Leo considered her options.
Lead them away.
Pure suicide. And pointless. Especially if they already knew where to find Campbell Turner. Amka’s cousin had heard them mention precise coordinates. If she headed in the wrong direction, they could grab Turner and then come after her.
And where would she go? There was nothing but mountains on three sides, chunks of rock deadlier than the approaching bird. Even if she could contort the aircraft into physics-defying evasive maneuvers, they’d follow. With absurd ease.
She craned left, trying to get a better look at them.
No dice.
At least the dizziness was gone, so that was good. Nothing like a race and a chase to get rid of food poisoning. Not the recommended remedy, but it would do in a pinch. And, hey, since she was looking at the bright side, nobody was shooting at her, which was—
Ping.
A hole appeared in the windshield.
Oh crap.
Another bullet punched through the fuselage behind her. Her instincts told her to duck, but that wouldn’t help. She might as well be flying a hot air balloon for all the protection the Cub provided.
Leo banked right, trying to make herself as small as possible.
She wasn’t going out this way. Wouldn’t allow it. She forced her breathing to slow and shook her head, rolling her eyes. “Nobody shooting,” she muttered, as if talking to a copilot. “No stupid shooting. What kind of idiot jinxes herself by thinking that?” A bullet hit one of the wings, followed by another.
Talk about well and truly screwed.
No. Not screwed. Thrown slightly off course.
At least she’d been obliged to pilot the two-seater from the back seat. If she’d been in front, she’d be dead. And how lucky was she that the bullets hadn’t smashed through glass?
Because there’s nothing to smash through.
She’d been miffed about that earlier, but suddenly it seemed like one hell of a silver lining. On many levels. For example, not having a door or windows had forced her to put on every single item of cold weather gear she had. Now when she’d have to land out here in the middle of Nowheresville, Alaska, she wouldn’t die of hypothermia. Not immediately, at least.
Okay. There was a decision to be made. Fast as lightning, she took in the scenery, eyes flicking left and right, mind calculating.
She had to land. The question was, did she have time to do it on the lake? And would the stupid ice even hold?
Squinting against the blasting winds, with the lowering sun and the approaching helicopter at her back, Leo eyed the glacier-fed waterway slithering between the peaks, reflecting sunlight like some holy fire serpent. Mountains, pines, a slender river, too curved to take head-on.
The ice looked almost cracked.
So, no sweat. No sweat at all. Of course, her body belied that statement by sending a cold, wet rush of perspiration to her armpits.
Another look back. They were close. Their next shot wouldn’t miss.
The sun was just starting to melt into the horizon behind her, a candle sputtering out before dying, leaving the world without detail or depth—the sky nothing but the flat outline of sharp black mountains, silhouetted against the day’s last gasp. Clouds stained the sky, dark as inkblots. Each one was like a drop on the windshield, drawn toward the next and the next, gathering to form a low, roiling ceiling. Was that the storm coming in?
Are you freaking kidding me?
One more problem she could add to the quickly growing heap.
Something connected with her plane, so hard it shook. Another bullet? She couldn’t see where she’d been hit this time.
Leo took another lungful of crystal-cold air to brace her, clear her mind.
Concentrate. Land. She could put this thing down on that ice. Looked okay—in parts. Sure, she could do it. Piece of cake.
One step at a time. One breath after another.
“Baby steps,” she told Dolores. Or herself, or whatever.
The lake’s kidney-bean shape nestled among steep, jagged mountains boiling up from the earth like lava from Mordor. It was close enough now to make out details. They hit her in quick, split-second bursts. The bluish-gray surface, mottled with little puffs of white, as if eddies of bubbles had flash frozen beneath the ice crust. Islands of pines floated like dark castles caught in a spiderweb sky. Near to the edge, the ice turned into reptile skin, chunks pulling apart into individual scales.
Oh man, it was definitely breaking up. Or about to. The aircraft would sink. No question about it. If it didn’t flip first and crush her to the ground.
She took another frantic look over her shoulder.
The helo was breathing down her neck, so near she could feel the thrum of its blades, could picture a sniper taking aim, could feel the hot metal piercing her.
No. Not happening.
Following an instinct she’d been born with, she swooped right, put her nose straight into the wind, and catalogued all the challenges she’d have to beat in order to stay alive.
She could do this, even if she was shaking and so nervous she was almost seeing double.
Obstacles? Meant to be overcome.
Like landing straight into the blinding sun, with night and a storm hot on her heels, avoiding those islands covered in evergreens and putting this thing down on a surface that looked smooth but would fall apart any second, full of bumps and breaks and ridges. Each one of those was capable of flipping a plane like this—especially since the landing gear consisted of big metal floats made for water landings, not slush.
“Yay!” The word sounded like a sob, no matter how much happy she tried to inject.
Another shot hit the plane, rocking it like unexpected turbulence.
She did her best to ignore it, squinting hard at the strange honeycomb pattern that gave the lake’s frosted surface a fishing net appearance. The complex swirls reminded her of an illustration of synapses lighting up the brain. And cracks, all over. Or… Could they be animal tracks? Maybe an odd freezing pattern, if she squinted really hard.
