Chasing the White Lion James Hannibal (essential reading TXT) 📖

Ye found himself separated from Teacher Rocha and Pastor Nakor, hurrying through the brush in a cluster of his friends. He scrambled onto one of the tailgates. Aung Thu pulled him deeper into the bed, and the two huddled together in the grit.

The tailgate slammed closed. The canvas flaps dropped, leaving them in darkness. The engines growled. The floor shook. The tires ground over the gravel. They were moving.

Thet Ye imagined his parents wading through the underbrush to find him—following his trail. But he had never been in a truck before. How would they ever find him now? Sitting there with Aung Thu, he dropped his head into his hands. Thet Ye was lost. His mother would cry for sure.

CHAPTER

TWENTY-

THREE

RONALD REAGAN NATIONAL AIRPORT

ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA

“WHATHAPPENEDTOTHEHANGAR at Stafford Regional?” Talia leaned forward between Mac and Tyler after an armed security guard waved their cargo van through the general aviation gate at Reagan. In the side-view mirror, she watched the guard wave Darcy through in the second van.

Tyler directed Mac toward a pair of hangars before answering. “New jet. New digs.”

“New jet? You sold the Gulfstream?”

“I traded up.”

Mac drove out from between the hangars, and Talia caught her breath. There, on the open ramp, sat a gleaming red-and-white blend of business jet and space fighter, with a fuselage like a needle and stubby wings set back near the tail. “What is that thing?”

“That’s the Aerion AS2, lass.” Mac eased the van to a stop near the rear of the craft. “They call her the boomless business jet.”

“Boomless. As in a sonic boom? The AS2 is supersonic?”

Tyler helped her out of the van, then walked along the wing, running a finger over the metallic flake paint at the leading edge. “Up to Mach 1.6 over water. Over land, where there are noise restrictions, she can run up to Mach 1.2 without generating a boom. She’s a revolution.”

The other van pulled up next to them, and the team transferred the gear and crates to the cargo bay. Talia stayed close to Tyler while they worked. The two had argued extensively over his spending habits—the villas, the chalets, the jets. He claimed they were necessary for the circles the team worked in. She often reminded him how many children he could feed and clothe with that kind of money.

The Gulfstream had been a sharp point of contention. And now he had traded up to the first supersonic business jet? She didn’t even want to guess at the price tag. She shouldered a black duffel from the second van and started toward the jet.

Tyler followed with a matching bag. “It’s a lease, okay? More of a test project, really.”

“Yeah. A test.” Mac lifted a massive hard-shell crate as if it were full of balloons. “Come to think of it, the lads at Aerion should be payin’ us.”

She gave the Scotsman a skeptical look.

Tyler backed him up, tossing his duffel into the bay. “I’m paying half of what I recouped when I sold the Gulfstream.” He paused to catch his breath. “More or less.”

“How is that possible?” When his lips parted to answer, Talia stopped him. “And if you say, ‘I know a guy,’ I’ll drop this bag and shoot you where you stand.”

His mouth snapped closed, and he headed to the vans for another load.

She dropped her bag in the bay. “Fine. Say it.”

“I know a guy.”

TALIA WAS A FAN of neither heights nor aircraft, especially after her experience earlier in the year on a doomed mesospheric airship. The takeoff in the new jet didn’t help.

“Two hundred forty kilonewtons o’ thrust, lassy,” Mac shouted, glancing back at her from the flight deck, “at twice the ratio of yer average Richie-Rich jet!”

With all the G-forces, she had no idea how he’d managed to turn his head. “Eyes on the road, Mac!”

Seconds later, thanks to seamless, real-time projections of the outside air covering the cabin walls, Talia watched a cat’s-eye vapor cone pass down the aircraft like an otherworld portal. She felt as if she could reach out and touch it—and be ripped right out of her seat. Five minutes later, they were over the Atlantic.

Not until Mac settled the jet into a high-altitude cruise did Talia release her white-knuckle grip on her armrests, leaving handprints in the leather. At the press of a button, her chair swiveled to face Finn and Val. Darcy and Eddie were already up, exploring the high-tech cabin. “At—” She coughed and swallowed to gain control of her voice. “At this speed, when will we arrive in Bangkok?”

“We’re not going to Bangkok.” Tyler stepped out from the flight deck, leaving Mac to drive.

“But the kids—”

“Will have to wait.” Val activated a table that rose from the floor between them. “You want to do this fast, or do it right?”

“Both.”

Logic and the look on Val’s face told her that wasn’t an option. Tyler slid into the seat next to the grifter. “Sorry. They don’t call it a long con for nothing.”

“Exactly how long?”

“One week. If we play this right, we’ll get an invite to Boyd’s Frenzy and nail him there.”

“And find the kids.”

“Yes. Exactly. And find the kids. Eddie, show her the plan.”

In the aisle, the geek bounced his favorite cobalt-and-copper fidget spinner from one pinky to the other, as if trying to decide if supersonic flight affected its balance. His cold seemed to be fading. Talia wondered if he’d faked it to come on the mission, until a giant sneeze made him drop the toy.

Darcy wiped a hand over her face. “Merci, mon chou. That was . . . quite disgusting, yes?”

“Sorry.” He recovered the spinner and pressed a switch on the forward bulkhead.

The chairs on the left side of the aisle spread apart, and the real-time wall projection of the clouds outside faded to a black screen. A flowchart appeared. “The plan has three stages. Three progressive cons, each with similar elements but bigger and with more flourishes than the last. All different. All connected. Stage One gets us