Chase Baker and the God Boy: (A Chase Baker Thriller Series Book No. 3) by Vincent Zandri Page A

suddenly see her, standing in the exact
spot where I left her on the platform. Her arms crossed over her chest, her
green eyes glowing and filled with tears. I try to pull up the window, but it’s
stuck.
    “Elizabeth!” The train begins to
move along the rails, leaving the platform slowly behind. “Elizabeth…!”
    It’s no use. She didn’t miss the
train by accident, or because of the onrush of people. She did it on purpose.
She’s going back to Nepal. Going back to dig for the Golden Kali Statue.
    As the train begins to pick up
speed, I place my right hand on the glass of the window as my eyes fill with
tears. I am helpless, the loneliness settling into my sternum like a rock.
    “Elizabeth…”
    Raising her right hand to her
mouth, she blows me a gentle kiss.
    The train moves faster now and just
like that, she is gone along with the station. Vanished into nothing, but
engraved in my brain.
    My love is gone.
    In my heart, I know I will never
see her again…
    Then … a bang and the aircraft
shudders.
    Sleepy eyes go wide. Peering over
my left shoulder, I see something that takes a long moment to register. Precisely
because, it’s something I should not be seeing at thirty-three thousand
feet above sea level.
    The pilot with his hands wrapped
around Anjali’s throat.

 
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    Shake the cobwebs out of my head. It doesn’t take an Einstein
to know that someone slipped a mickey into my drink. That someone being the
friendly flight attendant.
    “O’ Kali!” The pilot is shouting. “O’
Kali mother!”
    There’s something going on with his
eyes. They are wide, unblinking, and glowing, like an energy from within is being
released. A bad energy. A wicked energy. Just the sight of them steals my
breath away.
    Slipping my hand inside my jacket for
my .45, it’s not there. Pilot took it off of me earlier. I could dig through my
jacket pocket for my Swiss Army Knife, but no time for that. Instead, I dump my
drink, crack it against the edge of a solid plastic and faux wood tray,
breaking the glass to form a crude knife. A swift kick knocks it out of my
hand.
    Raising my head, I see Beatrice staring
me down, her body having taken on the offensive posture of a black belt. Her
eyes have gone just as wide as the pilot’s, the whites glowing with rage. Is it
possible I’m caught up in a Tarantino movie and just don’t know it?
    Raising my hands, I try to reason. “I’m
sure we can work something out, Bruce Lee.”
    Before I have the chance to
register her left leg coming up, she swift kicks me in the jaw with a right
foot saddled in a black pump. I fall back, my head slamming against the
port-hole window. Groggy, I shake my head.
    “Does this mean the dinner service
is discontinued?”
    Reaching into her jacket, she pulls
out a knife. A twelve-inch fighting knife to be precise. Something an ISIS
assassin would brandish on the internet.
    “Kill her now,” she barks to the
pilot. “In the name of Kali, slice her throat.”
    The pilot produces an identical
knife from an ankle sheath, brings it to Anjali’s throat. Maybe it’s the
sharpness of the blade pressed up against the soft skin that wakes her. But her
eyes suddenly open.
    “You bastard!” she screams, bringing
her right knee up swift and hard, nailing the pilot in the sweet spot. Not even
his evil eyes can protect him from a swift kick to the balls.
    He shrieks, pulls the knife away.
    Beatrice comes after me with her
own knife, but I shift myself forward at the last possible moment. She lands in
the seat on her face and chest. Grabbing hold of her arm, I pull it behind her
back, bending it in a way God did not intend. The knife drops from her hand,
falls onto the seat. I pick it up, jump across the aisle, and bury the blade into
the pilot’s ribcage.
    He drops on the spot.
    “Chase!” Anjali shrieks.
    Turning, I spot a pistol barrel
staring me down. My own pistol poised in the hand of Beatrice,