He was halfway across when the Air-Crane lifted off, rising on a whirlwind of dust, blinding anyone who was foolish enough to open his eyes and look into it.
As it gained altitude, it drew up the same steel cables that had been attached to the Nighthawk in the water. They snaked across the ground, rising slowly, until they were taut with tension and the black spacecraft came up slowly off the ground.
The two linked aircraft rotated until they were pointing to the southeast. Finally, they began to move, traveling so cautiously at first that they barely appeared to be making any progress.
With all eyes on the departing craft and no chance that he would be heard, Kurt rushed in. He charged the nearest of Urco’s men, tackled the man in a flying leap and slammed him to the ground. A short scuffle ended when Kurt landed a knockout punch.
He grabbed his radio. “I’m in the clearing and armed. Open fire.”
Gamay had been waiting for a call, tracking the men who were guarding Paul and Joe. Taught to shoot by her father at a young age, she’d been around guns all her life. And though she preferred to avoid violence, she’d shot at attackers and been shot at more than a few times during her years with NUMA. It was the nature of the job. Still, as she steadied the barrel and aimed at the men in the clearing she realized this was something she had never done before.
The discomfort vanished as one of the men pulled out his pistol and moved in behind Joe.
Gamay exhaled and pulled the trigger.
The rifle cracked. The man with the pistol dropped to his knees and fell over on his side. Before he hit the ground, Gamay adjusted her aim and fired again, this time hitting the guard that was standing over by Paul.
She saw him tumble, pulled the trigger again for good measure and then switched her sights to a third target. By now, the men were racing in all directions. Her fourth shot winged one of them; her fifth may or may not have struck home as another of Urco’s crew dove back into the tall grass.
Down on the rocky beach, Joe heard the rifle shot and thought it sounded like deliverance. He pulled and twisted the new zip tie that had been wrapped around his wrists. It hadn’t been weakened as much as the prior one, but he’d been working on it.
Another shot rang out and then another. The men around them were falling dead or running for safety when Joe finally snapped the restraint.
He immediately grabbed a sharp-edged rock he’d been eyeing and rushed over to Paul.
With a quick pull, Paul was cut free. Joe tossed the rock aside, exchanging it for the pistol in the dead man’s hand.
Joe pointed to the ridge that he assumed Gamay to be firing from. “Get to the bottom of the bluff.”
“Where are you going?”
“To find Urco.”
Paul turned over another of the men Gamay had shot and retrieved a weapon of his own. “Let’s go.”
As Gamay fired from the high ridge, Kurt came in low and fast. He’d taken out two of Urco’s men, commandeered a shotgun and rushed forward with it. He wanted to capture Urco, but his surviving men were making things difficult.
Kurt shot one of them as the man sprayed a clip of bullets up at the hills, hoping to hit the sniper.
Rushing past the dead man, he pumped the shotgun and fired at a man who’d taken cover in some bushes. The blast ripped the bush to shreds and left the man lying on the ground, bleeding.
Kurt rushed over to him and kicked the rifle from his hand. “Urco?”
The man pointed, his finger extending unsteadily toward the path that had been hacked in the grass.
Kurt glanced in that direction and noticed something being thrown toward them from up above. He sprinted and then dove away, launching himself into the grass just as the brick of Semtex detonated.
The explosion rang in Kurt’s ears, momentarily flattened the field of green stalks and rained dirt on him for several long seconds. He was far enough away to avoid serious injury.
The man who’d pointed to Urco was not so lucky.
Kurt was about to move forward when someone tapped him on the leg.
He spun around with his weapon. But instead of enemies, he saw the smiling face of Joe Zavala. Paul Trout was just behind him.
“For a ghost, you’re made of surprisingly solid material,” Joe said.
Kurt grinned. “And easy to sneak up on,” he said. “Glad to see you both. Believe it or not, I think we’re winning, primarily thanks to Gamay’s shooting.”
“She’ll be hard to live with after saving us,” Paul said. “But well worth it.”
“How many of them are down?”
“Four down below,” Joe said.
“And I took out three,” Kurt said.
“That leaves only Urco,” Joe said. “Trust me, I’ve been counting them obsessively.”
Kurt pointed to the high ground. “He’s up there. But I have a feeling he’ll be lobbing bombs at us if we move his way.”
“Maybe Gamay can hit him from her position,” Paul suggested.
Kurt pulled out the radio, gave Gamay a status report and made the request.
“He’s up there, all right,” Gamay insisted. “And he’s alone. But he’s not defenseless.”
“We got a taste of the explosives,” Kurt said. “I’m not interested in a second course. Can you hit him?”
“Maybe,” she replied. “But there’s a problem with that plan.”
“Which is . . . ?”
“He seems to have anticipated this,” she said. “He’s crouched behind the last of the containment units. And he’s got his pistol up against the housing as if it was a living human hostage.”
Just then, Urco’s booming voice called out to them. “This violence has gone on long enough,” he shouted. “Throw down your weapons. Or I’ll destroy us all.”
52
The battlefield went silent in the wake of Urco’s words. Kurt glanced at Joe. “Apparently, we’re not winning . . . yet.”
