Chapter 21: Welcome Back, Maximoff
Ditch
For that last fifteen minutes, Scott had avoided talking to Kevin as he began to look for a way out. The sun was slowly coming up. Scott guessed it was about 5:00 A.M. If the plane hadn't already left, it would be soon. Kevin was just a barrier he had to avoid.
"You need me," Kevin insisted. "If you leave me here to die, you'll never find Tina, much less the plane. My guess is that when you left, you neglected to plan how to get back to the plane."
"Shut up," Scott ordered.
Kevin smiled and chuckled a bit. "I thought not. I, on the other hand, have taken steps in case I was to get lost, which I am. I know how to get back to the plane and you'd be wise to use the knowledge to your advantage."
Scott didn't answer as he began to climb out of the ditch. Scott had managed to create footing in order to climb out. Scott leaned over and said, "If I find Tina in time, I'll come back for you, that is if I know for a fact that I have enough time for it."
"You don't really believe that," Kevin pointed out. "You may have gone to great lengths to try and kill me, but you won't this time."
"And why is that?"
"Heidi Carroll," Kevin said. "She saved my life and you didn't know what to do. If you did want to kill me, you could have done it after the raptors dispersed, but you didn't want to upset Heidi. Why is that? I asked myself that question. It's clear to me now. You love her. Pathetic, really."
Scott growled in anger before hopping down and punching Kevin twice in the stomach. "I don't need you to tell me how to live my life. I love Tina, not Heidi, and even if I did, you have no right to intrude into my private life."
"Why not?" Kevin asked. "I've already intruded on every other part of your life. Take my advice. Heidi is a much better girl than Tina. I say go back and be with Heidi. Tina was just a speed bump in your life. Trust me."
Scott growled in anger again. "Listen to me. I have never, nor will ever take your advice. I love Tina! Any feelings I do have for Heidi are superfluous at best. Tina is my one and only love. She's all I need and all you need is a slow and painful death. My only regret is that I won't be able to see you die. God bye, Kevin."
Kevin shook his head in disappointment as Scott climbed back up and began to walk off into the sunrise.
Alex's Office
Erik, Benji, and Max walked through the revolving door of the corporate office building. The place was empty, but it looked freshly deserted. "Are you sure this is right?" Benji asked.
"Positive," Max explained. "This Amadore guy is a slippery one, but he is only human. He's had made of maze of paper trails under his name. He clearly didn't want to be found. Unfortunately, Alex Amadore got a speeding ticket yesterday and must have forgotten to delete it."
"Still, Benji added. "He's very organized. Looks like he and his entire army left before we got here." Benji checked the billboard next to the elevator, which read: Alex's Office; 23rd Floor.
Max and Erik followed him into the elevator. They left the elevator and walked down the hall until they reached Alex's office. Erik opened the door, and there sat Alex Amadore.
Alex was wearing a black suit and had red hair. He was grinning. "Let me guess," he said. "You were the one's that decided to pay Lisa Davenport a little visit. Well, I might as well tell you the plan. Most villains do right before killing the hero. Kevin Davenport wants to be governor, and for a small fee, he'll get just that. He failed to get nominated four years ago and came to me for help. I told him to be appointed Henry's Chief of Staff. If Henry didn't nominate him for Lt. Governor next time, then I'd handle it."
"What were you planning to do?" Erik asked.
"I'm still planning on doing it," he explained. "I plan to kill Henry Gibson's Lt. Governor Erica Vasquez. She's out of town right now, but that really shouldn't matter. With only one day until the election, Henry would pick Kevin as his replacement. Then, we would kill Henry and Kevin would ascend to the governorship. Of course, we would wait until Henry gave us what we needed for our master plan until we killed him."
"Master plan?" Erik asked. "The one involving the deaths of Benji and my wife?"
"That part is unfortunate," Alex explained. "If Henry's original plan of killing the two mercenaries had worked, we wouldn't have to have gone to these measures. Benji and your wife would have lost. No casualties. Unfortunately, I didn't waste my entire life on my plan just to have it taken away."
"I hope you don't mind me asking," Benji began. Alex shook his head no. "What exactly is your master plan?"
"End of the world," he explained. "I planned to flood the world and destroy humanity. It's kind of ironic that I tried to spare Benji and Stephanie's lives as long as I could."
"Planned? Sounds like you're no longer in control," Erik pointed out.
