Lost Empire fa-2

by Clive Cussler

  Sam counted to sixty to give her time to find cover, then grabbed the collective. He disengaged the hover coupler and seized the cyclic. He dipped the nose slightly and let the rotor blade’s pitch angle ease him across the sandbar and over the river. When he reached a section that was both wide and deep enough for his purposes, he pulled the nose up and worked the collective into a hover.

  He took one final look around. Once the helicopter submerged, the interior would be black. With no visual reference points, he’d have to escape by feel alone. He checked his seat belt to ensure he knew how to unhook it, then studied the cabin-door latch, then rehearsed his movements in his mind’s eye.

  He lowered the collective ever so slightly and felt the helicopter drop. He pressed his face against the door window. The skids were about five feet off the water. Close enough. Any closer, Sam feared, and he’d have a zero margin for error.“Here goes everything,” Sam muttered.

  He released the cyclic, shut off the engines, pulled the collective up to its stops to slow the blades, and grabbed the collective again. Sam felt his belly shoot into his throat. With a crash, the helicopter struck the surface. He was thrown forward against the restraints. He felt the helicopter tipping right, thought, Collective!, and he jerked the control to the left. The effect was immediate. With the blades already fully pitched, the rotor assembly responded to Sam’s command by angling to the left and shifting the helicopter’s center of gravity. Water rushed up the windshield, horizontally at first, then diagonally as the helicopter pitched sideways. Sam tucked his chin to his chest, grasped the restraints with both hands, and set his jaw.He felt a bone-shaking jolt. White light burst behind his eyes. Then nothing.

  HE AWOKE COUGHING. Water filled his throat. He jerked his head back, sputtered again, and forced his eyes open. Seeing only blackness, he felt a moment of panic. He squashed it, forced himself to breathe. He reached out, fingers extended, until he touched something solid-the tip of the cyclic. Gravity was pulling his head to the left. The helicopter was lying on its side; the river hadn’t been deep enough for the helicopter to completely capsize. That was the good news. The bad news was that he could hear water gushing into the cabin behind him. Already the level had reached his face.“Move, Sam,” he muttered.

  He extended his right arm up, felt the upholstery of the passenger seat, and kept groping until his fingers found the safety belt. He latched on, then dipped his left hand beneath the water and punched the Release button on his restraints. He fell sideways, then brought his free hand up, joined it with his left hand, and chinned himself from the water until his knees reached the gap separating the cockpit from the cabin. Toes pointed, he shoved his legs through the opening and stretched to his full length until his feet touched the cabin’s bulkhead. He let go of the restraints and slid the rest of the way into the cabin. Now that he was standing hunched over, the water was at his chest. He extended his arms upward, felt the cabin door, and traced its outline with his fingertips. Water was spurting through the seams. He found the latch, tested it with slight downward pressure. It seemed operable.“Deep breath,” Sam told himself.

  He sucked in a lungful of air, shoved the latch down, and slid the door open. Water crashed onto his head. He stumbled backward and slid beneath the surface. He let the wave shove him against the cabin wall, using the momentum to coil his legs beneath him. The pressure subsided. He kicked off, arms spread before him, hands grasping at the doorframe and pushing, feet kicking-His head broke the surface.

  “Sam!” he heard. Remi’s voice.

  He opened his eyes and turned in the water, trying to get his bearings.

  “Sam!” she called again.

  He turned again, saw her standing on the bank waving at him.

  “-diles!” she yelled.

  “What?” “Crocodiles! Swim!”

  Sam did just that, pouring his last shred of energy into a sprint for the bank. He touched sand, shoved himself to his knees, then to his feet, then stumbled forward into Remi’s arms. Together they slogged up the sand onto level ground before collapsing.“Forgot about crocodiles,” Sam said a couple minutes later.

  “Me too. I spotted them in the shallows about fifty yards upstream. The commotion must have woken them up. Are you okay? Any broken bones?”

  “Don’t think so. How’d I do?”

  Remi pointed toward the middle of the river. Sam focused on the spot, but it took several seconds for his eyes to adjust. All that remained visible of the helicopter was a branchlike shard of rotor blade jutting a half foot above the surface.“The rest of the chunks went into the water.”

