Текст книги "The Kingdom"

Автор книги: Clive Cussler

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Текущая страница: 15 (всего у книги 20 страниц)

29

JOMSOM, NEPAL

Packs settled on their backs, they retraced their footsteps past the Land Cruiser, then followed Pushpa along the wall, first south, then east, around the village to the foot of the anthill cliffs.

“I suddenly feel very small,” Remi said over her shoulder to Sam.

“Very.”

Upon their first seeing the cliffs, both distance and the fantastical geology had combined to make them seem less than real, as though it were a backdrop from a science-fiction movie. Now, with Sam and Remi standing in the anthills’ shadow, they were simply awe-inspiring.

At the head of the line, Pushpa had stopped, waiting patiently until Sam and Remi finished gawking and taking pictures before setting out again. Ten more minutes of hiking brought them to a fissure in the rock that was barely taller than Sam. One by one, they slipped through the opening and onto a tunnel-like path. Over their heads, the smooth rusty brown walls curved inward, almost touching, leaving only a sliver of distant blue sky above.

Ever eastward the path zigzagged and spiraled until Sam and Remi had lost track of how far they’d traveled. Pushpa called a halt with a barked word. Behind them at the rear of the line Ajay said, “Now we climb.”

“How?” Remi asked. “I don’t see any handholds. And we don’t have any gear.”

“Pushpa and his friends have made a way. The sandstone here is very fragile; standard pitons and rock screws cause too much damage.”

Ahead, they could see Pushpa and Karna talking. Pushpa disappeared into an alcove on the left side of the cliff, and Karna picked his way back down the path to where Sam and Remi were standing.

“Pushpa is going up first,” he said, “followed by Ajay. Then you, Remi, followed by you, Sam. I’ll bring up the rear. The steps look daunting, but they’re quite sturdy, I assure you. Just go slow.”

Sam and Remi nodded, and then Karna and Ajay changed positions.

Ajay stood at the head of the line, neck craned backward for several minutes before he too stepped into the alcove and disappeared from view. Sam and Remi stepped forward and looked up.

“Oh, boy,” Remi murmured.

“Yep,” Sam agreed.

The steps Karna had mentioned were in fact wooden stakes that had been pounded into the limestone to form a series of staggered hand– and footholds. The ladder rose a hundred feet up a chimney-like slot before curving out of sight behind a hanging wall of rock.

They watched Ajay scramble over the rungs until they could no longer see him. Remi hesitated for only a moment, then turned to Sam, smiled, kissed him on the cheek, and offered a cheerful, “See you at the top!”

With that, she mounted the first rung and started climbing.

When she was halfway up, Karna said over Sam’s shoulder, “She’s a dynamo, that one.”

Sam smiled. “You’re preaching to the choir, Jack.”

“Much like Selma, then, right?”

“Right. Selma is . . . unique.”

Once Remi had rounded the bend, Sam started upward. Immediately he could feel the solidity of the rungs, and after a few test movements to compensate for his pack’s weight, he settled into a steady rhythm. Soon the walls of the chimney closed in around him. What little sunlight had filtered its way to the path below dimmed to twilight. Sam reached the hanging wall and paused to peek around the bend. Twenty feet away, above and to his left, the rungs ended at a horizontal wooden plank nailed to a row of stakes. At the end of this plank was a second, this one angling behind another hanging wall. Remi was standing at the junction; she gave him a wave and thumbs-up.

When Sam reached the plank, he found it not nearly as narrow as it had looked from below. He boosted himself onto the platform, found his footing, and walked toe to heel down the plank, then around the corner. Four more planks brought him to a rocky shelf and an oval-shaped cave. Inside, he found Pushpa, Ajay, and Remi seated around a Jetboil stove supporting a miniature teakettle.

The water had just started boiling when Karna slipped into the cave entrance. He sat down. “Oh, good, tea!”

Wordlessly, Pushpa dug five red enamelware mugs out of his pack, passed them out, then poured the tea. The group sat huddled together, sipping the brew and enjoying the silence. Outside, a gust of wind occasionally whistled past the entrance.

