. “Okay, I’ll do it. Go back and keep an eye on Finn. I’ll do my best to help her, but we’ve got to find some supplies to help or we’re all in trouble.”

  Wendy moaned again. I walked around until I found a piece of small wreckage to lift her feet off the ground. I was thankful she was mostly unconscious, because the pain of moving her legs would have been excruciating.

  Since there wasn’t much else I could do, I picked my way through the twisted metal on the ground, careful not to step on anything that could puncture my tennis shoes. I picked up two torn but mostly intact blankets along the way and put them in a pile to pick up on the way back out, then I entered the fuselage and crouched down.

  After a moment of initial panic passed, I managed to crawl through the wreckage. Several seats were ripped from the floor and oxygen masks, wires and the accumulated smoke from the other wreckage made me cough. I finally reached a spot where I could stand, so I came to my feet by holding on to a seat that was still intact. I stepped over what looked like a chunk of the ceiling and found what remained of the rear galley.

  The fancy crystal glass had shattered. The mini-fridge and a cabinet hung open and packages of gourmet treats lay scattered around. The smell of coffee was strong and I presumed a carafe had taken flight and sprayed the cabin.

  I picked up a handful of treat packages. Macadamia nuts, dried fruit mixes and some kind of dark chocolate. The chocolate, not a fan of equatorial heat, drooped in my hand. I tucked in the tail of my shirt and began stuffing in all the packets I could find, except, regrettably, the chocolate. I jammed the last ones in my jeans pockets and felt like a chipmunk with ever-expanding cheeks. Only it was my middle getting bigger.

  I found several cans of soda and a couple cans of beer but had to discard all but three because they were punctured. I needed something to carry everything in, so I opened a couple of drawers until I found plastic garbage bags. I pulled out one and started dumping items from the drawers into it. I had no idea what we might need, but nothing would go unused. Coffee filters, crackers, toilet paper, and bottles of water. One drawer warmed my heart. Inside was a copper-colored box tied with a brown ribbon. The lid said Hawaiian Premium Shortbread and Chocolate Chip Macadamia Nut Cookies.

  The last drawer left intact in the galley was jammed shut. No matter how hard I pulled, it wouldn’t open. I found a real dinner knife and forced it into a crack in the drawer until it opened.

  A first-aid kit. Relief swept through me.

  After making sure I had everything that might be of any use, I tied up the bag, slinging it over my shoulder like Santa Claus. I crawled to the front of the wreckage. When I couldn’t crawl anymore while carrying the bag, I pushed it in front of me until I came to the spot where I’d entered. I slung the bag out and then slipped through the wreckage myself. I stepped down hard and the motion jarred my face. I yelped in pain, doubling over as a wave of nausea swept through me.

  I detoured to Wendy first and checked on her. She was still alive and breathing. I knelt down beside her and nearly fell backward when she abruptly opened her eyes and then gave a hoarse scream of pain.

  “My leg. What...happened?”

  She tried to sit up and claw at her leg, but I pushed her back down.

  “Lie still. Wendy. We were in a plane crash. You were injured, but you’re going to be okay.” I fumbled with the supplies and pulled out a couple of acetaminophen. “Can you take a couple of pills? It’s not much, but it’s the best we’ve got.”

  Tears leaked from her eyes, but she nodded. I lifted her head and dropped the pills in the back of her throat. I handed her a bottle of water. She swallowed, gagged and then managed to swallow. I gently put her head back on the ground.

  “My leg,” she rasped. “What’s wrong with it?”

  “It’s been impaled by a piece of metal. But the good news is that the metal itself has staunched the bleeding.”

  “That’s good, right?” Her lower lip quivered.

  “Sure.” It was sort of true. What I didn’t tell her was that I didn’t know how much blood she’d already lost or how close the metal was to a major artery or vein.

  “I don’t think it’s a good idea to move you until help arrives.”

  Wendy closed her eyes. “They’ll be coming soon for you.”

  “Just who is they and why have they done this?”

  She looked up at me with desperation and fear in her eyes. “If you promise to help me I will tell you who is behind this.”

  “I will help you regardless.”

  She grabbed my wrist. “You promise?”

  “I promise.”

  She closed her eyes. “Jiang Shi and his younger brother, Quon.”

  “The leaders of the Chinese hacking group the Red Guest? Why? For the microchip?”

  “Yes.”

  Something wasn’t adding up for me. Everything I knew about these guys pointed to a serious hacking group, not hijackers, kidnappers or murderers. They would definitely be interested in the microchip, but why were they the group trying to get it? It didn’t make sense.