“We could rush him from three sides,” Joe offered.
“The last thing I want is for him to panic.”
The radio came alive with Gamay’s voice. “I might be able to get a head shot if he moves,” she said. “But if I miss . . .”
“Even if you hit him square, he might squeeze that trigger,” Kurt replied. They had to try something else. He handed Joe the radio. “I’m going to walk up there.”
“He’ll shoot you down.”
“Hopefully,” Kurt said. “And when he does, you guys drop him.”
Joe looked at Kurt quizzically.
“Clue Gamay in,” Kurt said. “Once I get moving up the path, you two move through the grass. I’ll try to keep him talking as long as possible.”
Kurt stood slowly. He raised the shotgun over his head with both hands like a surrendering soldier. Carrying it high, he walked out of the grass, across the clearing and up the snaking path to the higher ground.
He arrived at the upper clearing and found Urco crouching behind the last containment unit with the pistol up against one of the cryogenic tubes.
Kurt tossed the shotgun away as soon as they made eye contact.
Urco stared. “Austin,” he said quietly. “And in far better condition than I was led to believe.”
“Disappointed?” Kurt asked.
“Surprised. Vargas does not often fail at his tasks. Nor does he lie. Not to me. He said you were bleeding out at the bottom of the lake.”
“Don’t be too angry with him,” Kurt replied. “He cut the red dye packet in my vest. Must have thought he’d sliced me deep. An accidental deception. Unlike the one you’ve created for the world. I have to hand it to you, not many people have the guts to manipulate the three most powerful nations on Earth.”
“I took advantage of an opportunity,” Urco said. “Nothing more.”
Kurt shook his head. “It?
??s a little late for false modesty, don’t you think? You pulled the strings. We danced. You wanted the Nighthawk raised and you got us to raise it for you. You needed someone to pluck it out of the air for you and you convinced the Russians to build a pair of hypersonic bombers to catch it for you. When they needed money—cash-strapped as they are—you manipulated the Chinese into partnering up with them. And you did it with nothing but words. Unless I’m mistaken, you have no money, no political power, no weapons, nothing but that brilliant mind of yours.”
Urco was too smart not to see Kurt’s flattery for what it was, but he was also too full of himself not to hang on every word.
“I’ve fought with terrorists, foreign governments and even billionaires with private armies at their beck and call,” Kurt added. “And I honestly doubt that I’ve ever met a more dangerous man. Congratulations, Urco. Or should I call you the Falconer?”
Urco’s chin rose at the sound of the name. Intrigued, his gaze hardened on Kurt. “So you know a thing or two as well. Tell me, where did you hear that name?”
“From the cockpit voice recorder we found in the wreckage of Blackjack 1,” Kurt said. “It survived, even if the pilots didn’t. You were on Blackjack 2; you were the reason the Nighthawk suddenly came back to life again when the Russians thought it had been shut down. And you ignored their pleas to reboot the system with the alpha code. That’s why the camera footage from La Jalca was filmed by someone using their right hand. Because you weren’t there to film it yourself.”
Urco stared at Kurt and then nodded.
“A brilliant scheme,” Kurt continued. “You parceled out just enough information to lead us all along by the nose. The part I couldn’t understand until recently was, why?”
“Avarice affects even the purest of hearts,” Urco responded.
Kurt had him talking. It was now a conversation. That was Kurt’s advantage. He began to walk slowly as he spoke. “Greed is not your game. If it was, you could have contacted any one of the three nations and demanded a huge sum be transferred to a numbered account in return for the Nighthawk’s location. After all, you were the only one who knew where it was. But you didn’t. You teased us all along, brought us all in close. As you said at our dinner the other night, the feast cannot begin until all the guests are present and accounted for. You didn’t sell the mixed-state matter. You gave it away, a portion to each nation that sought it.”
Urco became agitated at Kurt’s accusations. “I was paid in gems.”
“All part of the act,” Kurt said. “A nice touch in your little drama of revenge. But wealth will do nothing for you when the world comes crashing down. I know what you have in mind. I saw the replica fuel cells in the cave. I found your explosives.”
Urco seemed unnerved by the fact that Kurt had uncovered so much. He held the pistol against the containment unit, but his eyes were focused on Kurt.
“What’s the point in hiding the truth?” Kurt said, pressing harder. “This is the end. Either the end of your world or the end of ours. Do you really want to go out pretending you did this for money? That’s the motivation of an industrialist, of a conquistador, of Pizarro and Columbus and every other European who came to the New World. Do you want to throw your lot in with the people who decimated the Inca and Chachapoya?”
“Decimated,” Urco repeated angrily, his voice rose sharply. “The term means to kill one in ten. The Europeans and their filth didn’t leave one in ten alive. Their plagues wiped out ninety-five percent of those who lived here. They raped and enslaved the rest. Polluted our blood with theirs. For three-quarters of a century, we’ve labeled the evil actions of the Nazis and the purges of Stalin with terms like Holocaust and genocide, but they were nothing compared to what happened here!”
Urco’s sudden furor unbalanced him as Kurt had hoped it would.
“No one alive today had anything to do with that,” Kurt said, moving closer.