Once everyone was finished, Pushpa deftly packed away the mugs, and then they set off again, this time with their headlamps on. Once again, Pushpa was in the lead while Ajay brought up the rear.

The tunnel curved to the left, then the right, then stopped suddenly at a vertical wall. Straight ahead, a chest-high archway was carved out of the limestone. Pushpa turned and spoke with Karna for a few seconds, then Karna told Sam and Remi:

“Pushpa understands that you are not Buddhists, and he understands that our work here may be a bit complicated, so he won’t ask us to observe all Buddhist customs. He only asks that when you first enter the main chamber, you circle the perimeter once, in a clockwise direction. Once you’ve done this, you can move about as you please. Understood?”

Sam and Remi nodded.

Pushpa ducked through the archway and stepped to the left, followed by Remi, Sam, and Ajay. They found themselves in a corridor. Painted on the wall before them were faded red-and-yellow symbols unfamiliar to Sam and Remi, along with hundreds of lines of text in what they assumed was a dialect of Lowa.

Whispering, Karna told them, “This is a greeting of sorts, essentially a historical introduction to the cave system. Nothing specific to the Theurang or Shangri-La.”

“Is all this natural or man-made?” Remi asked, gesturing to the walls and ceiling.

“A bit of both, actually. At the time these caves were constructed-about nine hundred years ago-the Loba in this area believed that sacred caves were revealed by nature in their embryonic stage. Once the caves were found, the Loba could excavate them according to their spiritual will.”

Following Pushpa, the group continued down the corridor, walking stooped over until they reached another arched entrance, this one a few inches taller than Sam.

Over his shoulder Karna said with a smile, “We’re here.”

At first glance, the main chamber seemed to be a perfect dome, ten paces in diameter and eight feet high, with the ceiling tapering to a rounded point. The wall opposite the entrance was dominated by a mural that stretched around the chamber and from the floor to the domed ceiling. Unlike on the mural in the corridor, the symbols, text, and drawings here were painted in vibrant shades of red and yellow. The contrast against the mocha-colored walls was startling.

“It’s magnificent,” Sam said.

Remi, nodding, stared at the mural. “The detail . . . Jack, why is the color so different here?”

“Pushpa and his people have been restoring it. The pigment they use is a long-held secret. They won’t even share it with me, but Pushpa assures me it’s the same recipe that was used nine centuries ago.”

Standing at the center of the chamber, Pushpa was gesturing toward them. Karna said to Sam and Remi, “Let’s make our circuit. No talking. Head bowed.”

Karna led them clockwise around the space, stopping again at the archway. Pushpa nodded to them and smiled, then knelt by his pack. He pulled out a pair of kerosene lanterns and hung one from a peg in each side wall. Soon the chamber was filled with an amber glow.

“What can we do to help?” Remi asked.

“I’ll need the disks and some quiet. The rest I must do myself.”

Sam dug the Lexan case containing the Theurang disks from his pack and handed it to Karna. Armed with the disks, a spool of string, a tape measure, a parallel rule, an architect’s compass, and a directional compass, Karna stepped up to the mural. Pushpa hurried forward carrying a rough-hewn wooden step stool, which he placed beside Karna.

Sam, Remi, and Ajay took off their packs and sat down, their backs against the entrance wall.

For almost an hour, Karna worked without pause, silently measuring symbols on the mural and jotting in his notebook. Occasionally he would step back, stare at the wall while muttering to himself, and pace back and forth.

Finally he said something to Pushpa, who had been standing to one side, hands clasped before him. Pushpa and Karna knelt down, opened the Lexan case, and spent a few minutes examining the Theurang disks, fitting them together with the flanged outer ring in various patterns before finding an apparently satisfactory configuration.

Next, Pushpa and Karna placed the disks over certain symbols, measured distances with the tape measure, and murmured to each other.

Finally Karna stepped back, hands on hips, and gave the mural a final once-over. He turned to Sam and Remi.

“Selma tells me you two are fond of good news/bad news scenarios.”

Sam and Remi smiled at each other. Sam replied, “Selma’s having a little fun at your expense. She enjoys those; us, not so much.”

