On the Fifth Day (49 page)

Parks's eyes grew wide in the sudden lamplight and he fought to shut it off, fumbling and flashing the beam around. He backed away, as if he had stumbled onto a corpse, and Thomas could only watch from the trees as a figure--barely more than a silhouette--emerged, dropped into a crouch, and aimed a submachine gun. Ben Parks had time only to look up from the flashlight before the night was stabbed with sup

pressed muzzle flash and the muffled cough of the silenced weapon, and then he was crying out and dropping to his knees. CHAPTER 104

Ron Dalton, the duty officer at the island station, read the message twice before starting to shout. The jungle camp was tiny, barely long enough for the runway, and all the crucial ground control equipment was packed into a thirty-foot trailer. The Predator drone aircraft had no hangar and were trans

ported disassembled in crates known to the crew as coffins. Dalton burst out of the trailer and stared at the runway where the fourth plane was taxiing into position.

"Abort!" he screamed into the thick jungle air. "Shut it down!"

One of the ground crew stood up and stared at him, but clearly couldn't hear over the Predator's engine. 370

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"Problem?" said a voice behind him.

Dalton turned. It was Harris, the weird kid who played with the computers all the time and never talked. He might be just the person he needed.

"We have to abort the mission," said Dalton. "The target

ing system has been compromised."

"Yeah?" said the kid, his eyes blank as ever. Then some

thing appeared, a little flicker of satisfaction that Dalton had never seen before in the kid's face. He didn't like it. "You don't know who I am, do you?" said the kid, still smiling that weird little smile.

"What are you talking about?" said Dalton. "This is serious . . ."

"I said, you don't know who I am," said the kid, the smile stiffening.

Dalton started to walk away. He didn't have time for ado

lescent games. He muttered as much to himself as he headed back to the trailer, his mind already moving on. So he wasn't even thinking about Harris when the knife went through his shoulder blade and into his heart.

"See?" said the kid, over Dalton's wheezing body. "I am Death."

CHAPTER 105

It had been only a warning shot, and Parks's fall had been a gesture of submission, but the shock of the gunfire set Thomas's nerves ringing. He dropped into a crouch as another man emerged from the helicopter, and another came from a farther dark shape twenty yards down the beach that might have been a hut. Slowly Thomas withdrew, easing backward and crawling into the underbrush as the sound of raised voices 371

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drifted through the night: Parks sputtering surrender and at least two other men, their voices too low to be audible. The woods had come to life again at the sound of the gun

fire, monkeys and night birds screeching and cawing their outrage, so Thomas's plunge back into the trees excited no further calls of protest from above. He moved quickly, run

ning down to where he had glimpsed the ruined hut: the per

fect location for Kumi and Jim if they had been brought ashore. Parks's imbecilic business with the flashlight might be just the diversion he needed.

He ran flat out, then cut right, barely pausing to survey the situation, before sprinting out onto the sand, making directly for the thatched wooden shell that loomed before him. He reached it, panting. The door was bolted on the outside but there was no padlock. He flung it aside and kicked the door in. Kumi and Jim looked up at him, both startled out of their sleep.

"Let's go," he said.

They scrambled to their feet.

"Where to?" said Kumi, as Thomas brought the knife across the plastic ties around her wrists.

"Just follow me," he said, and ran, back out across the beach and into the trees.

They had just made it, nestling briefly by a palm that bent almost to the ground, when a cry went up. The hunt had begun. CHAPTER 106

Enrique Rodriguez tried to figure out what he had just seen. He had been lounging in his tent under the mosquito netting, cursing the damn heat and the damn jungle and this whole damn assignment, when he had looked up from his comic 372

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book across the runway. The fourth plane was about to go up after a lot of messing about, after which he could finally get on with preparing the site for their return. Dalton, the duty of

ficer, had come running from the control trailer, waving his arms like a fool and yelling, and then someone had followed him out: the nerdy kid they called "Specs."

