Nighthawk (NUMA Files 14)

“I do,” Davidov replied, “But they have their uses.”

“And their limits,” Timonovski replied. “As do we all.” He pointed to Blackjack 2, with the Nighthawk sitting proudly on its back. “We’ll never get off the runway. The field is too short. The trees too high. I told the Birdcaller as much.”

“And he listened,” Davidov said. “I’ve brought the RATO boosters. With the rockets to assist us, and a few of those trees chainsawed to the ground, we’ll make it without a problem. The ground crew are attaching the boosters as we speak.”

Timonovski squinted. He could see the ground crew hooking up the stubby missile-like canisters to the hardpoints beneath the bomber’s wings. It was a complex process. “It seems the Falconer thought of everything.”

“Yes,” Davidov agreed. “It seems he did.”

55

Emma’s route to Cajamarca took her through a wide valley and then up through a narrow pass. At first the road was flat and hemmed in by the mountains, but as they came out of the pass the road began to look like the one she and Kurt had dealt with on the way up. Only now it was dusk and growing darker by the moment.

She had the high beams on, along with the small fog lamps under the bumper and two auxiliary lights mounted on the roof rack. They lit the road well enough, but the drop beyond the narrow shoulder was nothing more than a dark void.

“When this is over, I’m moving to Kansas,” she said.

“What’s Kansas?”

The question came from Reyes, the escort Urco had sent with her. He sat in the passenger seat, cocked to the side and holding a 9mm pistol in his hand.

If she drove too fast or too slow, he gave her a dirty look and then complained. Right now she must have been doing fine since he was leaning back and the Beretta was resting on his lap, aimed roughly at her thigh.

“Kansas,” she said, “is a very flat part of America. None of these mountains to climb or cliffs to fall off.”

His brow furrowed.

“Never mind,” she said. “I can imagine how that sounds to someone who lives here.”

He said nothing, leaned forward to glance at the speedometer and then leaned back again.

“Are we on a schedule?” she asked.

He didn’t reply. Maybe they were.

“Urco didn’t need to send you along, you know.”

“I’m here to make sure you do as you promised.”

“Why wouldn’t I?” she asked, rounding a curve. “It’s, literally, the only sane thing to do.”

He shrugged.

“And, anyway, what would you do if I refused? Or changed my mind?”

She was just talking, just making conversation on the long drive and perhaps hoping to make him see her as a human being instead of a target. But she’d hit a nerve.

“I shoot you and drive there by myself.”

“Really?” she said, surprised and not surprised all at the same time. “And then what? Just going to hand over the containment unit and tell my colleagues you’re a Good Samaritan who picked it up on the side of the road? For that matter, how would you even find them without me?”

The answer came to her even before she’d finished asking the question. “Oh, you have a phone,” she said. “You have my phone.”

At almost the same moment, both of them realized that he’d given something away.

A phone could deliver help. It could summon a rescue team to the lake and military units to swarm over Urco and his followers. Her phone could turn the entire situation on its head.

“Pull over,” he said.