Uh-huh. Sure.
Rory couldn’t find any obvious injury, though it was hard to tell with such an unresponsive patient. He took off his jacket and used it to support Lincoln’s head so it wouldn’t droop to the side so much. He loosened the man’s shirt collar to make sure he could breathe.
Should he wake him up or let him rest? Deciding a conscious Lincoln would be more helpful, he rummaged in the first-aid kit for the smelling salts. It was a short snap-and-sniff ampule of ammonia inhalant that could wake someone from a fainting spell.
But not this time. Lincoln was out cold.
Rory downed a Tylenol to fight back against the pounding of his head. Time to figure out how much of this plane was left, and how to get in touch with civilization.
The cockpit was mostly intact, thank God. How had that happened? He remembered riding the air currents as they lost altitude…twenty-five thousand feet, then twenty, ten, five…a controlled plunge, as best he could manage.
But all his instruments were dead. No power, no backup power, no GPS. His phone. Where was his phone? He patted his pocket and finally located it. No connection, not even an SOS emergency level of service. When he pulled up his maps app, nothing filled in. It might as well say “here be dragons.”
How about time of day? He peered up at the bit of sky that he could see through the window. They’d left Los Angeles around eight in the morning, and it was a six-hour flight in the SyberJet. They’d probably crashed sometime around two in the afternoon, at a guess. Now it was most likely at least three. In the tropics it always got dark around six-thirty or seven, and it happened fast.
Should he try to hike out of here? What about Lincoln? He didn’t want to leave him alone. But he saw no other way to find help.
Not that hiking out was a good option; he had no idea what direction to go. He didn’t even know what island they were on. The farthest eastern island was Hawaii, also known as the Big Island, but they could have crashed on any of them. All he remembered was seeing a flash of lush green mountainside through a break in the clouds and yelling, “Brace yourself!”
After that there were images of trees lashing the exterior of the plane, a complete loss of any kind of control, a frantic mewing from the direction of copilot’s seat…and then nothing. He must have passed out.
Rory had never been in a crash before. How the hell had they even survived? All those tall jungle trees must have broken their fall.
“Thank you, trees,” he said out loud, then felt like an idiot.
Then said it again, because he meant it. “Thank you, you big, beautiful trees, whatever you are.”
He unbuckled his seat belt and carefully climbed out of the pilot’s seat. The plane didn’t shift as he moved; that was a good thing. Wherever they’d landed, they were stable and not dangling from some tree branch high off the ground. He pushed open the cockpit door and gingerly entered the main cabin. The rear of the SyberJet was completely destroyed, all the way to the middle of the cabin, where the cream leather seats were covered in glass and shards of metal.
The floor was a mess. The cooler by Lincoln’s seat had sprung open and some of Lincoln’s favorite lemongrass sodas were leaking. Pressure change? Pierced by something?
He bent to pick up an unopened can and realized he was extremely thirsty. Would Lincoln mind if he helped himself to his fancy beverages? Too bad if he did. He cracked it open and poured it down his throat. Damn, that stuff was good. Maybe it did pay to be a billionaire. Rory had always thought it seemed like a pain in the ass—he preferred regular people you could hang out with, not calculating sharks. But that lemongrass soda might make up for the unpleasant company.
Lincoln’s briefcase had also burst open in the crash; maybe he hadn’t closed it properly before he came into the cockpit. Papers were scattered across the cabin floor. Rory bent to gather them up, knowing that his boss would be horrified to see his most closely held secrets littering the carpet. He didn’t read them, since that would probably break one of the rules of his employment. He couldn’t put his finger on which one, but there was a whole chapter in his imaginary Billionaire Employee’s Handbook that focused on keeping your nose out of your boss’s business.
Anyway, the only thing that stood out was a blueprint. A blueprint for what, he had no clue. But apparently this doomed trip had something to do with a construction project. Oh well.
He stuffed all the papers back into Lincoln’s briefcase and closed it with a firm click.
What about the med kit? A promise was a promise, no matter how ridiculous it sounded.
He set down the briefcase and searched the area around Lincoln’s seat for the kit. As he recalled, it was a high-tech stainless steel box that could have held anything from pills to the nuclear codes.
He came up empty, until he checked inside the cooler. There it was—an unassuming stainless steel box about twice the size of a lunch box, with a handle. He tried to open it, but a red light blinked at him. A digital lock? Wow. Apparently this med kit was even more secure than Lincoln’s briefcase.
Maybe the key code was in the briefcase. He picked that up with his other hand...
And heard a voice.
Not Lincoln’s. A woman’s voice. And then a man’s, a low rumble.
“Hello?” called the woman. “Is anyone in there? Can anyone hear me?”
He froze for a moment. Was this a friend or a foe? A rescuer or a looter? He wanted to assume the best, but this was the deep jungle. Who would be wandering around out here? Were these some kind of jungle salvagers? He’d seen how avaricious people got when they came into contact with the extreme wealth of Lincoln Kerr.
And what about Lincoln, himself? How could Rory protect him? What about his last request? He wasn’t dead, but he might be soon. He seemed to be in some kind of coma. Rory had no idea how long something like that could last.
Then the cabin door was being pried open.