“Go ahead anyway, Jack,” said Remi.

“The good news is, we need go no further. My hunch was correct: this is the cave we needed.”

“Fantastic,” said Sam. “And . . . ?”

“Actually it’s good/good/bad news. The second bit of good news is we now have a description of Shangri-La-or at least some signs that will tell us if we’re close.”

“Now the bad news,” Remi prompted.

“The bad news is, the map offers only the path that the Sentinel Dhakal would have taken with the Theurang. As I suspected, it leads east through the Himalayas, but in all there are twenty-seven points marking the path.”

“Translation, please,” said Sam.

“Shangri-La could be at any one of twenty-seven locations stretching from here all the way to eastern Myanmar.”

30

KATHMANDU, NEPAL

“Are you sure you won’t change your mind, Jack?” asked Remi. Behind her, on the dirt tarmac, was a blue-on-white Bell 206b Long-Ranger III helicopter, its engine whining as the rotors spun up for takeoff.

“No, my dear, I’m sorry. And apologies for abandoning you. I have a hate-hate affair with all flying contrivances. The last time I flew back to Britain, I was under extreme sedation.”

After leaving the cave complex the day before, the group had returned to Lo Monthang to regroup and brainstorm their next move. There was only one, they knew: follow Dhakal the Sentinel’s path east across Nepal, eliminating the locations Karna had gleaned from the mural map.

The altitude and remoteness of the target areas left them only one transport option-a charter helicopter service-which in turn brought them back to Kathmandu and into the lion’s den, as it were. With luck, Sam and Remi would find what they needed within a few days, before King could discover their route.

“And if the Kings follow our trail?” asked Sam.

“Goodness, didn’t I tell you? Ajay here is ex-Indian Army-and a Gurkha, in fact. Quite the tough bloke. He’ll look after me.”

Standing behind Karna’s shoulder, Ajay gave them a shark-like smile.

Karna handed them the laminated map he’d spent the previous night annotating. “I’ve managed to eliminate two points from today’s search grid that are improbable, both from summits that would have been covered in ice and snow at the time of Dhakal’s journey . . .”

Karna’s research into the “real” Shangri-La had led him to believe it was in a comparatively temperate location with regular seasons. Unfortunately, the Himalayan range was rife with such hidden valleys, little slivers of near-tropical paradise nestled amid the forbidding peaks and glaciers.

“That leaves six targets to search,” Karna finished. “Ajay’s given your pilot the coordinates.” On the tarmac, the Bell’s rotors were accelerating. Karna shook their hands and shouted, “Good luck! We’ll meet you back here this evening!”

He and Ajay trotted off to Ajay’s Land Cruiser.

Sam and Remi turned and headed for the helicopter.

Their first target lay thirty-two miles northeast of Kathmandu, in the Hutabrang Pass. Their pilot, a former Pakistani Air Force flier named Hosni, took them directly north for ten minutes, pointing out peaks and valleys and letting Sam and Remi get the lay of the land, before veering east toward the coordinates.

Hosni’s voice came over their headsets: “Entering the area now. I’ll circle it clockwise and try to get as low as possible. The wind shear can be treacherous here.”

In the cabin behind Hosni, Sam and Remi each scooted sideways for a better view out the window. Remi said to Sam, “Eyes open for mushrooms.”

“Aye, Captain.”

Karna’s translation of the cave mural had offered a vague but hopefully useful description of Shangri-La’s most prominent feature: a mushroom-like rock formation. As the mural predated flight, the shape would likely only be recognizable from the ground. Exactly how large the formation was, or whether Shangri-La was supposed to be on it, in it, or simply nearby, the mural didn’t specify. Sam and Remi hoped/assumed that the planners of the Golden Man’s evacuation had chosen a formation large enough to stand out from its neighbors.

In anticipation of numerous landings and takeoffs, they were paying Hosni almost double his usual fee, and had booked him for five days, with a nonrefundable deposit for five more.

The Bell passed over a forested ridge, and Hosni nosed over, descending into the valley below. Three hundred feet over the treetops, he leveled off and decreased his airspeed.

