breech would cause mass confusion with the hijackers and they’d be able to take enough of them out before they could retaliate by shooting the hostages.
It was risky as hell, but with no other good way onto the plane, it was the best plan of action, and something they’d practiced in training over and over. They were ready. Trigger just hoped Gillian and the others were.
“The refueling truck is about ready to go,” Doc said. “Everyone stand by. We’ll use it as cover and once we’re at the plane, we’ll spread out. One, two— Fuck! What the hell?”
Trigger looked toward where the refueling truck sat idling—and saw a twin-engine Beechcraft Queen Air come racing around the corner of the terminal. The propellers were running, and it was clear it wasn’t simply a clueless pilot oblivious to the situation. It could hold up to twelve people—and it was headed straight for the hijacked plane with no signs of slowing.
Their carefully constructed plan had just gone to hell.
Trigger’s head swung back toward the hijacked plane when he heard the sound of one of the escape slides inflating.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Trigger muttered, motioning for his team to move out.
Before they could get to the plane, people started exiting. Two at a time. A man and a woman. The second the first pair made it to the bottom of the slide, they began running toward the small Beechcraft.
They had no idea what the hijackers looked like, so he didn’t know if the people running were their targets or not.
Two-by-two, more and more people slid down the escape slide and ran toward the smaller plane now idling nearby.
The first couple swerved around the plane and headed for the terminal behind it.
Parking the plane right in the middle of the path the hostages would take to get to safety was fucking brilliant. It made distinguishing the bad guys from the good guys that much harder.
It was clear the hijackers never had any intention of flying the large plane out of there. They were going to catch a ride on the smaller, more maneuverable aircraft, one that could fly under radar and disappear without a trace into Central America.
Trigger ran next to Lefty as the team headed for the panicked passengers focused on escaping the hell they’d lived through for the last three days.
“They’re using the passengers as cover,” Trigger told his team. He knew they were already aware, but it still needed to be said. “Shoot to kill, but make sure the person you’re shooting is actually a hijacker!”
They had a lot of open ground to cover before they could get to either airplane, and Trigger had never felt more like a sitting duck than in that moment.
A loud gunshot sounded and as one, all seven Deltas hit the deck and rolled. They had no cover, but they wouldn’t just stand around waiting to be shot either. Within seconds, they were back up and running for the plane. No one knew who was firing or from where, but they couldn’t stop the mission now.
It seemed like it took an hour, but they finally reached the front wheels of the hijacked aircraft. They lined up, using the wheels and each other as cover. Trigger was in front, and he frantically searched for whoever was shooting at them.
The scene was complete chaos. Women were crying, men were shouting, and Trigger knew they needed to figure out who was a hijacker and who was an innocent civilian immediately.
“Grover, take out the pilot in the Beechcraft,” Trigger ordered. “Doc, cover him. Lefty, you and Brain need to find a way to reroute the civilians…separate them from our targets. Oz and Lucky, you’re on the hijackers with me.”
Without a word, the men on his team fanned out. Trigger heard Lefty whistle as loud as he could as Brain began yelling for the hostages to run in the opposite direction from the Beechcraft.
As if the terrified men and women had merely been waiting for someone to tell them what to do, they immediately made a hard right turn and headed for the two men frantically gesturing at them to run toward them.
With the change in the tide of humanity, Trigger could easily make out who was a bad guy and who wasn’t. But now there was a new problem—the hijackers were using the women and children as shields.
One man had a small child in his arms. He held a knife at her throat as he bolted for the small plane.
Another had the