“Thanks.”“You are welcome. Now hit me.”
“What?”
“Hit me. If Okafor suspects I-”
“I understand. Good luck.”
“And you.”
Sam cocked his hand back and slammed his palm on the tip of the pilot’s nose. The blow wasn’t enough to break bone, but blood began gushing immediately. The pilot stumbled backward and sprawled onto his back.“Stay there,” Sam barked. “Don’t move. Remi, can you see the Big Eyes from there?”
She reached her hand behind her, withdrew the binoculars from her pack’s side pocket, and aimed them at the house’s roof. “I see them. They’re pointing to the south right now. Panning slowly this way. Another thirty seconds or so and they’ll have the pad in sight.”Sam looked at the guard. “Unazungumza kiingereza?” he said in Swahili. Do you speak English?
“Bit English.”
Sam pointed at the sheathed machete strapped to his belt and said, “Kisu . Bwaga Ku.”
Knife. Throw it down. Sam pointed at his feet and barked, “Now.”
The guard unclipped the machete and tossed it toward Sam, who picked it up. To the group he said, “Here’s the plan, everybody. We’re going to walk to the helicopter. We’ll go first, and you’ll follow feet behind us, spread out in a line-”“Why?” asked Yaotl.
“You’ll be the sandbags if anyone starts shooting at us. Yaotl, make sure the other two understand.”
“You won’t get away with-” “Maybe not, but we’re going to give it the old college try.”
“If we say no?” This came from Nochtli.
“Since you brought it up, you’ll be the first one I shoot.”
Yaotl said, “I do not think you will. Even if you do, the rest of Okafor’s guards will be here in under a minute.”
“Probably so, but you won’t be around to see it.” Sam took a step forward and leveled the .357 on Yaotl’s chest. “Remember your stay at our villa?”
“Yes.”
“We treated you decently.”
“Yes.”
“Well, we’re all out of nice.” To punctuate his point, Sam raised the .357 so it was level with Yaotl’s forehead. “Care for some proof?”
Yaotl shook his head.
“Make sure the others understand the plan.”
Yaotl translated first to Nochtli, then to the guard in pigeon Swahili. Both men nodded. Yaotl said, “Where will you go, Mr. Fargo? If you knew how to fly you wouldn’t have been talking to the pilot. If you stop now and surrender-”Sam interrupted. “We’ve had enough of Nightmare Island. We’re leaving, and we’re taking our bell with us.”
“The bell . . . Is it so important you are willing to die for it?”
Remi spoke up. “Is it so important that you murdered nine tourists for it? Sam, he’s stalling us.”
Sam nodded. “Keep an eye on them. I’m going to see about making those carts disappear. Yaotl, take the laces out of your boots and give them to me.”
Yaotl bent over, removed the laces, balled them up, and tossed them forward. Sam retrieved them and walked to the golf cart. Thirty seconds later, the steering wheel was locked down by one of the laces. Sam released the parking brake, braced his arms on the front bumper, and pushed the cart over the crest of the hill, where it started rolling on its own. After a few seconds it disappeared into the darkness. He then repeated the process with the Cushman, and returned to Remi’s side.“Ready?” he asked.
“A relative term, that.”
“I don’t know how quickly we’ll get a reaction once the light goes out, so let’s be quick.”
Sam watched the Big Eyes on the roof until they moved toward the light pole. Remi stopped him. “Hold on, Sam.” Then to Yaotl and the others: “Turn around and face the helicopter.” The group complied. “Now look up and stare at the light.” Again the group complied. She said to Sam, “To ruin their night vision.”Sam smiled. “Yet another reason why I love you.”
Through his binoculars he watched the Big Eyes on the roof until they were pointed to the southwest, then strode forward, knelt beside the light pole, took a breath, and slammed the edge of the machete into the power line. There was a hissing pop and a shower of sparks. Sam jerked his hand back. The light went dark.Remi asked, “Are you all right?”
“Yes, but it got my attention. Okay, let’s go.”
They separated, walking clockwise and counterclockwise until they were facing the group. “Walk toward us,” Sam ordered.
