Pitt ducked back behind the stone barricade as a torrent of automatic weapons fire peppered the outside columns, sending chips of stone flying in all directions. This came as no surprise to him. The Peruvians were laying down a covering fire as they crouched and dashed from ruin to ruin, moving ever closer to the base of the stairs leading up the rounded front of the temple. Pitt moved sideways like a crab and edged into the shelter of the death palace before rising to his feet and running to the rear wall.
He cast a wary eye out an arched window.
Knowing that the round walls of the temple were too smooth to scale for an attack and too steep for the defenders to escape, none of the soldiers had circled around to the rear. Pitt could easily predict that they were gambling their entire force on a frontal assault up the stairway. What he hadn't foreseen was that they were going to reduce a lot of the palace of the dead on top of the temple to rubble before charging up the stairway.
Pitt scurried back to the barricade and let loose a long burst from the Chinese automatic rifle until the final shell spit across the stone floor. He rolled to one side and was in the act of inserting another long, curved ammo stick in the gun's magazine when he heard a whoosh, and a forty-millimeter rocket from a People's Republic of China Type 69 launcher sailed up and burst against one side of the temple 8 meters (26 feet) behind Pitt. It detonated with a thunderous explosion that hurled stone like shrapnel and tore a huge hole in the wall. Within seconds the ancient shrine to the death gods was clogged with debris and the evil stench of high explosives.
There was a loud ringing in Pitt's ears, the reverberating roar of the detonation, the pounding of his own heart. He was momentarily blinded and his nose and throat were immediately filled with dust. He frantically rubbed his eyes clear and gazed down at the surrounding ruins. He was just in time to see the black smoke cloud and bright flash produced by the rocket's booster. He ducked with his hands over his head as another rocket slammed into the ancient stone and exploded with a deafening roar. The vicious blow pelted Pitt with flying rubble and the concussion knocked the breath out of him.
For a moment he lay motionless, almost lifeless. Then he struggled painfully to his hands and knees, coughing dust, seized the rifle, and crawled back into the interior of the palace. He took a last look at the mountain of precious artifacts and paid a final call on Amaru.
The grave looter had regained consciousness and glared at Pitt, his hands clutching his groin, now clotted with dried blood, the murderous face masked in hate. There was a strange coldness about him now, an utter indifference to the pain. He radiated evil.
"Your friends have a destructive nature," said Pitt, as another rocket struck the temple.
"You are trapped," Amaru rasped in a low tone.
"Thanks to your staged murder of Dr. Miller's imposter. He made off with your radio and called in reinforcements."
"Your time to die has arrived, Yankee pig."
"Yankee pig," Pitt repeated. "I haven't been called that in ages."
"You will suffer as you have made me suffer."
"Sorry, I have other plans."
Amaru tried to rise up on an elbow and say something, but Pitt was gone.
He rushed to the rear opening again. A mattress and pair of knives he had scrounged from living quarters inside the cliff tomb discovered by Giordino and Shannon sat beside the window. He laid the mattress over the lower sill, then lifted his legs outside and sat on it. He cast aside the rifle, gripped the knives in outstretched hands, and glanced apprehensively at the ground 20 meters (65 feet) below. He recalled an occasion when he bungee-jumped into a canyon on Vancouver Island in British Columbia.
Leaping into space, he mused, went against all human nature. Any hesitation or second thoughts abruptly ended when a fourth rocket smashed into the temple. He dug the heels of his sneakers into the steep slope and jammed the knife blades into the stone blocks for brakes. Without a backward glance, he launched himself over the side, and slid down the wall, using the mattress as a toboggan/sled.
Giordino, with Shannon and the students trailing behind him and Rodgers bringing up the rear, cautiously climbed a stairway from an underground tomb where they had been hiding when the helicopters landed. Giordino paused, raised his head slightly over a fallen stone wall, and scanned the landscape. The helicopters were sitting only 50 meters (164 feet) away, engines idling, the two-man flight crews calmly sitting in their cockpits watching the assault on the temple.
