He shrugged an apology and followed me through the busy lounge.
Hunter looked annoyed as we arrived, and he craned his neck to see around me. “Where’s the pilot?”
I swallowed and explained the recent events. All of them.
He coughed and sank into his seat. “Then we’re at a disadvantage. They know. But how?”
“Who’s they?” Tripp asked.
“The Believers.”
“That cult? Do we really think a group of nutcases could have beaten us to the remote outback? They’d have to be…” Tripp paused and glanced at Hunter as he nodded.
“Tripp, they’ll be on our heels this entire time,” our benefactor said slowly.
“But why?” Marcus asked. “I thought they were into these redeemers, not the Bridge.”
“They are connected, just not in the way you might assume. One thing you should know is that they want the Bridge; not to open it, but to destroy it,” Hunter said.
A waiter appeared, wearing all black, his expression telling me he was ready to close this place down and go home. “What’ll you have?”
“Coffee.”
“Make that two,” Marcus said, sliding in beside Tripp. I went next to Hunter, and we waited until the guy was out of ear’s reach before speaking again.
“You can’t be too careful. I fear they’re in this very room. They’re always listening.” Hunter sounded slightly ridiculous, but he might have been right. I found myself looking around as inconspicuously as I could. A woman and a man bumbled their way to the booth behind us, the man slurring loudly as he shouted for another drink.
Hunter frowned and lowered his voice. “If we don’t finish this team off by tomorrow, our window to the stone forest narrows. My contact is expecting us, and I don’t know if we can slip in otherwise.”
The woman behind us spun around, kneeling on the bench to face us. “I hear Tsingy is beautiful this time of year.”
The man with her started complaining, and she waved him away dismissively. “I think you should head out, love.”
This angered him, and he stood, stumbling over to her. “I bought you dinner. The least you could do is—”
I jumped from my seat and stepped between them. “You heard the lady. Time to exit.”
The waiter arrived with the coffees, and he set them on our table. “Everything okay?”
I tilted my chin, waiting for this drunk buffoon to answer. He lifted his hands and walked away, returning to the bar in search of easier prey.
“You really didn’t need to do that,” the blonde woman said. She was smiling, her cheeks just slightly ruddy. “I can take care of myself.”
“Do you mind? We’re having a private conversation,” Hunter advised her.
She wasn’t dressed like the other guests at the hotel. She had on high-waisted jeans, the legs faded, and hiking boots with a black tee. “Veronica Jones at your disposal.” She walked closer, attempting to shake Hunter’s hand.
He didn’t oblige. “As I was saying, we’re—”
“I know who you are, Mr. Madison. And I also know this gentleman.” She indicated me.
“And what, pray tell, do you want?” Hunter asked angrily.
“You have a problem, and I want in.”
“You’re a pilot?” Tripp asked, eyeing her up and down like a predator on the hunt for a kill.
“Sure. Fly pretty much any type of birds, mostly Chinooks and Hawks, but I’ve tried ‘em all. Planes too. There’s nothing like the loud, cramped, and sweaty cockpit of a Cessna zooming across the Indian Ocean.”
Hunter’s lips pursed, and he crossed his arms defiantly. “I’ll take your word on it.”
“Wait, how did you know we were here?” I asked her. Hunter’s warning about the Believers rang in my mind.
She lost her smile, and her cocky stance shifted into something different. “I’ll be honest. I was here with my plane, running a few tours in the area. You see, I have a bit of a niche business. Hauling snotty trust-fund kids around to remote regions so they can show off to their friends. The latest brought me to Sydney, and I advertised on social, picking up a couple more jobs. But I saw you…” She flipped her phone around. It was Hunter Madison in the same suit he wore now, walking behind some vapid-looking duck-lipped woman taking a selfie in the hotel lobby.
“I was checking out hashtags for this place, trying to see if anyone wealthy enough to take a private charter might be in the area. And as luck had it, I saw you, Mr. Madison.”
“What do you want?” he asked.
