The Last Bazaar

CHAPTER FORTY ONE

Hayden settled back as Smyth piloted the chopper into the skies. Still not safe, a missile arced up toward them but mercifully fell short. Gunfire clattered off their underside. The chopper was top-heavy, but it was sturdy and new and bore the extra weight without complaint. Through the cockpit window she saw Drake’s chopper rise fast, an enemy combatant clinging to the landing skids until he lost his grip and fell away. Mai leaned out of an open door and picked off would-be snipers on the ground below. Hayden looked over the expanding scene — shocked and saddened by what she saw.

Raging fires littered the forest floor and climbed trees. Branches sizzled as the flames passed from tree to tree. Figures ran to and fro, groups and individuals seeking refuge or trying to escape. Several four-wheel drive trucks sped down various trails, bouncing and flinging around their occupants in their haste. The snake of the river was a battle zone, almost blocked out by plumes of black smoke, cluttered with sailing craft and warring parties. Hayden realized that some of the locals might have helped ignite the fuse down there, but it was a massacre nevertheless. The site of the last bazaar was now a searing ruin, all of its structures destroyed and its tents ablaze.

Hayden turned to her sat-phone, aware innocents might still be hiding down there. Slaves from all walks of life had been bartered for and traded at this travesty, some might have been in servitude for a while but others had almost certainly been recently kidnapped. Local vermin might soon move in so Hayden called the authorities who could aid them first, reeling off coordinates as fast as she could.

Smyth chased two helicopters above the jungle canopy. An excess of blue skies stabbed at her eyes.

Hayden keyed in another number. Three minutes later she was on the line to the President of the United States.

“Sir,” she said with fear, with trepidation, but mostly with regret. “I have some terrible news.”

“Is it Price? Did you get the bastard?”

“We did, sir. He’s here now. But that’s not the bad news.”

“All right. Go on.”

Hayden closed her eyes, trying to tear her mind’s-eye away from the horrific scenario she was about to describe.

“The last Pythian, Julian Marsh, purchased a suitcase nuke at the bazaar. He’s on his way to New York with it, he thinks as a means of blackmail. Ramses has ordered all of his terrorist sleeper cells to find Marsh once the bomb is inside the city — and set it off.”

Coburn didn’t respond for almost a minute. Hayden didn’t question it, she knew why. There was no easy way to digest this information.

“Does he have the capabilities to smuggle the weapon in?”

“We’re talking the Pythians, sir. Look what they have done so far.”

“What’s the timescale?”

“Sir,” Hayden sighed. “It may already be there.”

“Oh, good God.”

“But nothing will happen without Ramses’ say so. And we’re in pursuit right now. We’ll deal with him, sir, and then head straight to New York.”

Coburn sighed loudly. “I’ll make sure we’re prepared at this end. Where are you headed now, Jaye?”

Hayden glanced at the instruments. “On a course for the coast, sir. Probably Peru.”