“In the zone now,” he called.

Binoculars raised, Sam and Remi began their scan of the valley. Remi radioed, “Remind me: how accurate did Jack say the coordinates were?”

“Half a kilometer. About a third of a mile.”

“That doesn’t help me.” Though adept at it, Remi was not a fan of math; gauging distances especially vexed her.

“About four hundred fifty yards. Imagine a standard running track.”

“Got it. Imagine it, Sam: that Sentinel was required to hit each of these coordinates almost dead-on.”

“A remarkable bit of orienteering,” Sam agreed. “Karna said it, though: these guys were the equivalent of today’s Green Berets or Navy SEALs. They trained for this their whole lives.”

Hosni flew on, dropping as close to the trees as he dared. The valley, which the Bell traversed from end to end in less than two minutes, yielded nothing. Sam ordered Hosni to proceed to the next set of coordinates.

The morning wore on as the Bell continued ever westward. The going was slow. Though many of the coordinates were but a few miles apart, the Bell’s ceiling constraints forced Hosni to skirt some of the higher peaks, flying through alpine cols and passes that lay below sixteen thousand feet.

Shortly after one in the afternoon, as they were flying northwest to avoid a peak in the Ganesh Himal range, Hosni called, “We have company. Helo at our two o’clock.”

Remi scooted over to Sam’s side, and they peered out the window at the aircraft.

“Who is it?” Remi asked.

Hosni called back, “PLA Air Force. A Z-9.”

“Where’s the Tibetan border?”

“About two miles on the other side of them. No worries, they always send up eyes to watch helicopters out of Kathmandu. They are simply flexing their muscles.”

“Anywhere else and that would be called an invasion,” Sam observed.

“Welcome to Nepal.”

After a few minutes of paralleling the Bell, the Chinese helicopter peeled away and headed north toward the border. They soon lost sight of it in the clouds.

Twice in the afternoon they asked Hosni to land near a rock formation that looked promising, but neither panned out. As four o’clock approached, Sam put a red grease pencil X through the last point on the day’s map, and Hosni headed for Kathmandu.

The morning of the second day began with a forty-minute flight to the Budhi Gandaki Valley northwest of Kathmandu. Three of Karna’s coordinates for the day lay within the Budhi Gandaki, which followed the western edge of the Annapurna range. Sam and Remi were treated to three hours of beautiful scenery-thick pine forests, lush meadows exploding with wildflowers, jagged ridgelines, churning rivers, and tumbling waterfalls-but little else, aside from a formation that, from above, looked mushroom-like enough to warrant a landing but turned out to be merely a top-heavy boulder.

At noon they landed near a trekker’s stop in a village called Bagarchap, and Hosni entertained the local children with tours of the Bell while Sam and Remi ate sack lunches.

Soon they were airborne again and heading north through the Bintang Glacier and toward Mount Manaslu.

“Eighty-one hundred meters high,” Hosni called, pointing to the mountain.

Sam translated for Remi: “About twenty-four thousand feet.”

“And five thousand less than Everest,” Hosni added.

“It’s one thing to see these in pictures or from the ground,” Remi said. “But, from up here, I can see why they call this place the rooftop of the world.”

After lingering so Remi could take some pictures, Hosni turned the Bell west and descended into another glacier-the Pung Gyen, Hosni called it-which they followed for eight miles before turning north again.

“Our friends are back,” Hosni said over the headset. “Right side.”

Sam and Remi looked. The Chinese Z-9 was indeed back, again paralleling their course; this time, however, the helicopter had closed the gap to only a few hundred yards.

Sam and Remi could see silhouettes staring back at them through the cabin windows.

The Z-9 shadowed them for a few more miles, then veered off and disappeared into a cloud bank.

“Next search area coming up in three minutes,” Hosni called.

Sam and Remi got situated near the windows.

As had become routine, Hosni lifted the Bell’s nose over a ridgeline, then banked sharply into the target valley, bleeding off altitude as he went. He slowed the Bell to a hover.