Blinking and shaking their heads against the sudden loss of their night vision, Yaotl and the others started forward. With Remi in the lead and Sam walking backward, his H amp;K trained on the group, they began moving toward the helicopter.“Twenty feet away,” Remi told Sam. Then, “Ten feet.”
Sam stopped walking. “Stop. Spread out,” he ordered. To Remi: “I’m doing preflight.”
“I’ve got them covered.”
Sam tossed their packs into the cabin, then opened the pilot’s door and climbed inside. Using his penlight, he scanned the controls and panels, doing his best to ignore the Eurocopter’s dizzying array of options and concentrate on the essentials. After thirty seconds he’d found what he needed.
He flipped on the battery switch. The interior lamps and control panel glowed to life. Next he turned on the fuel pump, followed by the auxiliary power switch, which began the prestart of the turbine. After a few seconds of whining the turbine kicked in and began to spool up. The rotors begin turning, slowly at first but with increasing velocity as the rotor RPM gauge began climbing.Sam leaned out the window and said to Remi, “Collect their guns.”
Remi passed the order on to the group and, one at a time, each man stepped forward and tossed his weapon into the helicopter’s cargo cabin. Using hand signals, she backed them up until they were just outside the helicopter’s rotor radius.In the cockpit, Sam saw the rotor RPM hit a hundred percent. “Time to say good-bye,” he shouted to Remi.
“Gladly,” she yelled back and climbed aboard. With one eye trained on the group, she shoved the weapons into the safety webbing on the bulkhead.
“Grab ahold of something,” Sam called.
She wrapped her free hand around the webbing. “Done!”
Sam tested the helicopter’s cyclic control between his legs, then the collective stick at his side, gauging the blade pitch, then finally the antitorque foot pedals until he had a feel for them. He engaged the collective, and slowly the helicopter lifted off. He tested the cyclic, moving the helicopter first left, then right, then nose up and down.Remi yelled, “Sam, we’ve got a problem!”
“What?”
“Look right!”
Sam glanced out the side window. It took a few moments for him to register what he was seeing: Yaotl and the others were scattering across the pad as a dark rectangular shape bumped over the pad’s rock-lined perimeter and headed toward the helicopter. It was the Cushman. Sam caught a glimpse of Rivera in the moon’s pale glow hunched over the wheel.“Nap time’s over,” Remi called.
“I knew I’d forgotten something,” Sam shouted. “The keys!” He returned his attention to the controls, working the collective to gain altitude. In his haste he jerked the cyclic to the right and pressed the rudder pedal. The helicopter dipped right, and the tail spun around. He overcompensated. The helicopter dropped straight down, bounced off the pad, rose again. Sam risked another glance out the side window.The Cushman was thirty feet away and closing fast. To one side a figure-Nochtli, it looked like-dashed across the pad and threw himself into the Cushman’s cargo bed.
“Slow them down!” Sam called. “Aim for the engine! Bigger target!”
In the back, Remi opened up with one of the AK-74s, firing controlled three-round bursts into the ground ahead of the Cushman, but got no result. She switched targets. Bullets pounded into the cart’s front end, sparking off the bumper guards and shredding the fiberglass. Steam gushed from the engine compartment. The Cushman stuttered and began slowing, but not before it slid from view beneath
the helicopter.Sam lifted the collective, trying to gain altitude.
“I can’t see them anymore,” Remi called.
Sam glanced out one side window, then the other. “Where-”
Suddenly the helicopter lurched sideways and down, the open side door facing the ground. Remi’s feet slid out from under her, and she skidded toward the opening. Instinctively, she released her grip on the AK-74 to latch onto the safety harness. The rifle slid down the deck, bounced off the bell’s crate, and disappeared out the door.
“We lost an AK!” Remi called. A moment later a hand appeared in the opening, clawing at the deck for a handhold. Nochtli’s head rose into view. “And we’ve got a passenger!” Remi shouted.Sam glanced over his shoulder. “Kick him!”
“What!”
“Smash his fingers!”
Remi coiled her leg and lashed out, slamming her heel into Nochtli’s pinkie finger. He screamed but held on. With a grunt, he heaved his upper torso onto the deck and reached for the tie-down straps attached to the crate. Remi curled her leg for a second strike.