Rodriguez had gone back to his reading, but then he had looked up again, and Dalton was gone and the kid was crouched with his back to him, rolling something into the tangle of un

derbrush behind the trailer. Rodriguez had stayed low as the kid looked around, furtive-like, heading back into the trailer, wiping his hand on the back of his pants.

Rodriguez was torn. He was comfy where he was, and any

thing to do with the kid annoyed him. Dalton annoyed him too, in truth, always prying into what he was doing, complain

ing about his jewelry, threatening blood tests and God knew what else because he didn't walk around like he had a pole up his butt. Still, it was weird. One or both of them were up to something and that meant there was something worth getting, even if it was only knowledge. In a place like this, a little knowledge could go a long way. He crawled out of his tent and into the subdued lights of the runway.

He raised one hand as he crossed in front of the plane, and one of the launch crew--Piloski, probably--waved and yelled at him to get out of the way. Rodriguez flipped him the bird and sauntered across. It's not like they were really ready to go anyway.

He figured he'd check the trailer before he started poking around in the jungle: make sure the kid was occupied. It was narrow and windowless, accessed by a railed ramp. Rodriguez tried the door, but it was locked, and that sure as hell wasn't regulation. He stood there in the dark for a moment, thinking, and then he heard shots from inside. He started loping back to the runway waving like that idiot Dalton.

CHAPTER 107

Gunfire raked the trees. Somewhere in the canopy above them a coconut exploded and a cockatoo rose shrieking into the sky.

"A plan would be good," said Kumi.

"Run," said Thomas.

For a split second she stared at him, and then they were shooting again, and Thomas was sprinting into the trees, pulling Kumi behind him, Jim at her heels.

Thomas thought as he ran, plunging headlong along the sandy trail down which he had come with Parks. He checked his watch. They could make it back to the cove in perhaps twenty minutes. That would give them another hour or so be

fore the sun came up.

"They're coming," shouted Jim.

And not just on foot. Through the screaming of the birds and monkeys, through the wild shooting and the roar of the blood rushing through his ears, Thomas could hear the heli

copter powering up.

"This way," he said.

"Where are we going?" Kumi demanded. Her face had been slashed by a vine, but she didn't seem to have noticed.

"Just stay with me," he said.

They moved off the path then and into the yucca and stumps of palm so as not to leave tracks for their pursuers, though it was not the men on foot that Thomas was worried about. They had been running for five minutes, and he was sure the helicopter was up. Two more minutes and he heard its first pass overhead. It was low and the rotors scattered the heads of the palm trees this way and that like grass in a hurri

cane. They huddled down against the force of the wind, and then the darkness shrank to nothing and they were cowering in a daylight white as lightning.

The helicopter had a searchlight slung underneath. 374

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A soldier appeared in a side hatch, the chopper's multibar

reled minigun trained down. Jim raised his hands in surrender. With an astonishing eruption of noise and rapid fire, the weapon opened up. Jim dropped to the ground, but the gunfire kept coming.

CHAPTER 108

The fourth drone was powering up, its rotor turning, the en

gine building to a sharp whine.

"Shut it down!" Rodriguez yelled.

"Can't," said Piloski. "The kid has overridden the manual controls. It's going up whether we like it or not."

"Fuck that shit," said Rodriguez. "Give me the damn ma

chine gun."

Piloski stared at him. "Have you any idea what these things cost?" he said, gesturing to the plane that was starting to inch its way down the strip.

"Give me the damn gun!" yelled Rodriguez.

"You're crazy, man," said Piloski, raising his hands as if in surrender.

The plane was picking up speed fast. It was already a hun

dred yards away. Rodriguez lunged, grabbed the weapon, and spun, cocking it as he moved. He was barely stationary before the gun started belching fire, the sound drowning out the plane, and then he was running after it, still firing, his jaw set as the weapon shook and kicked in his arms. Nearing the end of the runway, the plane tipped upward into its climb. It was airborne. Rodriguez kept after it, emptying the magazine. For a moment nothing seemed to happen, and then a plume of flame leaped up from the aircraft's nose. The drone seemed to stall, then rolled slightly like a wounded bird. The engine 375

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exploded and it spiraled down into the palms that clung to the seashore.

