Nighthawk (NUMA Files 14)

Paul and Gamay jumped out of the Cherokee, rushing toward the overturned Toyota. The front end was out over the cliff, jammed into the gnarled trunk of the tree. The back end was up in the air, and the entire vehicle was pointing downward as if it were ready to slide off the edge.

The engine was ticking and pinging, while fluids dripped everywhere. The entire balancing act looked so precarious that Paul’s first instinct was not to touch anything.

“Emma!” he called out. “Are you in there?”

“Hello?!” a female voice replied from inside the vehicle.

“Emma, this is Paul,” he shouted, easing around the side. The angle of the vehicle and the condition of the ledge made it impossible to get at the front end. “Gamay and I are here. We’re going to get you out of there.”

“Forget about me,” Emma said, her voice suddenly firm. “Just get the containment unit out. Pull it out through the back. It’s a miracle it hasn’t gone off-line already. But trust me, I’m staring into the abyss, and if we fall into this canyon, it’s all over.”

Paul moved around to the back end of the SUV and pulled the hatchback open. The door moved slowly and awkwardly, and even that small shift had consequences. The vehicle rocked forward and then back before settling.

“There’s a small problem with that plan,” Paul said, studying the situation. “If we remove the containment unit, the center of gravity will move forward, and unless that tree is a lot stronger than it looks, the whole thing will go over with you inside.”

“I know that,” Emma said. “I’ve been sitting here for a long time thinking about it. But there’s no other choice. There’s no other way. Every time I’ve tried to move, we’ve slid farther down. Please, just get that thing out of here before we go.”

Emma might have been willing to throw away her life, but Paul wasn’t so quick to give up. “All we need is more weight on the back end,” he said. “I weigh at least as much as the containment unit and twice as much as you. If I climb on the back bumper . . .”

“The problem is the tree,” Emma said. “It’s already splitting down the middle; the extra weight might snap it and send us down. Just get that damned thing out of there and let me go.”

“We can pull it back,” Gamay said. “We could use the bungee cords that are holding down our containment unit and the jumper cables we found in the back of the Cherokee.”

“It’s not going to be enough to pull a five-thousand-pound vehicle uphill,” Paul said. “But it could be enough to keep it from sliding down.”

“Someone will still have to get in there to disconnect the ropes they used to tie their unit down,” Gamay replied.

“Someone’s already in there,” Paul said. “She can loosen everything on her way out.”

Inside the Toyota, Emma listened as Paul explained the plan. It required her to climb over the seats, unhook the nylon rope she’d used to secure the dangerous cargo and wrap the rope around the containment unit several times. Then crawl out the back hatch with the ends of the rope in her hands.

It sounded plausible. And it saved her a trip she didn’t want to take. “I can do that,” she said.

The light around her changed as Gamay moved the Cherokee into position. She held still while Paul laced the jumper cables and the bungee cords through parts of the overturned vehicle and then did the same on the front bumper of the Jeep.

She felt the Land Cruiser rock back to a flatter angle as the Jeep inched backward and pulled everything taut.

She looked back through the vehicle. Paul was standing there, shrouded in the light.

“You’re up,” he said.

Despite a primal urge to get out of the doomed vehicle, Emma simultaneously found herself afraid to move a single muscle. For half an hour, she’d been sitting there listening to creaks and groans coming from both the tree and the Land Cruiser. Sitting still had been her only defense; a part of her didn’t want to give that up.

She took a deep breath, steeled herself to do what she had to do and nodded to Paul. “Here goes.”

She twisted around to face backward. The vehicle rocked ever so slightly.

She found a spot for her feet, pushed off and shinned into the back.

The Toyota shifted again, not rocking but sliding.

Emma heard the sound of wood splitting and felt her heart pounding. Through the back ha

tch she saw Paul grasping onto the bumper and pulling as if it were a tug-of-war.

The movement slowed and then stopped and the only sound was the trickle of pebbles and sand sliding out from underneath the SUV and falling down the slope.

“It’s okay,” Paul said. “We’ve got it. Keep moving.”