Mac lay for a minute, thinking and listening. He didn't dare ask Natalia to describe anything lest the sound of their whispering disturb the guard. So he would have to go on the information he could get himself.
From what he could tell, they were on the wooden floor of a cargo jet. It was loud, and the walls had a steep curve, so somewhere near the tail. From the lack of echoes, the plane was full, probably of crates strapped to each side of the plane with an aisle down the middle to keep the plane balanced. The voices he heard talking were faint, so they were at the front, near the cockpit, and likely blocked from seeing him by all the crates unless he stood in the aisle.
Their one guard sat slumped across the plane from them, most likely propped against the side of the plane with his feet out toward them. He still snored softly.
Mac lifted his head and listened to the men talking at the front of the plane. Whatever they were speaking wasn't Arabic but it sounded African. It also sounded the same as the men in the garage in California.
His head hit the wooden floor again as Mac lay back, stunned. The men who had kidnapped him from the hospital long before Pete had assigned him to extract Natalia were now after them both! What in the world was going on? And who were these guys? Where were they taking MacGyver and Natalia? What connection did they have with the Phoenix Foundation?
Pete had known about the Natalia assignment before Mac had been blinded, he was sure now. And Pete had been so insistent he himself go even though he was barely through rehab. There had to be a reason. But Pete trusted Harris. And had sent Mac to Harris. Why then did Craig say not to trust Harris? And why was Craig not dead when both agents sent to extract Natalia were reported to have died? Was it too convenient that he was there to hook up with and "help" MacGyver? Was his blindness a ruse to get Mac to trust him? He'd been awfully cavalier about it. No, Mac thought, he'd not faked how sick he'd been. But he'd not told Mac everything. The wig, for instance. But is he had been dirty, he'd had several chances to take Mac out and hadn't done it. Plus he got Mac a new cane. Which… where was it now?
Closing his eyes briefly, Mac took another long, slow breath. He didn't feel quite on the immediate edge of puking, but wasn't feeling particularly comfortable either. And all of these questions would simply have to wait.
As quietly as a cat, Mac got to his feet, feeling along the outside wall of the fuselage, and also at their feet, where a wall of crates indeed rose off the floor as he had guessed.
He stopped to gather the handfuls of twine left from their wrists and ankles, sweeping his hand along the floor to find them all. He missed one and Natalia, who was watching, picked it up and touched it to the back of his hand. He thanked her with a quick smile and carefully stepped over her still-prostrate form, running his right hand along the crates so he'd know when he might be visible to the men at the front of the plane.
The center aisle was narrow, as he hoped it would be, and he coolly stepped across the gap toward the guard, his heart pounding.
With lightning speed, his left hand found the man's chest, slumped against the far wall as he'd guessed, and without hesitating, he gave the guy a right hook as hard as he could.
Pain shot through his right hand and he winced. He'd gotten the guy's face a little higher than he meant.
He had to follow up his surprise advantage fast though. He knocked the gun aside with his foot, held his left hand over the guy's mouth to keep him from shouting, and pulled an arm behind his back to subdue him.
Once he had the guy pinned, Mac took a second to register his surprise. He was more of a boy than a man, bony to the point of fragility. And the head of hair pressed against Mac's forearm was certainly African. He could feel the waves of fear coming off of the kid, likely as much fear of his bosses as of Mac, and he felt a bit sorry for the guy.
Natalia was on her feet now, ready to help, and Mac stuck his left foot out toward her, hoping the duct tape he'd wrapped around his sock showed. He needed a piece for the guy's mouth first.
It worked. She quietly removed a strip and helped him stick it across the young guard's mouth, then together they bound his hands and feet.
With his fingers, Mac explored the gun the guard had held. It was an AK47, which was both bigger than Mac was expecting and also possibly Russian. Interesting. He took out the magazine and handed it to Natalia, then emptied the chamber and set it aside.
Now that the guard was subdued, Mac felt like he could breathe slightly easier. There was always the possibility that someone from the front of the plane would check on them, of course, but he didn't feel the need for absolute silence any more.
He gestured Natalia to come close. "Can you tell what is in the crates?" he whispered.
She patted his forearm, which he interpreted to mean as a signal to wait. He did so, impatiently, while she crept closer to the stacks of crates. He wanted to warn her to stay out of sight of the men at the front, but stopped himself. She was neither foolish nor reckless, and she could see their sightlines better than he could.
