Beehag was gone.
Tony roared, and curled his hands in fists by his side, barely keeping himself from smashing out at the computers.
Scarlet crouched at the floor, and picked up something small. A hypodermic needle, it appeared. “A stimulant, as an anecdote to the tranquilizer?” she theorized.
“The helicopter,” Amber said urgently, tugging at Tony's arm as he muttered every curse word he knew.
Scarlet looked up sharply. “There's a helicopter?”
“We could get back and you could disarm the resort,” Amber said, full of hope.
Tony both loved the way her trust in him made him feel, and shuddered to think he might not be able to do as much as she thought he could.
“You can fly a helicopter?” There was that dubious tone in Scarlet's voice again–as if she doubted he could drive a car, or possibly even a bicycle.
“Yes,” he said, stung. It had been a while, but he had done well in all of his flight training. As long as it was one he'd flown before, so he didn't have the humiliation of having to check the manual for the location of the fuel pump controls.
Amber immediately led them out of the room and towards the back of the compound, scampering as gracefully in human form as she did as a cat. Scarlet somehow managed to walk briskly enough to keep up without sacrificing her dignity and breaking into a run. Tony loped along beside her, and they all scrambled up the rickety steps outside the warehouse to the rooftop landing pad.
It was a relief to find that was that it was a helicopter Tony had flown before, a common Bell 206, all sleek and glossy black.
It was less of a relief that the propellers already spooling up.
Jimmy was sitting on the far side, controls in hand, and Beehag was buckled in beside him, looking murderous and groggy. In his hand, pointed at them from the open cockpit, was a pistol. Tony strongly doubted that it was a tranquilizer.
If it had really been a spy movie, the words that Beehag was saying would have been something dramatic and threatening, but they were whipped away by the sound of the propellers coming to speed.
“We can't let him get away!” Amber shouted near his ear.
Tony cast about for something to stop him with, discarding the idea of throwing something into the propellers as too risky just as he realized that Beehag wasn't aiming at him, but at Amber, and that Amber was already sprinting for the helicopter as if she were going to wrestle him down with her sheer force of will.
Tony couldn't let her do that; no part of him was ready to lose Amber so soon after finding her again, and he went after her in a springing tackle, desperate to get her out of Beehag's sights. He caught her in two strides, wrapping his arms around her and rolling as he heard a heart-pounding pistol shot over the thump of the helicopter blades.
For a terrible moment that lasted far too long, he was sure he had moved too late, that she had been shot in his arms and the despair that washed over him was soul-deep and searing. Then she caught her breath, and squawked in protest. He remained atop her, knowing that Beehag would shoot again, and was surprised by a streak of motion.
Scarlet, he thought at first, but a second glance showed that Scarlet was at its tail, a steel handrail she had wrenched from the stairs in her hands as she dashed across the rooftop.
The first shape was the ocelot from the zoo, already swarming into the cockpit and launching itself, snarling, at Beehag's face. Wild shots drew Tony protectively down over Amber, who was sensibly curled beneath him this time.
When he looked up again, Scarlet was pulling an unconscious Beehag out of his straps. Jimmy, face bleeding, was weeping and holding his hands up in surrender. Shots had spider-webbed the windshield of the helicopter, but Scarlet appeared untouched. The ocelot was staggering out of the cockpit, blood dark on one spotted flank. It walked several steps and then sat to begin grooming itself stiffly.
Tony rose, shaking his head, as Scarlet gestured at Jimmy to get out of the cockpit.
“I'll need him,” he shouted at Scarlet. “He knows where the detonators are, and being with me at the resort with me, he'll have plenty of motivation to make sure they all get disarmed.” The pistol was lying on the floor of the helicopter and he checked it. “One shot left,” he said. Jimmy winced and cowered.
“I'll take that,” Amber said over the thump of the rotors, at his elbow. “You'll have to fly us, and I can handle a gun.”
“You have to stay here, where it's safer,” Tony said at once.
“You saw how well that worked last time,” Amber said with a cheeky smile.
Tony couldn't help himself, but had to lean down and kiss her before stridi
ng around for the pilot's seat while she scrambled into the back seat with a not-so-accidental clip to the side of Jimmy's head.
Scarlet had gathered up the panting ocelot, and ducked back to a safe distance as Tony took the helicopter up, quickly getting used to the controls and handling. A quick glance showed that Amber had the gun to Jimmy's head, looking a little blood-thirsty in her satisfaction.
Tony had to grin as they went aloft. She was in every way his perfect mate.