Nighthawk

Why these men were taking orders from the lieutenant, she couldn’t guess. But with a nod from the third member of their group, they did as he asked.

  The sudden release of her hands brought both great relief and a new wave of pain as she brought her arms in front of her for the first time in hours.

  Her hands were caked with dried blood, her wrists rubbed raw from the effort. The cord that had held her captive was frayed within a few strands of breaking. The Peruvian men looked at it suspiciously.

  Wu laughed. “You’re lucky I arrived,” he said to the Peruvians. “She would have killed you all.”

  They scoffed at the statement, but that didn’t make it any less true.

  “Can you walk?” Wu asked.

  Daiyu tested her legs. They were tingling with pins and needles, but she would show no more weakness. She nodded and stood.

  “Come with me,” Wu said, turning and strolling down the path.

  She followed awkwardly, listening as the Peruvian men closed up the truck behind her. The door slid down with a rattle before slamming against the stops. Angry words were exchanged among them.

  Daiyu focused on Lieutenant Wu. “Did General Zhang buy my freedom?”

  “Yes and no.”

  “I failed you,” she whispered. “I’m not worthy of being ransomed.”

  Wu laughed lightly. “The General said you would react this way. He also said to tell you he can find diamonds and gold in the ground; that he can either buy or steal them, if he must. But a good operative, one such as yourself, is far harder to come by.”

  She felt a wave of pride at the compliment. But it did not change what had happened.

  “At any rate,” Wu added, “it’s not you alone that we’ve paid for but the Nighthawk’s cargo.”

  Her eyes grew wide.

  “There is much you don’t know,” he said, leading her around a bend.

  A sleek helicopter sat in the road up ahead. It was guarded by two men with assault rifles. Men from home. Allies.

  “How did you find me?”

  “You recall the name Falconer?”

  “The Russian asset.”

  “Our asset,” Wu insisted, “though the Russians think he belongs to them. Falconer was on the second Russian bomber, in charge of overriding the American commands from the Vandenberg. He was supposed to abort the capture of the Nighthawk and direct it back toward our fleet. Where we would grab it once it hit the water.”

  “Obviously, he failed,” she said.

  “Partially,” Wu replied. “Whether that was by design or happenstance, we cannot say. But as it turns out, the man lives. He contacted us, told us where to find you and where to find the Nighthawk.”

  “But the Americans are already there,” she said. “With the man from this camp.”

  “Yes,” Wu said. “The Falconer. They are one and the same.”

  As she put it all together, she began to laugh. “And to think, I almost killed him.”

  “You couldn’t know,” Wu said. “The man has been operating as a triple agent. But the final act is now upon us. General Zhang secured your release with gold. And now, for a pittance in rough-cut diamonds, we will take possession of the cargo.”

  A pittance might be fifty million dollars, in Zhang’s terms. But it was truly nothing compared to what they were receiving.

  They arrived at the helicopter. The side door was pulled back. A body covered in plastic lay on the floor.

  “Jian,” she said. Her brother among the children who had never been born.

  “A casualty of the operation.”

  She and Wu climbed in, the armed commandos followed and the pilot began the start procedure. A heavy pack was tossed out to one of the Peruvian men who followed them. It clinked like a bag of loose change.

  “Krugerrands,” Wu said.

  The Peruvians opened it. One was satisfied, but another was frustrated. An argument broke out, in their native language. It was hard to follow with all of them speaking at once, but she understood enough.

  She killed them. We should not be letting her go.

  It’s been arranged.

  I don’t like it . . . deserves to die . . .

  The sound of the helicopter starting drowned out the rest. But Daiyu could read lips. She focused on the leader of the Peruvian men.

  Of course they deserve to die.

  Don’t worry. They will.

  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.

  45

  Kurt descended twenty feet before moving horizontally and passing under the approaching boat.

  Rolling over on his back, Kurt watched the wake of the small boat flare out around the air bags and slow. The yellow bags began to move. The occupants of the boat were gathering them in.

  Putting space between himself and the cleanup crew, Kurt continued toward the rolling thunder of the waterfall.

