“I don’t know how to jump.”
“Just stay with the horse’s motion.”
Ahead of them, Chandler sailed over the meter-high fence and landed with the grace and poise of a professional show jumper.
Tequila knew it wouldn’t be as easy for him.
“Weight in your heels. Give the mare her head. She’ll follow the others over.”
Lund cleared the barrier a couple of strides behind her, his jump an ill-timed hop that left him clutching the horse’s neck, bumping his shoulder into her mane. Incredibly, he made it to the other side and stayed on the horse, sloppy as he looked.
A burst of gunfire exploded behind them from one of the front-mounted guns, bullets shredding sumac and hitting the painted boards. The fence rushed up fast.
“Keep your head up,” Fleming urged. “Focus past the jump. Whatever you do, don’t look down.”
“There are two of us. The extra weight—”
“You can do this. And don’t ever comment on a girl’s weight.”
Tequila could feel the horse’s muscles coil beneath him, her hindquarters gathering, taking the fence in stride. He figured there was no way in hell they’d make it.
Then they were flying.
He glanced down at the horse, instinctively grasping for the saddle horn, and felt his butt rising out of the saddle as Fleming clenched him tight.
Look forward. Always forward.
He forced his chin up and focused on Lund’s back, the balloons beyond.
The horse landed, front hooves first, throwing Tequila forward. He tensed his stomach muscles just as the horn punched him in the gut. Fleming held on, moving with him.
The horse kept going, her rocking gait allowing Tequila to regain his balance.
Between the saddle horn and Fleming’s ice pick, Tequila’s gut was killing him. He knew he looked even sloppier than Lund, and he was sure the USSR judge gave him a 1.5. But fuck that guy, they’d made it.
Another burst of fire came from behind, but Banshee kept moving, leaving the ATVs hauling Hammett and her men trapped behind the fence.
“Good job,” Fleming said.
Tequila nodded, ignoring the compliment and already focused on the spot where Chandler was heading.
The closest hot-air balloon.
Chandler
“When you find yourself in a tight situation,” said the Instructor, “the best thing you can do is remain flexible. Plans fall apart, but opportunities you never envisioned can save you, as long as you are ready to improvise, adapt, and overcome at a moment’s notice.”
The fence did the trick. The buzz of the four-wheelers faded, the gunfire ceasing as we pulled out of range. I hadn’t been sure either Lund or Tequila could make the jump, but it had been a necessary gamble. If I’d let the chase continue, one or more of us would have been shot. We were low on guns and ammunition, and in most circumstances horses couldn’t outrun ATVs.
But horses could jump.
I raced for the airstrip, Bo’s strides steady and long beneath me. The smell of hot horse hung in my nostrils. I’d glanced over my shoulder to make sure Lund, Tequila, and Fleming were in good shape, then I turned my attention to the next part of the plan I was desperately cobbling together in my head. It wouldn’t take Hammett and her men long to go around the fence. We had to be out of here by the time they did.
A few people milled about the airstrip, curious onlookers and the balloons’ crews, who spread large tarps on the ground next to the two balloons that had landed in preparation for deflating them and packing them up.
More civilians gathered in the adjacent orchard and farm market, where some kind of festival seemed to be closing out the weekend. The rumble of voices and pulse of a tuba playing polka music wafted in the air like the smoke rising from a booth selling food, the smell of charcoal and bratwurst competing with the fragrance of horse. The sun was already hunkering low behind the western bluffs, twilight closing in.
Unfortunately the first choice on my hijack list, a small airplane, was nowhere to be found. And while there were cars in the orchard parking lot, they were a good distance away, and we’d risk Hammett catching up to us in the time it took to reach them. Worse, I doubted my sister would be careful to avoid the old ladies and small children who often attended festivals like this while she was shooting at us.
I eyed the balloons, a more immediate plan taking shape.
I pressed my calves into Bo’s sides, a searing pain reminding me of one of my many injuries, and she surged forward. We bore down on the closest balloon, its envelope still fully inflated. The crew had just tied it down and was climbing from the basket. They stared at us, galloping toward them, oblivious to what was about to happen.