“I heard you say you need a pilot. That’s me. I’m the woman for the job.” She placed her hands on her hips and smiled widely.
I had to admit her energy was electric, and we did need someone. “You said you had a plane? How big?” Marcus asked her.
“Six-seater.”
“Then you’re wasting our time. We can’t take a bush plane across the Indian Ocean. It’s thousands of miles.”
Veronica only smiled wider. “Then it’s a good thing I have another one on the coast of Mozambique. Assuming you can charter a flight out of Sydney.”
“Why should we trust you?” Tripp asked.
“You shouldn’t, but I’ll tell you what. You don’t have to pay me until we get to the stone forest. We’ll discuss the payment—”
Hunter rubbed his forehead and cut her off. “Fifty thousand if we find what we’re after in Madagascar. I’ll pay you the same for each of our stops.” I was confident he’d do some digging on the woman when he returned to his room, but for this moment, he was desperate. Hunter was dying, and the Tokens were within his grasp.
My jaw dropped, but to Veronica’s credit, she didn’t flinch at the sum. “When do we leave?”
3
To my surprise, there were something like fifteen airports spread out on the African island country. Unfortunately, I didn’t see any of them from our current vantage point.
The engines sputtered as we neared land, and Veronica grinned as she lowered toward the bare ground. Seated beside the pilot, I listened as the dash alarms chimed out repeatedly. The gauge dials were pushed to their limits, but none of it seemed to discourage Veronica.
“What the hell were we thinking?” Hunter shouted, and I peered at him. He was whiter than a ghost and clutched the seatbelt tightly. The plane was a stark contrast to the ones he was used to traveling in. The seats were cracked, the paint chipped, but so far, they’d managed to cross the gulf between Mozambique and Madagascar, if only by a hair.
“You worry too much,” Veronica said into her headset. Tripp had remained quiet, and Marcus seemed pensive, his eyes pressed closed as his lips moved silently. I suspected he’d just found religion.
A voice carried through her radio, speaking in crackling French. She responded and gave me a thumbs-up as she steered the plane south. “We’re cleared for landing. What, you didn’t think I was going to touch down on the rocks, did you? They do have laws, Rex.”
The plane jerked to the side, sending me into Veronica.
“Hands to yourself.” She smirked, and I found myself liking the woman more and more with each quip. She was easy to look at, not to mention carefree in a way I’d never managed in my life.
The airport looked like a few others I’d stopped in over the years: a single ratty tower, a lone runway with a few rusted-out planes parked outside a chain-link fence. There was a narrow road between the water and the tarmac, and she headed for it, descending faster than any of us liked.
We each sat in a kind of petrified state as the wheels touched the pavement, bouncing up, then screeching on the strip as she leveled it out. We jerked sideways several times and finally slowed, the engines cutting out as she directed the plane toward a man in an orange vest, waving his batons.
“Told you. Smooth sailing,” Veronica said as she powered off the plane.
“I’ve never—” Hunter started, but I cut him off.
“You got us here. Thank you.” I unstrapped, and she gave
me an appreciative grin.
Tripp opened the exit, and Marcus was the first out, landing on wobbly feet. “I’m never getting in there again.”
“Maybe not, but I bet it won’t be your last hectic ride,” I told him.
The air was humid, but a far cry from being as hot as the harsh terrain in the outback, and I took the offered bags from Tripp. I hadn’t asked him what was inside his, but judging by the heaviness of it, there were a few guns and God knows what else.
“Bonjour, bienvenue à Madagascar,” a man said in fluent French.
“Thank you,” I replied.
“This way,” he said in English. A few men watched us from the main building, leaning in the shade and staring with curiosity at our strange group.
Hunter Madison was the last to disembark, and he looked like he was on death’s doorstep. “You sure you can do this?” I asked quietly. Tripp and Veronica were ahead, with Marcus a few feet behind, lugging another pack.
Hunter’s eyes were lively, and he managed a smile. “Rex, I’ve been waiting to see a Token for thirty years. If it’s where those coordinates say it is, I’d make that flight fifty times over.” He took off, moving spryly, and I jogged after him.
