A few yards behind Joe, Kurt felt his knees begin to ache from old football injuries.
“You’re getting slow in your old age,” Joe needled.
“While some of us were sitting around all day, I was working,” Kurt said.
“Floating on the lake in an inner tube doesn’t count as work where I come from,” Joe said.
“I’ve basically created my own kind of extreme triathlon,” Kurt insisted. “Swim under a waterfall, climb up a sheer cliff and now a 2K uphill run in the rarefied air at ten thousand feet of altitude.”
“Under a waterfall?” Joe said. “Why didn’t you swim around it?”
“I tried,” Kurt admitted. “Not as easy as it sounds.”
Joe laughed. “I just hope all this running is worth it and we haven’t missed our flight.”
Kurt was hoping that, too. There was no way to know until they got there, but having lived near several air bases during his time in the Air Force, Kurt knew how far the roar of military jet engines carried. “Unless they launched while we were in those rapids, I think we’d have heard a supersonic bomber taking off; I’m sure they’ll need full afterburners to do it.”
A droning sound rolling across the plateau stopped the conversation. Both Kurt and Joe slowed down to listen.
“Turboprop,” Joe said, turning until he was facing the sound. The droning grew louder and picked up an odd resonance as a second engine came online.
“They may have switched planes,” Kurt said.
The hike turned into a dead sprint, and with the sound of the turboprop to hone in on, they never wavered. They were still rushing toward the edge of the airstrip when the small plane clawed its way into the night sky, banked to the northeast and flew off into the dark.
“If we get to the Air-Crane,” Joe said, “we can use the radios. And get them back before they get too high.”
Both men kept running. They arrived at the outskirts of the airstrip, breathing hard and dropping down beside a pine tree for cover.
The Air-Crane was visible across the field, lying on its side and smoking. “The radios probably still work,” Joe said. “But the antennas might be sheared off.”
Kurt pointed to a second outline in the gloom, darker than dark, sinister in shape. Blackjack 2 was still there, with the Nighthawk perched on top.
“They wouldn’t have bothered placing it so carefully if they were going to leave it behind.”
57
Paul drove as fast as he dared in the Jeep Cherokee. Considering the cargo he was hauling, the type of road and the utter darkness of the moonless night, he was being positively reckless at forty miles per hour.
Sitting beside him, dividing her attention between the portable apocalypse machine they were carrying and the map, Gamay seemed to want him to go faster. “I can only hope Emma is being as careful as we are,” she said. “For a variety of reasons.”
Paul had seen the map earlier. He knew it was a race they couldn’t win. “We’ll never catch her. The last forty miles into Cajamarca are paved and relatively flat. Once she hits that section, we’ll be left in the dust.”
“Maybe we can flag down another car or truck,” Gamay suggested. “If we’re lucky, they might have a radio or a phone.”
“It would have to be a satellite phone up here,” Paul said. “But maybe as we get closer to town.” He glanced over at the map. “Coming in from the south, she still has to drive through most of the city before she gets to the airport. That might give us some—”
A shout from Gamay cut him off. “Paul, look out!”
Paul looked up. A man’s body lay in the road, crumpled and broken. Paul hit the brakes, veered around it and brought the vehicle safely to a halt. The body was behind them now, but what loomed ahead was even more surprising. A vehicle tipped over on its side, its front end dangling over the edge of the cliff and held up by the Y-shaped trunk of a tree.
Paul put the transmission in park and grabbed the door handle. As he swung it open, he felt Gamay’s hand on his.
“We’re not on some backcountry road, Paul,” she said. “We don’t have time for this.”
There was cold reason in her voice, but only because she hadn’t realized what Paul had already ascertained. “It’s Emma.”
Gamay’s eyes lit up. She looked at the stricken vehicle and nodded.