Chapter 36

Quickly putting her gun in the waistband at the back of her jeans Mac stepped into the hall. "Oh good, you found my kid," she said raising her hands to show she was unarmed.

With one hand still holding Laurel, the man pointed the automatic rifle that had been slung over his shoulder at Mac. "Where the hell has she been this whole time?" the man snarled.

Recognizing one of the three that had found her in the playroom, she told him the truth, "I had just hidden her in the toy box before you found me!"

"We had no reports of another child on the flight!" he growled.

"Well, you didn't know that the President had his girlfriend on board either, did you? Susie just comes along as a playmate for Kenny's daughter," Mac informed him, hoping Laurel would realize how important this was and play along.

Seeing the rebellious glint in the girl's eye right before she opened her mouth to refute what Mac had just said, Mac quickly tried to defuse the situation, "In fact, she even steps in to pretend to be his kid when necessary."

"I do NOT! I am Laurel Kennex!" Laurel hotly declared.

"Yeah, sure you are kid!" the man laughed derisively. Focusing on Mac once again, he demanded over the child's protests, "None of that explains why you aren't in the conference room with the others."

As Mac was trying to come up with something the man would believe, gunshots could be heard in the front of the plane. Clutching the child close to him, the hijacker looked around, anxiously trying to figure out what was going on.

Knowing she needed to get Laurel out of this situation as quickly as possible, Mac said, "You know she's not really much of a shield if bullets are going to be flying. She's much too small, why don't you take me instead?"

Laurel looked at Mac as if she couldn't believe what she'd just heard. Oh sure, she knew that the secret service agents were there to protect her and her family. However, nothing like this had happened before so it had been all just words up to this point. But now, here was someone that she'd treated badly, lied about and tried to keep away from her father, and Mac had hidden her from the bad guys, brought her food, and then, when she'd gotten herself caught because she hadn't listened and had gotten out of the box to go to the bathroom, Mac was still trying to save her! Agent Mackenzie had lied about who she was to protect her, and was now offering to take her place in front of the bad guy so she didn't get shot!

The sounds of the gunshots were coming closer as the man holding Laurel tried to decide what to do. Around the corner came two armed hijackers, running and looking for a way to escape the agents after them. When they came on the unexpected scene in the hall, they froze trying to assess the situation.

Praying that for once the child would listen to her, Mac yelled, "Laurel drop!" She was pleasantly surprised when the little girl did just that. Mac already had her gun drawn by the time Laurel hit the floor, and she unhesitantly put a bullet between the man's eyes, then spun to face the other two men.

As she did, a shot rang out and one man fell to the floor clutching his chest. The other was looking at the President's girlfriend as if she'd grown two heads. He recovered enough to raise his gun toward her, but he wasn't fast enough. Mac pumped two shots into his heart before he could get his gun level.

Seconds later agents came around the same corner led by Rogers. Mac smiled at them and asked for a progress report. It seemed that Air Force One was once again back in the hands of the good guys.

"We figured that you'd like to call the President yourself and let him know all is well…after all you are his…girlfriend!" Rogers smiled at her and said with a laugh.

To be continued…..