We followed the local airport attendant to the fence, and I watched as a white truck drove by, exhaust billowing from the tailpipe. The town was across the street. It spread across the beige landscape, a few baobab trees jutting from the ground around the region. An animal screamed, and I spotted a lemur on a tree branch, his ringed tail drooping behind him.
“How do you know the guide?” I asked Hunter, and he motioned to a truck across the road as we exited the airport. He didn’t respond.
Tripp stopped near the first escort and slipped him some currency before grabbing his pack again and crossing the road.
There were two men at the truck, one with a green shirt, the other in an orange one; each wore black shorts. “Bonjour,” Hunter said. “Is everything prepared?”
Green shirt nodded. He set a hand on his chest. “I am Haja. This is Hasin.”
“Well met,” Hunter said, and gave them our names. Their eyes lingered on Marcus for a moment, then on Veronica.
“There’s no time like the present. Let’s make a move,” I said, chucking the packs in the back of the truck.
“Would you like to ride up front with me?” Haja asked Veronica, and she was quick to respond.
“Hunter, it would be much more comfortable for you up there.”
“Right. Then it’s settled.” Hunter started for the door and stopped. “Marcus, give Haja the coordinates.”
Marcus glanced at me, seeking guidance, and I answered for him. “Get us near the northern region. You can do that, right?”
Haja nodded cockily. “Not a problem.”
I climbed into the back of the truck, sitting on the wooden bench. I tucked my pack under it, and Veronica came beside me. “You’ll get the last coordinates when we arrive safely,” I told them. I couldn’t risk giving away the location of our first Token, not to strangers. For all I knew, they’d relay the information to friends already waiting at the stone forest. To activate the Bridge, we needed all six of the relics, though we currently only had the accurate locations of five of them.
Tripp was the last to climb in, and he sat heavily, putting himself between Marcus and Hasin. The engine cranked, shaking the entire truck, and Haja started forward, easing his foot on the pedal. “This might be a little bumpy,” he said through the open window between us.
The sun was high and hot, and Hasin opened a cooler, kicking it across the truck bed toward the center. There were six bottles of water, along with a bunch of green-bottled beers. Tripp took one of those and snapped the cap off on the edge of the old truck. He offered it to me, and I shook my head.
“I’ll have one,” Veronica said, and took it from Tripp. He found another, while Marcus and I settled for water.
“How long is the drive?” Tripp asked Hasin.
“Three hours,” he said.
“Damn. I’ll admit I’ve been on worse roads than Madagascar, but not many. But rarely did we have refreshments like this.” Tripp lifted the beer and gulped from it.
I hadn’t been here before, so I didn’t know what to expect, but I learned quickly enough. We drove through town, and I watched as a group of children were let out of school. They shouted and ran from the whitewashed building, dashing for their daily dose of freedom. Ten minutes later, houses became exceedingly sparse along the roads, and the trees grew thicker.
We passed only a handful of cars on the road, fewer the farther inland we went. Judging by the sun and the maps Marcus and I had reviewed, we were heading southeast toward the stone forest. I’d seen pictures before, but we weren’t going to the tourist location, with public washrooms and guided tours.
“Have you seen Madagascar before?” I asked Veronica.
“Sure. Couple times. Stone forest is quite the sight, but not for everyone. Tends to be dangerous. Between the suspension bridge and the rock climbing, it can be a bit of a test,” she said. “What can you tell me about our prize?”
I glanced at Hasin, but he and Tripp were in conversation and on their second beer. I kept my voice quiet. “There’s an artifact located inside. Something valuable.”
“It would have to be, with Hunter Madison chasing after it. I didn’t think anyone lived out there in the forest. Are you suggesting there’s an ancient village?” she asked.
“I can’t know for sure, but… this isn’t the original location of the artifact,” I admitted.
This piqued her interest. “How interesting. So these six stops we’re planning on making… did someone spread out a collection or something?”