From below came three overlapping cracks. Bullets thunked into the cabin’s doorway.“Sam!”
“I hear it! Hold tight, I’m going to try to shake him!”
Sam jerked the helicopter to the left and looked out both side windows, trying to locate the source of the gunfire. Below and to the right, Rivera stood in the cargo bed of the Cushman with Remi’s fallen AK-74 tucked into his shoulder. The muzzle flashed orange. Sam’s passenger’sside cockpit window spiderwebbed. He shifted the cyclic again, continuing to slide the helicopter left toward the trees at the edge of the pad. He pulled up on the collective to gain altitude.
In the cabin, Remi cocked her leg again and heel-kicked Nochtli in the thigh. Nochtli grunted and collapsed face-first onto the deck, shattering his nose. With one hand still entwined in the safety webbing, she reached over her head, groping for one of the weapons.
Sam looked left, saw the dark outline of the treetops looming before the window. A bullet tore through the passenger-seat headrest, zipped past Sam’s chin, and punched through the windshield. He grunted and lifted the collective, but it was too late. Tree limbs scraped the belly of the helicopter. “Come on, come on . . .” he grumbled. “Remi, can you-”“Little busy here!”
A branch snagged on the helicopter’s tail boom, and the craft spun clockwise like a top. Alarms began blaring in the cockpit. Red and orange lights flashed on the dashboard. Sam worked the cyclic and collective, trying to compensate. Tree limbs slapped at the cockpit window.
Remi’s hand touched the wooden butt of one of the AKs; she grabbed it, pulled hard, and it slid from the webbing. It stopped. She craned her neck back. The AK’s front side was snagged on a strap. In the doorway, Nochtli was pushing himself upright. He hooked one of his knees over the edge of the doorway and began dragging himself toward Remi. Her hand slipped off the AK’s butt; her fingers touched something metallic, tubular-a pistol barrel. She grabbed it, jerked it free of the webbing. Nochtli latched his free hand onto her ankle. Remi set her teeth and swung the pistol in a backhand. The butt caught Nochtli on the side of the chin. His head snapped sideways, and his eyes rolled back in his head. Still kneeling, he teetered for a moment, then tipped backward and disappeared through the doorway.
She called to Sam, “He’s gone!”“You okay?”
She gulped a few breaths and replied, “Shaken and stirred but still here!”
Bullets peppered the fuselage. Sam saw an opening in the canopy and worked the cyclic and rudder pedals, crabbing the nose around until it was pointed in the right direction, then nosed down and lifted the collective. With the shrieking of wood on aluminum, the helicopter lurched forward and into the clear. Now he lowered the collective and dropped the helicopter below the tree line. He stopped in a hover twenty feet above the slope, looked around for the H-V-C-P Jingaro had mentioned, and flipped it on. The helicopter shuddered slightly, slid sideways, dipped, then settled into a steady hover. The alarms and the flashing lights stopped. Sam tentatively took his hands off the controls and exhaled heavily. In the back, Remi scooted sideways and slid the door shut. The thumping of the rotors faded.Sam turned in his seat and extended his hand between the gap. Remi grabbed his hand and pulled herself toward him. Sam asked, “You okay?”
“Yes. You?”
He nodded. “Let’s get out of here. I think we’ve fully worn out our welcome.”
CHAPTER 20
BIG SUKUTI ISLAND
THEY HAD JUST CLEARED THE ISLAND’S SOUTHERN COASTLINE when Sam realized Rivera’s gunfire had caused more than cosmetic damage. The rudder pedals felt spongy, and the collective and cyclic were sluggish, responding to his commands with a slight delay.“What do you think?” Remi asked, her face pressed between the seats.
“Hydraulics, maybe.” He scanned the gauges, looking for oil pressure, temperature, revolutions per minute . . . “Engine’s running a little hot, too, and the oil pressure looks dodgy.”“What’s that mean?”
“Nothing good.” “How far to the beach?”
“Three miles, give or take.”
“We should assume Rivera isn’t giving up.”
“I agree. Whether they call someone and how fast they respond is the question.”
“Or how fast they can get the Rinkers working again.”
“True. Let me see if I can get her settled down.”