Sam was the first to notice the valley’s surreal landscape below. While the upper slopes were thick with pine trees, the lower reaches looked as if they had been carved by a rectangular cookie cutter, leaving behind sheer cliffs plummeting into a lake. Jutting from the opposite slope and encircling one end was an ice-covered plateau. A runnel of churning water sliced through the shelf and cascaded to the waters below.

“Hosni, how deep do you think this is?” Sam asked. “The valley, I mean.”

“From the ridgeline to the lake, perhaps eight hundred feet.”

“The cliffs are half that at least,” said Sam.

Honsi eased the Bell forward, following the slope, as Sam and Remi scanned the terrain through their binoculars. As they drew even with the plateau, and Hosni came about, they saw that the plateau was deceptively deep, narrowing for a few hundred yards before ending at a towering wall of ice bracketed by vertical cliffs.

“That’s a glacier,” Sam said. “Hosni, I didn’t see this plateau on any maps. Does it look familiar?”

“No, you are right. This is relatively new. You see the color of the lake, the greenish gray?”

“Yes,” said Remi.

“You see that after glacial retreat. This section of the valley is less than two years old, I would estimate.”

“Climate change?”

“Most definitely. The glacier we passed earlier-the Pung Gyen-lost forty feet last year alone.”

Pressed up against her window, Remi suddenly lowered her binoculars. “Sam, look at this!”

He slid over to her side and peered out the window. Directly below them was what looked like a wooden hut half buried in a waist-high ice shelf.

“What in the world is that?” Sam asked. “Hosni?”

“I have no idea.”

“How close to the coordinates are we?”

“Not quite a kilometer.”

Remi said, “Sam, that’s a gondola.”

“Pardon?”

“A wicker gondola-for a hot-air balloon.”

“Are you sure?”

“Hosni, set us down!”

31

NORTHERN NEPAL

Hosni crabbed the Bell sideways over the plateau until he found a spot he decided was solid enough to bear the helicopter’s weight, then touched down. Once the rotors had spooled down, Sam and Remi climbed out and donned their jackets, caps, and gloves.

Hosni called, “Step carefully! There will be many crevasses in an area like this.”

They waved their understanding and started across the plateau toward the object.

“Here, wait . . .” Hosni called. They walked back. He climbed out of the cockpit and stooped beside the tail storage compartment. He removed what looked like a foldable tent pole and handed it to Sam. “Avalanche probe. Works as well with crevasses. Best to be safe.”

“Thanks.” Sam gave the probe a flick, and it snaked outward, the inner bungee cord snapping the sections into place. “Nifty.”

They set off again, this time with Sam probing as they walked.

The ice sheet that partially covered the plateau was rippled like waves frozen in place, leftover, they assumed, by the glacier’s slow grinding retreat up the valley.

The object in question lay near the far edge of the plateau, sitting kitty-corner to the rest of the plateau.

After five minutes of careful walking, they stood before it.

“I’m glad I didn’t bet you,” Sam said. “That’s a gondola, all right.”

“Upside down. That explains why it looked like a hut. They don’t make them like this anymore. What in the world is it doing here?”

“No idea.”

Remi took a step forward; Sam halted her with a hand on her shoulder. He probed the ice in front of the gondola, found it solid, then began poking around what should have been its sides.

“There’s more,” Sam said.

They continued sidestepping left, paralleling the gondola, probing as they went, until they reached the end.

Sam frowned and said, “Curiouser and curiouser.”

Remi asked. “How long is it?”

“Roughly thirty feet.”

“That’s impossible. Aren’t most maybe three feet by three feet?”

“More or less.” He slid the probe over the gondola’s upturned bottom as far as he could reach. “Nearly eight feet wide.”

Sam handed her the probe, then knelt down and crawled forward, hands sliding through the snow along the gondola’s side.

“Sam, be care-”

His arm plunged into the snow up to his elbow. He froze.

“I can’t be entirely sure,” he said with a grin, “but I think I found something.” He laid himself flat.

“I got you,” Remi replied. She grabbed his boots.

Sam used both hands to punch a basketball-sized hole in the ice, then poked his head inside. He turned back to Remi. “A crevasse. Very deep. The gondola’s half straddling it diagonally.”

