Must Come Down Read online

  Brett Baker

  Must Come Down

  Copyright © 2018 by Brett Baker

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

  First edition

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  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  1

  Chapter 1

  The plane pulled out of its dive with its nose pointed almost straight up. Stress on the vibrating wings approached the engineered maximum, and air whistled through broken windows into the depressurized cabin. Mia Mathis couldn’t tell whether the elephant sitting on her chest came from the gravitational force of the climbing plane, or the grotesque, obese man on top of her.

  She sat with her back pressed against the middle seat in the middle section of the first row of a modified Boeing 767 that contained only two rows of seven seats. The man buried his knees into her chest, and his ham hock hands gripped her throat, sharp fingernails tearing at her skin. He tried to choke the life out of her as she pummeled his head with her fists to no effect.

  The man smelled like a Cheeto, either from his hands or his breath. As he tried to kill her, he threw his head back, and looked toward the tail of the plane. With most of the seats removed, Cheeto had a clear line of vision to the gold bullion bars stacked on pallets at the back of the plane, blanketed in plastic wrap, and held in place by a cargo net that had engaged in a furious battle with the laws of physics for the previous ten minutes.

  Two men had tried to kill her before the behemoth on top of her. The first man—a little guy who tried to sound authoritative when he yelled, but who Mia thought sounded rather pitiful—found her stowed away between two pallets of cardboard boxes stacked eight feet high.

  She saw Little Guy approaching the back of the plane from his seat in the front, but she didn’t think he’d see her. In addition to the short pallets of gold bullion bars, and two pallets of cardboard boxes with unknown contents, at least a dozen other pallets filled the back of the plane. She didn’t have an opportunity to inspect the cargo when she boarded because the three hoodlums and the pilot boarded right on her heels. In fact, she thought that they might have seen her board through the rear door of the plane, just in front of the engines. Someone had left the door wide open, which allowed her to board much quicker and easier than she’d expected. She remained tucked in between those pallets for ten hours before the plane landed. Her excitement about getting off the plane didn’t last long, as it took off again after refueling. Soon after, she saw Little Guy heading her way, but she thought the cargo would hide her.

  Mia hadn’t anticipated Little Guy’s stunning ability to detect miniscule movement from a distance. So when she shifted her body a couple of inches to crouch lower to the ground, she didn’t realize that instead of better shielding herself, she’d moved just enough to catch Little Guy’s eye. As soon as she got his attention he zeroed in on her, like a cheetah on a gazelle. She watched him approach the back of the plane, unfasten the cargo net from the retaining hook attached to the sidewall, climb around the net, and then refasten the hook, without taking his eyes off of her. Still she hoped that he’d conclude he hadn’t seen anything.

  No such luck.

  He climbed over two short pallets of gold bars, and Mia had nowhere to go. Another pallet of cargo blocked her escape to the rear so she didn’t move as he crawled on top of the bullion bars on his hands and knees, stopping right in front of her as their eyes locked.

  “Who are you? What are you doing here?” He didn’t sound angry. In fact, he sounded almost gentle. Subdued. Quiet. He asked Mia the question, but made no threatening movement.

  “I’m waiting,” she said, without further explanation.

  “Waiting for what?” Little Guy looked back over his shoulder, and Mia’s gaze followed his eyes to the front of the plane. He’d come from the front row, and she could see the crown of another man’s head as he sat in a seat in the same row. Little Guy seemed anxious. He didn’t seem aggressive, and the cool manner in which he questioned her, along with the repeated glances over his shoulder, implied to Mia a concern over her safety.

  “I don’t know,” she said. Although Mia knew that she had to be on that plane, and she’d expected the pallets of gold bars, she didn’t know exactly why she was there. She considered asking Little Guy, “What are you up to?” but her years in The Summit had taught her that bad guys are dishonest. So she waited for the reason for her pursuit to become clear.

  “Who are you?” he asked again.

  “My name’s Mia,” she answered. “Nice to meet you.” She extended her hand toward him, hoping that friendliness might disarm him.

  He looked back toward the front of the plane again, and then said, “Get out here.”

  “Golly fuck. I knew you were going to say that.” She sighed and stood up, her legs thankful for a break from incessant squatting. “I’ll just stay back here,” she said, scooting back a few inches, resting her back against the stack of boxes that formed a blockade behind her

  Little Guy shook his head no, and reached for her hand. “Too late now.”

  “Too late for what?” she asked.

  “For you to stay back here by yourself. Come on.”

  He held Mia’s hand as she scooted between the stacks of boxes, and he crawled a few feet away to give her the space to hoist herself on top of one of the gold bar pallets.

  “Where are we going?” she asked. “I’d prefer to stay back here. No need to introduce me to your friends.”

