Deadly Cargo
Author
Jodie Bailey
Reads
15.6K
Chapters
20
ONE
She would beat that storm to the airstrip even if it killed her.
Jasmine Jefferson drew her lips between her teeth and glanced out the right window of her twin-engine aircraft, where dark banks of clouds dumped undulating sheets of rain that already obscured the horizon.
Check that. Failure to beat the storm might be what actually killed her.
It would definitely be ironic if she died doing a job she’d taken under the identity the government had given her in order to protect her from a murderer.
She hated irony.
A sudden gust shoved the Twin Otter sideways. Jasmine fought the urge to grip the yoke tighter and glanced at her gauges. With a slight nudge, she drew the plane back on course and peered out the front window as she raised the airspeed to account for the variation in wind gusts. She should be able to see the small landing strip at Nemeti, where the “ground crew” was waiting for the cargo she was flying in from Fairbanks.
Landing was going to be tough today. Doubly so because the load she’d picked up this morning was heavier than usual after a freak summer storm had leveled half of a small survival camp forty-five minutes from the remote airstrip. A combination of ferocious wind and flooding rain had nearly wiped out two cabins, and they had to rebuild fast, before the beast of winter roared in.
In this part of Alaska, August was the start of the change. It might be in the sixties today, but the first snowfall was coming up quickly. “Termination snow,” when the summer tourist season ended and Alaska winter set in.
Jasmine pulled her head from side to side to stretch out her tight neck muscles. She had to land this plane and land it well, not only for her survival, but also for the sake of those who counted on her to get supplies to them.
Out the front window, the landscape rested flat between the mountains, greener than most people imagined Alaska could be.
There. The airstrip stood out as a straight brown slash in the summer-green brush. At least she didn’t have to land off-airport here. With the sudden storm closing in fast, a brush landing was a creature she wouldn’t want to tame. She spoke into her radio. “Nevada five-seven-five-xray-romeo. I’m about two minutes out and coming in at forty-two knots. Looks like the mountains to the east are blocking the wind on the runway. Confirm?”
“Confirmed. We have the wind sock up for verification.” Maya Carter’s voice in her ear was calm, but it held an unusual tension. The owner of the small frontier airstrip was usually chatty and friendly, even in the most dire situations.
Her curt demeanor now drew Jasmine’s eyebrows together. “Anything else I need to know?”
The radio was silent for long seconds. “No. You’ve handled worse. You’ll be fine.”
There it was again. A brusque answer. No cordiality. No teasing about the flight. No “can’t wait to have some girl talk” gab. As the lone female on the small airstrip made up of a dirt runway, a small office/maintenance building and a separate locked cargo shed, Maya was usually ready and waiting for Jasmine’s visits.
As another gust shook the plane, Jasmine jerked her attention back to the controls. This wasn’t the time to worry about what had put her friend on edge. This was the time to set this Twin Otter down safely. With another glance at the gauges, she turned her nose into the wind, crabbing sideways to keep her flight path centered on the runway. The transition from wind to relative calm was coming up as soon as she got the mountain range to her right, and she had to be ready to adjust for the sudden decrease in winds. The drop in wind speed could drop the plane like a boulder if she wasn’t ready.
She upped her airspeed to compensate. With one eye on her gauges and the other on the mountains, she finessed the controls until—
With a rush that brought her stomach into her throat, the plane jerked and threatened to plummet belly first as the mountains blocked the wind. But she was ready. She’d flown this route enough times to know its peculiarities, even in a storm. Reaching up, she adjusted the throttle down to control her altitude, and straightened up slightly to side slip the landing, using the rudder to align the nose with the airstrip’s imaginary center line. Then she drifted off center and banked the plane slightly to stay on her ground track, adjusting the left rudder and the right aileron.
“I saw that.” The radio opened with Maya’s voice. “Nice job.”
Once again, the tone was different than the words. Something was definitely off. Jasmine held her line and scanned the airport, looking for trouble. Had someone crashed? Tried to rob the airstrip? Been busted flying in illegal drugs?