He took another peek through the hole, then wriggled back away from the crevasse and pushed himself to his knees. He said, “I’ve found the answer to how it got here.”

“How?”

“It flew. There’s rigging still attached to the gondola-wooden stays, some kind of braided cord . . . I even saw what looked like a fabric of some sort. The whole tangled mess is hanging in the crevasse.”

Remi sat down beside him, and they stared at the gondola for a bit. Remi said, “A mystery for another time?”

Sam nodded. “Absolutely. We’ll mark it and come back.”

They stood up. Sam cocked his head. “Listen.”

Faintly in the distance came the chopping of helicopter rotors. They turned around, trying to localize the sound. Standing beside the Bell, Hosni had heard it too. He stared up at the sky.

Suddenly to their left an olive green helicopter popped over the ridgeline, then dropped into the valley and turned in their direction. On the aircraft’s door was a five-pointed red star outlined in yellow.

The helicopter drew even with the plateau and slowed to a hover fifty feet from Sam and Remi, nose cone and rocket pods pointed directly at them.

“Don’t move,” Sam said.

“Chinese Army?” asked Remi.

“Yes. Same as the Z-9 we spotted yesterday.”

“What do they want?”

Before Sam could answer, the helicopter pivoted, revealing an open cabin door. In it, a soldier crouched behind a mounted machine gun.

Sam could sense Remi’s body go tense beside him. He slowly grasped her hand in his. “Don’t run. If they wanted us dead, we’d already be dead.”

Out of the corner of his eye Sam saw movement. He glanced toward the helicopter and saw Hosni opening the side door. A moment later he emerged. In his hands was a compact machine gun. He raised it toward the Z-9.

“Hosni, no!” Sam shouted.

Hosni’s machine gun bucked, and the muzzle flashed orange. Bullets peppered the Z-9’s windshield. The helicopter banked sharply right, then accelerated away, skimming over the lake’s surface toward the ridgeline, where it banked again until its nose was again aimed at the Bell.

“Hosni, run!” Sam shouted, then to Remi: “Behind the gondola! Go!”

Remi spun into a sprint, with Sam close on her heels.

“Remi, the crevasse!” Sam called. “Veer left.”

Remi did, then pushed off with both legs, diving headfirst onto the gondola. Sam hit it a moment later, then pushed himself to his knees and helped Remi onto the ice shelf. They tumbled down the backside and landed in a sprawling heap.

From across the plateau they heard the chattering of Hosni’s machine gun. Sam stood up and peeked over the ice. Hosni was standing defiantly at the edge of the plateau, firing at the oncoming Z-9.

“Hosni, get out of there!”

The Z-9 stopped in a hover a hundred yards away. Sam saw a flash from the left-hand rocket pod. Hosni saw it as well. He turned and began sprinting toward Sam and Remi.

“Faster!” Sam shouted.

With a brilliant flash of light and a plume of smoke, a pair of rockets burst from the Z-9’s pod. In a split second they reached the Bell, one striking the ground beneath the tail, the other slamming into the engine compartment.

The Bell convulsed, leapt upward, then exploded.

Sam ducked and threw himself over Remi. They felt the blast ripple through the plateau, felt the ice crackle beneath them. A wave of shrapnel pelted into the gondola and through the ice shelf a foot above their heads.

Then silence.

Sam said, “Follow me,” and crawled down the length of the ice shelf to the end of the gondola. On his belly, he wriggled forward and peered around the corner.

The plateau was strewn with the shattered remains of the Bell. Jagged chunks of the fuselage, still rocking from the concussion, sat amid a sheet of burning aviation fuel. Splintered lengths of rotor blade jutted from the snowbanks.

The Z-9 had retreated across the lake to the ridgeline, where it hovered, rocket pods still pointed menacingly at the plateau.

Remi said, “Do you see Hosni?”

“I’m looking.”

Sam spotted him lying beside a ragged piece of the Bell’s windshield. The body was charred. Then Sam spotted something else. Directly ahead of them, twenty feet away, was Hosni’s machine gun. It looked intact. He pulled back and faced Remi.

