An oval of light appeared ahead. Sam and Remi skidded to a stop before reaching it and crouch-walked the last few steps. In the clearing, the Chetak’s rotors were spinning rapidly; through the side window they could see Gupta furiously punching buttons and checking gauges. He grabbed the radio handset and started talking.
His voice burst through Sam’s radio: “Sorry, I will try to return. Try to hide. They may go away.”
Gupta then lifted the collective, and the Chetak lifted straight up. At thirty feet, it banked, nose down, and zoomed from view.
Out of the corner of their eyes Sam and Remi saw Karna and Ajay step from a tunnel entrance. Sam waved, caught their attention, then gestured at them to retreat. They slipped back out of sight.
Preceded by only a few seconds of thudding rotors, an olive green helicopter rose into view at the far edge of the plateau. Sam and Remi immediately recognized the nose cone and rocket pods: a Chinese PLA Harbin Z-9.
“Hello, old enemy,” Remi muttered.
She and Sam backed up a few more feet.
The Z-9 continued to rise, then pivoted, revealing another fond memory: an open door and a soldier crouched over a mounted machine gun. The Z-9 slid sideways over the clearing and touched down.
“Let’s go, Sam,” Remi said. “We need to hide.”
“Just wait.”
A figure appeared in the doorway.
“Oh, no,” Remi muttered.
They both recognized the lithe, willowy body shape.
Zhilan Hsu.
She stepped down from the doorway. Dangling from her right hand was a compact submachine gun. A moment later two more figures stepped from the doorway to join her. Russell and Marjorie King, also armed with compact submachine guns.
“Behold, the Wonder Twins,” Sam said.
Zhilan turned, said something to them, then stepped to the Z-9’s side door, which opened to reveal a mid-forties Chinese man. Sam withdrew a pair of binoculars from his pack and zoomed in on the pair.
“I think we’ve found King’s Chinese contact,” Sam said. “He’s definitely PLA. Very high ranking, either a colonel or general.”
“Do you see any more soldiers inside?”
“No, just the door gunner. Between him, Zhilan, and the twins, that’s all they need. I don’t know why they haven’t shut down the engine yet, though.”
“How in God’s name did they find us?”
“No idea. Too late to worry about it now.”
The PLA officer and Zhilan shook hands, then he closed the door. The Z-9’s engine rose in pitch, and then the helicopter lifted off. It pivoted so its tail was facing the plateau, then headed off.
“Our odds just improved,” Sam said.
“What’s Zhilan doing?”
Sam focused his binoculars on Zhilan in time to see her pull a cell phone from her jacket pocket. She punched a series of numbers into the keypad, and then she and the twins turned and watched the helicopter recede into the distance.
In a mushroom of orange and red, the Z-9 exploded. Chunks of flaming debris plummeted toward earth and then out of sight.
Sam and Remi couldn’t speak for several seconds. Finally Remi said, “That ruthless—”
“King is tying up loose ends,” Sam said. “He’s probably already shut down his black market fossil operation: the dig site, his transportation system—and now his contact in the government.”
“We’re the last loose ends,” Remi said. “Can we shoot them from here?”