Which is why I didn’t ask anyone what she meant bythe bird.
The bird was a helicopter.A large, Army green, military-style chopper. Except, I learned from Wheeler, no one calls them choppers anymore. I did not feel confident about my stomach’s ability to handle both Ben’s hostage situation andthe bird, but I kept my mouth shut so I wouldn’t be left behind in the field where we’d made the rendezvous.
We loaded into the bird with Ryan and Kyle right behind the pilot, Kat and Bond in the next row, and Mai and I in the back. In our earpieces, we could hear the phone call between Ben and Pasco, peppered occasionally by Devlin’s questions about my health. Pasco deftly deflected and promised that Devlin and I would have a nice, long chat soon.
My fury had dissipated during the course of our bizarre conversation, and now all I felt for Devlin was deep concern. He’d had issues long before joining Anson’s cult. The mind control and abuse he’d encountered there had broken him.Everyone has a breaking point, Ben had told me. And when Devlin had hit his, he’d gone from disturbed to dangerous.
Howard Anson had so much to pay for. I hoped he would rot in prison.
On the phone call, Jensen said something that got picked up by the phone’s mic. We all tensed.
Pasco said, “This is another friend who’s helping us. He wants to protect Anson, too.”
“And Savannah?” Devlin asked.
“Our friend’s name is Jason,” Pasco said, “and he’s a friend of Savannah’s. Just like all of us.”
“All right,” Devlin muttered.
“Hi, Jason,” Ben said. “Devlin, that’s Jason. The man, the myth, the legend.”
“Is he all right?” Bloom asked.
“I think he’s drunk,” Mai said.
“He’s concussed,” Bond corrected her.
My stomach lurched. The buffeting of the helicopter in the wind was one thing, but picturing Ben the way he’d looked on the big screen, bleeding, disoriented, with a bomb in front of him and Devlin wielding a gun behind him was too much.
Bond reached into her medical kit, pulled out a bluecontainer, and handed it to me. “Emesis bag.” She held out her hand. “Earpiece.”
I shook my head. The thought of being cut off from the only contact I had with Ben was unbearable.
“Savannah, as the medical officer on this operation, I can ground this flight. I promise you, we’ll tell you anything you need to know, but the more upset you get, the more of a medical emergency we might have, so I need your earpiece.”
I pulled it out and handed it to her. She had a job to do, and my anxiety stomach was making it harder, so neither of us had a choice. At least the distraction of our exchange had quelled my urge to vomit.
“Kat, how far out are we from the location?” Bond asked.
“Twenty minutes.”
Bond leaned over to Mai. “Do you have authorization to take the shot?”
“It just came through from X,” she said. “If we can’t talk Devlin down…” She glanced at me.
“It’s all right,” I said. “I understand. Anything to keep Ben alive.”
Kat and Mai exchanged a look, and then Kat and Bond faced forward and leaned closer to Bloom and Wheeler.
Mai scooted over beside me. “Savannah, there’s something you need to know. Things could go wrong.”
I knew where she was going with this, and I didn’t want to hear it. I shook my head.
“Savannah, it could happen. Everyone on this team will do everything humanly possible to save my brother.” She held my hand. “But you have to promise me, if anyone yells ‘down,’ you hit the ground, cover your head, and do not move until one of us comes to get you. Do you understand?”
I hesitated.
“Do you understand?” Mai repeated. “Say it out loud.”