Shannon moved beside Giordino and looked over the wall just in time to see a rocket bring down the arched entrance of the upper palace. "They'll destroy the artifacts," she said in grief.
"No concern over Dirk?" Giordino spared her a brief glance. "He's only risking his life for us, fighting off an army of mercenaries so we can steal a helicopter."
She sighed. "It pains any archaeologist to see precious antiquities lost forever."
"Better yesterday's junk than us."
"I'm sorry, I want him to escape as much as you. But it all seems so impossible."
"I've known the guy since we were kids." Giordino smiled. "Believe me, he never passed up an opportunity to play Horatius at the bridge." He studied the two helicopters that sat in the clearing in a slightly staggered formation.
He selected the one in the rear as a prime candidate for escape. It was only a few meters from a narrow ravine they could move in without being seen, and more important, it was out of easy view of the crew seated in the forward craft. "Pass the word," he ordered over the sounds of battle, "we're going to hijack the second chopper in line."
Pitt shot uncontrollably down the side of the temple, like a plummeting boulder on a path that took him between the stone animal heads protruding from the convex sloping walls with only centimeters to spare.
His hands gripped the knife handles like vises, and he pushed with all the strength in his sinewy arms as the braking blades began to throw out sparks of protest from the friction of steel against hard stone. The rear edges of the rubber heels on his sneakers were being ground smooth by the rough surface of the wall. And yet he accelerated with dismaying speed. His two greatest fears were falling forward and tumbling head-first like a cannon ball into the ground or striking with such force that he broke a leg. Either calamity and he was finished, dead meat for the Peruvians who wouldn't treat him kindly for killing their officers.
Still fighting grimly but hopelessly to arrest his velocity, Pitt flexed his legs a split second before he struck the ground with appalling force. He let loose of the knives on impact as his feet drove into the ooze of rain-soaked soil. Using his momentum, he rolled over on one shoulder and tumbled twice as required in a hard parachute landing. He lay in the mud for a few moments, thankful he hadn't landed on a rock, before rising experimentally to his feet and checking for damage.
One ankle slightly sprained, but still in working condition, a few abrasions on his hands, and an aching shoulder appeared to be the only damage. The damp earth had saved him from serious injury. The faithful mattress was in shreds. He took a deep breath, happy at still being intact. Having no time to waste, Pitt broke into a run, keeping as much of the ruins as possible between him and the troops massing for an assault up the temple stairs.
Giordino could only hope that Pitt had survived the rockets and somehow made it safely down the wall of the temple without being spotted and shot. It seemed an impossible act, Giordino thought. Pitt was seemingly indestructible, but the old faceless man with the scythe catches up to us all. That he might catch up with Pitt was a prospect Giordino could not accept. It was inconceivable to him that Pitt could die anywhere but in bed with a beautiful woman or in a nursing home for aged divers.
Giordino crouched and ran into a blind position behind the trailing helicopter as a squad of troops began charging up the precipitous temple steps. The reserve squad remained below while pouring a covering storm of rifle fire at the now shattered palace of the dead.
Every one of the Peruvians had his attention focu
sed on the attack. No one saw Giordino, clutching an automatic rifle, steal around the tail boom of the helicopter and enter through the rear clamshell doors. He hurried inside and dropped flat, his eyes taking in the empty troop carrier and cargo compartment and the two pilots in the cockpit with their backs turned to him, intently watching the one-sided battle.
With practiced stealth Giordino moved with incredible quickness for a man built like a compact bulldozer. The pilots did not hear him or feel his presence as he came up behind their seats. Giordino reversed the rifle and clubbed the copilot on the back of the neck. The pilot heard the thud and twisted around in his seat, staring briefly at Giordino more from curiosity than dread. Before he could blink an eye, Giordino rammed the butt of the steel folding rifle stock against the pilot's forehead.
Quickly he dragged the unconscious pilots to the doorway and dumped them on the ground. He frantically waved to Shannon, Rodgers, and the students, who were hiding in the ravine. "Hurry!" he shouted, "for God's sake hurry!"