“He’s gone. Never felt a thing.”

“Oh, no.”

“I spotted his machine gun. I think I can reach it.”

“Sam, no. You don’t even know if it works. Where’s the Z-9?”

“Hovering. Probably radioing their base for instructions. They’ve already spotted us; they’ll be coming in for a closer look.”

“You can’t hope to hold them off for long.”

“My guess is they want us alive. Otherwise, they would be pounding this plateau with missiles.”

“Why, what are they after?”

“I have a hunch.”

“Me too. We’ll compare notes later, if we’re alive. What’s your plan?”

“They can’t land, not with all the debris, so they’ll have to hover above the plateau and fast-rope soldiers down. If I can catch them at the right moment, maybe . . .” Sam let his words trail off. “Maybe,” he added. “What’s your vote? Fight and perhaps die here or surrender and end up in a Chinese prison camp?”

Remi smiled gamely. “You really have to ask?”

Half hoping, half expecting the Z-9 would make a reconnaissance pass before putting men on the ground, Sam sent Remi back along the ice shelf, where she buried herself in the snow between a pair of drifts. Sam crouched beside the gondola and readied himself.

For what seemed like several minutes, but was likely less than one, Sam listened for the sound of the Z-9 approaching. When it came, he waited until the chopping sound was deafening. He risked a peek around the corner of the gondola.

The Z-9 had stopped in a hover, just off the edge of the plateau and a few feet above it. The helicopter slid sideways like a dragonfly waiting for its prey to appear. In the side door, Sam could see the door gunner bent over the machine gun.

Suddenly the Z-9 veered away and dropped out of sight below the plateau. Seconds later Sam saw it streaking back across the lake. Sam didn’t think but reacted, scrambling from behind cover and running, hunched over, to Hosni’s gun. He snatched it up and sprinted back to the gondola.

“Made it,” Sam called to Remi, then began checking the machine gun. The wooden stock was partially splintered, and the fore stock charred by flames, but the working parts seemed in order and the barrel unscathed. He ejected the magazine; thirteen rounds left.

Remi called, “What are they doing?”

“Either leaving or waiting for enough of the aviation fuel to burn off so they can come in for a fast rope.”

The Z-9 reached the edge of the lake and swooped upward along the slope to the ridgeline. Sam watched, fingers mentally crossed that the helicopter would keep going.

It didn’t.

As had become its pattern, the Z-9 banked over the ridge, reversed course, and came streaking back across the lake.

“They’re coming back,” Sam announced.

“Good luck.”

Sam mentally rehearsed his plan. Much would depend on whether the Z-9 presented him an open door as the soldiers prepared for their fast-rope descent. Firing into the aircraft’s fuselage was pointless; Hosni’s attack had proven that. What Sam needed was a chink in the armor.

The rush of the Z-9’s engine drew nearer, and the rhythmic chop of the rotors rattled Sam’s eardrums. He waited, head down and watching the ice a few feet from the gondola.

Wait . . . wait . . .

Snow began whipping across the ice.

Sam peeked around the corner.

The Z-9 was hovering thirty feet above the plateau.

“Come on, turn,” Sam muttered. “Just a little bit.”

The Z-9 pivoted slightly, bringing the door gunner around so he could cover the soldiers’ descent. Two thick black ropes uncoiled from the door and hit the ice. The first pair of soldiers stepped up to the door. Sam could just make out the pilot’s seat diagonally behind them.

Sam took a breath, set his teeth. He clipped the fire selector to Single Shot, then ducked out. In a crouch, he brought the machine gun to his shoulder and took aim at the Z-9’s open doorway, then shifted left, placing the sight over the door gunner’s helmet. He fired. The gunner crumbled. Sam switched the fire selector to Three Round, adjusted his aim again, and fired a burst into the doorway. Hit, one of the soldiers stumbled backward; the other ducked and dropped to his belly. Sam now had a clear view of the pilot’s seat-but that would last only a second or two, he knew. Even as he readjusted his aim he could see the pilot’s arm’s moving, adjusting controls, trying to make sense of the chaos around him.