Disclaimer: I don't own Human Target and intend no copyright infringement.
A/N: I rewrote this about five million times because IT JUST DIDN'T SOUND RIGHT. Still not sure it does now…
"Plan is working!", Chance told Ames as they headed down the runway, split seconds before take-off.
"I'm not sure I like the sound of that…" Ames tried to play it cool – after practically pleading with him to be taken along she could hardly complain about any dangers, could she? – but secretly she checked if her seatbelt was really fastened. Somehow she had the feeling this was going to be a hell of a ride.
Chance pointed backwards and now Ames noticed it, too. An airplane just as small as their own was in close pursuit. It was camouflage, obviously of military origin.
"Don't tell me the Venezuelan police has access to airplanes! What was that with the poor funding?" Ames checked her seatbelt again, this time a lot less secretly.
"Aaron's information must be pretty explosive…"
Chance had hardly said it when the camouflage plane started shooting at them. Actually SHOOTING at them! No cannons or rockets, of course, but the machine guns on both sides of the aircraft looked totally sufficient to shatter them into pieces.
Oh hell, and they hadn't even made it off the ground yet. What in the world had she been thinking, begging to get on board of this plane? Ames decided to blame the romantic movie night she had had with her friends lately… all those highly dramatic climaxes, with thunderous orchestra music in the background.
Damn, Winston was right, TV really had a bad influence on people.
On the other hand, could she really sit comfortably in the jet while Chance…?
No. Flat no.
They were reaching the end of the tarmac now. Chance pulled the stick backwards, accelerated a little more…
Ames said a silent Hail Mary.
If they got hit during take-off…
Okay, granted, the idea of getting hit while being in the air wasn't exactly appealing either.
Luckily whoever was on board of the other plane was apparently busy with taking off unharmed, too, and they made it into the sky without a bullet hole in the tank or other vital parts of the engine.
The thick rain clouds that had been gathering above the city all day, in combination with the heat creating a horribly humid weather, were finally good for something – they'd help them disappear, at least for a few precious moments.
Or so Ames thought…
"I've never been into this girl scout kind of thing, and I really know zilch about this whole moss-grows-on-the-east-side-of-the-tree-bark thing, but are you heading towards the city? In plain sight?
"We need to get them off Aaron's trail, Ames. And off Ilsa's, for that matter. If it comes to light that she provided a fugitive with a jet…" Chance checked the plane's controls. "This is better kept than I originally thought… This is a restored Messerschmitt Bf 109G-2 from World War II!"
He fell silent, as if contemplating something.
With shining eyes.
"You've got that look on your face, Chance…"
Ames couldn't quite lay a finger on it, but his expression reminded her of someone who had just gained a whole new perspective on something.
An exciting new perspective.
Sure enough he broke his contemplative silence a second later. "Ready for a lesson in history?", he asked with a boyish grin on his face.
Of course he didn't really wait for a reply.
Ames clutched the co-pilot's seat and she didn't give a damn whether he noticed or not.
Chance forced the small plane to climb as fast as it could, then suddenly applied full rudder and yawed it around. This put their aircraft facing down at the camouflage one and would have been a great position for a high speed diving attack – if they had been armed… but Chance had hijacked a civil aircraft…
"This maneuver is called an Immelmann!", he happily informed Ames.
"I'd call it INSANE MAN!"
Instead of an answer, Chance pulled back on the stick and brought the plane up into a brief climb. Then he suddenly eased the stick to the right… and the plane started to roll over! While continuing to pitch upward!
Whoever the other engine's pilot was, he knew how to handle his vehicle – he started rotating around them, spiraling along a flat line, just in bigger circles, firing at them whenever he was level with the horizon line.
"STOP ENJOYING THIS!" Ames yelled at Chance as the aircraft began to shake violently.
So much for her resolution to play it cool. Everybody has limits…
"We're doing fine, Ames! It's almost impossible to get hit while rotating..."
The angry hiss of some sort of wiring, suddenly disrupted by a bullet, made him stop in mid-sentence.
"Well, of course, there's always a tiny chance that…"
Ames turned around for a brief second to check what exactly had gotten hit. Then she noticed the plane was shifting again and she turned her attention back to Chance. "What are you up to now?"
"Well, we need to get rid of them somehow, don't we?"
A bridge appeared in the distance, and they were heading straight towards it.
"That's the Viaduct 1, part of the Caracas-La Guaira-Highway. Total length 1.013,6 ft, arch span 498,3 ft, height above water 230 ft, deck width 70 ft. Should be sufficient…"
"First a history lesson, now architecture? Are you channeling Winston or something? Just because I did a little bit of research to get prepared doesn't meant I'm suddenly into learning by doing! And how the hell do you know…?" Ames stopped herself. "Hang on, what do you mean by sufficient?"
His grin grew broader.
"Chance, NO. No, you're not… GAAAAAAAH!"
Engine roaring, wings quivering, Chance dove through one of the bridge's arches, almost touched water, brought the plane into a steep climb again.
"You said you'd crash with me!"
"That was a figure of speech!" Ames was clawing at her seatbelt so hard, they'd probably need a crowbar to pry them off ever again. And then she felt it…
Chance rolled the plane over once more and turned it around again, passing above the bridge now in a drawn out loop and heading in the direction where they had been coming from. The pilot of the other aircraft apparently couldn't mirror that maneuver, he kept on flying straight ahead.
She felt the adrenalin rush through her veins. The feeling she used to have after cracking a highly complicated safe, pulling off a dangerous gig or barely escaping Guerrero's wrath after messing something up again.
Good Lord, she hadn't had that feeling in a long time.
Now, their line of business provided them with lots of dangerous situations, but this here, this was different, this was… cool…crazy… Chance…
Chance risked a glance at her, noticed her eyes shining with sudden excitement, her breath quickening… she liked this… his smile grew, and this time not because of the adrenalin.
For a long while they were both silent, no sounds but the intense rattling and roaring of the engine. Slowly Ames' heart rate normalized. Rational thinking set in. The plane had roared from the very beginning, hadn't it? She guessed airplanes from the Second World War were that loud. At least they didn't sound much different in those old black and white movies she and Chance sometimes watched.
When it was his turn to choose the movie.
"The first part was a figure of speech, you know", Ames finally said. "The part about the crashing. The other one… I meant that…"
At this very moment something in the back of the plane first made a cracking, then a sharp hissing and then a crackling sound.
"So you'd be mad with me if we really crashed?", Chance asked.
Ames opened her mouth, but before she really had a chance to reply, he continued:
"I'm aiming for a small island the locals call Isla Mapache. If we make it there, let's call it a less than perfect landing, okay?"
"IF?"