Excerpt of On Wings of Deliverance by Elizabeth White

Yucatán Peninsula, Mexico

"So there I am, all fat, dumb and happy —" Owen Carmichael ducked under the Cessna to check the propeller mechanism " — when my bird's engine goes out and I see the ground coming at me like a pie in the face."

Kyle Garrett, the fifteen-year-old missionary kid helping Owen with preflight inspection, gently set down the sand crab he'd been playing with. "So what'd you do?" His freckled face was alive with curiosity.

"About fifty feet off the ground, I pull the nose up real quick, like you rein in a horse. Hand me that wrench, would you?" Owen gestured toward the tool chest sitting on the sand near the boy's feet. "Then I adjust in the opposite direction so the tail won't slam into the ground. The wind creates enough lift on the blades to slow the landing."

"Man, that's so cool that you can fly a chopper and a plane." Kyle squatted under the wing to watch Owen work. "I'm gonna take flying lessons when I go back to the States for college."

"Tell you what, next trip down here I'll take you up for a lesson." Deep under the belly of the plane, Owen squinted into the bright sunlight that flooded the beach, which also functioned as a makeshift airstrip.

From Owen's perspective, the kid didn't have much to complain about. The Gulf of Mexico lay just twenty yards away, and the ocean spray left a pleasant salty taste on his lips. He wished he had a few more days to spend here before heading back to the south Texas desert.

Unfortunately, his vacation time was up. As a United States Border Patrol agent/BORSTAR specialist, he'd been uniquely qualified to make this supply run down to the coast of the peninsula for Mission Aviation Fellowship. He was glad to do it, not least because of the excuse to check up on Bernadette Malone. Benny had been here for a month as a hurricane-relief volunteer, and he'd missed her — more than he would admit to anyone but himself.

"Hey, Owen?" Kyle's voice cracked on the upswing.

"Hasn't Benny been driving my dad's old Jeep?"

Owen turned his head, leaning down to keep from putting a dent in his forehead. All he could see were Kyle's bare knobby knees and the waves breaking on the beach. "Yeah, why?"

"I think that's her, coming in from the village." Owen yanked a bolt. "Guess she wanted to say goodbye one more time." Ha, wishful thinking. Benny's goodbye to him this morning in the cafeteria had been sleepy — cranky to the point of hostility. She was not a morning person.

"She must be in an awful hurry. I've never seen her do more than thirty, and she's spitting sand, driving like a maniac." Kyle crab-walked out from under the wing.

Owen pushed clear of the plane and stood up, sliding his shades onto his face. "Wow. Look at her go." The Jeep dodged in a zigzag pattern worthy of a stunt driver in an action film. Bernadette was the most cautious woman he knew. What would make her drive like this?

The Jeep skidded to a halt on the inland side of the beach, parallel to the plane's takeoff path. Benny hopped out and tore across the sand, arms and legs pumping and her long, curly hair flying like a black flag.

"Owen! I'm so glad you're still here!" She ran past him and yanked open the plane's passenger door.

"What are you doing?" Owen exchanged glances with a wide- eyed Kyle, then snagged Benny around the waist before she could clamber into the plane.

She shoved at his hands and seemed to notice Kyle for the first time. Her eyes widened. "Kyle, get out of here! Take the Jeep — head for the jungle!"

Kyle just gaped at her.

Owen grabbed her shoulders. "What's the matter with you?"

Her breath hissed through her teeth. "I'll explain when we're in the air. Owen, get me out of here! I don't want Kyle seen with me. Please, make him go!"

Owen couldn't see Benny's eyes behind her mirrored sunglasses. Her dark-olive skin was pasty.

"Owen!" Struggling to pull away, she burst into tears.

"Okay, okay." Bewildered, he let her go. "Kyle, take the Jeep off the road and head home the back way. I'll find out what's the matter and bring her later."

Kyle saluted and loped off toward his father's old vehicle.

Benny took a couple of hiccuping breaths. "There's a man trying to kill me. He said he was FBI —"

"What?" Was she kidding? Benny had a great sense of humor, but she rarely pulled practical jokes.

"She said they're coming after us both. You've got to take me with you!"

"Benny —" He shook his head. "I've got flight regulations. And you're supposed to stay for another two months, right?"

"Yes, but they'll just have to understand. Please, Owen, he's right behind —" She gasped and looked over Owen's shoulder, her face gray. "Here he comes! Come on, we've got to go!"

Owen turned. A dark-green Land Rover approached from the direction Benny had come. Something that looked a lot like a gun glinted in the sunlight just over the vehicle's windshield.

Good night. "Benny, we've gotta get out of here."

"Ya think?" She turned, gathering the folds of her full floral skirt in one hand. Impractical in many ways but she was always careful to comply with the missionary dress code — modest tops, skirts past the knees and nothing tight. No pants.

Owen gave her a hand up into the plane, stowed the steps, then ran around to the pilot seat. He had just started the engine when something pinged off the wing with a screech of metal on metal.