Carefully Sam worked the controls, dropping both altitude and speed until they were a hundred feet off the water and moving at sixty knots-roughly seventy miles per hour. Below them, the sea was flat, calm, and black save the reflection of the helicopter’s navigation strobes.Remi said, “Sam, they’ll be able to track the lights.”
“Lights or no lights, they’re tracking us through the Big Eyes. Once we cross the beach, I’ll switch them off. Against the backdrop of the land we’ll be invisible.”
“You’re assuming they’ll come after us.”
“Have to.” He did a quick scan of the gauges. “The engine temperature’s come down a little bit. But the oil pressure is still hinky. The controls are still soft.”
“Hydraulics, then.”
“At the very least. Any one of those can put us in the drink. All we need is another four minutes or so.”
“And a non-crash landing,” Remi added.
“And that.”
Slowly through the windshield they could see Africa’s east coast turn from a dark smudge to identifiable bits of landmass: trees, white sand beaches, rolling hills, and rivers and streams zigzagging across the terrain.A half mile from the beach Sam felt the cyclic jerk in his hand, followed by a thump-bang above their heads. The cockpit and cabin began shaking. An alarm shrieked. Yellow and red lights flashed. “That’s a tad ominous,” Remi said with a tight grin.
“Just a tad,” Sam agreed. “Grab ahold of something. It’s going to get bumpy.”
He lifted the collective and dropped the nose, pushing the helicopter past eighty knots. Through the windshield he saw the shoals slip beneath the fuselage, then the beach, then the black-green of the forest. He reached forward and flipped off the navigation strobes.“There’s a big sandbar ahead on the riverbank,” he called. “Think you can manage the bell?”
“Define ‘manage’?”
“Shove it out the door.”
“That, I can do. What’s the plan?”
“I hover. You, the guns, our packs, and the bell get off on the sandbank.”
“And you?”
“I’m going to put down in the river.”
“What? No, Sam-”
“You said it yourself: They’re coming after us. If we can ditch this thing, they’ll have nowhere to start looking.”
“Can you do it?”
“If I can get the rotors shut down quickly enough.”
“More ifs,” Remi replied. “I’m beginning to hate ifs.”
“This’ll be the last one for a while.”
“Uh-huh. I’ve heard that before
.”
“When you’re on the ground, find the thickest tree trunk around and get behind it. If the rotors don’t spool down enough before she flips over, they’ll tear free and turn into shrapnel.” “Flip over? What do you mean-”
“Helicopters are top-heavy. As soon as she touches the water she’s going to roll.”
“I don’t like this-”
“The sandbar’s coming up. Get ready!”
“You’re infuriating, you know that?”
“I know.”
Remi mumbled a half curse under her breath, then turned around and released the tie-down ratchets around the crate. She crab-walked around it, braced her back against the bulkhead and her legs against the crate, and shoved it across the deck until it bumped up against the door.“Ready,” she called.
Sam bled off airspeed and altitude until they were thirty feet off the sandbar and crawling ahead at fifteen knots. The helicopter was wobbling now; the earlier thump-bang had settled into an ominous three-second cycle that shook the fuselage from stem to stern.“It’s getting worse,” Remi said.
“We’re almost there.”
Sam eased the helicopter downward a foot at a time.
“Check the distance,” he asked.
Remi slid the cabin door halfway open and poked her head out. “Twenty feet . . . fifteen . . . ten . . .”
“Can you make that?” Sam asked.
“I may be well past my gymnastics days, but I can still do ten feet blindfolded.”
Sam flipped on the hover coupler. He took his hands off the controls. The helicopter lurched sideways, quivered, dipped, then steadied itself.
“Okay, go,” Sam called. “Give me a wave when you’re down and safe.”
Remi hunch-walked forward, stuck her head between the seats, kissed him, said “Good luck,” then walked back and shoved the door the rest of the way open.
“Try to miss the skids,” Sam said.
Remi put her shoulder to the crate, took a deep breath, and shoved. The crate tumbled through the opening and disappeared. The guns went next. Remi gave Sam a final glance and jumped out. Ten seconds later Sam spotted her farther up the sandbar. She gave him a thumbs-up and dashed off into the darkness.
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