I glanced back at Lund, then back to the balloon, hoping he would catch what I was thinking.
Then I pulled Bo to a sliding stop and jumped off in one movement. Lund stopped beside me, but instead of dismounting, he grabbed Bo’s reins. I stared up at the massive red balloon, at least eighty meters tall, and strode for the basket. Then I began untying tethers.
The crew just stood and watched, as if not quite believing I was stealing their balloon. Eventually a woman who I pegged to be in her fifties stepped toward me.
“Hey, what are you doing?”
I drilled her with a serious stare. “We need to borrow this.”
“You can’t do that.”
I kept untying.
“Hey, stop! I’ll call the police.”
“You do that.” I didn’t want to hurt the woman, but I might have to if she didn’t back off.
Tequila and Fleming reached us, stopping Banshee next to me.
“This is our balloon,” The woman plopped her hands on her hips and jutted out her chin. “You can’t just take it.”
Tequila said, “What’s your name?”
“Midge.”
“We’re going to take your balloon, Midge. That’s not your choice. But you do have choice of whether or not I break your nose first.”
The woman stared wide-eyed at Tequila for a moment, her obvious horror shifting between his eyes and his bloody ear, then took a step backward. “I’ll keep my nose intact.”
So maybe she wasn’t so dumb.
After unleashing the last tether, I climbed into the basket and helped Fleming slide off the saddle and into the gondola beside me. While piloting a balloon was one thing not taught at Hydra, I’d gone up in one a few years ago after meeting a cute guy in a bar who was an avid balloonist.
The main principle behind ballooning is simple. Because hot air is less dense and thus lighter than cold air, it rises. Each of the colorful craft was constructed from panels of nylon reinforced with webbing that extended from the bottom of the balloon’s envelope to the top. At the bottom, or skirt, two propane burners heated the air. As the heat’s energy made the air molecules move faster, the air grew less dense than the air outside the envelope, and caused the balloon to rise.
It takes skill to pilot a balloon with precision, but the controls are as simple as turning on a gas stove or firing up the gas-powered grill cooking that bratwurst. Just the turn of a valve, and propane from the tanks in the basket fuels the flame in the burners. The larger the flame, the faster the air heats inside the nylon envelope, and the more quickly the balloon ascends. To lower the balloon, the pilot only has to pull a cord opening the parachute valve at the balloon’s top and let out the heated air.
From there it is a matter of moving up or down to catch the specific air currents that will take you where you wanted to go. At that moment, the only particular direction I was interested in was away, so I opened the propane valve and cranked the burners.
The flame roared, and a moment later the basket started to lift.
On the ground, Lund grasped Banshee’s bridle and Tequila leaped off his mount, raced to the balloon, and jumped, catching the basket as it lifted. Then he gracefully pulled himself over the edge and safely inside.
Gathering reins from all three horses in o
ne hand, Lund looked up at me and raised the other in a wave. I waved back, realizing too late that we hadn’t gotten a chance to say good-bye. Leading the other two horses, he rode his gelding in the direction of the orchard crowd.
I didn’t have time to watch him go. Only twenty feet up, I spotted Hammett and a heavy guy in a faded Guns N’ Roses tee racing across the field in the ATV, followed by three others.
“Ammo?” I yelled at Tequila over the roar of the flame.
He pulled out his right .45 and handed it to me. “Four rounds in this one, plus the AR-7.”
“Empty,” Fleming said, checking the magazine on the rifle.
I aimed Tequila’s gun at the lead ATV and fired once. I missed, but it got Hammett’s attention. She’d go after us rather than chase Lund. At least, that’s what I thought. While Hammett and her driver did race for the second balloon, the man on the other ATV—ah hell, it was that asshole Javier—made a beeline for Lund and the horses.
I aimed carefully, leading the target, and fired my three remaining rounds at Javier, missing all three times.