"Very observant," Alex replied. "Don't bother asking me how I planned to do it, because I don't know. One of my field agents—the one that's done most of the research—has gone rouge. She has all of the information, not me."
"Name," Erik ordered. "What's her name?"
"Come now," Alex said joyfully. "I may be liberal, but that doesn't mean I have loose lips. I have morals, too. Just because she's gone AWOL doesn't mean I'm going to roll over on her. She's still working on the plan and if I were to stop her now, my plan is ruined." Alex hesitated. "But, I will tell you where your wife is. She's at an abandoned factory. I'll write down the address."
Alex wrote it down and handed it to Erik. Erik, in turn, handed it to Benji. "Go," he ordered. "Get Stephanie. I'm staying here. Alex hasn't told us everything and I'm not leaving until he does."
Benji gave Max a confused look, who shot the same look back. Eventually, they left the room. Erik took a seat across from Alex and placed his feet on his desk. Alex smiled. "If you plan on getting anymore information, you'll be here a long time."
"Fine by me," Erik replied. "I have all the time in the world."
Watch Tower
Heidi was shaking. She sat on what was left of the watchtower, where Scott Green was prepared to take his final stand. "He was ready to kill himself," Heidi whispered to herself. "He was ready to kill himself and he still put my life in front of anyone else's."
A tear rolled down Heidi's cheek. She couldn't bear thinking about him anymore. Heidi returned to the charter plane, but the cockpit door was closed. She didn't remember closing it. Heidi slowly tiptoed to the door and began to open it. Finally, Heidi pushed the door open to see that Paul Harris was no longer on the ground.
Paul was in the pilot's seat. "When did you wake up?" Heidi asked.
"Just right now," Paul explained. "The better question is, where are my passengers and crew members?"
"You've missed a lot," Heidi said. "Kevin Davenport is an impostor. We can leave without him. Dimitri and Janet promised to be back in an hour, and that was last night. As for Scott…"
"Never mind that," Paul interrupted. "Once they leave the plane, I'm no longer am responsible for their safety. We leave as soon as the back-up battery is charged. It should be enough to take us all the way to Brazil. We should be in the air within the hour."
"And leave everyone else?" she asked.
"I've been unconscious all night. The sun is coming up. If they don't get here soon, they don't get here at all. Like you said, the chances of anyone coming back are slim… except for Scott Green. Do you think he'll make it back?"
"No," she said as another tear came down her cheek. "We leave without Scott, too. I don't want to see him ever again."
River
Tina hadn't stopped running since leaving Janet behind. Nothing was following her, but she still didn't stop running. She was only getting herself even more lost. Finally, Tina arrived a river. It gave her time to assess the situation and figure out a way to get to the plane.
Tina began to look around for any identification on where she was. The sun was rising, so the stars wouldn't help her. She knew that the plane was a mile south from where she was, and there was no way that she could've ran a mile, so the plane must still have been south. Unfortunately, she didn't know where south was.
Tina guessed. She began to walk along the river until a box in the tree caught her eye. Tina moved closer and read: N-7. She smiled. Janet had told her that she and Dimitri had used the numbers on the cameras to find her, and that the plane was almost exactly in the middle. All she had to do was follow the camera's south until she saw the plane. Tina was ecstatic. She continued to walk down along the river until a noise caught her ear.
She was so close to safety. She couldn't let some dinosaur take her down now. She began to tiptoe closer so she could peek over on the other side of the tree. She moved closer and closer until she heard a snort. It was defiantly a dinosaur. Tina continued to move closer until the dinosaur was in full view.
Tina sighed. "It's just an anklyosaur," she reassured herself. "It's just an anklyosaur." She repeated the same thing over and over again until her heart stopped racing. She moved closer to the small dinosaur. "Some of you aren't so bad," she said as she bent down and began to pet it. "Some of you are actually really nice. I'll defiantly have a better appreciation for dinosaurs when I get back to Maryland."
Tina stood back up and turned around and she suddenly began to gasp for air. She looked down to see a hand holding onto a sharp piece of glass that was partially impaled in her stomach. She had been stabbed.
"You are going to die," he said. "You are going to die and I'm going to stand here and do nothing until you do. You've caused everything and you deserve every inch of pain that you will experience until you die."
Tina began to move her head up to see her attacker's face. Tina gasped in shock. It was Dimitri.