Second Chance Gold (Buck Reilly Adventure Series Book 4), John Cunningham [polar express read aloud .txt] 📗

Our eyes locked. His widened.

Your move, Jack.

The plane bounced heavily in the chop toward Flamands. The engines sputtered and I saw rivulets of fuel run off the back of Betty’s wings.

“We’ve got too much weight!” Gunner said.

“She’ll make it!” I said.

Jack was hunched over the instrument panel, adjusting settings, tapping the throttles, cranking the trim tab.

“The center of gravity’s off!”

The women and Truck were strapped in and I was kneeling on the teak floor. Jerry, lying flat, had slid toward the storage locker. I crab-stepped back, grabbed him under the armpits and dragged him forward.

Betty broke free from the water’s grasp.

“Go straight to the harbor!” I said.

“We can’t land in Gustavia—we’re headed to the airport in St. Jean!”

“Goddammit, Jack, he won’t make it!”

“There’re too many boats! We’ll call for an ambulance!”

I pointed the shotgun at Gunner.

“Put her in the goddamned harbor, Jack.”

He glanced back and shook his head.

“You’ll get us all killed!”

He kicked the starboard pedal and shifted the wheel. Flying low in case we had to ditch when the fuel ran out, we carved a turn over Colombier, directly over Rockefeller’s old house, then banked hard to port. People stared up at us as we closed in on Gustavia.

“Plane!” Nicole shouted from the starboard back seat.

A St. Barth Commuter broke its landing pattern and made a sharp turn west to avoid us.

“Damn you, Buck Reilly!” Jack shouted.

He continued west until the harbor was clear ahead, three hundred feet below us—and yes, it was packed with boat traffic. All eyes were on us as people scrambled onto their decks and swerved away from the center of the harbor. Someone even jumped off a Jet Ski when we touched down near where the ferries came to shore by the Customs office.

Jack pulled back on the throttles as we skidded, pumping the pedals to adjust course as much as possible. A huge yacht with Lionheart emblazoned on its hull extended way out into the harbor—Betty’s port wing tip barely missed its anchor chain.

“Aim toward the Anglican church,” I said.

“Where the hell—”

“Big anchor, straight ahead.”

Flashing lights appeared from multiple directions in the harbor. I couldn’t imagine how many laws we’d broken. A smile cracked my lips. Laws Jack had broken, that is.

The engines sputtered badly—the starboard one died.

“Gun the port engine,” I said.

Jack slapped the throttle and the plane lurched hard to the right before that engine also coughed twice and died. The momentum of that final surge, however, carried us in a slow glide to the seawall by BAZ Bar.

Man, could I use a drink.

“I’m keeping the gold, Reilly,” Gunner said. “Don’t even think—”

“No way. It belongs to Jerry Atlas.”

“Over my dead body!” he said.

I angled the shotgun in his direction. Gunner just laughed.

Gisele popped the hatch and started screaming for help as gendarmes descended on us from all directions. I felt the plane lurch when they secured it with ropes and pulled it sideways so the hatch would be by the dock. I worried that the wingtip would hit the bar—would Jack or Gunner give two shits about Betty’s safety?

Jerry, who was conscious again but cringing in pain, had both hands pressed to his chest. Nicole and I lifted him through the hatch to where gendarmes waited, the blue lights on their silver Land Rover Defender flashing behind them. They eased Jerry into the back and with Gisele at his side took off through town toward the hospital.

The remaining gendarmes walked over to the hatch. I leaned back and one peered inside.

“Monsieur Jack and Monsieur Gunner? Please come with us.”

“Lovely,” Jack said. “My parole officer’s going to love this.”

Gunner laughed.

Did anything faze that guy?

Once they were out of the plane and everybody left was loaded into yet another Defender with flashing blue lights, I pulled Nicole onto my lap in one of the rear seats.

“You were amazing,” I said. She placed her palm over my mouth and scanned the cuts and scratches on my face where cactus quills stuck out like acupuncture needles. She brushed some dirt off my forehead, then leaned down and kissed me delicately—on the lips.

I pulled her close, ignoring the aches and sharp pains all over my body, and was surprised to feel hot tears on my face.

When she leaned back, I saw her eyes were dry.

She gently wiped the moisture off my cheeks.

“You call yourself a treasure hunter?” she said.

I closed my eyes a moment, then looked deeply into hers.

“Just a man trying to find his way.”

One Month Later

The white tent was blinding in the brilliant sunlight of St. Barths. Across the road was a beautiful cemetery, the white above-ground tombs adorned with colorful flowers both real and artificial. Names were French, some Swedish, many dated over a hundred years ago. What better place to be interred for eternity than next to the tranquil beach by Lorient, surrounded by generations of loving family members and friends who’d known each other their entire lives?

Traffic slowed and people paused to gawk as they drove by. The airport had been packed with chartered planes and the harbor filled with even more mega-yachts than usual.

With no place to go, I’d lingered on St. Barths. Nicole de Haenen held onto my arm and introduced me with a smile to friends and family members who’d arrived from places like Guadeloupe and the States especially for this day. We’d pretty much become inseparable, and I’d had the multi-faceted pleasure of staying with her high atop the hill overlooking St. Jean, surrounded by the scents of fruit trees and herbs. The only problem was that I’d known all along that it wouldn’t last. Jack had seen to that by sending the package to the FBI. And Special Agent T. Edward Booth was here, seated in the same row as Harry Greenbaum. There could only be one reason for that, and while I’d still not heard a word from him, I was mentally prepared for him to