His words carried clearly above the sounds of the fighting. The archaeologists needed no further urging. They broke from cover and dashed through the open door into the helicopter in seconds.
Giordino had already returned to the cockpit and was hurriedly scanning the instruments and the console between the pilots' seats to familiarize himself with the controls.
"Are we all here?" he asked Shannon as she slipped into the copilot's seat beside him.
"All but Pitt."
He did not reply, but glanced out the window. The troops on the stairway, becoming more courageous at encountering no defensive fire, surged onto the landing and inside the fallen palace of the dead. Only seconds were left before the attackers realized they'd been had.
Giordino turned his attention back to the controls. The helicopter was an old Russian-built Mi-8
assault transport, designated a Hip-C by NATO during the Cold War years. A rather ancient, ugly craft, thought Giordino, with twin 1500-horsepower engines that could carry four crew and thirty passengers.
Since the engines were already turning, Giordino placed his right hand on the throttles.
"You heard me?" said Shannon nervously. "Your friend isn't with us."
"I heard." With a total absence of emotion, Giordino increased power.
Pitt crouched behind a stone building and peered around a corner, hearing the growing whine of the turboshaft engines and seeing the five-bladed main rotor slowly increase its revolutions. An hour previously, it had taken no little persuasion for him to convince Giordino that he must take off whether Pitt arrived or not. The life of one man was not worth the death of thirteen others. Though only 30 meters (98 feet) of open ground, completely devoid of any brush or cover, separated Pitt from the helicopter, it seemed more like a mile and a half.
There was no longer any need for caution. He had to make a run for it. He leaned down and gave his bad ankle a fast massage to knead out a growing tenseness. He felt little pain, but it was beginning to tighten up and grow numb. No time left if he wanted to save himself. He plunged forward like a sprinter and raced into the open.
The rotors were beating the ground into dust when Giordino lifted the old Hip-C into a hover. He gave one fast scan of the instrument panel to see if it showed any red lights and tried to sense any strange noises or weird vibrations. Nothing seemed wrong, as the weary engines of an aircraft badly, overdue for an overhaul responded in a businesslike manner as he dipped the nose and increased power.
In the main compartment, the students and Rodgers saw Pitt launch his dash toward the gaping clamshell doors. They all began shouting encouragement as he pounded over the soft ground. Their shouts turned urgent as a sergeant happened to glance away from the battle scene and saw Pitt chasing after the rising helicopter. He immediately shouted for the men of the reserve squad who were still waiting for the order to advance up the stairway.
The sergeant's shouts-- they were almost screams carried over the last echoes of the firing from atop the temple. "They're escaping! Shoot, for the love of Jesus, shoot them!"
The troops did not respond as ordered. Pitt was in a direct line of fire with the helicopter. To fire at him meant riddling their own aircraft. They hesitated, unsure of following the frantic sergeant's commands.
Only one man lifted his rifle and fired.
Pitt ignored the bullet that cut a crease in his right thigh. He had other priorities than feeling pain. And then he was under the long tail boom and in the shadow of the clamshell doors, and Rodgers and the Peruvian young people were on their stomachs, leaning out, reaching out to him in the opening between the doors. The helicopter shuddered as it was buffeted by its own downdraft and lurched backward. Pitt extended his arms and jumped.
Giordino bent the helicopter into a hard turn, putting the rotor blades dangerously close to a grove of trees. A bullet shattered his side window and sprayed a shower of silvery fragments across the cockpit, cutting a small gash across his nose. Another round plunked into the rear frame of his seat, missing his spinal cord by a whisker. The helicopter took several more hits before he yanked it over the grove and below the far side, out of the line of fire from the Peruvian assault force.
Soon out of range, he went into a left climbing turn until he had enough altitude to pass over the mountains. At almost 4000 meters (13,000 feet) he had expected to find barren, rocky slopes above a timberline, but was mildly surprised to find the peaks so heavily forested. Once clear of the valley, he set a course to the west. Only then did he turn to Shannon. "You all right?"
