Page 67 of Be Courageous
“What kind of favor?”
“I need you to fly me to Myrtle Beach tonight, right now. It’s a matter of life and death.” He stepped into his Levi’s one leg at a time.
“Whose death?”
“Mine.” Considering his life wouldn’t be worth living if anything happened to McKenzie, it was only a slight exaggeration. His father heaved a sigh. Miles buttoned his jeans and pulled the zipper up. “Yes or no? I don’t have much time.”
“Fine. I’ll meet you at the airport in half an hour.”
Pleasantly surprised, Miles pressed his luck. “Any chance you can make that twenty minutes?”
“I’ll try.” His father hung up on him.
Stowing his phone in his rear pocket, Miles turned toward his closet to pack a bag. Having no idea what he was up against, he tossed a hodgepodge of clothing into his black duffel, along with a dozen spare magazines for his Glock, just in case.
Then he fetched his shaving kit and toothbrush from the bathroom. For the first time in years, the young man looking back at him didn’t look depressed.
“Please God.” He spoke the words aloud, even as goose bumps sprouted on his forearms. “Keep her safe until I’m there to protect her.”
* * *
Miles had to give the old man credit. He’d filed a flight plan, fueled up, and completed a preflight check by the time Miles joined him in the cockpit of his Beechcraft Bonanza.
Drake eradicated Miles’s feelings of goodwill by cutting him an impatient look. “Took you long enough. Let’s go.”
Like it was Dad’s idea to fly to Myrtle Beach at four in the morning.
The clear, crisp weather alleviated a portion of Miles’s concerns as the two-seater ascended into the predawn sky and banked south. A full moon and a tail wind blowing out of the north would get them to South Carolina in two hours.
“Are you going to tell me what this is about?”
The impatient question came one hour into the flight. Miles had hoped the audio on the headset he was wearing wasn’t working. Apparently, it worked fine. His father had just waited until they were three thousand feet up in the air to interrogate him. Typical.
Miles kept his gaze fixed on the thin veil of moonlit clouds. “Nope.”
“Does this have anything to do with your current assignment?”
Miles spent his weekdays down in Freeport, Bahamas, posing as a yacht salesman in an FBI-coordinated effort to curb drug smuggling out of the Caribbean and into the United States. “Nope.”
“Did you tell your mother anything?”
Miles whipped his head around. “I left her a note.” He fought to keep his resentment from bubbling up, but it boiled over suddenly. “Which is more than you did when you abandoned her.”
His father sighed, tiredly. “You have no idea what happened with me and your mother.”
“I don’t need to know.”
Dad went back to fiddling with his instruments. Miles studied him out the side of his eye. Where his father was tall and broad shouldered, Miles had inherited his mother’s petite stature along with a baby face that made him ideal for undercover jobs but sometimes kept people from taking him seriously, his father included. Considering his older half-sister was a fearless CIA case officer, Miles often doubted he would ever measure up.
Focusing back on the indigo sky, he marveled at the brilliance of the stars. God created the stars for a purpose, just as He’d created Miles for a purpose. If that was to rescue McKenzie Jones from the remnants of the Centurion Cohort, then so be it. God willing, they could finally be together again.
Please, Lord.I don’t like to trouble You with much, but this is important.
An hour and a half later, the two-seater came to a standstill at Myrtle Beach International Airport. The sky was just beginning to lighten. Worry simmered in Miles’s stomach. McKenzie had been alone all this time.
As the single-piston engine wound down, he hung up his headset and unbuckled his seat belt. At least her hotel was just a ten-minute drive away.
As he left the cockpit, he tossed over his shoulder, “Thanks for the ride.”