  “Shutup!” Little Guy said, as he reached across the gap between pallets and punched Mia in the stomach. She lurched forward and caught herself as her body fell toward him, inches from slamming her face on the gold bars. He pulled her hair, which bent her neck back, and he leaned in, their faces an inch apart. “You’ve got two choices. Either you tell me why you’re here, or you go out that door with no parachute. I don’t care either way.”

  His words had turned ruthless, and he stared at her with a look meant to intimidate. But despite the grimness of his words, the non-threatening timbre and pitch of his voice made it difficult to take him seriously. He reminded Mia of a small puppy trying to sound men
acing, but whose size prevented him from pulling it off. She wanted to laugh at him.

  “You picked the wrong guy to fuck with. I’m having a bad day.” She thought Little Guy was joking. No one actually said things like that, did they? He sounded like he’d watched Die Hard a few too many times.

  “Sorry about your day,” she said, “but maybe you should just sit up front. Relax. Stop worrying about little old me. I’ll just go back to my space between the boxes and we can forget you ever saw me.”

  “I don’t think so, honey.” He let go of her hair and her cheek hit the gold bars. Just as she began to push herself up off of the gold bars, he swiped her arms with his hand, and sent her slamming toward the bars again.

  After her face hit the bars, she pushed herself away from him, and sat up. “Never mind. I’ll just go to the cock pit and let the pilot have a break.”

  “That will be the last thing you’ll ever do,” he said, again sounding like a washed-up action star.

  He reached toward Mia, but she swatted his hand away, and leapt on top of him. She caught him by surprise, and he had no time to react. Her fists battered his face, and the third swing broke his nose, a burgundy fountain spritzing through the air, painting the gold bars.

  She jumped over his body, scampered across the last pallet of gold bars, and stood on the floor. He writhed back and forth, his bloody hands covering his face. The constant roar of the plane’s flight drowned out his fierce screams, but she couldn’t just leave him thrashing on top of the pallets. She grabbed his arms and pulled him along the top of the gold bars.

  “Stop moving,” she yelled. Either he didn’t hear her or he just ignored her because he continued to roll this way and that as blood poured from his smashed nose. She yelled at him again, but he didn’t respond. With his obnoxious squirming Mia had no choice. She picked up a gold bar and waited until he turned his head so his left cheek rested against the stack of bars, and then she smashed the bar against his temple in one thunderous, violent motion.

  Mia felt his head give way and he became still. She threw the gold bar to the floor, grabbed Little Guy by the hand and shoulder, rolled him onto his side, and then off of the stack of bars, onto the floor. A trail of blood smeared along the top of the pallet, and puddled on the floor.

  2

  Chapter 2

  With three other people on the plane, Mia thought it best to keep Little Guy out of sight, so she bent over to move his hands so they didn’t stick out beyond the edge of the last pallet. As she bent over she felt a sharp, hot pain in her shoulder. The constant drone of the flight, and her efforts to conceal Little Guy’s body drowned the sound of that first shot. But the gold shrapnel that bombarded her shoulder focused her attention.

  She stood up and looked toward the front of the plane just in time to see a man in a black t-shirt with a neon pink flamingo on it aiming a gun at her. Mia sought cover behind another pallet near the back of the plane on which four stacks of plastic totes towered at least ten feet high. Pinkie fired again, hitting a plastic tote, which disintegrated, sending lethal shards of plastic in every direction. She skittered along the top of another pallet, as Pinkie fired two more shots, both of which missed her and hit the top of the fuselage.

  “We’re in a plane, you asshole. You might want to stop shooting!” The din of the aircraft overpowered her voice, which didn’t matter, because a gunman doesn’t stop shooting just because the victim requests that he does so. Pinkie seemed oblivious to the danger of his actions, so Mia had no choice but to avoid gunfire and hope that he didn’t manage to pierce the shell of the aircraft.

  Mia climbed on top of a pallet, and crawled on her belly to the opposite side of the plane. A foot-wide gap between the cargo and the sidewall provided a narrow sanctuary. She pressed her back against the cargo and crept toward the front. She saw no sign of Pinkie on the other side of the cargo net, and feared that he’d appear behind her. The cargo net blocked her access to the rest of the plane, but she didn’t want to leave the relative safe haven of the pallets anyway, so despite losing sight of Pinkie, she decided to wait.

  It didn’t take long before Pinkie found her. A thunderous rumble of falling plastic totes overpowered the plane noise. Seconds later Pinkie emerged from the cargo area on the opposite side of the plane. He disconnected the end of the net from the sidewall, passed through, and then reconnected it. He held on to the net as he walked across the plane to the side where Mia hid. As he approached, she wished that she had detached the cargo net. She had a better chance of surviving whatever was about to happen if the net didn’t cut off her access to Pinkie and the rest of the plane. She crouched lower to the ground, and as soon as Pinkie emerged in front of her, she punched through an opening in the net and landed a fist in Pinkie’s groin. He bent forward at the waist, dropping his gun to the floor, and using both hands to cover himself. His knees came together, and bent, and his eyes closed while his mouth fell wide open.