She was smart; I had to give her that. “Along those lines.”
The truck lurched, and I peered over the front of the vehicle. The sun was bright, and I struggled to see why Haja would stop in the middle of nowhere.
Hasin rose, jumping from the truck, and Tripp followed him.
“I sense trouble,” Marcus said, pointing down the road, and then I saw the other vehicles. The lead one stopped a hundred yards away, pulled sideways to block the road. Three men hopped out, hardly more than boys, but I didn’t like the look of them.
“Toss my pack,” Tripp called from the rear of our truck, and I threw it over, the bag landing with a hefty thump. He unzipped it, shoving a handgun into his belt behind his back.
“What’s going on?” I asked Haja through the window.
“Stay put. I will deal with this. Mr. Madison, do you have any ariary?” he asked Hunter.
It took me a second to remember that was their local currency. “Some. What do you need? Who are these men?”
Haja sighed. “They control the passes. Any hunting is done so with their permission.”
“Hunting?” I whispered, and it all clicked. I opened a crate near the window and found three long rifles, along with sacks. “They’re poachers. What do you hunt?”
Haja shrugged, and told me, “Lemurs.”
“You hired poachers to bring us in?” I asked Hunter, and he frowned at me.
“How else did you expect to get to the illegal passes of the conservation region? We do what’s necessary to complete our mission,” he stated firmly.
Haja opened his door and climbed out, taking the envelope with ariary bills with him.
“I can’t believe this,” Marcus said. “Do you see the heat they’re packing?”
I did now. Two of the men opposite us were carrying submachine guns, and I flinched, picturing this ending in a shoot-out. I glanced into Tripp’s pack and spotted an M240. I quickly closed it and caught Veronica eyeing it suspiciously.
“Some friends you have, Rex,” she whispered.
“You’re telling me.”
Haja and Hasin met a skinny older man halfway, the two machine guns close behind him. I noted how Tripp stood beside Hunter’s door protectively. It was clear who he was hired to shield, not that I blamed him
. The team was being paid handsomely for this mission, even if they didn’t understand what the end goal was.
Haja handed the other guy the bills, and he smiled, sniffing the cash. He barked an order, and his escorts turned around, lowering their weapons. I relaxed, glad the meeting hadn’t ended in violence, but the old guy didn’t follow his friends. He was staring at the truck. He asked something else in a clipped dialect I couldn’t quite hear from my position. He pointed at us and started walking forward. Judging by Haja’s expression, he was worried about something.
“Tripp, what do we do?” Marcus asked him.
Tripp didn’t take his eyes off the incoming man. “Have you ever fired a gun?”
“No. Well, yes, but only at the range with Rex…”
“Rex, in my pack. There’s two P226s. Take one, give Marcus—”
Veronica already had one in her hand. She released the magazine and slapped her palm on the end, clicking it back in place. She spun the other around and passed it to me. “Don’t worry. I won’t shoot myself in the foot.”
This was a weapon I was familiar with, and it gave me confidence as I waited, still sitting in the box of the truck.
The skinny guy Haja had paid off was closer, and he whistled, catching the attention of his armed escorts. They both turned around, lifting their guns, and I saw Tripp stand straighter. He was prepared for anything.
He started to reach for his gun when I overheard the man speaking in French. “One of their tires is low. Give them a hand.” I translated it in my head, but Tripp clearly didn’t speak the language. I climbed past Marcus and hopped to the ground, leaving the Sig behind.
I was right on time. I told him what they said as Tripp started to swing his arm around, and he stopped, turning to face me. “Are you sure?”
“They’re changing the tire.”
Hunter was still inside the truck, and at my words, he exited, stretching his back. “As good a time as any for a quick break, don’t you think?” he asked, dabbing sweat with his handkerchief.
The armed guards set their weapons on the dirt track and glanced at their boss, who nodded and pointed to the low tire. He grunted something about earning their share and laughed with Haja. Our escorts seemed nervous at first but were warming up.
Lost Contact (The Bridge Sequence Book One) Page 15