by David Wood
His reaching hands caught the lip of the gondola basket, and this time, the sudden addition of his mass caused the whole affair to wobble a little. He got his knees up, the toes of his boots clawing against the basket weave for purchase, and managed to heave himself up and onto the padded rim of the gondola.
In that instant, he got his first real look at the balloon’s occupants, two Egyptian men, one of whom he recognized despite the white respirator covering the lower half of his face. Fayed’s driver. There was no sign of Fayed himself—he was either in the other balloon, or overseeing the operation from the ground—but if the man and his protective dust mask wasn’t confirmation enough that they had been right about Fayed’s plan, the two thirty-gallon clear plastic bags filled with something that looked like black dust established it beyond any doubt.
The two men gaped at him in disbelief for a moment, but as Maddock rolled over into the gondola, they shook off their paralysis, and started toward him.
Maddock landed in a crouch, the basket wobbling a little under him like the deck of a boat at sea. He stayed low, but charged the nearest man, driving his shoulder into the man’s gut and knocking him backward, but even as he made contact, he felt grasping hands close on his own shoulders, spinning him around and slamming him into the side of the gondola. There was a sickening crunch—not his bones breaking, but strands of woven wicker, splintering under the impact. Fayed’s goon loomed over him, his right arm drawing back to deliver a knockout punch. Maddock didn’t try to block the incoming blow, but instead dropped heavily onto the floor of the gondola, ducking under the swing, and counter-attacked with a kick that drove up into the man’s abdomen. The force of the blow launched the man into the air just as the swaying gondola dipped behind him. He hit the edge of the basket, flipped over the side and vanished from sight, but a half-second later, Maddock heard the resounding thud of a body hitting something solid.
The struggle had set the gondola pitching back and forth like an old rope swing, and Maddock was afraid that if he tried to get his feet under him, he too might go over. His remaining foe likewise made no attempt to rise; he didn’t need to. Still sitting with his back to the far end of the gondola, the man slowly, carefully reached under his shirt and drew out a pistol.
For a fraction of a second, Maddock considered trying to charge the man, but with the platform heaving under him, he figured he had a less than fifty-fifty chance of surviving the attack. But as he measured the distance, his gaze settled once more on the plastic bags full of mold spores. One of them was within easy reach, and in a flash of inspiration—or more likely desperation—he snatched it to him and held it over his head with both hands as if it was a rock which he intended to hurl at the man. “Don’t do it,” he warned.
Even though the man’s respirator probably would have protected him from exposure, the threat caused him to hesitate, but only for a second or two. Then, the gun resumed its slow rise, the gaping hole of the muzzle wavering back and forth as he tried to aim. Maddock’s feint had only delayed the inevitable.
But that delay made all the difference.
Before the man could fire, Maddock glimpsed movement to his left. Someone—Nora!—had appeared just outside of the gondola.
How...?
The gunman noticed her as well, and almost reflexively shifted his weapon toward her.
Maddock threw the bag in the direction of the man’s face, and in the same motion, launched himself across the gondola. As he moved, Maddock drew in a quick breath, just in case the bag ruptured, but it proved to be an unnecessary precaution. Its loosely-packed contents were so light, it seemed to drift, rather than fly across the intervening space, but it’s bulk hid both Maddock and Nora from the gunman’s view just long enough for Maddock to cross the gondola and get inside the man’s reach. A knife-hand blow to the wrist knocked the gun away, sending it spinning out away from the gondola, and as the unbroken bag tumbled to the deck, Maddock delivered a second punch that connected squarely with the man’s chin, putting him down for the count.
Maddock whirled to check on Nora. It took him a moment longer to realize that the balloon—without the constant flame from its jet-engine like burners—had sunk back down, the gondola now almost at ground level.
Bones appeared beside her, his hands gripping the lip of the basket, still anchoring the balloon though with considerably less effort than before. His gaze settled on the garbage bags, and he frowned. “Well, that takes care of this one, but I think Fayed’s in that one.” He thrust his chin over his shoulder toward the second balloon, which was not only continuing to rise, but drifting in a southeasterly direction, carried by the breeze.
The partial victory stung almost as much as outright defeat, but as he stared at the retreating balloon, Maddock’s frustration transformed first into rage, and then, resolve. “Climb in,” he said in a low voice that was almost a growl. “We’re going after him.”
ELEVEN
Bones, seemingly anticipating Maddock’s decision, was already hoisting himself up onto the padded edge. Nora however goggled at him a moment longer. “So now we’re air pirates,” she remarked, though this time with a hint of a smirk. “Do you actually know what you’re doing?”
“Don’t worry,” Bones said, extending a hand to assist her with boarding. “This isn’t our first balloon-jacking.”
“You’re kidding.” She shook her head. “No, somehow I don’t think you are.”
“I guess technically we didn’t jack the thing, since we weren’t actually in it at the time. We just sort of let it go.” He nodded toward Maddock. “It was his idea.”