I turned to Tequila. “Get Fleming to safety. I’ll meet you at noon at the Baraboo antique mall.”
Then I gripped the side of the gondola and prepared to vault over. A firm hand grabbed my shoulder.
“We’re forty feet up,” Tequila said. “At best you’ll break something major.”
“I have to save Lund.”
“I think your friend can take care of himself.”
I watched, helpless, as Lund and the horses headed for the apple trees, Javier in pursuit.
“We’ve got other concerns right now,” Tequila said, pointing.
My sister was at the other balloon, waving a pistol at the crew trying to pack up.
I tried to crank the propane, but it was already firing at its maximum. Hammett had weapons. We had none. If we didn’t want to be blown out of the air, we had to widen the gap between us.
High enough to clear trees, we caught a current moving northward. I slowed the flow of propane to the burners. The wind was strong up here, and we cleared the orchard and floated over trees, then a patchwork of farm fields. Lights from Baraboo twinkled farther north, the black ribbon of a river flowing through its center.
Unlike flying an airplane, where the direction and velocity can be precisely controlled, piloting a balloon is about planning, guesswork, and improvisation, adjusting to wind currents moment to moment. And at the moment, I was wishing the wind wasn’t as strong and the sun wasn’t setting.
“How much fuel do we have?” I asked Fleming.
Sitting on the bottom of the basket, she checked the gauges on each of the canisters. “Not much.”
Just what I was afraid of. The balloons had already completed their flight for the day and used their fuel. I glanced at Tequila. “Look for a place to land.”
Tequila signaled that he’d heard over the roar of the flame. “Parking lot.”
Along the highway, I could see several big-box stores—wide-open spaces, and plenty of cars to steal. But it was still a good distance away, and I wasn’t sure we’d make it that far.
The farm fields below would be a safer bet, but once we had landed, we would have only our feet to get us to safety.
The roar of the burners diminished, and I realized we were down to one canister of propane. On the other side of the fields but closer than the city of Baraboo, giant metal poles jutted out of the rural landscape, high-tension wires glistening between them in the fading twilight.
“We’re going for the fields.” I shut down our last burner to conserve fuel. As we cleared a last few trees and centered over the fields, I pulled the Kevlar cord attached to the parachute valve, releasing some of the hot air. Slowly we started to descend.
Big mistake.
Wind currents move in different directions at different altitudes. As we dropped, instead of heading down or west toward the big-box stores, we changed direction, floating northeast, straight toward those latticework metal towers holding four high-voltage wires, two on each arm.
I adjusted the valve, trying to bring us back up a little. The only burner left fired for a few seconds, then it too went quiet.
We were out of fuel.
“Three o’clock,” Tequila called.
I turned to see Hammett’s balloon. She was still at least a hundred and fifty meters behind us, but I could see her raise her weapon.
“Get down! Get down!” I yelled to Tequila, not that it would help much. If she could hit us with a handgun at this distance, a wicker basket wasn’t going to provide much protection.
The crack of gunfire reached us. Then another.
Tequila fumbled with his pack.
“You have more ammo?” I asked, my spirits trying to rise.
“Nope. But I have something,” he said. “Something that might work.”
The wind had us now, driving us east. I yanked the parachute valve cord hard, taking a chance that a crash landing would be better than getting tangled in wires buzzing with enough energy to fry us all instantly, but the direction didn’t change, and the balloon didn’t drop fast enough.
The power lines came up fast on my right and I fought to keep from screaming in terror. Instead I managed to yell, “Heads down!” just as the balloon’s skirt hit the high-tension wire, just above the balloon’s burners.
Lund
When Lund took the horse’s reins, watched Chandler vault into the hot-air balloon basket, and spotted those chasing them heading for the other balloon on the ground, he’d been concerned about her safety. It had never occurred to him to worry about himself.
Until one of the ATVs had started after him.
The driver was dressed in a suit, of all things, one foot bloodied and shoeless like some kind of wounded warrior businessman. The machine gun mounted on the front swung around, the barrel seeking out Lund and the horses.
