Free Flight 12 to Rome: A Nick Bracco Novella by Gary Ponzo

fascination with his team.
    “They’ve been training for over a year, Agent Bracco. I wouldn’t expect anything less from them.”
    “Sure,” Nick said, glancing overhead at the empty skies above them.
    “There are no flights scheduled to cross these skies for the next five days,” Bennett added. “Satellites don’t cover this area for another fifteen hours. That’s probably twelve hours more than we need.”
    Bennett began walking to the open door of the fenced-in area. A large five-thousand-foot square of dirt surrounded by an extremely secure chain-link fence. The rest of the passengers looked at Nick impatiently, as if he was their hope to surviving the situation.
    Once inside the cage, Bennett shut the door and Nick spotted a black box attached to the lock. On the box was an LED with a countdown flashing across its screen starting from 3:00 hours and counting down by the second, 2:59:59, 2:59:58 . . .
    “What’s with the countdown?” Nick asked.
    “Not to worry,” Bennett assured him. “Once the timer counts down to zero, that lock will unlatch and you will be free to start up the jet and fly away. It will give us plenty of time for our escape.” He pointed to a stack of water bottles in the center of the facility next to a large cardboard box. “There’s also water and snacks to keep you nourished before you resume your flight to Rome.” Again Bennett looked at Jess as he said, “Just another consideration I’ve added to the mix.”
    Once again Jess furiously jotted down annotations into her notebook. Everything seemed normal. There were no guards with machine guns, ordering people around. It seemed as if the entire operation was designed to keep the passengers behaving in an orderly fashion, and therefore less time was wasted on the process of leaving.
    There was a loud whining noise coming from the Gulfstream as the engines came to life. The rest of Bennett’s team began boarding as Kyle Church remained behind Bennett, almost as his personal bodyguard.
    “Mr. Bennett,” Nick said, “you’re not D.B. Cooper. You will be found.”
    The CEO turned to Nick and smiled. He patted the inside pocket of his jacket presumably where he’d kept the device “Agent Bracco, you have my sincerest sympathy.”
    Nick didn’t like that comment. He turned to see the gathering of passengers all milling around him like a magnet. There were very few young children. Mostly older people and families. They stared at the timer and spewed a cacophony of ideas out there:
    “We need to kick at the poles until one of them gives.”
    “What if that thing’s really a bomb?”
    “We can dig a hole with our shoes and tunnel our way out.”
    Nick held up a hand. “Please, people,” he said loudly, “we’ll be fine.”
    A crowd of younger men were gathering along the side of the fence facing the tarmac, their hands gripping the metal wires to gauge its strength.
    “Relax,” Nick shouted over the noise. “Please, there’s no reason for panic.”
    “How do you know?” one of them yelled. “Who put you in charge?”
    That only started a larger shouting match.
    Kirk Weston emerged from the crowd and came up to Nick. “Things are not what they appear.”
    “How’s that?” Nick asked.
    “See those trees over there?” Weston pointed to a couple of lone palm trees just outside the perimeter of the fence. “Those pale marks on their trunks are water lines.”
    Jess seemed to understand even before Nick did. “Oh no,” she uttered, putting her notebook by her side for the first time since the takeover.
    “What?” Nick asked.
    Weston said, “We’re currently at low tide.”
    That’s when it hit Nick. He looked up and saw the height of the top of the fence. It was easily three feet below the water marks on the trees.”
    “Jeesh,” Nick said, then looked at the timer. “That thing is nothing but a timer.”
    “That’s all it is,” Weston said. “Once high tide comes in, we’ll all drown. That timer is