  I shifted from a kneeling position to a sitting one, taking the weight off my knees. “So, what was the plan? Why were we headed toward Port Moresby?”

  “A plane...is waiting there to take you and the briefcase to China. We wouldn’t have hurt the others. Really. No one was supposed to get hurt.”

  I frowned. “Me? Why do they want me to go to China? You already got my palm print.”

  “They want you—” Wendy’s teeth started to chatter and she began shaking violently.

  She was having a seizure. I held her firmly by the shoulders, turning her head slightly so she wouldn’t swallow her tongue. “Wendy, it’s okay. Hang on. It will pass.”

  After several seconds, she stopped. “Wendy? Are you okay?”

  She didn’t respond, but when I checked her closely, she was still breathing. I stared at her for a moment and then rose. Basia and Finn were waiting. />
  I hauled my precious cargo over my shoulder and returned to Basia.

  She looked up when I arrived and dumped the garbage bag at her feet. “Did you find anyone else alive?”

  “Not yet. But the others are likely to be with the front part of the plane. I’ll check there shortly. Wendy just came to. I gave her some painkillers and a blanket, but she’s in bad shape. She said the plan was to divert our plane to Port Moresby, where another plane is standing by to take the briefcase and me to China. A hacking group called the Red Guest is behind this.”

  “They want the microchip, but why do they want you?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe to walk them through the manufacturing process.”

  “Is it safe to stay here and wait for a rescue if we’re not sure who’s going to find us first?”

  “No. It’s not safe for us to stay with the plane. Leaving the site of the crash goes against all logic, since the rule of thumb is to stay near the site so rescuers can easily find you. The problem is that the people who will likely find us first won’t be our rescuers.”

  She nodded without comment.

  I sought to reassure her. “However, on the upside, it will take them time to find a helicopter and return. Another positive is when we don’t arrive in Jakarta on time, it will also trigger a search with ComQuest and Slash. It’s not clear who will find us first—the good guys or the bad—but our immediate concern is bringing Finn to consciousness. We’re going to have to move and soon. If we are able to do that, we’ll worry about the rest later.”

  She took it better than I expected. “They don’t want Finn and me. They’ll kill us if we’re captured, right?”

  I didn’t sugarcoat it. “Maybe. So, we’d better not be here when they get back.”

  “What do we do about Wendy?”

  “We have to leave her behind. We don’t have a choice. We’ll stabilize her as much as we can and leave some medicine, food and water. Whoever arrives first will be able to help her.”

  She thought it over. “I just realized you said medicine. I take it that means you found a first-aid kit?”

  “Yes. In the rear galley.”

  I pulled out the first-aid kit and opened it up. Basia reached over and picked up the bottle of acetaminophen. Snapping open the bottle, she shook out two pills and handed them to me.

  “First take care of yourself. Swallow a couple of painkillers and wipe your face a bit.” She tossed me an antiseptic wipe. “It won’t help much, but we need you to be at your best.”

  I ripped open a wipe and dabbed at my face, avoiding the nose and high cheek area. After a few swipes the entire wipe was red. It probably hadn’t done any good. I cast it aside, popping the pills in my mouth and taking several gulps of water from one of the bottles to wash them down. The first few swallows tasted like blood. I finished more than half the bottle before I stopped myself. We had no idea how long we’d be here and we had to ration our supplies.”

  “You take a couple of painkillers, too,” I said. “That arm has to be killing you. We have to manage our pain to think better.”

  I poured two tablets into her hand. I passed her what was left of my water and she swallowed them down.

  I leaned over Finn, tapping his cheek much as Basia had done to me. “Come on, bud. Wake up.”

  Basia put a hand on my shoulder. “Lexi, we have to check Finn’s buttocks. He may be bleeding out there even if we can’t see it. He wouldn’t have told us to check if it wasn’t for a reason.”

  I sighed. “Fine, let’s take a look.”

  She took the blankets off him and I removed his feet from the cushion, carefully putting them on the ground and spreading them. I crawled between his legs and squinted.

  “I don’t see evidence of bleeding from here. I’m going to have to cut his pants open if I’m going to get a decent look at his behind without moving him.”

  She reached for the first-aid kit. “There are scissors in here. They’re small, but might do the trick.”

  I took the scissors from her. They were really tiny. “I guess these will have to do.”

  “Good thing he didn’t wear jeans. Those wouldn’t cut through denim.”

  “No they wouldn’t. You know I’d laugh about the absurdity of this, but it would hurt my nose.”

  I knelt down at Finn’s feet and started cutting through his pant leg. I did the left leg, cutting up the side seam until I reached his crotch.

  “Sorry,” I murmured.