“We’ve led interesting lives.” Maddock had already turned away, moving to the center of the gondola where an upraised platform held the burner unit high overhead. A single pull-handle hung down from it, and when he gave it an experimental tug, a quasi-Biblical pillar of fire blossomed into existence above them, shooting up through the flame-retardant Nomex skirt around the opening of the balloon, and high up into the nylon canopy. There was another handle, this one connected to a line that snaked up into the vast envelope above. Maddock guessed it was some kind of vent control for rapid descent but decided not to mess with it.
“Seems simple enough,” he said, and then glanced over at the still unconscious gunman. “Maybe lighten our load a little?”
Bones grinned and with a deft move, scooped the man up and heaved him unceremoniously over the side.
Maddock pulled the handle again, this time holding it down for a sustained blast. The noise was deafening, and the radiant heat was barely endurable, so after counting to five, he let off, but only for another five second interval. He kept this cycle—five on, five off—and on the third iteration, the balloon began to loft skyward again. Maddock could feel the wind—a gentle breeze, maybe only five miles per hour—pushing the balloon along in the same direction as its twin. That was small comfort. The other balloon had shrunk to the point where Maddock could cover it with an outstretched thumb, and while it was no longer pulling away, they weren’t getting any closer, either.
Like the felucca, the balloon relied completely on wind for motive force, but unlike the sailboat, there was no way to maximize the push, much less steer. The choices available to balloonist were up and down. Because the atmosphere wasn’t a uniform, homogeneous bubble of air, but a swirling mass of air currents of different speed and temperature interacting in three-dimensions, it was possible to steer, after a fashion, by rising or falling into a breeze blowing the desired direction, but there was no way to make the balloon go faster.
Maddock pulled the handle again, this time counting to ten before releasing it. He guessed they were at least a hundred feet up, rising about five feet per second.
Bones joined him. “So are we just going to enjoy the view, or do you have some kind of cunning plan?”
“You mean beyond hoping that the wind changes and blows him back our way?” Maddock sighed. “Not really.”
“Even if the wind does change
, it won’t help,” Nora pointed out. “It would blow us away from him.”
“And then there’s the problem of what to do if, by some miracle, we do catch him,” Bones went on. “It’s not like we can force him down. Even if we got that close, we’d just bump together like a couple of fat asses at a buffet.”
Maddock almost laughed at the image, but it gave him an idea. “Only if we bump side-to-side. What if we tried to ‘sit’ on him?” He indicated the second, as yet untouched handle. “Get above him, and then pull the release vent.”
Bones eyebrows came together in a look of consternation. “I’m not sure it works like that.”
Maddock knew his friend was probably right, but absent any other plan, he activated the burner for another ten-count, lifting the balloon even higher. They came level with the other balloon, which looked about as big as a standard light bulb held at arm’s length, and then rose even higher, so that they were looking down at it. Far below and directly ahead, not even a mile away, was a sprawling rectangle on the desert floor, studded with multiple sand-colored protrusions—the ruins of some massive temple complex. They were still too far away to make out any people moving in the ruin but arrayed at one edge of the complex were more than a dozen waiting tour buses.
“That’s the Ramesseum,” Nora said. “The mortuary temple of Ramesses II.”
“Think that’s his target?”
Nora frowned uncertainly. “It’s not the most popular site, but it is on most of the tour routes.”
“Beggars can’t be choosers,” Maddock said. “He can’t fly around up here all day hoping the wind takes him to a better target. He’s going to dump the stuff there. I can feel it.”
As if to confirm his gut instinct, the other balloon began descending, venting hot air to get closer to the ruins of the Ramesseum. Maddock turned to grip the vent handle, intending to pull it and follow the other balloon down but stopped short when he realized that, not only was the other balloon descending, it was also getting closer. The pilot—presumably Fayed—had lost the wind and was now merely drifting toward the ruin, while Maddock and the others were still moving with the breeze.
“Sit on him,” Maddock repeated, grinning. He gave the burner another five-second blast to maintain their current altitude, and then shouted. “Bones, tell me when we’re directly over him.”
Bones shook his head, then turned to Nora. “I can’t reason with him when he gets like this. Better hold on to something.”
Nora gaped in disbelief for a moment but then complied without comment.
Maddock ignored both of them, watching intently as Fayed’s balloon approached and then, at least from his perspective, appeared to dip below the edge of the basket. “Say when,” he urged.
Bones was silent for several seconds, then shook his head again. “It’s no good. We’re gonna miss him.”
Maddock hasted to join Bones at the edge, and saw that his friend wasn’t wrong. The second balloon was a big red dot below them, maybe two or three hundred feet down, and less than a hundred above the ground, but it wasn’t directly below them, and as he watched, Maddock saw that dot rolling along almost perfectly parallel to the rim of their gondola. Although it was impossible to judge distances, Maddock knew that it was probably a lot further away than it looked, but refusing to accept defeat, he swiveled back to the vent control and pulled hard.
The balloon did not exactly plummet from the sky. For a few seconds, Maddock wasn’t even sure anything was happening; had be been wrong about the purpose of the handle? But then Bones called out again, his tone verging on frantic. “Crap! Up! Up!”
Maddock immediately released the handle, and gave the burner another blast which he held until Bones sagged back in visible relief. “Better.”
