The Rose Ransom (Girls Wearing Black: Book Three) by Spencer Baum Page B

road to the east, to the north, to the south…
    No, there was something coming
from the south end of the strip. The reflection of the runway was so bright it
was hard to see. Nicky cupped her hand over her eyes and tried to get a better
view.
    A car. A van. A black van. There
was a black van driving across the tarmac.
    She went back to her phone and
brought up the whole message from Jill.
    Code Orange.  Have the pilot
take you to a different airport. You will have trouble waiting for you when you
land.
    “The wireless,” Nicky whispered.
    “What’s that?” said Ryan.
    “They wanted to make sure no one
could tip me off.”
    “Tip you off? What are you
talking about?”
    She undid her seat belt.
    “Nicky, I think they like you to
keep your seat belt on until the plane…hey, where are you going?”
    She ran to the front of the
plane, where Heather was strapped into a chair on the wall.
    “I’m sorry Sweetie,” Heather
said, “but the rules are you have to stay--”
    “Tell the pilot to take off
again. I’ve changed my mind. I want to go to a different airport.”
    “A different airport? I don’t
know that we can do that.”
    “I’m the girl wearing black.
This is my plane. Tell the pilot to go back to the runway now and take off.”
    Flustered, Heather undid her
seat belt, got out of her chair, and grabbed a phone on the wall.
    “The passenger wants to go to a
different airport,” she said.
    Nicky couldn’t hear what the
captain was saying back to her, but she knew what the answer was.
    “The pilot says we’ll need to
refuel and get clearance to take off again,” the attendant said. “It will be at
least two hours.”
    Clearance. That was the sticking
point. Nicky wasn’t really in charge of this plane. Neither was the pilot.
Someone from the Samarin clan had given the order that this plane wasn’t going
anywhere.
    She ran back to her seat.
    “Nicky, what the hell’s going on
with you?” Ryan said.
    Ignoring him, she pressed her
face to the window. The black van was a hundred yards away and closing. She
went to the other side of the plane and looked out that window.
    “Clear on this side,” she said.
    “You know you’re acting like a
crazy person, don’t you?” Ryan said.
    “Listen to me,” she said,
getting close to Ryan and looking him in the eye. “We’re in big trouble. I
don’t have time to explain everything, but there’s a black van out there
waiting to take us away. When this plane comes to a stop, a team of men in gas
masks is going to come inside and flood the cabin with knockout gas.”
    “Knockout gas?” Ryan’s eyes
drifted down to the phone in Nicky’s hand, then he turned and looked out the
window. “Nicky, this is an airport. Vans like that…maybe it’s just for luggage
or something.”
    “It’s not for luggage,” Nicky
said, reminding herself that Ryan had no context for any of this. He grew up in
a mansion in Potomac. He had no more idea about the black vans that stole
people away than little Nicky Allen knew about Coronation contests and girls
wearing black.
    “What kind of trouble are you in
here, Nicky?”
    “It’s not just me,” Nicky said.
“They’ll take all of us.”
    She was looking around for
something she could use as a weapon, but there was nothing to be found. It was
an airplane, after all, with all the usual security. No knives, no guns, not even
a pair of scissors.
    “What do you mean take both of
us?” Ryan said. “What’s happening?”
    “We’re going too slow,” Nicky
said. “Feel that? The plane is about to stop. We’re nowhere near the airport.”
    “Sometimes we have to stop
during our taxi to the gate,” Heather said. She was speaking in a soothing
voice, the way one might talk to a crazy person.
    “They’re going to take you too,”
Nicky said to her.
    “I’m sorry, what?” said Heather.
    Nicky was standing in the middle
of the aisle now. She had nothing in her hands. The plane had come to a dead
stop in the middle