That last one wasn’t out of the realm of possibility. The number of overdoses in the remote villages had spiked over the past few months, and state law enforcement had dug in to investigate. Kramer Anderson out of Sea-Bush Air had been raided on landing in Sitka recently, after a tip indicated he was carrying fentanyl and oxycodone in his cargo.
He wasn’t. But the incident and several others like it in previous weeks had Alaska’s bush pilots on edge and even eyeing one another with suspicion. With cargo largely ferried in and out of the frontier by plane, the odds were high that one of them was up to something illegal.
But today, nothing seemed out of place on the airstrip. A couple of people stood outside the small maintenance shed, but they were likely trying to seek shelter from the coming storm. Only Maya, her husband, Dean, and their oldest son maintained the small airstrip, and it wasn’t out of the ordinary for them to be waiting when Jasmine landed.
She reduced power and brought the flaps down, checking her gauges as she scanned the end of the runway, judging where to round out. The right wheel settled down, and she increased back pressure on the yoke to keep the nose wheel from slamming into the ground. She didn’t level the wings until all three wheels were safely on the ground. Sagging in her seat, Jasmine exhaled and coasted down the small dirt airstrip toward the metal buildings.
A torrent of rain unleashed as she stopped the plane as close to the cargo shed as she could and then cast up a quick prayer. Thank you, Lord, for another safe trip. She’d beat the weather.
They could unload when the rain stopped. Hopefully, Maya was in a better mood than she seemed, because Jasmine would probably be at Nemeti for an hour or so until the squall line passed. A cup of coffee and girl talk sure sounded like it would hit the spot.
She braked the plane and ran through the procedure to power down as Maya’s husband, Dean, set the chocks beneath the wheels and retreated toward the cargo shed.
Jasmine pulled a ball cap on her head to combat the rain, then hesitated with her hand on the door handle. Odd. Dean usually hung out nearby and waited for her to deplane.
She took a deep breath. Likely the weather had driven him back under cover. She’d spent two years looking over her shoulder, ever since she’d wrapped up her testimony in court and moved on to her new life. Today wasn’t the day to start getting suspicious all over again. Shoving open the door, she turned and climbed down to the ground, her back hunched against the driving rain.
Her feet sank into mud. She prayed the airstrip wouldn’t be too waterlogged for her to take off again. Missing her other two deliveries would throw her off schedule, but it wouldn’t be the first time she’d had to bunk on Maya’s couch at the—
“State troopers! Jasmine Jefferson, place your hands behind your head, turn around slowly and get on your knees!”
Her heart pounded painfully from a rush of adrenaline, then seemed to stop beating entirely. She froze. What?
“Do it now!” Behind her, the sounds of splashing feet drew near.
She obeyed, lacing her hands against soaking wet hair at the back of her neck as rain stung her face. Slowly, she turned.
Two unfamiliar men approached her, shadows in the driving rain. Their features were hard to make out, but one thing was certain.
Each one of them held a gun.
And each gun was aimed squarely at her.
Alaska state trooper Will Stryker kept his aim steady, even as wind-lashed rain slapped him in the face and poured from the brim of his cover. Beside him, his K-9 partner stood near his left calf, stalwart in the sudden relentless weather. The border collie’s fur hung heavy with rain, but Scout stood firm, well trained and ready to work.
And work he would. As soon as they detained Jasmine Jefferson, Will would set Scout loose inside the airplane to search out any drugs the pilot was ferrying into the remote airstrip at Nemeti.
Several anonymous tips in the previous weeks had been bogus, and each time they came up empty it had demoralized them both. Today had to be different. Hopefully, this would be the day they took down a link in a burgeoning supply chain before more people overdosed on the fentanyl and oxycodone that had begun to creep its way into the area.
He kept his weapon leveled on the pilot as she turned, the ball cap she wore doing little to shield her face from the rain. Her eyes met his. Far from appearing defiant or guilty, Jasmine Jefferson appeared pale and terrified, as though she might drop to the mud at any moment.
