Nighthawk

57

Paul drove as fast as he dared in the Jeep Cherokee. Considering the cargo he was hauling, the type of road and the utter darkness of the moonless night, he was being positively reckless at forty miles per hour.

Sitting beside him, dividing her attention between the portable apocalypse machine they were carrying and the map, Gamay seemed to want him to go faster. “I can only hope Emma is being as careful as we are,” she said. “For a variety of reasons.”

Paul had seen the map earlier. He knew it was a race they couldn’t win. “We’ll never catch her. The last forty miles into Cajamarca are paved and relatively flat. Once she hits that section, we’ll be left in the dust.”

“Maybe we can flag down another car or truck,” Gamay suggested. “If we’re lucky, they might have a radio or a phone.”

“It would have to be a satellite phone up here,” Paul said. “But maybe as we get closer to town.” He glanced over at the map. “Coming in from the south, she still has to drive through most of the city before she gets to the airport. That might give us some—”

A shout from Gamay cut him off. “Paul, look out!”

Paul looked up. A man’s body lay in the road, crumpled and broken. Paul hit the brakes, veered around it and brought the vehicle safely to a halt. The body was behind them now, but what loomed ahead was even more surprising. A vehicle tipped over on its side, its front end dangling over the edge of the cliff and held up by the Y-shaped trunk of a tree.

Paul put the transmission in park and grabbed the door handle. As he swung it open, he felt Gamay’s hand on his.

“We’re not on some backcountry road, Paul,” she said. “We don’t have time for this.”

There was cold reason in her voice, but only because she hadn’t realized what Paul had already ascertained. “It’s Emma.”

Gamay’s eyes lit up. She looked at the stricken vehicle and nodded.

Paul and Gamay jumped out of the Cherokee, rushing toward the overturned Toyota. The front end was out over the cliff, jammed into the gnarled trunk of the tree. The back end was up in the air, and the entire vehicle was pointing downward as if it were ready to slide off the edge.

The engine was ticking and pinging, while fluids dripped everywhere. The entire balancing act looked so precarious that Paul’s first instinct was not to touch anything.

“Emma!” he called out. “Are you in there?”

“Hello?!” a female voice replied from inside the vehicle.

“Emma, this is Paul,” he shouted, easing around the side. The angle of the vehicle and the condition of the ledge made it impossible to get at the front end. “Gamay and I are here. We’re going to get you out of there.”

“Forget about me,” Emma said, her voice suddenly firm. “Just get the containment unit out. Pull it out through the back. It’s a miracle it hasn’t gone off-line already. But trust me, I’m staring into the abyss, and if we fall into this canyon, it’s all over.”

Paul moved around to the back end of the SUV and pulled the hatchback open. The door moved slowly and awkwardly, and even that small shift had consequences. The vehicle rocked forward and then back before settling.

“There’s a small problem with that plan,” Paul said, studying the situation. “If we remove the containment unit, the center of gravity will move forward, and unless that tree is a lot stronger than it looks, the whole thing will go over with you inside.”

“I know that,” Emma said. “I’ve been sitting here for a long time thinking about it. But there’s no other choice. There’s no other way. Every time I’ve tried to move, we’ve slid farther down. Please, just get that thing out of here before we go.”

Emma might have been willing to throw away her life, but Paul wasn’t so quick to give up. “All we need is more weight on the back end,” he said. “I weigh at least as much as the containment unit and twice as much as you. If I climb on the back bumper…”

“The problem is the tree,” Emma said. “It’s already splitting down the middle; the extra weight might snap it and send us down. Just get that damned thing out of there and let me go.”

“We can pull it back,” Gamay said. “We could use the bungee cords that are holding down our containment unit and the jumper cables we found in the back of the Cherokee.”

“It’s not going to be enough to pull a five-thousand-pound vehicle uphill,” Paul said. “But it could be enough to keep it from sliding down.”

“Someone will still have to get in there to disconnect the ropes they used to tie their unit down,” Gamay replied.

“Someone’s already in there,” Paul said. “She can loosen everything on her way out.”

Inside the Toyota, Emma listened as Paul explained the plan. It required her to climb over the seats, unhook the nylon rope she’d used to secure the dangerous cargo and wrap the rope around the containment unit several times. Then crawl out the back hatch with the ends of the rope in her hands.

It sounded plausible. And it saved her a trip she didn’t want to take. “I can do that,” she said.

The light around her changed as Gamay moved the Cherokee into position. She held still while Paul laced the jumper cables and the bungee cords through parts of the overturned vehicle and then did the same on the front bumper of the Jeep.

She felt the Land Cruiser rock back to a flatter angle as the Jeep inched backward and pulled everything taut.

She looked back through the vehicle. Paul was standing there, shrouded in the light.

“You’re up,” he said.

Despite a primal urge to get out of the doomed vehicle, Emma simultaneously found herself afraid to move a single muscle. For half an hour, she’d been sitting there listening to creaks and groans coming from both the tree and the Land Cruiser. Sitting still had been her only defense; a part of her didn’t want to give that up.

She took a deep breath, steeled herself to do what she had to do and nodded to Paul. “Here goes.”

She twisted around to face backward. The vehicle rocked ever so slightly.

She found a spot for her feet, pushed off and shinned into the back.

The Toyota shifted again, not rocking but sliding.

Emma heard the sound of wood splitting and felt her heart pounding. Through the back hatch she saw Paul grasping onto the bumper and pulling as if it were a tug-of-war.

The movement slowed and then stopped and the only sound was the trickle of pebbles and sand sliding out from underneath the SUV and falling down the slope.

“It’s okay,” Paul said. “We’ve got it. Keep moving.”

She inched forward and eased around the side of the containment unit. “Now for the ropes.”

Disconnecting the ropes was fairly easy. And once they were untied, Emma was able to loop them around the containment unit and the attached fuel cell. One loop, two and then a third. That was all the excess length they had.

She pulled it tight, tested the weight and looked up toward Gamay and Paul. “Ready?”

“Whenever you are,” Paul replied.

Emma took a deep breath. To get to the back hatch, she had to use her legs. She edged around the unit, put her feet on the back of the passenger seat and pushed.

The force caused the seat back to fold forward.

Emma slid. The containment unit slid. The Land Cruiser tilted downward at a steeper angle and she heard the tree splitting down the middle. She grabbed the seat belt to keep from falling out through the gap and crawled upward once again.

“Hurry!” Gamay shouted.

Emma moved as fast as she could.

The Toyota began to slide forward. Two of the bungee cords snapped.

Emma was climbing at a fifty-degree angle now, each move worsened the slide. As she neared the top, Paul let go of the bumper and reached in with his long arms. She tried to hand him the ropes, but instead of grabbing them, he clamped his hands around her wrists and pulled her out.

She hit the ground just as the tree split in half.

She turned to see the Toyota sliding off the edge and into the dark. She set her feet and pulled on the ropes with all her might.

As the back end of the Toyota vanished, the containment unit popped free and landed on the edge of the dirt road. With Paul and Gamay’s help, she pulled it safely onto level ground.

A resounding crunch followed far below as the Land Cruiser hit a small ledge and tumbled farther down.

The three of them sat there with the ropes clutched tight in their hands like the exhausted winners of an epic tug-of-war.

Only now did it dawn on Emma that Gamay hadn’t been with them earlier. “What are you doing here?”

“I came to rescue the boys,” Gamay said.

No less confused, Emma crawled to the side of the containment unit to check the readings one more time. Even after the latest bump, everything remained in the green. “Let’s just get this thing on a plane and get it back to the States.”

“Not,” Paul said, “until after we remove the bomb.”