"They were trying to kill us," she said mechanically.
"Must not like gringos," Giordino replied, surveying Shannon for damage. Seeing no signs of punctures or blood, he refocused on flying the aircraft and pulled the lever that closed the clamshell doors. Only then did he shout over his shoulder into the main cabin. "Anyone hit back there?"
"Just little old me."
Giordino and Shannon twisted in their seats in unison at recognizing the voice. Pitt. A rather exhausted and mud-encrusted Pitt, it was true, a Pitt with one leg seeping blood through a hastily tied bandanna. But a Pitt as indefatigable as ever leaned through the cabin door with a devilish smirk on his face.
A vast wave of relief swept over Giordino, and he flashed a smile.
"You almost missed your bus again."
"And you still owe me a Dixieland band."
Shannon smiled, knelt in her seat facing backward, threw her arms around Pitt and gave him a big hug.
"I was afraid you wouldn't make it."
"I damn near didn't."
She looked down and her smile faded. "You're bleeding."
"A parting shot from the soldiers just before Rodgers and the students pulled me on board. Bless their hearts."
"We've got to get you to a hospital. It looks serious."
"Not unless they were using bullets dipped in hemlock," Pitt said facetiously.
"You should get off that leg. Take my seat."
Pitt eased Shannon around and pressed her back into the copilot's seat. "Stay put, I'll sit in coach with the rest of the peasants." He paused and looked around the control cabin. "This is a real antique."
"She shakes, rattles, and rolls," said Giordino, "but she hangs in the air."
Pitt leaned over Giordino's shoulder and examined the instrument panel, his eyes coming to rest on the fuel gauges. He reached over and tapped the instrument glass. Both needles quivered just below the three-quarter mark. "How far do you figure she'll take us?"
"Fuel range should be in the neighborhood of three hundred and fifty kilometers. If a bullet, didn't bite a hole in one of the tanks, I'd guess she'll carry us about two hundred and eighty."
"Must be a chart of the area around somewhere and a pair of dividers."
Shannon found a navigation kit in a pocket beside her seat and passed it to Pitt. He removed a chart and unfolded it against her back. Using the dividers, careful not to stick the points through the chart paper and st
ab her, Pitt laid out a course to the Peruvian coast.
"I estimate roughly three hundred kilometers to the Deep Fathom."
"What's Deep Fathom?" asked Shannon.
"Our research ship."
"Surely you don't intend to land at sea when one of Peru's largest cities is much closer?"
"She means the international airport at Trujillo," explained Giordino.
"The Solpemachaco has too many friends to suit me," said Pitt. "Friends who have enough clout to order in a regiment of mercenaries at a moment's notice. Once they spread the word we stole a helicopter and sent the pride of their military to a graveyard, our lives won't be worth the spare tire inside the trunk of an Edsel. We'll be safer on board an American ship outside their offshore limit until we can arrange for our U.S. Embassy staff to make a full report to honest officials in the Peruvian government."
"I see your point," agreed Shannon. "But don't overlook the archaeology students. They know the whole story. Their parents are very influential and will see that a true account of their abduction and the pillaging of national treasures hits the news media."
"You're assuming, of course," Giordino said matter-of-factly, "that a Peruvian posse won't cut us off at any one of twenty passes between here and the sea."
"On the contrary," replied Pitt. "I'm counting on it. Care to bet the other assault helicopter isn't chasing our tail rotor as we speak?"
"So we hug the ground and dodge sheep and cows until we cross over water," acknowledged Giordino.
"Precisely. Cuddling with low clouds won't hurt matters either."
"Forgetting a little something, aren't you?" said Shannon wearily, as though reminding a husband who neglected to carry out the trash. "If my math is correct, our fuel tanks will run dry twenty kilometers short of your ship. I hope you aren't proposing we swim the rest of the way."
"We solve that insignificant problem," said Pitt calmly, "by calling up the ship and arranging for it to run full speed on a converging course."