For a brief second, his heart went out to her, but he shook off the pity, burned by the memory of too many liars who had worn that same expression. He wasn’t buying her fear. Their tipster had claimed she was armed and would do anything to protect her illegal cargo.
Will couldn’t take any chances. He barked an order to the trooper beside him as he holstered his sidearm. “Tell her why we’re here. Check her for weapons, then take her inside and detain her there until we’ve searched the plane.” After the other trooper moved forward and secured the suspect, Will stepped closer, with Scout keeping pace alongside him.
As he passed Ms. Jefferson, his eyes locked on hers again, even though he’d had every intention of passing her right by without a second glance.
She swallowed so hard he could see the motion in her neck. Rain streamed down her face, and it seemed to be mixed with panic-stricken tears from her wide eyes. “Why?”
Will’s chest seized with her one pleading word. There was pain there. Real fear. Fear that seemed to have nothing to do with her current situation. She looked as though she thought her life was at stake. Reflexively, he started to give her an answer that would calm her, but then he stopped. He had a job to do. Comforting a criminal wasn’t his responsibility. The other trooper who’d met him here would handle the explanation. Will had different duties to attend to.
Even though the expression on her face hit him square in the gut.
He glanced down at Scout, who stood by his side, looking up at him expectantly.
Will’s eyes narrowed. Odd. His partner wasn’t paying one iota of attention to Jasmine Jefferson. If she’d been anywhere near drugs, Scout’s super sniffer would be all over it, and he’d be doing his happy little “I succeeded now give me a treat” dance. But the dog wasn’t alerting. He merely waited patiently for his next command.
No. Will couldn’t base her innocence on that. If her person was clean, that only meant she hadn’t loaded the drugs onto the plane. Nothing else.
With the help of the man on the grounds crew, Will opened the cargo door of the Twin Otter and hoisted Scout inside. The cargo area was the typical smaller size of a bush plane hauling supplies. This wouldn’t take long. Within a couple of minutes, he’d have his proof and his drug runner. One more way to sweep death and addiction off the streets...or out of the skies, in this case.
He nearly cracked a smile at his humor. Instead, he gave Scout a quick rub on the back of his neck. “You ready?” He swept his hand toward the back of the plane. “Search.”
With an excited tail wag, Scout went to work. His nose twitched at crates, bags and boxes without pause. He continued down the narrow aisle and trotted back, downcast at finding nothing. For Scout, this was a game. The scent of various drugs had been placed inside his favorite toy during training until he associated those specific odors with play and reward.
But now? The border collie was disappointed.
Will shook his head, glanced at the small shed that served as an office, where the other trooper had led Jasmine Jefferson, then gave Scout the command again.
Without hesitation, his partner obeyed.
Once again, he came back dejected.
As he gave his faithful partner a quick head rub, Will sympathized with the border collie’s disappointment. He’d hoped to end this day with a bust, saving the lives of whoever was waiting for those drugs at the end of the supply line. Instead, he’d come up empty. Again.
Been made to play the fool. Again.
“Didn’t find anything, did you.” It wasn’t a question. Footsteps sloshed up slowly behind him as the rain began to slacken, falling straight down instead of zinging like horizontal water darts. Dean Carter, the airport’s owner and chief mechanic, stepped up beside Will and rested his hand on the fuselage of the plane. “I told you Jasmine wasn’t hauling drugs. She’s as straight arrow as they come. And one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet.”
Will helped Scout down from the plane, clipped a leash to his harness, then turned to the other man. “Nice doesn’t mean a thing. Unload the cargo into the shed as normal, and I’ll have Scout check one more time.” He stepped back, prepared to supervise, to make triple certain that no one took anything off that plane and squirreled it away somewhere before Scout could have another pass at it.
Dean quirked an eyebrow and waved his son over to help. “Can’t say you’re one of the nicest people I’ve ever met.” He turned his back on Will and pulled himself into the plane.
The comment stung, but he shook it off. He wasn’t here to make friends. Someone was contributing to the high addiction rates in the remote villages of Alaska, and they had to be stopped.
Will was going to do whatever it took to find them, even if everyone from Nome to Juneau considered him to be their number one enemy.