  Mia threw another punch through the net’s opening and landed it on the bridge of his nose. A third punch to his upper jaw jostled a couple of teeth. She stood up, grabbed the top of the net, and kicked both feet through the net, hitting him in his chest and sending him back to the floor.

  She detached the net, ran toward him, and stomped his left cheek, feeling it shatter beneath her shoe. Two more swift kicks to the head left Pinkie motionless on the floor, so Mia hustled to the back of the plane and moved two stacks of totes to make room for Pinkie. She planned to drag him along the floor, press on his throat with her shoe until his face turned purple, and then surround him with totes to hide him from the pilot and the remaining ruffian at the front of the plane.

  Instead, as soon as she moved the last tote and turned to walk back toward Pinkie, she saw his right fist swinging toward her. Blood covered the left side of his face, and his eye socket had collapsed, but in that brief second Mia sensed his rage. The stomps had left him unsteady on his feet though, and when Mia ducked to avoid his punch, his shifting weight carried him into the sidewall of the plane, where he hit his head and fell to one knee.

  Mia delivered two solid kicks to his side, just beneath his arm, and Pinkie’s head slammed against the sidewall. He seemed unconscious on his knees, but as Mia reached over to grab him by the shirt and drag him behind the totes, he got to his feet. Mia kneed him in the groin, pulling him toward her at the same time. Pinkie fell back to one knee, and as Mia pulled him toward the tote, the plane again began a deep, sudden dive.

  All at once the totes behind her shifted, and began to fall on top of her as she and Pinkie fell to the floor. But before they could hit the floor, Mia felt a fountain of blood splatter her face, and at the same time heard an explosion near the front of the plane. Pinkie fell to the ground, limp, missing the other half of his head, leaving only the half with the collapsed, bloodied eye socket. Mia yelled at the sudden violent shock, but a second explosion focused her attention.

  She looked toward the front of the plane and saw a huge man pointing a gun at her from just behind the back row of seats. He kept one hand on the back of a seat to steady himself, and had fallen to a knee when the plane began to dive, which coincided with the precise moment he fired the shot intended for Mia, but that instead killed his partner. Mia watched as he tried to aim the gun at her, but the deep dive of the plane caused his entire body to sway.

  More cargo worked loose at the rear of the plane and tumbled toward Mia as she tried to avoid a forthcoming bullet. She watched as a tote fell toward the front of the plane, just missing Cheeto, still on one knee. He lowered his gun as if he realized that indiscriminate firing inside of a plane didn’t make sense. The plane entered a steeper dive, and Mia fell into the cargo net, its attachment to the floor and ceiling keeping her from falling toward the front, and ending up right next to Cheeto.

  She pulled herself across the cargo net to the opposite side of the plane. With the net still secured to the sidewall it provided more stability, and Mia put one leg through a hole in t
he net, which would make it more difficult to escape Cheeto when the plane leveled off, but helped ensure she wouldn’t fall toward him as the dive continued.

  But just as she secured her leg in the net, the plane leveled off, and she fell to the floor, butt-first. Cheeto stood and fired two shots at her, both of which missed and shattered plastic totes behind her. She crawled along the sidewall toward the back of the plane, over a series of pallets that almost reached the ceiling, and down the other side, just behind the area where Pinkie’s blood streaked the floor.

  She slid along the sidewall and peeked around a stack of totes to look toward the front of the plane. She saw no sign of Cheeto, and since she didn’t think he’d go into the cabin, she knew he had to be at the back of the plane with her. Since she never carried a gun—those things are dangerous!—she knew she’d have to eliminate Cheeto in close combat.

  With the pilot occupied trying to keep the plane steady, and no other goons left at the front of the plane, Mia decided to seek shelter in the two rows of seats. She assumed that Cheeto would recognize the danger of firing a gun toward the cockpit, and hold his fire. He outweighed her by almost two hundred pounds, so she guessed that he’d think he could handle her. But Mia knew that when fighting someone with an obvious size advantage, it’s important not to let the environment compound the advantage. She didn’t want to stay in the wide-open space in the middle of the plane where Cheeto could manhandle her. Better to move to the front of the plane, and use the seats as strategic shields.

  She stood up and raced toward the front, but made it less than halfway before she heard the metallic clanging of lead as it ricocheted off the stripped-down interior of the plane. She fell to the ground and did a series of somersaults along the sidewall as Cheeto fired.

  The series of bullet-induced pings ended with a muffled pop as a bullet hit a window just above and behind her as she increased the distance between her and Cheeto. A thunderous bang followed a couple of seconds later, as the pressure of the cabin became too great for the compromised window, and it gave way and disappeared into the air outside, pane, frame, and all.