  “Just as I planned,” Sam said with a weary smile.

  “Planned?”

  “Hoped.

  How’s the bell?”

  “Aside from a few cracks in the wood, the crate’s surprisingly intact. I collected our packs and the guns. Let’s find some cover in case we have visitors.”

  CHAPTER 21

  WARY OF LEAVING TELLTALE DRAG MARKS, THEY CHOSE TO LEAVE the crate where it sat. Unintentionally, they’d dropped it in an ideal location-a dry rivulet near the riverbank. They covered it with scrub brush and then, using bundled foliage to obscure their tracks, they back-walked off the sandbar to solid ground and into a copse. A hundred feet inside the tree line they found a ten-by-ten-foot depression surrounded by fallen logs. It gave them a vantage point of not only the crate but the open ground down to the beach.

  After probing the area with the muzzles of the rifles to drive off any snakes or sundry creepy crawlies, they settled into their bolt-hole. While Sam kept an eye out for visitors, Remi took inventory of their packs. “Remind me to send a thank-you letter to Ziploc,” she said. “Most everything is dry. The satellite phone looks okay.”“How much battery life?”

  “Enough for one call, maybe two.”

  Sam checked his watch. It was just after two in the morning. “It might be time to take Ed Mitchell up on his offer.” Remi fished Mitchell’s card out of her pack and handed it over. Sam dialed.A gravelly voiced Mitchell picked up on the fourth ring: “Yeah.”

  “Ed, it’s Sam Fargo.”

  “Huh?”

  “Sam Fargo-your Mafia Island charter a couple days ago.”

  “Oh, yeah . . . Hey . . .what the hell time is it?”

  “About two. I don’t have much time. We need an evac.”

  “That’s a word I ain’t heard in a while. You in trouble?”

  “You could say that.”

  “Where you at?”

  “On the mainland, about four and half miles due east of Big Sukuti,” Sam replied, then gave him a description of the area.

  “You guys get around,” Mitchell said. “Hang on a minute.”

  Sam heard the sounds of paper crinkling, then silence. Mitchell came back on the line: “You know you’re sitting smack-dab in the middle of crocodile hell, don’t you?”

  “We do now.”

  “Can’t get a fixed wing in there. I’ll have to use a helo. That’ll take a little doing.”

  “We’ll make it worth your while.” “I know you will, but that’s not my worry. I probably won’t get there until just after sunrise. Can you hang on?”“We’ll have to,” Sam said.

  “Are folks going to be shooting at me when I get there?”

  “No guarantees.”

  There was ten seconds of silence, then Mitchell chuckled. “Ah, what the hell. Life’s a daring adventure or nothing at all.”

  Sam laughed at this. “It is indeed.”

  “Okay, keep your heads down. I’ll be there at first light. Just in case I’ve got some competition at the LZ, I’ll drop blue smoke so you don’t shoot at me.”

  Sam disconnected. Beside him, Remi said, “Here, drink.”

  Sam turned, took a deep gulp from the canteen, then accepted a piece of beef jerky. He recounted his conversation with Mitchell. Remi said, “That man’s on our permanent Christmas list. So he’ll be here in another four or five hours.”“With luck.”

 
; They sat in silence, chewing for several minutes. Sam checked his watch. “It’s been forty minutes since we left the island.”

  “You don’t think they-”

  Sam held up his hand. Remi went quiet. After a few moments, she said, “I hear them. Two of them, somewhere offshore.”

  Sam nodded. “Hard to tell, but it sounds like the Rinkers. We’d better assume so.”

  “How far inland are we?”

  “A quarter mile, maybe a little more.”

  They listened for a few more minutes. The sound of the engines rose in volume, then suddenly went silent. “They’re ashore,” Sam said.

  They checked their weapons: two AK-74s, one with a full magazine, the other missing the dozen or so rounds Remi had fired at the Cushman; the .357 Magnum; and the H amp;K P30. Whether these would be enough should a firefight erupt was an unknown. They’d been lucky so far with Rivera and his men, but neither Sam nor Remi were under any illusion: In a head-to-head contest, they had little chance of besting Special Forces soldiers.“Let’s get comfortable,” Sam said.