Bullets.

He was used to smugglers along the border getting excited about their little enterprises being busted up. But down here in paradise, you weren't supposed to get hurt — except maybe by renegade jellyfish.

Another round hammered the plane as it taxied. Increasing speed, Owen checked to make sure Benny was buckled in. At least she had that much sense. He put on his headphones and gestured for her to do the same.

Adjusting the elevators, he taxied faster and faster. The airstream caught the wings and the plane took to the sky, leaving the Land Rover on the beach.

Owen turned to Benny. She sat with her head back against the seat, fairly green around the mouth. "Now. You wanna tell me what that was all about?"

"Mom! Dad!You won't believe what just happened!" Stacy Garrett, missionary nurse and wife of Dr. Wes Garrett, glanced over her shoulder when she heard the voice of her son, Kyle, shouting from outside the one-room clinic. She calmly held the thermometer in little Julio Carillo's mouth. Kyle got exited about the silliest things.

"In here, son," Wes called, meeting Stacy's gaze with twinkling eyes. "What's the matter?"

Kyle tore into the room, swinging on the doorjamb. "Benny just took off in Owen's plane!"

"Sweetie, we don't have time for your goofy jokes." Stacy patted the toddler's cheek. "Come get this bag of trash and take it out to the burn pile."

"Okay, but, Mom, I'm not kidding around. Did you know she was leaving today?" He walked over and grabbed the plastic bag under the window.

"Benny's got another two months before she goes back. Owen probably just took her up for a ride."

Kyle shook his head. "He was planning to leave as soon as he filed his flight plan. He was tinkering with something under the plane when she came tearing across the beach. She made me take the Jeep and come home the back way. She looked really scared, and she said —" he took a breath " — she didn't want me to be seen with her."

"I'm sure you misunderstood her." Wes paused over his patient, a woman with a tumor on her neck. "She'll be back later and explain what that was all about. Now do what your mother says and take out the trash."

Kyle reluctantly dragged the sack toward the door. "Okay, but I'm telling you something weird's going on. I heard some popping noises from the beach, like gunshots."

Wes dropped his stethoscope and gave Kyle a stern look. "Now you're being melodramatic. That Jeep's been backfiring for months. I don't want another word about it."

"All right." Kyle shrugged and hauled the trash over his shoulder. "But don't say I didn't tell you."

"What do you think's going on?" Stacy asked Wes as soon as Kyle was out of earshot. "There was that man who came to talk to Benny yesterday afternoon. She never said who he was or what he wanted."

"Benny's a very private young woman, Stace, but she's an incredible worker. It's not our place to interrogate her."

"It is if there's something wrong and we can help her. That's what the body of Christ is for. That man had a scary look in his eyes."

"And I think it's your overactive imagination. Give it a rest. Haven't you noticed the way Owen looks at Benny? What we've got here is some kind of courting ritual. I'm surprised you didn't see it."

Stacy rolled her eyes at her husband's smug look. "I didn't realize you were such a romantic. I'll leave it alone, but if she's not back here in a couple of hours, I'm calling her to make sure she's all right."

Benny had never been bothered by heights. Still, taking off while under fire was unnerving. And then there was the pilot....

Though reassured by his firm grasp of the control column, she found herself shaken by the way he looked at her. Those eyes, an unearthly gold-shot turquoise, always stuttered her brain.

Owen was a crack Border Patrol helicopter pilot. And she'd always been able to depend on him to help out at the orphanage back in Acuña. But how to explain what had sent her on this precipitate and dangerous exit from the village of Agrexco?

"Bernadette —" Owen's eyes narrowed as he turned his attention back to the control panel " — the FBI does not kill missionaries. And who's the 'she' that said they were after you?"

She cleared her throat. "I'm not sure who that guy was, but he wasn't FBI. I got an e-mail last night from an old friend saying that three of my oldest friends have died. I have to go back for — for the funerals."

"That's not the whole story, is it?"

Benny flinched at the hurt in his eyes. "Owen, I can't tell you everything. It's just too dangerous."

"More dangerous than some guy firing a submachine gun at us?"

He had a right to be indignant, but she couldn't formulate an answer that made sense. So she clamped her lips together and looked out the window. The bay underneath was blue and serene, and puffy clouds drifted past like a dream. How ironic.

Naturally, Owen wouldn't leave it alone. "What about the three friends dying all at once? How did that happen? Some kind of accident?"

"The e-mail wasn't very specific."

His mouth tightened. "Well, that's just great, Benny. People spill their guts to you all day long, but you never walk back across the bridge."

"What are you talking about?"

"I know exactly why you left Acuña to come all the way down to the Yucatán. You were afraid I was getting too close to you. Which is also why you've ignored me this whole week."

"I didn't ignore you! I was busy!" Benny clenched her hands. "We've had doctors and nurses and dentists needing translators and —"