“It’s still occurring today,” he shouted. “You point to the past as if the murder and dislocation of the innocent happened once and then ended, but it continues even now. Every hour of every day. Not just here or in the Amazon but in Africa, Asia, the outback of Australia and the cold expanses of the Arctic. The last vestiges of the original peoples are threatened by the children of the machine. There is no hope of accommodation. The way industrial people spread like a virus, there will soon be no room left for any other way of life. It has to be stopped. I am the one to stop it. And this is the only way.”
“One bomb for America, one bomb for China, one for someone else and the rest—the vast majority—to make Europe into an inferno as the Russian bomber passes over it. Is that your idea of revenge?”
“Justice.” Urco seethed. “Long delayed. An eye for an eye. One genocide for another.”
“You can’t think you won’t be affected here.”
“We live off the land, as do all the children of the soil. You live off the energy of automation and mechanical power. That reliance on industrialization will be your undoing. Without equipment to do their bidding, the children of the machine will starve; they will die of thirst and of heat and of cold. They will destroy one another fighting over what’s left. The children of the soil will simply return to what they’ve always known.”
Urco went cold and the conversation ended.
Kurt edged closer.
“That’s far enough,” he said. “One more step and I’ll kill us all.” Urco pulled the hammer back and cocked it. The fate of the world now hung on a hair-trigger response of a man who was literally shaking with anger.
“No,” Kurt said. “I don’t think you will.”
“Don’t test me,” Urco said. “I am more than willing to die.”
“Oh, I’m sure you are,” Kurt said. “But your plan . . . You’re not thinking this through. You can’t pull that trigger now. Your other bombs are too close. This one is too powerful. It’s a thousand Hiroshimas, maybe five thousand. If you set it off, the shock wave and fireball will engulf the Russians in our stolen helicopter. That will set off a second reaction. The combined effects of which will obliterate Emma Townsend on the road to Cajamarca, triggering a third explosion.
“Even if the Chinese have somehow transferred their containment units to a long-range transport headed for Asia, they can’t have gone far. Certainly not far enough to escape the effect of three small suns igniting a hundred miles away. The same shock wave you intend to use on the industrial civilizations of the world will swat that plane out of midair. The gamma rays and EMP burst will fry the circuitry and melt the containment unit. One way or another, that fourth ticking bomb of yours will go off. It will be a cataclysm, but it’ll be South America that bears the brunt of the disaster and the children of the machine who come to render assistance.”
Urco’s jaw clenched as Kurt spoke. It was possible he’d already thought it through. Was it even possible that he’d never considered it? But he saw it now, saw it exactly how Kurt had laid it out for him.
Kurt took another step. The only thing he needed to do was prevent Urco from firing by accident.
“Stay where you are!”
“It’s over, Urco!”
“I will pull this trigger,” Urco shouted. “It will still be a cataclysm. And it will affect your society far more than it affects those who live in the jungles, the tundra or the distant plains.”
Kurt was close enough now that he could see the flaring of Urco’s nostrils and the wildness in his eyes. He watched a bead of sweat run down his temple and his knuckles turn white on the pistol grip.
“You’ve got one move left,” Kurt said. “One shot. It’s either the bomb . . . Or me.”
Urco was shaking with fury. A second drop of perspiration trickled down his face. It ran down his beard and stopped for the slightest instant before dropping onto the containment unit. It hit and froze instantly on the supercooled pipe. “Damn you!” h
e shouted.
With a shift of his shoulders, Urco snapped the pistol upward, swinging it toward Kurt.
Kurt dove away as two shots rang out almost simultaneously. One near and one sounding off in the distance.
Urco was thrown to the side by the rifle shot, which hit him in the ribs beneath his outstretched arm. He crashed to the ground, still grasping the pistol. Joe rushed forward, leapt on top of him and punched the gun away before he could attempt to fire again.
Kurt looked up from where he’d landed. Urco’s shot had missed. The barrel had stuck momentarily to the frost-covered cylinder of the containment unit. He rushed over to assist Joe.
“He’s bleeding out fast,” Joe said.
They tried to stanch the bleeding, but the bullet had gone through his body. Too many organs had been hit and damaged. Too much tissue had been torn up.
Kurt gave up trying to save Urco and attempted to force one last answer out of him.
“You’re going to die,” he said. “Don’t take half the world with you. Tell me how to stop what you’ve set in motion.”
Urco gazed at Kurt blankly.
“We’ll come back here. We’ll help your people and the other people. You’re not wrong about what’s been and is being done, but you have to help us first.”
Urco looked at him. “I almost . . . believe you,” he said in a whisper. His eyes were unfocused. “It’s too late,” he said. “What goes up . . . will never . . . come down.”
53
Urco died without saying anything more. Joe and Paul gathered up the dead and the two survivors. Gamay came running from her hiding place and embraced Paul.
“My compliments to your shooting instructor,” Joe said.
“I’ll tell my father,” she said, then turned to Kurt. “That was some game of brinksmanship.”
“I figured he’d put so much into his plan that he’d do anything but short-circuit it now.”
“What if you’d been wrong?”