Flanked by a throng of innocent families on one side and an orchard across the road, Lund had opted to make a dash for the apples, and now he and the horses were running for their lives.
Three sets of steel shoes clacked over asphalt, then they plunged into the lane between trees. With their top branches removed to make harvesting the apples easier, the trees looked stunted; their limbs twisted downward like gnarled, grasping hands. Long, irregular shadows stretched from the trunks, practically camouflaging the dents of tire ruts between the rows.
But it wasn’t enough to conceal three horses.
The ATV’s engine grew louder, closer, buzzing over the drum of Lund’s pulse, urging him on like a set of sharp spurs. Max bunched with tension beneath him, and Lund gave him his head. Bo reached out for a branch as they past, snagging an apple with her teeth and trying to chew it around the bit. Banshee brought up the rear, balking, the bridle dangerously close to pulling over her ears and turning her into a free agent.
The horses were fast approaching exhaustion, all three dark with pungent sweat. Lather foamed at the edges of their saddle pads and across their necks and chests. The smell of hot horse blanketed the air, and Lund felt the heat come off Max in humid waves. He doubted they could keep up this pace much longer without a breather.
He took a backward glance, spotting the vehicle jump onto the road, dip into the ditch, and plunge into the tree row directly behind them.
Lund had watched Val’s niece practice for pole-bending competitions on Max, weaving in and out of a line of broomsticks stuck upright in buckets of sand. He laid the reins against Max’s wet neck and a leg against his side, and the gelding swerved to the right between two trees.
Low branches whipped Lund’s cheek and tore at his jacket. The other horses were slower to follow. Leather slipped through Lund’s hand, and for a second he thought he was going to lose them.
A spray of gunfire rattled trees and shredded leaves. Apples rained to the ground.
The mares surged alongside, seemingly unhurt but spooked by the gunfire. Ahead, three people froze in the middle of the lane,
staring at the horses charging them down.
“Out of the way,” Lund yelled over the thrum of galloping hooves. “Run!”
They bolted, their bag of self-picked apples scattering across the grass.
Seconds later, the ATV crashed through the tree line behind them, spraying another round of bullets just as Lund swung through to the other side, Max and the other two horses slaloming like champion pole benders.
His pursuer echoed the move once again, engine roaring like approaching doom, but this time no bullets peppered the orchard.
Out of ammunition? Lund could only hope.
He directed Max through the far row of trees, but this time Mr. Suit kept to his side of the row, moving faster, gaining ground. Lund guided the horses over another row, tearing his focus from the ATV just in time to spot the orange light of sunset shining on the wire fence at the end of the row—five feet if it was an inch.
Shit, shit, double shit.
Max spotted it, too.
Lund had seen reining horses performing sliding stops at one of Val’s niece’s horse shows the previous summer. Unfortunately he’d never actually ridden one.
Max stopped dead, tucking his hindquarters under him, skidding to a stop. Lund kept going.
His chest grazed Max’s neck as he sailed over, and before he’d totally registered what was happening, the ground rose to meet him.
He reached out his hands to break the fall and hit chest first as if diving into second base. Air exploded from his lungs. And even though Lund heaved gasp after gasp, he couldn’t seem to replace it.
A jumble of hooves rumbled past him. In the distance he could hear the ATV’s engine slow and circle back around.
Chandler
“Today we’re going to learn about electricity,” the Instructor said. “The main thing to learn is: stay the hell away from it.”
I hadn’t thought we’d been moving fast, but the impact on the high-tension wire made the basket swing almost parallel to the ground like a crazy carnival ride. As the gondola reversed direction, the balloon collapsed rapidly, spreading itself across the length of the line almost to the nearest tower, and coming to rest on the insulator. Judging from the towers’ height and the distance between them, these were high-voltage lines, at least 130,000 volts and as thick as my wrists.
Flee, Spree, Three (Codename: Chandler Trilogy - Three Complete Novels) Page 46