Smithy woke up to somebody shaking his shoulder firmly.
“Mr Smith. Mr Smith!”
He looked up to see Sasha the flight attendant looking down at him and wearing a tight smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “We’ve arrived.”
Smithy opened his mouth to speak and felt the drool on his chin. He nodded and wiped it away, embarrassed. How much had he had to drink? His paranoia started to kick in. The little voice in the back of his head that worried about what he’d done while drinking himself into a state of unconsciousness. Some deep-seated instinct prompted him to check that he was still wearing trousers and that their zip was closed. Two for two.
He was having trouble processing. His head felt as if it were filled with chewing gum. It didn’t hurt exactly – it was more that he felt numb. He’d heard that really good whiskey didn’t give you a hangover, but he’d always thought that was a myth pushed by people trying to sell you thousand-dollar bottles of the stuff. His throat felt sore and scratchy, and his mouth was dry. He ran his tongue around it, searching for moisture.
As he tried to take mental stock, he watched Sasha shaking Diller by the shoulder to wake him up. That was wrong. That was … What was wrong with that? Something. He was having trouble putting thoughts together.
WAKE UP. TROUBLE.
Oh Christ, not you. I don’t need a speech about the dangers of drinking from my imaginary friend.
WE’RE NOT FRIENDS. YOU’RE NOT DRUNK.
And then they were moving. Smithy was on his feet and behind Diller as they were both shuffled off the airplane. Hands were pushing them, and then they were outside on some steps. Coming from the plane’s air-conditioned interior, the hot air hit like a slap in the face. It was dry, arid. It irritated his already scratchy throat. He clenched his eyes shut to protect them from the dazzling sunlight.
“Wow,” said Diller, in a slightly slurred voice. “Hawaii looks different to what I expected.”
WAKE UP, IDIOT!
Smithy shook his head and pushed past Diller to get a better view. He looked around, soaking it all in. Allowing the wave of growing panic to clear his senses. “That’s because this isn’t Hawaii. Where the hell are we?”
Smithy felt something push against his back and found Muroe standing there, looking dishevelled. “Where the hell are we?” she asked.
“That’s a really good question,” said Smithy.
As far as the eye could see was sand. Not beach – desert. The only thing breaking it up was a hangar at the other end of the runway that looked all but abandoned.
“Look,” said Diller, pointing at a cloud of dust rising from the direction of the sun.
A vehicle, or vehicles.
Smithy didn’t need the voice to tell him this was all wrong. His head had been cleared by the sound of internal alarm bells. He turned around to go back into the airplane, and was only just able to catch Muroe before she fell over. Reed had been roughly shoved out of the airplane and into her by two men who Smithy assumed were the pilot and co-pilot.
“What in the—?”
Apparently they weren’t taking questions. They slammed the door closed behind him.
“Where the hell are we?” said Reed, in a voice that proved it was possible to mumble and shout at the same time.
“That’s a popular question,” said Diller.
Smithy pushed past Reed and pounded on the aircraft’s door. “Open up! What the fuck!”
In response, the aircraft started to reverse, causing the stairs to lurch alarmingly to the left.
“Oh, no you don’t,” hollered Smithy. He grabbed the handrail on the stairs and used it to pull himself up, before clambering across Reed’s back. Using him as a springboard, he propelled himself onto the top of the plane. He overshot, and was in danger of skidding off the other side, until his scrabbling fingers found a handhold and he was able to steady himself.
Smithy was aware of Diller calling his name, but he was focused entirely on the task in hand. He managed to manoeuvre his body and slide it down the brow of the plane so that he could see into the cockpit, albeit while he was upside down. The two men inside wore satisfyingly shocked expressions as he appeared.
“What the hell are you doing?” roared Smithy. “Open that door, now! You can’t leave us in the middle of nowhere.” He thumped his fist on the glass.
The two men appeared to be arguing. The younger one pointed at Smithy, but his older, balder colleague didn’t look up. Instead, he pressed a button on the control console and water squirted onto the windshield.
This enraged Smithy further. “You monumental asshole. What I’d give for a hammer! I’m going to find you and set every individual remaining hair on your head on fire. Then I’m moving on to the rest of the hair on your body and …”
Smithy was interrupted by a wiper hitting him in the face.
“Agh, you …” He could feel himself start to slip. “No, no, no!”
As he slid down the windshield, he saw the bald guy waving at him while the younger guy shook his head in disbelief.
Smithy’s scrabble for a handhold proved fruitless on this occasion. All he could do was angle his body so he hit the ground in the safest way possible. Despite his best efforts, his skull took a sickening whack as he fell onto his back. There might have been sand as far as the eye could see but still he had managed to hit concrete. He was having that sort of a week.
The landing knocked the wind out of him. He lay there, trying to breathe, and looked up into the clear blue sky. A large bird flew overhead. It was especially large. Smithy had never seen one in the flesh but he would bet it was a vulture.
Diller’s concerned face blocked his view. “Are you OK?”
“Yeah, I’m …” He took Diller’s proffered hand and was hauled to his feet. Smithy had been so consumed by his attempt to hijack a plane from the outside that he hadn’t noticed the vehicles that had arrived.
Two Humvees and what could best be described as a dune buggy surrounded them. They’d all been modified and they were going for a particularly distinctive motif. Smithy shook his head, as if that might rearrange reality into a more normal configuration.
Reed and Muroe were looking back at him. Beyond them, standing against the lead Humvee was a face Smithy vaguely recognised. Last time he had seen it, it had been sitting on the back of a quad bike, looking bored as it waited for a leprechaun hunt to start. The man had sandy hair, in a standard side-parting cut that probably cost a fortune despite achieving essentially the same look Smithy got for ten bucks.
He was athletic in that “has done some rowing” way prep boys often have. He was somewhere in his thirties and handsome, if you were able to look past a weak chin and a strong sense of entitlement. He didn’t look bored now. He was grinning from ear to ear.
Behind him, in stark contrast, stood a half-dozen large men who did not look as if they’d spent a lot of time at the polo club. They resembled the clientele of the worst bar you had ever been in, if they’d been dragged through a bondage shop and a weapons fair. Several of them were wearing face paint. There were quite a lot of shoulder pads, a good deal of leather, and one honest-to-god codpiece. It would have been funny had it not been for the amount of weaponry that accessorised it. Guns were much in evidence, but there was also at least one sword and a couple of spiked cudgels.