  “And invisible,” Remi added.

  After shoving their packs under a rotting log and covering them with loam, they did the same for themselves, lying lengthwise, head-to-head, so that each of them could see the approaches from the beach. Sam handed Remi a handful of mud to cover her face, then smeared some on his own.“Promise me something, Sam,” Remi said, slathering herself.

  “A suite at the Moevenpick?” he guessed.

  “I was going to say a hot shower and a big breakfast, but since you offered I’ve been composing a list . . .”

  PEERING THROUGH A GAP between the logs, Remi spotted a speck of light a few hundred yards to the east. She tapped Sam on the shoulder, mouthed, Flashlight , and pointed. The flashlight beam seemed to float through midair, disappearing and reappearing through the trees as the owner picked his way inland.“I’ll say this much for Rivera,” Sam whispered, “he’s like a dog with a bone.”

  “He’s probably said the same thing about us but in less congenial language. Are we waiting until we see the whites of their eyes?”

  “No, we’re crossing fingers they don’t even wander this way.”

  “Why wouldn’t they?”

  “In Africa, darkness and forest equals predators.”

  “I could have done without that tidbit.”

  “Sorry.” As if on cue, somewhere in the distance they heard the deep-throated huff-huff-huff of a big cat. It was a sound they’d both heard before, but either on organized safaris or from the safety of a lodge. Here, in the open and alone, the sound was chilling.Sam whispered, “It’s a long way off.”

  Soon a second flashlight joined the first; then a third and a fourth. The men were moving in a line abreast like flushers leading a hunting party. Soon the party was close enough that Sam and Remi could see the figures behind the flashlights. Not surprisingly, each man appeared to be carrying an assault rifle.

  Another five minutes brought the group to the sandbar, where they converged. One of the men-Rivera, perhaps-appeared to do most of the talking, gesturing first up and down the shoreline, then inland. They shined their flashlights along the bank and over the water. Twice the beams appeared to skim over the helicopter blade jutting from the water, but it generated no response. Suddenly one of the men pointed across the river. Almost in unison, each of the men unslung his rifle.“They spotted our fanged friends,” Remi whispered.

  Weapons up and ready, the group backed off the sandbar until they were on the scrub ground. They conferred for another minute, then separated, one pair walking downriver, the other upriver. This was the pair Sam and Remi watched closely; as the river abutted the copse’s northern edge, the pair’s path would take them within fifty feet of the hiding spot.Sam whispered, “I took a look as we flew in: The nearest crossing is a mile downstream. Now we’ll see how determined they are.”

  Clearly wary of what other dangers the river might hold, the two men kept a safe distance from shore, walking from left to right across Sam and Remi’s field of vision until the river curved east and merged with the copse. Here they turned southeast, shining their flashlights along the tree line as they walked. Now only twenty yards away, their figures were more distinct. One of them was more distinct than the other: Tall and gaunt, he moved with the economical, purposeful gait of a soldier. It was Itzli Rivera.

  Suddenly Sam felt clawed feet crawling over his ankle. Before he could resist the impulse, he kicked his foot. The unseen creature squealed and skittered off through the underbrush.

  Rivera stopped suddenly and held up a closed fist, the soldier’s universal hand signal for “Halt!” His partner stopped in his tracks, and in unison they slowly dropped to one knee. The flashlights were doused. Each man’s head began rotating, looking, listening. The flashlights popped back on again and began skimming over the trees, pausing occasionally here and there. Rivera looked over his shoulder and gestured something to his partner. Together they stood up, turned, and began picking their way into the trees, heading directly for Sam and Remi’s hiding spot.Sam felt Remi’s hand on his shoulder. He reached up, gave it a reassuring squeeze.

  Rivera and his partner kept coming. They were thirty feet away.

  Now twenty feet. Ten feet.

  They stopped, looked left and right, and flashlight beams probed the gaps between the logs around Sam and Remi. Twigs cracked. Rivera whispered something to his partner. Sam and Remi felt the log over their heads sink a couple inches. The tips of a pair of boots appeared at the edge of the log, and a flashlight beam swept over the depression.Five long seconds passed.

