Lost Empire (19 page)

“Evening, gentlemen,” he said.

“It’s you . . .” said Yaotl.

“Us,” Sam corrected.

Without a word, Remi climbed from the cart and joined Sam, who told the group, “Everyone act natural. Nothing’s changed. Just three guys hanging around. Big smiles, everyone.”

He and Remi had decided it was best to assume the pad was under observation from the Big Eyes binoculars on the main house’s roof. To avoid arousing suspicion, Yaotl and the other two would have to keep their weapons until Sam and Remi were ready to leave.

“Remi, see what you can do about that light.”

Careful to stay at the edge of its glow, Remi stepped forward and studied the pole. “No switch, but the cables are coming up from the ground. It looks like standard one-ten voltage.”

Sam said, “Nice of Okafor to cut corners for us.” While two-twenty-volt lines carried enough juice to electrocute, one-ten lines carried only enough to cause a painful jolt. “Do you think you can make it to the helo without being seen?”

“I think so. Be right back.”

She walked back down the road and ducked into some bushes alongside the helicopter pad. Thirty seconds later she appeared on the opposite side and, using the helicopter to screen her movements, sprinted to the pilot’s door. With the pilot under her H&K, she retraced her course and returned to where Sam stood. The pilot was a short black man in dark blue coveralls. His expression was one of genuine fear.

Remi said, “The crate’s aboard, all strapped down.”

Yaotl asked Sam, “Where’s Rivera?”

“Napping.”

The guard moved his hand, trying surreptitiously to unsling his AK-74. Sam raised the gun and pointed it at his head. “Don’t,” Sam said, then added in Swahili:
“Usifanye hivyo!”
The guard stopped, let his hand drop.

“Remi, do you have them?”

“I have them.”

Sam stepped backward and motioned for the pilot to join him. “What’s your name?”

“Jingaro.”

“You’re Okafor’s pilot.”

“Yes.”

“Your English is good.”

“I went to missionary school.”

“I want you to fly the helicopter for us.”

“I cannot do that.”

“Yes, you can.”

“If I do, Okafor will kill me.”

“If you don’t, I’ll kill you.”

“Not in the same way he will. And perhaps my family, too. Please, I just fly for him, that’s all. I’m not part of this. You see I don’t have a gun. I just fly the helicopter.”

“Are you lying about your family?”

“No, it is the truth. I’m sorry I cannot help you. I do not like Mr. Okafor, but I have no choice.”

Sam studied Jingaro’s eyes and decided he was telling the truth. “Is the helicopter ready to fly?”

“Yes. Are you a pilot?”

Sam shrugged. “On rotary, I’m not much past takeoff, hover, and touchdown.”

Jingaro hesitated, then said, “This one is equipped with a hover coupler. On the far right side of the dash. It is labeled ‘H-V-C-P.’ As long as your flight level is steady, you can engage the coupler, and the craft will go into auto hover. Also, the rudder pedals are heavy. I like them that way. It is harder to overcompensate. Do not be afraid to step on them. Keep your airspeed below one hundred knots. She’s much easier to handle.”

“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&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.