  I pulled the pants apart until his underwear showed and bent my head closer to his crotch, trying to look inside.

  “Lexi?”

  Gasping, I lifted my head. Finn’s eyes were open.

  “Are you...playing doctor?”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  For a moment Basia and I just stared at him.

  Then, I crawled to his side. “Finn, how are you feeling?”

  He reached up to touch the knot on his head. “I’m not sure.”

  “We’ve been worried sick about you.”

  “How long was I out?”

  “I don’t know.” I took his hand, squeezed it. “It’s hard to say. You woke briefly to give me a message a bit ago and then lapsed back into unconsciousness.”

  “I remember. Sort of. Did you get the gun?”

  “Gun?”

  “I told you to get the gun.”

  I exchanged a worried glance with Basia. “Gun? You told me to get the gun? You said, ‘Lexi, get the gun?’ Those were your exact words?”

  His brow furrowed “I think so. What did you think I said?”

  “Never mind.” Nope. I wasn’t going there. At least not now. “I didn’t see the gun, Finn. I’m sorry.”

  “Everything is still a bit blurry.”

  “You hit your head. You’re most likely suffering a concussion, if not worse. But you’re awake and talking in sentences. You remember things. That’s good. Really good.”

  I looked over at Basia, who had tears in her eyes. I felt rather emotional myself.

  He attempted to lift a hand to touch my face. “Lexi, what happened to you?”

  I leaned back. I didn’t want him to touch my face because I knew it would hurt. A lot. “Plane crash, remember? I think I broke my nose.”

  “You definitely broke your nose,” Basia offered. “You’re sporting two shiners now. The left side of your cheek looks smashed in and you have this greenish purple knot on your forehead.”

  Finn lifted his head. “Basia?”

  “Yes, Basia’s here, too. We’re okay. Alive. Finn, what hurts?”

  “Bloody everything. Mostly my head.” He wiggled his arms and legs. “I think nothing is broken. But I’m thirsty.”

  I wiggled in behind him, as Basia had done for me, propping him up with my arms. “Okay, first I’m going to sit you up and then we’ll get you something to drink.”

  His breathing harshened as I moved him. Probably fighting the same dizziness and nausea I had. Basia handed him a bottle of water and he took a few sips.

  “Slowly,” I cautioned.

  He drank a bit more and then waved me away. “Let me sit up on my own.”

  I scooted to the side and he straightened, rolling his neck. “I’ve got a hell of a headache. Does anyone have a painkiller?”

  I got him a couple of tablets and he swallowed them down.

  He pressed a hand to his forehead. “Hope that helps the hammer in my head.”

  Basia sighed. “Lexi, give it to us straight. What are the odds we are going to die?”

  I considered her question. Statistically, the odds were against us. If you factored in that we were injured, located in what appeared to be a remote jungle and the first responders to the crash would likely be people who wanted to kill us, it w
asn’t looking good at all. But I sensed informing Basia of that wouldn’t be the right thing to do at this point in time.

  “The odds are actually in our favor,” I lied. “We survived, we’ve got a head start, and we’re smart. All we have to do is avoid the bad guys and wait until the cavalry arrives.”

  She breathed a sigh of relief. “Oh, thank goodness.”

  Finn didn’t say anything, but he was watching me. Even with a head injury, he knew better.

  I hated to admit it, but the truth was we’d need a real miracle to survive the next twenty-four hours.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  I’d been avoiding it, but it was time to check the front half of the plane for survivors. I doubted anyone could have survived considering its damaged state, but I had to find out for sure. I’d seen no trace of Cezar, who had been on the couch when we crashed. Someone might have been thrown from the plane and survived, as Wendy had. I needed to know for sure.

  I left Basia to watch over Finn while I made the trek toward the cockpit. As I passed what looked like mangled landing gear, probably sheared off from the nose, I came across another dump of debris. Nothing usable except for a ripped blanket. I tied it around my waist anyway. I wasn’t going to waste anything that might help our survival.

  A hundred feet ahead, the front of the plane had left the road and veered off into jungle. On one side of the road a giant swath had been harvested, on the other the jungle remained untouched. A huge black trail of flattened foliage and grass ran up to the cockpit and tall, canopied trees it had nosed into.

  I worked toward the wreckage, giving it a wide perimeter and looking for bodies. I stopped to listen in case someone called for help but heard nothing but strange chattering and cawing from what I assumed were birds. I moved forward carefully, stepping into the jungle undergrowth and stopping at the edge of a sharp incline. I barely saw it hidden by the thick foliage. When I got closer, I saw half of the cockpit was balanced precariously on the edge of an incline where the trees ended. No wonder this side of the road hadn’t been harvested.