She flicked her eyes back. Shit. Shit. They were right there. Close enough so she could count the ship’s individual occupants. Many occupants.
All that manpower for little ole me?
Ignore them. They don’t matter. Concentrate.
So, best-case scenario, if breakup hadn’t truly started here, the ice on that lake would hold the Cub’s weight, which was what—eight hundred pounds, with her on board? Nine hundred? What about the helicopter’s fifteen thousand pounds? Would it hold up to that?
No. Definitely not.
That was one advantage. She took in a shaky breath. It was a start.
The bird swooped closer.
She had to do it. A short ice landing on floats with enemy aircraft in hot pursuit. The close proximity of the mountains and trees turned this from a daring attempt into a stupid one.
Coming in at this angle, there was a single, ridiculously tight area in which she could land. To one side, a glacier overhung the lake, eating at it like a frozen set of sky-blue fangs. To the other lay a teardrop-shaped, pine-studded island, as treacherous as a cluster of metal spikes rising into the air. And straight ahead, the shore.
Maybe shore was the wrong word. What lay ahead was a wall of pure, solid granite.
She sucked in a deep, freezing cold breath and said a little prayer to her mom.
Then they shot out the fuel tank.
***
He took off, slipping and sliding in the direction of the lake, which was still a good fifteen minutes away. And then, because he was worked up but he wasn’t stupid, he took a detour toward the overlook. From there, if he liked what he saw, he could continue on his way, head into the deeper woods, or take the more treacherous path leading to the river. The one thing he’d understood from his conversa
tion with Daisy was that he needed to get back to Schink’s Station. Now. No more deaths. Nobody else should die for this cause. He knew the people searching for him. They’d stop at nothing.
He leapt over one of the many tiny streams cutting through the area—frozen solid, though that would change any day now—and plunged into the last stretch of pine and spruce. There, he skidded to a stop, his boots leaving two deep, obvious furrows in a patch of snow.
“What the hell?” On instinct, he retreated into the shadows to watch.
Bo responded with a happy little yip.
Was that Old Amka’s Piper Cub? When Daisy’d said someone was coming, he’d pictured one of the tour company’s bush planes, not this rarely used antique.
It was coming in way too fast. Tail draggers like that needed to ease their way down, not force a landing. He squinted. And what the hell was she doing flying with floats when the water was still frozen?
That had better not be Old Amka or he’d…kill her, he’d been about to think, but he nipped that thought in the bud. No more killing, even in figures of speech. But, hell, everyone knew Amka wasn’t allowed to take the Cub out. She was half-blind, for God’s sake. What was she—
That was when the low whomp of helicopter blades hit him, and he understood just how completely the shit had hit the fan. They were here.
Where was it coming from? He searched the visible slice of sky. Nothing.
Fueled by alarm and anger at himself for recklessly craving this kind of excitement just a few hours earlier, he turned and made his way over the mud- and snow-covered ground, no longer keeping to broken branches and rocks. Not leaving a trace didn’t seem nearly as important right now. What mattered was hurrying the hell up.
The engines grew louder, warring with the thump of his pulse in his ears. He broke into a flat-out run, his attention divided between the ground and occasional flashes of darkening blue.
There, between two lodgepole pines, a glimpse of empty sky, then a shot of the little plane, small and slow as a bumblebee, careening toward disaster. Seconds later, through the branches, a flash of the helicopter, massive and malevolent, closing in like a wasp or a bird of prey. Fast, strong, with a razor-edged precision.
He took in the scene: the Cub dipping toward the lake at breakneck speed, close enough for him to see that only the back seat was occupied—one person. The helicopter, swooping behind it, looked almost close enough to touch.
His eyes darted down to where the Cub was headed. Nothing but glacier and the mountain’s sheer face. A kamikaze flight unless it could land on the frozen surface before then, but that wouldn’t do either. The damn lake was on the cusp of breakup. It was a slushy, uneven mess. He’d risk walking across it, but he wouldn’t drive. And he certainly wouldn’t trust it to hold up the weight of a plane.
It plummeted. The chopper plunged. Beside him, Bo’s frantic barking added to the mayhem. In her short life, she’d only seen aircraft a handful of times and had certainly never witnessed anything like this. Frankly, he hadn’t either, and for a few harrowing seconds, he had no clue what to do.
When the helicopter swung to the side, he blinked in disbelief at what he was seeing. A person was hanging out the open door, holding…a weapon?
He raised his rifle, sighted through the scope. Too far, too fast. He’d never get a decent shot. His arms dropped. What was it Daisy had said exactly? She was coming for him? Who? Who the hell was in that plane? Was this suicide mission meant to save him or were there two groups after him this time? Either way, the pilot was one more person to add to the list of deaths since he’d first heard of the virus over a decade ago.
In the next split second, something cracked—a gunshot, splitting the air—the helicopter lifted and the plane angled dizzyingly to the side before dropping from view.
Whoever was flying was one hell of a pilot. Amka had been decent before her vision got bad, but this person was on a whole other level. They had nerves of steel and the reaction time of a mosquito.
