Nighthawk (NUMA Files 14)

Kurt smiled and turned the key. The engine came to life instantly, the finely tuned machine a symphony to his ears. “Hope you brought a picnic basket.”

“Of a sort,” she said, opening the lid of a small plastic case.

Kurt peered inside. He saw a night vision scope, a black 9mm pistol and a belt with several spare magazines. Underneath, he saw a survival knife and several small demolition charges.

“You forgot the wine,” he said.

“That’s your job,” she joked.

Kurt laughed. He might not have brought wine, but the back of the Range Rover was filled with hiking equipment and tackle, if they needed it. In addition, he’d brought his own weapon: a Heckler & Koch HK45. The weapon was a lightweight tactical .45 caliber pistol; it had a ten-round capacity, a mini-flashlight on the lower rail and tritium sights.

He had brought three spare magazines, each loaded with a separate type of ammunition. The first carried soft-tipped hollow-points; the second carried a mix of standard shells and mini-tracers, specially fabricated by a gunsmith Kurt knew. The third magazine held solid steel slugs coated with a thin layer of titanium and propelled by a more powerful blend of gunpowder; they traveled at higher velocity, and the titanium jacket kept them together at impact.

Kurt had never used them but was told they could punch through an inch of armor plating or two inches of regular steel. He was also warned that the pistol kicked like a mule when fired. He hoped he wouldn’t have to find out, but they’d already been attacked twice and he wasn’t interested in going a third round without punching back.

He dropped the transmission into drive and pulled away from the aircraft.

“So what’s with the explosives?” he asked, getting his bearings and looking for a spot to exit the ramp.

She closed the lid and put the box away. “If we find the Nighthawk and can’t haul it out of the jungle, I have orders to blow the electronics package and the propulsion system.”

It made sense. But he took everything she said with a grain of salt now. From the size of the charges, he estimated each to be the rough equivalent of a grenade. “Those should do the trick,” he said, pulling through the gate. “Next stop, La Jalca and the Fortress in the Clouds.”

/> Daiyu stood on a low hill watching the burnt-orange SUV as it left the airport. The color and the metallic gloss made it easy to spot, especially against the gray road and the dusty mountains.

She tracked the vehicle as it passed through the airport’s main gate and moved east. When it shifted into the right-hand lane and moved onto the mountain road, she lowered her binoculars and picked up a radio.

“Target moving,” she said, speaking into the radio. “Route 6A, as expected. We’ll follow at a distance. Be ready at the intercept point.”

“Affirmative,” a voice replied.

She clipped the radio to her belt and walked to a white Audi A8. Jian sat at the wheel, his broad shoulders filling the cockpit of the sleek car.

She climbed in the passenger’s side, slammed the door and nodded. “Go.”

26

The route from Cajamarca wound its way eastward, climbing higher into the mountains as it went. Paved at first, the road surface changed to a combination of gravel and hard-packed clay after an hour of driving. As the footing worsened, Kurt dialed back the speed. They continued to climb, curving around the switchbacks, while ducking in and out of patchy fog.

The higher they went, the cooler it got. Passing eight thousand feet, they found spitting rain. At nine thousand feet, they were in the clouds. At ninety-five hundred, they finally broke out into the sunlight.

A wide valley appeared on the left, its floor a thousand feet below. Successive layers of jagged mountains rose up behind it. The visibility was twenty miles or more.

“Welcome to the Andes,” Kurt said.

From this point on, the road clung to the shoulder of the mountains. It grew narrower out of necessity and, in certain spots, had been cut right into the cliffside, requiring the cars to drive beneath an overhang of solid rock.

While the terrain to the right-hand side changed often, the view to the left was constant, nothing but a sheer drop.

“They might have splurged on a guardrail,” Emma said.

“And ruin the view?” Kurt replied, laughing.

Instead of a barrier, the road sported a low curb, painted in alternating blocks of black and white. Not only wouldn’t it stop anything larger than a model car, hitting it would be like catching one’s foot on a tree root—more likely to tip a vehicle over the edge.

“Just be glad this isn’t an English colony,” Kurt added. “Otherwise, we’d be driving on that side.”

The mountain bulged outward and the road bent out around its waist, offering a view back in the direction they’d come. They were on the leeward side now and the slopes were tawny brown and spotted with patchy scrub brush and a smattering of gray rock. All of it tied together by the zigzagging ribbon of route 6A.