Maddock rejoined him at the side of the gondola and saw that Bones’ panic was well-founded. The ground had come up a lot faster than he’d realized. Another second or two of venting, and they might have slammed into the desert floor like a meteor.
The red dot of the other balloon had swelled to the size of a small planet, its top maybe fifty feet below the bottom of their gondola, and at least as far away.
Maddock rapped his knuckles against the edge of the gondola. “Damn it. So close.”
“Not close enough,” Bones countered. “Maybe if we all blow really hard, we can get closer.”
Maddock stared at the other aircraft and the turned back to the interior of the gondola. “Is there something we can throw at him?”
“How about our shoes,” Nora suggested.
Maddock didn’t know if she was being serious or sarcastic. In the Arab world, throwing shoes at someone was a major league insult, but that was about all they had left.
Fayed had beaten them. He was just seconds away from the edge of the temple complex, seconds away from unleashing his “Pharaoh’s Curse” onto a crowd of unsuspecting innocents and there was nothing they could do to stop him.
Maddock pounded his fist on the edge of the gondola in frustration, wishing he could hurl himself across the void....
He jolted as if he had received an electric shock.
No, that’s insane, he told himself, and then, Why not?
He spun back to the center and initiated another burn. When he was certain that the balloon was rising again, he let go and headed back to the edge. The balloon was starting to drift again, pushed by the winds aloft but was still about the same lateral distance from Fayed’s balloon, though now at least a hundred feet above it.
His brain automatically started calculating angles and glide vectors... And the odds of surviving what he intended.
Don’t think about it. Just do it.
He grasped one of the upright supports and pulled himself up onto the rim of the basket, balancing precariously on the edge.
Bones looked up at him. “Uh, dude? Please, tell me you’re not thinking of doing something batsh—”
Maddock didn’t hear the rest. He had already jumped.
TWELVE
Fayed could not believe they were still alive. Maddock, Bonebrake, and that damned Majdy woman. They were thorns in his side, the mere thought of them causing his anger to boil. Sweat rolled down his neck. Not even the breeze as they flew along could cool the heat rising inside of him. They were so close to their target!
“I’ll give them full marks for persistence,” Gamal said, looking up at the balloon that pursued them.
“They do seem to have a knack for escaping,” Fayed admitted. Stilling himself to calm, he watched as the other balloon continued to rise. He wanted to lash out, to break something, hurt someone. But it would not do to lose control in front of his underlings. He could not help but feel a grudging respect for Maddock and Bonebrake. What were the odds that, in addition to being archaeologists, divers, and military-trained, the men also knew how to pilot a balloon?
“They escaped us in the city. They survived the blast at the well. Then they escaped the boat and now they’re pursuing us? Who are they, anyway?” A slight note of reverence tinged Gamal’s voice.
Fayed shook his head. “They are people who shall soon be dead. That is all that matters.”
“What if they catch us?”
Fayed whipped his head around, ready to berate his underling, but he realized there was no fear in Gamal’s eyes, no trepidation in his voice. It was a strategic question.
“What are they going to do if they manage to get close to us? A hot air balloon version of kite fighting?” He forced a cold smile. “But as long as we focus on keeping ahead of them...” He cut off at the expression on Gamal’s face. Wide-eyed, he pointed at Maddock’s balloon.
“What is he doing?”
In their many years of working together, Bones had witnessed Maddock take some pretty crazy chances. He’d taken his share of them as well—several in the last few hours, actually. But jumping out of a hot-air balloon without a parachute? That was in a class by itself.
Yet, as he watched Maddock leap into the air, arch his body like
a high-diver, and then flatten out, head tilted down, arms swept back, legs extended, turning his body into a living wing, Bones realized that his friend knew exactly what he was doing. Maddock’s glide was a thing of beauty—not quite flying, but as close to it as a person could get without a wingsuit. His glide ratio was less than 1:1, meaning he was moving vertically faster than he was moving forward, but he was moving forward, falling in a parabolic curve that would, just barely, bring him into direct contact with Fayed’s balloon.
Then, it was over. Maddock arrowed into the curved side of the other balloon, and vanished as the red nylon envelope enfolded him, swallowing him from Bones’ view. The balloon had acted like a high-fall stunt airbag, which had no doubt been Maddock’s thinking prior to making his leap of faith. The force of the collision drove the air inside out through the only avenue of escape—the opening at the base of the balloon. With a sizable fraction of its heated interior forcibly purged, the balloon and gondola were now no longer lighter than the surrounding air. The balloon began to plummet. Since it was only about fifty feet above the ground, and the envelope was still partially inflated, Bones figured Maddock had a decent chance of surviving the five-story drop mostly intact.
“Holy crap,” Bones muttered. “He actually did it.”
That was when the falling balloon erupted in flames.
Maddock saw none of this. Wholly engulfed by the collapsing balloon, he couldn’t see anything but red. The impermeable fabric was covering his face, suffocating him. The heat was intense. Sauna hot... Pizza oven hot. He tried to wriggle out of his nylon shroud, but he couldn’t even tell up from down.
This might not have been such a good idea, he thought, belatedly.