“That’s none of your business,” she says curtly.
“I think it is. But if you throw in a little extra dough, I might be persuaded to stop asking questions and just fly you.”
“Dough?”
“Bread. Moolah. Cash money. Brazilian reals, US dollars. I’m not picky.”
“I—I don’t have any money on me,” she says, fear flashing over her face. “But the organization I work for can pay you handsomely for your assistance.”
“The organization? Who do you work for?”
Her lips become a thin, tight line.
“Oh, okay. Fine. You don’t want to tell me. I sort of get it. But when you say handsomely, you better be thinking a lot of zeroes.”
Her stance relaxes somewhat, and she gives me a nod.
“Thank you. My name is Heather Duncan.”
“Trenton Holt, but you can call me Trent. Nice to meet you.”
“I’m glad of your assistance, Mr. Holt. Can you possibly fly me to Macapá as soon as possible, please?”
“Yeah, I was just getting ready to grab the keys.”
“Shouldn’t you, ah, get dressed?” she asks, eyes dancing over my bare chest. A bit of flush comes to her cheeks. I resist the urge to flex and just silently bask in her admiration.
“Yeah, you’re right.” I put on a hat and a pair of flip flops. “Now I’m ready. Let’s go.”
I take her to my adjoining hangar, where Dorothy resides. She’s not the latest private jet, but she flies just fine. Heather eyes her dubiously. “Is that thing going to make it to Macapá?”
“That thing? Dorothy is a work of art.”
“By a blind artist, apparently. I guess I don’t have much choice.”
“That’s right, you don’t. Now, stop insulting my beloved and let’s get ourselves airborne.”
I unhitch Dorothy and spin up the prop, taxiing us out the hangar onto the open water. A sharp crack causes me to peer out of the cockpit, searching for thunderclouds. The sky is blue and clear as can be, however.
“What was that?” Heather asks, her chest heaving.
The sound comes again, and again. I glance over at the riverbank and see armed, masked men firing at us with rifles.
“Looks like I picked the wrong day for a hangover.”
HEATHER
Ituck my head between my knees as the gunshots continue to crack through the forest air. Every shot makes me jump, and I expect to feel the searing pain of a bullet ripping through my body at any moment.
“Son of a bitch,” Trent swears as he opens the throttle wide. The plane’s engine whine reaches a fever pitch, muting the gunshots. “Your friends are persistent, I’ll give them that. They’re going full on Rambo.”
I risk a glance out of the cockpit and see that the masked men have swarmed into the river. They stand knee, and in some cases chest, deep in the water as they blaze away with combat rifles. One of them opens up with an automatic weapon. His line of fire rakes a series of vertical gouts along the river’s surface as he homes in on us.
“Come on, come on,” Trent says through gritted teeth. Muscles bulge in his bare arms as he pulls back hard on the control stick. After what seems an agonizingly long time, the plane’s nose lifts into the air.
The shots continue to ring out as the pylons lift free from the water. The sensation of freedom and perceived safety elicits a childish whoop from my mouth as we soar into the blue skies over the Amazon.
“That was close,” I say, trying to peer back at the men on the riverbank.
