Altar Of Eden

Scott frowned but he didn’t argue and lifted the radio. He shouted into it. Seconds later, the helicopter retreated back toward the boat. He lowered the radio.

“We can’t land the chopper on the deck,” Scott said. “They’re going to drop a harness. It’s a short hop over the fire to the farm.”

As realization struck her, Lorna felt instantly ill. Her blood drained to her feet. Her stomach tried to follow.

“They can haul you all the way up into the helicopter,” Scott explained. “But it’ll be quicker if they don’t have to. They can simply ferry you in the harness.”

As she pictured swinging by a wire, the helicopter returned with a pounding sweep of its rotors. She looked up. Spooling from a winch by the chopper’s side door, a thick cable lowered down a yellow rescue harness.

She suddenly regretted her rash decision. She hadn’t fully thought this through. It was bad enough flying in a chopper while inside the cabin.

The harness arrived, swinging and bobbing. Garcia grabbed it and hauled it toward her. She fought not to back away. It took all her will to simply hold her ground.

Scott took the blanket-wrapped cub as Garcia helped her into the harness. He slipped it over her head and under her arms, then cinched it tightly. “Are you okay?” he asked.

As answer, she pointed. “Pass me my rifle.”

Childress retrieved the tranquilizer gun from the deck. With a bit of effort, she awkwardly slung it over her shoulder. Once she was ready, Scott passed the cub back to her. She hugged it to her chest.

Scott gave her a questioning thumbs-up.

Not trusting her voice, she merely nodded.

Satisfied, Scott backed a step and twirled his arm over his head.

The engine above gunned harder, and the harness suddenly dug into her armpits. Her legs lifted off the deck. She kicked, anxious to touch ground again. But it was too late. The helicopter climbed while, at the same time, the winch retracted several yards of the cable.

She stared down as the boat dropped away under her. She tore her gaze away. She wanted to close her eyes but knew that would terrify her even more. Ahead, the log home still blazed. The roof had long caved in, leaving behind a smoldering frame. Smoke poured upward, licking with flames.

The helicopter climbed higher, aiming to fly over the ruins. She didn’t think they’d make it. The pilot must have thought the same. The winch hauled her up farther. Then they were over the inferno.

The chopper’s blades cut through the smoke and swirled a searing tornado around her. She held her breath and finally closed her eyes. The heat scorched as if she were flying over the mouth of a volcano. She hugged hard to both the harness and the blanket-wrapped cub.

Seconds later, they were clear. The temperature plummeted. She took a tentative breath of clear air and squinted her eyes open. The view below was peppered by black ponds. Wooden walkways, platforms, and bridges filled the spaces in between, along with a few tin-roofed outbuildings. On the far side of the ponds, a circle of fire lit the dark bayou. People clustered in its center.

The campsite.

The helicopter banked in a gentle arc toward the encampment. Momentum swung her outward on the cable. Wind rushed over her. For just a moment she felt a flush of exhilaration-but only for a moment.

Movement drew her attention directly below.

A man burst out of one of the smaller shacks, an outbuilding sprouting a tangle of antennas. He pounded across the walkway below. He waved a thick black shotgun in one hand and cupped his mouth with the other, shouting. The roar of the helicopter drowned out his words. He must’ve heard the chopper and thought it was the Coast Guard rescue force.

Frantic that he was ignored, the man ran faster-too fast. He finally spilled over his own legs and went sprawling hard onto the planks. She watched his shotgun strike the boards. Even through the engine’s howl, she heard the gun blasts. A staccato series of slugs strafed out of the smoking muzzle.

Then the helicopter lurched above her, bobbling in the air.

Like a hooked trout on a line, she rocked and jerked in the harness.

Clutching for her life, she craned up. Oily smoke poured from the back of the helicopter. An unlucky round must have struck something vital.

The chopper tipped on its nose and began a fast descent, trailing flames now.

Lorna stared down as the world rushed up at her.

They were going to crash.

Chapter 20

Jack watched the helicopter plummet out of the sky.

Below its undercarriage, a figure swung in a rescue harness. From the flag of blond hair, Jack knew it was Lorna. The helicopter fought to slow its descent, wobbling wildly, rotors faltering. The pilot had the wherewithal to aim the craft away from the encampment, avoiding the gathered children.

Banking to the west, the chopper swung toward the bayou, dragging Lorna with it. She hung thirty feet below its floats. As the aircraft dropped, she struck the boardwalk hard and skidded across the planks on her back, dragged by the crashing helicopter.

But she wasn’t hauled far.

The chopper crashed into the forest just beyond the farm’s border. Spinning rotors sheared treetops, then the blades broke away and catapulted deeper in the bayou. Jack waited for an explosion, but only a thick cloud of smoke rolled into the sky. The hard-fought descent and cushion of the swampy bower must have blunted the impact.

“ Bolton! Reese!” Jack turned to his teammates, bellowing to be heard above the cries and screams from the camp. “Check on the pilot!”

As they took off Jack sprinted toward the nearest bridge, followed at his heels by Randy. He’d lost sight of Lorna.

Across the farm, a man staggered to his feet, backlit by flames. He stumbled forward, heading in Lorna’s direction, too. He carried a military-grade shotgun. It looked like an AA- 12, a combat auto-assault weapon used in urban warfare, capable of chewing apart a steel oil barrel at thirty yards or blasting through walls.

Jack had seen the man fall, followed by the accidental burst from his gun. Must’ve been running with his finger on the trigger. Goddamn yokel had more firepower than he could handle. He’d seen it often enough in the backwaters.

The bigger the gun, the bigger the ego.

Jack dismissed the jackass and searched for Lorna.

Was she still alive?

LORNA LAY ON her back, dazed, ears ringing. She must have blacked out for a moment. She rose up on an elbow and heard screaming nearby. As if she were waking from a nightmare, it took her half a breath to remember where she was. She remembered twisting on her back as she hit, protecting herself as best she could as she was dragged. Still, her entire backside felt as if someone had taken a belt sander to it.