Nighthawk

44

Kurt’s face was bathed in yellow light. The strange hue and intensity was all he could see no matter where he looked, but it wasn’t the afterlife.

After being dragged to the bottom of the lake, Kurt had been on the verge of blacking out when his furious counterattack coincided with the assailant’s attempt to plunge the diving knife into his ribs.

The sudden cloud of the red that erupted seemed to leave no doubt who’d gotten the worse end of the deal. As Vargas had pushed off the bottom with both legs and soared up toward the surface, both he and Kurt had every reason to believe that the blade had plunged home.

Kurt’s initial thought was that his blood was surprisingly bright. Still, with his main airline ripped out, getting the secondary line attached to the valve on his helmet took precedence over finding a wound and stopping the bleeding.

He’d grabbed his backup line, brought it up to the quick connect port on the side of the helmet and snapped it into place.

A slight hiss told him gas was flowing and he immediately started breathing rapidly, trying to expel the carbon dioxide that had built up in his lungs.

With air flowing, he searched for his wound. By the time he found it, the swirl of red color around him had begun to thin. The water turned pink and then went clear once again.

Either he was out of blood or…

It turned out that he hadn’t been impaled. The blade had only sliced a thin crease in his skin. He was bleeding, but the outpouring of crimson came from the red dye capsule, which had taken the brunt of the impact. The knife had split it in two and flooded the water with enough coloring to make it seem like an artery had been gashed open.

Kurt had found the dye capsule, tossed it away and looked upward. He could just make out the bottom of the Zodiac and two figures clinging to it.

Adrenaline urged him to surface and make an immediate attempt to rescue Emma, but the odds were against surviving another battle with the two divers. Not without much oxygen in his tank. And even if he could overcome them, there was still the man in the boat with Emma as a hostage.

If a frontal assault wouldn’t work, he thought it might be time to try the stealth approach. They think I’m dead. Let them keep thinking it, until we make our counterattack.

He detached the dive light he’d carried, placed it down in the mud and swam from the scene.

If anyone was looking down from the Zodiac, they would see only the stationary light. The diver in the black wet suit, moving in the depths of the black lake, would be as hard to spot as the Nighthawk had been.

He moved calmly across the bottom, found the spot where the Nighthawk had been resting and pushed off the bottom. Rising upward and exhaling slowly as he went, Kurt emerged from the dark lake into one of the yellow lifting bags. The voluminous air bag lay on its side, like an oversized Portuguese man-of-war that had washed up on the beach.

Hidden within, Kurt removed his helmet to breathe, unzipped a waterproof pouch on the sleeve of his wet suit and pulled a small transmitter free.

Keeping the compact radio clear of the water, Kurt turned it on and switched to a prearranged frequency. He pressed the transmit button and spoke calmly into the microphone.

“Gamay, this is Kurt,” he said.

A hushed voice came over the radio, imbued with a slight, scolding tone. “Kurt, I thought they’d killed you. I was about to move in on my own.”

Tired of being ambushed, Kurt had decided the NUMA team could use a guardian angel to watch over them. With Joe needed to fly the helicopter and only Paul and Gamay to choose from, Kurt had picked Gamay for several reasons.

Most importantly, she was a crack shot. Good with a pistol, but an expert with a rifle. She was also smaller, more agile and more athletic than Paul. Attributes that would help her hide and move from spot to spot without being noticed.

Joe had flown her in early this morning, dropping her off on a high ridge, before heading to La Jalca to pick up Emma, Urco and himself.

Dressed in camouflage and carrying a rifle, Gamay was out there now. “What’s your position?”

“I’m on the second ridge east of the landing zone,” she said. “I can see the clearing, most of the lake and the waterfall.”

“What about Joe and Paul?”

“They’re in the clearing. They were surrounded as soon as they landed. The Nighthawk is down safely. So is the Air-Crane. Paul and Joe are being held just across from it.”

“And Emma?”

“They have her working on something,” Gamay said. “I can’t tell exactly what it is. But they’ve opened the Nighthawk and begun unloading it. Other than that, all seems fairly calm at the moment.”

“Was it Urco?” Kurt asked, fairly certain that he knew.

“It was,” Gamay said. “How’d you know he couldn’t be trusted?”

“I didn’t know,” Kurt admitted. “But a few odd moments were enough to cause concern. For one thing, he had his satellite antenna aimed low and to the northwest. There’s no reason for an archaeologist working in a deep canyon in the Southern Hemisphere to be using a satellite so low on the horizon to bounce his communications. Based on the angle, it had to be a Northern Hemisphere bird out over the Pacific. He’d also claimed to be the cameraman who shot the video of the Nighthawk crossing La Jalca, but I noticed that he was a lefty. He writes left, eats left, and yet the footage was filmed by someone holding a camera in their right hand. I couldn’t see any reason to lie about something like that, but it was definitely suspicious.”

“Your intuition is spot-on, as usual,” Gamay said.

“Not quite,” Kurt said. “I truly thought we’d be safe until we pulled the containment units out of the Nighthawk. I also thought you’d spot anyone coming down the Inca road or up through the valley. What happened?”

“That part of the plan didn’t work,” she said. “I haven’t blinked in hours. The road in from La Jalca has been empty. The road out to the south has been empty. Nothing has arrived or departed this valley on foot or by wheel or wing since you guys landed.”

He understood the implication. “Which means Urco’s men were already here, waiting for their moment to attack. I thought their numbers looked a little light this morning. Must have driven over last night.”

“I counted six down in the clearing, plus the three on the water,” she said.

“Ten, including Urco,” he noted.

“Do you think that’s it?”

“No reason it shouldn’t be,” he said. “They’ve shown their hand. Now it’s our turn.”

“If I circle to the south, I’ll have a clear shot at everyone and everything in the clearing,” she said. “If you can move in at the same moment, we can catch them in a cross fire.”

It was a good plan. The problem was, the beach. With so much open land running from the edge of the lake to where the tall grass began, Kurt would be seen and shot long before he got into the fight.

“I’ll have to circle around as well,” Kurt said.

“Circle around where?”

“To the only place I can get out of this lake without being spotted,” Kurt said. “Unfortunately, that means a trip through the washing machine. I’m just glad the Nighthawk didn’t land in Niagara.”

“I’ve always assumed you were crazy,” she said. “This proves it.”

“It’s the only way to get behind them,” he said. “Should be okay, if I skirt the edge.”

“You might want to hurry,” Gamay said. “If you are where I think you are, you have a boat headed straight for you.”

“Roger that,” Kurt said. “If the situation changes and the others seem to be in imminent danger, take action without waiting for me. I’ll contact you as soon as I’m back on dry land.”

Kurt shut the radio off, slipped it back in the waterproof pouch and zipped the pocket shut. With the growl of the approaching boat to spur him on, he pulled his helmet back on and dove straight down, beginning the most dangerous swim of his life.