  As he approached it, the current around him became more turbulent and confused. The falling water dropped into the lake with so much force that it continued downward in a column until it hit the bottom, spreading out in all directions. It scoured away all sediment and loose debris, forming a deep well known as a plunge pool, often filled with heavy boulders resting on hardened rock.

  Others called this pool the washing machine because the downward force of the water caused swirling vortices all around it. They led outward, up and then back down. Horizontal drums of churning liquid.

  Water surged away from the falls in general, but get too close and Kurt would be sucked right into the washing machine and shoved downward into the plunge pool.

  Unfortunately, to many daredevils who’d gone over Niagara Falls in various barrels, capsules and other vehicles, getting caught in the washing machine at the bottom of the falls had proved more deadly than going over them in the first place. Once they got trapped inside the vortex, it was incredibly difficult to get out. Several attempts ended in disaster when the homemade conveyances survived the drop only to be pinned at the bottom and held there until the occupants ran out of oxygen.

  Kurt had no intention of getting into the washing machine. His plan was to swim around the edge of the falls, stay far enough out to avoid trouble and surface behind it. It was a good plan in theory, but the upper end of the lake narrowed so tightly around the falls that it proved difficult.

  Pushed outward at first by the churning water, Kurt found himself forced upward as well. Swimming harder, he made a little progress but was still being pushed back nearly as fast as he went forward.

  Tired of being caught on a liquid conveyer belt, and well aware that he might be seen at any moment, Kurt angled more directly toward the falls, charging into the semicircle of water that boiled upward from below.

  Straining every muscle in his body, he began to make progress. All at once, the outward pressure of the water waned and he was moving forward.

  Too far, too fast.

  He changed direction and fought the pull of the eddy, trying to use the momentum he’d gained to slingshot around it. Despite his powerful stroke, the vortex had him. He was dragged toward the thundering wall of falling liquid and pulled downward in the grasp of an underwater storm.

  There was no fighting it now; he had to go with the flow. Surrounded in the swirling white foam, Kurt was forced deeper and deeper. Even after slowing through seventy feet of water, the column hit bottom with surprising strength.

  Kurt was slammed downward and shoved sideways into the rocks. His shoulder took one hit, the aluminum cylinder on his back took another.

  He was pushed into a large boulder and then swung around back in the other direction, where he crashed into a pile of rocks worn smooth by the constant tumbling action beneath the falls.

  He could feel the water hammering him, pressing him into the stones.
His fins were ripped off; water forced itself into a gap where the helmet sealed around his neck, filling the helmet with frigid liquid, cutting off his air supply and chilling his face in the process.

  Kurt had ahold of one large boulder—he clung to it and pulled himself along. The water pressed him downward; there was no swimming, only crawling.

  He scraped across the two boulders, then pushed up against the wall of stone behind the waterfall and caught under a ledge for a moment. Bracing himself, he refused to be held in the trap. He found a foothold and pushed himself outward and up.

  Suddenly, he was on the far side of the vortex. Instead of crushing him downward, it carried him up on a rapidly ascending elevator.

  He breached the surface in a swirl of foam on the back side of the falls.

  Kurt lunged forward and pulled himself onto the rocks. He was battered, bruised and exhausted, but the risk had paid off. He was now hidden behind enemy lines.

  46

  Joe Zavala had been taken down to the rock-strewn beach. His hands were bound with a zip tie, and while his feet were free, his boots and socks had been taken away to make it more difficult and painful should he try to escape or fight.

  Paul sat on Joe’s left, tied and bound in a similar fashion. Emma was on his right, also restrained. Though many thoughts were competing for Joe’s attention, Kurt’s death was not at the top of the list. Joe had heard the words, felt the pain they carried and then locked the thought away in some distant corner of his mind. After so many risky adventures together, both of them knew a day like this might arrive. In Joe’s position, Kurt would have done the same.

  “We’re going to get out of here,” Joe said. “I’m not sure how, but we’re going to break free.”

  “And then what?” Emma asked.

  “Depends on the manner of our escape,” Joe said. “If we can get to the Air-Crane, we’ll fly. If not, we go on foot or by boat on the river. There are rapids downstream, but we could navigate them in the Zodiac.”