In less than a minute she was back. "It looks like veterinarian supplies," she whispered.
"Can you get into them?" he asked.
"Some of them," came her answer.
He thought for a minute. "I got an idea," he whispered at last. "Do you see any gas masks?"
Her light footsteps receded farther toward the back of the plane, and he sat next to the trussed-up guard to think. If only his head didn't hurt so much! It still pounded, roaring in his ears and unsettling his stomach in a way that was most distracting. He pressed on his temples with his knuckles, willing himself to concentrate.
When Natalia came back and dumped two gas masks in his lap, he jumped in surprise.
"Sorry," she whispered, but her voice held a trace of, was it amusement?
"No problem," he muttered, but couldn't keep himself from smiling. If their circumstances hadn't been so dire he might have switched his creativity into retaliatory pranks, but right now, he needed to stay focused.
"See if you can find anything about large animal surgery. I'm looking for anesthetic," he said, attempting to sort out the tangle of straps in his lap. "Oh, and…" But she had gone and he let his words drop.
She poked and prodded in the crates for a while. After a few minutes, Mac rose to join her, although once she pulled him away from a spot where he guessed he was too visible.
"I need an extra large syringe. And some tubing. And some smaller syringes," he whispered, feeling inside the crates as he spoke. He found some surgical tubing, and took it back to his spot on the floor where he'd left the gas masks.
The rest he waited for Natalia to bring. Using more duct tape from the stash around his ankle, he slowly and quietly began to disassemble the syringes. He fished his Swiss Army knife out of his sock and snapped open the sharp main knife blade. With it, he sliced off lengths of surgical tubing and began to tape the syringes back together with the surgical tubing, using his fingers to be sure each connection was sealed tightly.
Natalia was back with a liter of fluid. "Is this what you want? It reads 'Bovine Anesthetic-one litre.'"
"Perfect," whispered MacGyver, and felt for the seal, connecting it to his surgical tubing with more tape.
"What is it going to do?" she asked urgently. "Not kill them?"
"Nah," answered Mac, securing the hoses with final strips of tape. "They'll just have one heck of a headache when they wake up."
He snapped his knife shut and handed her one of the gas masks. "Put this on." He did the same and then crouched next to the aisle between the crates. Then, he began to pump the larger syringe.
As he'd hoped, the powerful pump sprayer he'd built was soon delivering a fine mist of the anesthetic into the air.
He listened intently to the conversations. Since he wasn't sure how big the space was, he may need to get closer, and he tried to balance the risk of being seen and possibly shot.
The conversations began to slow. There were a few slurred expressions of surprise and some expletives. Mac, in a crouch, crept closer toward the front of the plane, still spraying the mist, but reserving some in case the cockpit door was closed.
At last, all was quiet at the front of the plane, and he cautiously moved forward, with Natalia close beside him.
"They sleep," she said in wonder, her voice muffled by the gas mask. Mac put his hand on the shoulder of a sleeping man, slumped in his seat. His foot found another that had fallen into the aisle.
"Is the cockpit door closed?" he asked urgently.
"No, is open. The pilot sleeps and the co-pilot too," she answered. "What will you do to fly the plane?"
"Don't worry," he said cheekily. "You're going to fly it."
"I!" she gasped from behind her mask. "I do not fly planes!"
"I do," he assured her. "I'll just need a little help reading the instruments."
She punched him lightly on the shoulder in disgust. "We tie up these…?"
"Yeah, I'm sure the autopilot is set for now. Let's make sure this crowd doesn't have a party when they wake up, shall we?" he said.
"Yes, no party," she agreed, and they set to work finding enough twine, rope or tape to tie each man to his seat and tape his mouth. From their hair, it felt as though there were two white guys and five black guys. Mac wondered again where they were from and who they were working for.
They lifted the two pilots to seats and tied them as well.
"MacGyver, crates up here have medical supplies and relief worker food," she told him.
"They must have hijacked this plane, then," said Mac thoughtfully. "Where would Aid worker supplies be going?"
"Somewhere in Africa?" she suggested.
"Ethiopia," he suggested. "The famine there has devastated the country, although in '86 they were saying the worst of it was over. I think they are still sending aid."
He felt his way forward into the cockpit. "We need to figure out where they were headed with us."
A/N: If you've gotten this far with me can I ask a favor? Write a review, pretty please? Let me know what you thought. :)