He whipped his head to the right and caught the first glimpse of a shadow on a rock wall, maybe a mile away, where the gorge they were negotiating met another running perpendicular.
At the halfway point it seemed the bridge was holding, thou
gh the moldy boards gave like a sponge. His palms loosely gripped the rough hemp, ready to apply a death lock if the bottom fell out beneath him.
The distant shadow grew in size, then was replaced with the distinct shape of an AH-l Cobra attack helicopter.
American-made, but this was no salvation.
Pakistan operated them, too, provided by Washington to help a supposed ally with the war on terrorism.
The Cobra powered straight toward them. Twin-bladed, dual-engined, it carried 20mm guns, antitank missiles, and aerial rockets. Fast as a bumblebee, and equally maneuverable.
“That’s not here to help,” he heard Cassiopeia say.
He agreed, but there was no need to voice that he’d been right all along. They’d been herded to this spot, for this precise purpose.
Damn that son of a bitch—
The Cobra started firing.
A steady procession of pops sent 20mm rounds their way.
He dove belly-first to the bridge boards and rolled, staring past his feet as Cassiopeia did the same. The Cobra roared toward them, its turboshafts sucking through the dry, limpid air. Rounds found the bridge, ripping wood and rope with a savage fury.
Another burst arrived.
Concentrated on the ten feet between him and Cassiopeia.
He spied fury in her eyes and watched as she found her gun, came to her knees and fired at the copter’s canopy. But he knew that armor plating and an aircraft moving at more than 170 miles an hour reduced the chances of causing damage to zero.
“Get the hell down,” he yelled.
Another burst of cannon fire annihilated the bridge between him and Cassiopeia. One moment the wood-and-rope construction existed, the next it was gone in a cloud of debris.
He sprang to his feet and realized the entire span was about to collapse. He could not go back, so he ran ahead, the final twenty feet, clinging to the ropes as the bridge dropped away.
The Cobra flew past, toward the opposite end of the gorge.
He held tight to the ropes and, as the bridge divided, each half swinging back toward opposite sides of the gorge, he flew through the air.
He slammed into rock, rebounded, then settled.
He did not give himself time to be terrified. Slowly, he pulled himself upward, scaling the remaining few feet to the top. Rushing water and the thump of chopper blades filled his ears. He focused across the gorge, searching for Cassiopeia, hoping she’d managed to make it up to the other side.
His heart sank when he saw her clinging with both hands to the other half of the bridge as it dangled against the sheer cliff face. He wanted to help her, but there was nothing he could do. She was a hundred feet away. Only air between them.
The Cobra executed a tight turn within the gorge, arching upward, then began another run their way.
“Can you climb?” he screamed over the noise.
Her head shook.
“Do it,” he yelled.
She craned her neck his way. “Get out of here.”
“Not without you.”
The Cobra was less than a mile away. Its cannon would start firing any second.
“Climb,” he screamed.
One hand reached up.
Then she fell fifty feet into the rushing river.
How deep it flowed he did not know, but the boulders that protruded along its path did not offer him any solace.
She disappeared into the churning water, which had to be nearly freezing, considering its source was mountain snow.
He waited for her to surface. Somewhere.
But she never did.
He stared down at the roaring gray gush, which carried silt and rock along with a swish of foam in a formidable current. He wanted to leap after her, but realized that was impossible. He wouldn’t survive the fall, either.
He stood and watched, disbelieving.
After all they’d been through the past three days.
Cassiopeia Vitt was gone.