"Holy shit!" said Piloski, watching as the big Mexican came strolling back, the gun smoking in his hands. His face was black as thunder and, for a second, Piloski thought he might turn the weapon on him.

"Get him on the line," said Rodriguez.

Piloski didn't hesitate. He hailed the trailer and waited.

"Yes?" said the kid. His voice was low, spookily calm. Pi

loski nodded and Rodriguez grabbed the mike.

"Open the damn door," he said.

"They are all dead," said the kid with slow glee. "There's no one in here but me. This is my kingdom. My realm of death."

"We're coming in," said Rodriguez. "Open the door or we'll blow our way in."

"You can't stop them," said the kid. "The drones, I mean. They are programmed and the system is locked down. Even if you blew up the trailer you couldn't stop them now."

"Yeah?" said Rodriguez. "Well I guess that's what we'll have to do."

He hung up.

"That was a bluff, right?" said Piloski.

"We got a rocket launcher in stores?" said Rodriguez. CHAPTER 109

Thomas didn't think. He tore his eyes from where Jim had gone down, snatched the flare pistol from his belt, aimed at the searchlight under the helicopter, and fired. The flare left the gun with a dull
whup
and the smoke trail of a bottle rocket, and for a moment nothing happened, so that Thomas thought he had missed or fired a dud. He was 376

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patting his pockets for another flare to jam into the gun when the helicopter burst into a red and white light. The shot had gone straight into the hold where the soldier was sitting, and its phosphorescent explosion was like a grenade. The heli

copter jerked in the air, its rotors scything through space as it kicked sideways, and then something blew inside, and the flare light was eclipsed by a burst of orange that became a fireball. The helicopter seemed to stall in the air, losing its shape as part of the tail was flung aside, and then it was falling.

Thomas rolled, flinging himself as far as he could as the wreckage crashed through the trees toward him. Then there was another explosion and for a second he couldn't think or feel and didn't know if he was untouched or dying. Then he was up again, pulling Jim to his feet, screaming at Kumi to follow. She moved fast, apparently unhurt, but Jim had been hit twice and by the savage light of the burning helicopter, Thomas could see that his eyes were flickering.

"Stay with me," he shouted. "Stay awake. Try to walk."

And shouldering a good deal of the priest's weight, he pressed on into the brush.

They moved slowly and Thomas was sure that it was only the chaos of the helicopter crash that had slowed their pursuers down. Without the chopper, they might even have decided to wait till dawn before continuing the hunt. That suited him just fine.

At the edge of the cove they settled in a grassy hollow. Jim lay back. He was still conscious, but only just. One bullet had gone through his left arm just above the elbow. The arm was probably broken, but it was the other bullet, which had gone through his shoulder, that worried Thomas. The exit wound was low under his arm, and God knew what damage it had done in

side. He was struggling for breath and had probably taken some damage to his lungs. For all Thomas knew, he was dying. 377

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He ran to the sub and retrieved the emergency kit. Kumi, who had always been better at such things, took it, applied anti

septic to the wounds, and bound them tight to stop the bleeding.

"I don't know what else to do," she said.

"This is good," Jim managed. "Thanks."

Kumi gave Thomas a look and her eyes were brimming.

"Sorry," said Thomas. "I thought if I got you out . . ."

"They would have killed us anyway," said Jim. "It was the right thing to do. I'm grateful."

"Now what?" said Kumi.

"How many guards are on the
Nara?
" said Thomas.

"None," she answered. "The crew are locked belowdecks. The captain is dead."

Thomas exhaled.

"So?" said Kumi. "Your plan?"

"I figure we use the sub," said Thomas.

"We can't all get in it," she said.

"Then leave me here," said Jim.

"We can all get in if one of us gets
on,
" said Thomas.

"What do you mean?" said Kumi.

"I get in with Jim," said Thomas, bracing himself. "You sit astride it and we make for the
Nara.
"