Better hurry up and establish whether they were friend or foe. He released Bo’s fur and sprinted down the mountain.
***
The fuel leaking from the tank changed Leo’s plans drastically. Instead of the straight landing she’d planned—stopping right before the cliff face—she swung to the right, angling harder than the little plane liked, forcing it down, which was exactly what she shouldn’t do in an aircraft like this one.
And then—yes. Oh, hallelujah, yes!—the cliff opened up to reveal a frozen tributary, feeding into the lake. Narrow as the gate to hell, maybe forty feet wide, if she was lucky. On her left, the glacier-veined mountain shot straight up from the river. The tree-lined incline on the other side was gentler, but just as impassible.
“Not yet. Right, Dolores?” Leo muttered, angling herself straight into the tight opening. “Haven’t killed us yet.” The Cub barely fit inside, which meant the helo would never make it.
And then, slow as dripping butter, the plane floated in, while Leo’s heart and eyes and hands worked quick as lightning, keeping pace with the rotors of the beast she’d left in her dust.
Immediately, the river wound left, leaving just enough room to maneuver before shifting right, barely widening, providing an extra few feet on either side.
She’d flown places like this in small helicopters, back in the day. But they’d skittered and dropped, risen and flitted like an extension of her body, whereas this one sailed at its own pace, as unwieldy and slow as a big fat kite.
If they would just come after her, the terrain would do the dirty work.
When the river flared out on both sides, giving her another foot or two to work with—yet still not wide enough for the helicopter’s nearly sixty-foot wingspan—she let out a sigh. At the last second, she lifted its tail and slapped the ice with an ungraceful scrape.
The sound was ugly, but it was the best thing she’d ever heard.
Her muscles had just gone weak with relief when a rock came out of nowhere, a dark stain rising from the still water, barely a blip the size of a baby’s head. Around it, the ice had melted entirely.
Against the float, it might as well have been a boulder. By the time she’d spotted it, it was too late to do a thing. The float caught, spinning the plane to the side—ironically fast, considering the snaillike landing—tipping the right wing down and sending the cockpit up into the air before seesawing in the opposite direction.
Leo braced for the other impact that was sure to come—wing tip to ice.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered to her team, her dad, Old Amka, the world.
A final sickening flip spun the old Cub a slow ninety degrees and boomeranged her toward the cliff face. She barely had time to cover her head before metal ground against rock and the world went dark.
Chapter 4
Bo disappeared ahead, barking out of control.
There was no room for hope as he rushed down the steep, muddy slope to where the plane had gone down. No prayer, no wishes.
He’d hoped, prayed, and wished enough for a lifetime, and God—or whatever the hell was out there—had ignored him.
Because there’s nothing there.
Right. No God, nothing divine to balance the scales, no justice to make things right. The world was what it was. Nothing but life and death. And more often than not, those things weren’t pretty.
So, while he raced in the direction in which the plane had gone down, he didn’t expect the outcome to be a good one. In fact, he didn’t expect a thing. The only way to live a life like his was without expectations.
He jumped from an eight-foot ledge, landed hard on his heels, and sprinted the last twenty yards to the edge of the woods, where his body stuttered like a cartoon runner hitting a wall.
One bright yellow wing lay across the ice, its tip blown apart like a burst paper bag.
Bo barked aga
in, the sound coming from the right, around the bend, where the glacier overhung the river. He figured that was where he’d find the rest of the plane. On the ice or, more likely, under it. He whistled in response, letting her know he was on his way, and sped on, sliding across the river where the boulders jutted out, past the curve, and through the invisible wall of denial his mind threw up when he saw it.
No. No, God, no.
The nose was gone—flattened against the glacier like a crushed soda can—the cockpit crumpled, as if a cardboard box had been mashed up and straightened again. The other wing was quickly sinking into the water.
As he fought his way over the slick, crackling ice, his mind fed him the weirdest kaleidoscope of images. God, the one people prayed to all the time, was nothing but a spoiled toddler, smashing airplanes into the earth for the hell of it.
Then a vague memory from his parents’ living room, back when he was little and his dad played the classics on repeat: a black-and-white King Kong swatting at model airplanes, which bizarrely morphed into the scene in that movie he couldn’t get enough of even as a kid, where Fay Wray’s breast fell out of her ripped dress and she was left, helpless, struggling against the giant. He’d never been able to look away, for so many reasons. The boob, first of all, ’cause even back then, he’d been a boob man—but also her helplessness, flailing in that enormous ape hand, had done things to him.
Yeah, well, today, he wasn’t panting from excitement as he touched the plane’s perfectly intact, shiny tail, but from his own powerlessness.
If the pilot was dead in there, he’d—
Shit, he had no idea what he’d do, but whatever it was, it would be big. Huge. So cataclysmic that God would feel the aftershocks, wherever the hell he was.
He thought of the secrets he harbored, thought of his sacrifices in the line of duty, to his country, to humankind itself, and then he thought about how maybe humans weren’t worth it after all.
Sucking in a breath that hurt his lungs, he ignored the roar of the nearing helicopter and stepped onto the float, holding on tight as the plane sank another foot into the water.
Uncharted Page 3