  The flashlight clicked off. The boots pulled back, followed by a double thump as Rivera dismounted the log. Slowly the footfalls faded.

  Sam counted to one hundred, then slowly lifted his head until he could see through the gap. Silhouetted by the glow of their flashlights, Rivera and his partner were back at the tree line and moving south toward the sandbar. Sam watched them for another minute and turned his head so his mouth was closer to Remi’s ear.

  “They’re moving off. We’ll stay put in case they double back.” For the next twenty minutes they remained still, wedged as tightly as possible in their bolt-hole, until finally they heard in the distance the Rinker’s engines growling back to life.Sam whispered, “Just a little longer.” He gave it another five minutes, then rolled out from under the log. “I’m going to have a look around.”

  He crawled out of the depression and disappeared. He returned ten minutes later. “They’re gone.” He helped Remi out from her hiding spot.

  She exhaled heavily. “That bell better be worth it.”

  “Another few hours and we’re home free.” ED MITCHELL WAS as good as his word, if not a little better. Just as the sun was peeking through the forest to the east they heard the thump of helicopter rotors. As a precaution Sam and Remi scrambled back into their bolt-holes, occasionally peeking out as the rotors grew louder. To the west they saw a yellow-and-white Bell helicopter sweep in over the beach and turn inland, following the course of the river. When the helicopter reached the sandbar, the pilot’s door opened. A moment later, blue smoke began drifting over the ground.Sam and Remi rolled out together and stood up. Sam asked, “Ready for home?” Remi shook her head, and he chuckled. “Right. Sorry. Hot shower and breakfast.”

  AN HOUR LATER, with the crate strapped safely to the Bell’s deck, they touched down at the Ras Kutani airstrip. While Mitchell trotted off to collect his vehicle for the ride back to Dar es Salaam, Sam and Remi used the sat phone to place a long-overdue call to Selma.“Where have you been?” their chief researcher said over the speaker. “I’ve been sitting by the phone.”

  “Is that your way of saying you were worried about us?” Remi asked.

  “Yes, it is. Now, explain yourselves.”

  Sam briefly recounted the last few days, ending with their recovery of the bell. Selma sighed. “I wish I could say positively you haven’t wasted your time.”

/>   “What do you mean?” Sam asked.

  “We got the first shipment from Morton’s museum yesterday. In with the miscellanea we found what looks like a journal of sorts-Blaylock’s journal, to be exact.”

  “That’s good news,” Remi said, then added tentatively, “Right?”

  “It would be,” Selma replied, “if not for the fact that I’m pretty sure Winston Lloyd Blaylock, the Mbogo of Bagamoyo, was certifiably insane.”

  CHAPTER 22

  GOLDFISH POINT,

  LA JOLLA , CALIFORNIA

  EXHAUSTED AND WANTING TO HIT THE GROUND RUNNING WHEN they got home, Sam and Remi spent the majority of the flights home sleeping and eating and generally trying to keep their minds off Selma’s proclamation regarding Winston Blaylock. Their chief researcher wasn’t prone to hyperbole, so they took seriously her suspicion which, if true, cast a pall on their efforts to recover the Shenandoah’s bell. Of course, while the bell was of significant historical value regardless, the cryptic inscription on the bell’s inner surface and Blaylock’s obsession with the ship (either under the guise of the Ophelia, the Shenandoah, or the El Majidi) had suggested to them a deeper mystery-one that had apparently prompted Itzli Rivera and perhaps someone in the Mexican government to murder nine tourists.AS PROMISED, PETE JEFFCOAT and Wendy Corden were waiting for them in the baggage claim area. Pete took their carry-ons. “You look tired.”

  “You should have seen us eighteen hours and a couple dozen time zones ago,” Sam replied.

  “What happened to you?” Wendy asked, gesturing to Sam’s swollen cheekbone and his taped finger. While the latter was now properly bandaged with medical tape, the cut on his cheekbone was crusty with Super Glue-a remedy Ed Mitchell swore was better than stitches.“I burned a casserole, and Remi got mad,” Sam said. He got a light punch on the arm from his wife in return.