Read Alien Hunter (Flynn Carroll) for Free Online

hangar door back and the morning sky was red with menace, the north wind already brisk. Billings was a thousand miles away, deep in the vastness of the storm.

 
    CHAPTER FIVE
    The more he saw, the less he liked. The little curtains on the windows were threadbare. Under his feet, the carpeting was worn through to bare metal. “I have to say, I don’t think this thing is airworthy on a good day. And this is not a good day.”
    “If Charlie says he can take it into the storm, he can. Now, I want to brief you in procedures, because they’re not Bureau standard.”
    That mattered little to Flynn. He was only vaguely aware of standard Bureau procedures anyway.
    Charlie began turning on the electrics. His doubts seething, Flynn strapped himself into his seat, the rearmost in the plane.
    Beside him, Diana sat paging through a file on her iPad.
    When he realized that the plane was moving, he was shocked. He hadn’t heard the engines start or felt the slightest vibration, and yet they were heading out onto the apron.
    “Boy, this thing is quiet,” he said.
    “New engines,” Charlie said.
    They moved swiftly across the apron. Charlie spoke into his mike, and after a moment the tower’s clearance crackled through the confined cabin. The controller’s voice, sharp with surprise and concern, made it clear that he’d been taken by surprise.
    “Have you filed a flight plan?” came his voice, sharp in the silent cabin.
    “We’re not required to.”
    “Sir, if you’re heading north, I’d advise filing.”
    Charlie’s reaction was to click off the radio.
    “You oughta file a flight plan,” Flynn shouted over the engine noise, which was rising as they taxied onto the runway.
    “Flynn, we can’t afford to leave tracks. Please understand that.”
    “ Tracks? It’s a flight plan, for God’s sake! The perp doesn’t have access to FAA records, surely.”
    She dropped her iPad down on his lap. “You need to do a little studying on the way up. See what you make of the cases. Try to form in your mind an idea of the kind of capabilities the perp possesses. I guarantee you, they are awesome.”
    The takeoff pressed Flynn back into his seat. In under five minutes, they were leaving ten thousand feet behind.
    “This is the damnedest thing,” Flynn said. “What is this? Because it sure as hell ain’t no fifty-year-old Piper Apache.”
    “The friction-free coating makes it a different airplane. And the turbos. The airframe’s been strengthened. And the avionics, like I said—you can’t find better. Plus, it’s pressurized. Convenient in a storm. We can do forty thousand feet.”
    “It’s not a Piper Apache, is it? It’s camouflaged as a Piper Apache.”
    She smiled. “I could answer that question for you. But if I did, I’d have to kill you.”
    There had been humor there—a little. It was clear, though, that Diana Glass really would kill to keep her secrets. It was understandable, though. This was a crack unit. These people were dedicated. Maybe people like this could actually win, even against a genius psychopath … assuming they lived through the damn flight.
    He watched home slip away beneath the speeding plane. Ahead, the sky was big and dark and mean, and the distant purr of the engines meant that he could hear the wind screaming around the airframe, like a voice from another world, mad and wild.
    As the land slid past far below, it became more and more snow-choked. The silence that had settled over the cabin spoke to him in a clear voice. These people were all doing the same thing most people in police work do when they’re heading toward danger. Each one considers his life and wonders what will come, and grows silent, seeking within himself for his deepest strength.
    Half an hour passed in this silence. Flynn read case files, one after another, more than he’d ever had access to before.
    “I notice a pattern,” he said. “The same articles of clothing every time. Three changes of underwear, three