She couldn’t argue with that. “Fine. Anything else?”
“Just be quick about this,” Gowdy said. “We’re running out of time.”
Kurt saw a look pass between the two of them. Even on a video screen, even from five thousand miles away, it was obvious and intimate—the acknowledgment of something unsaid.
Without another word, Gowdy signed off.
As the screen faded to black, Emma sat quietly.
Kurt looked on. It was now obvious to him that she was concealing something—probably on direct orders from Gowdy—but, as the saying went, a lie is a lie is a lie. And, in this business, the lack of information tended to get people killed, people like Kurt and Joe.
They touched down in Cajamarca thirty minutes later and Kurt stepped from the plane into the brisk mountain air. Cajamarca sat at nearly seven thousand feet. This time of year, the midday temperatures hovered in the fifties. Quite a change from the steamy subtropical heat of Guayaquil. It was also overcast and, as any skier could attest, the difference between clouds and sunshine at high elevations was far more pronounced than at sea level.
Pulling a black sweater over his head, Kurt moved down the stairs and signed a rental car agreement for a burnt-orange four-wheel drive Range Rover Sport. It sat on the ramp beside the plane, where it would be easy to load up. As Emma swept the vehicle for bugs, Kurt walked inside the small terminal, where he spied a pair of friendly faces.
Paul and Gamay Trout had been airlifted in from the Catalina and then flown up commercial, arriving shortly before the NUMA jet.
“Great to see you guys,” Kurt said, giving both of them warm hugs.
“Glad to be back on the A-team,” Paul said. “Not that it wasn’t fun dumping millions of dollars of equipment over the side of the ship, but we’re looking forward to being used as something other than a distraction.”
“Shall we go meet your new friend?” Gamay asked, shouldering her backpack.
“Not yet,” Kurt said. “I have a change of assignment for you.”
The look of suspicion appeared in practiced unison. Gamay dropped her pack. “What is it now? Shopping for alpaca sweaters?”
“I need you to do some research,” Kurt said. “Find out everything you can about the Nighthawk, and I don’t mean the surface-level stuff. They’re hiding something from us, something big.”
“What makes you think that?” Gamay asked. “Other than your general distrust of the NSA.”
“For one thing, they seem on the verge of panic,” he replied. “It’s felt like that to me right from the start. Losing the Nighthawk would be bad, but even at its worst all that would do is give whoever found it technologies they’re probably already trying to develop.”
“It is the most advanced aircraft in the world,” Paul reminded him.
“Was,” Kurt corrected. “The thing has been floating around up in space for three years. And they didn’t design and build it in a day. At best, it’s five or six years old. The plans were probably drawn up a decade ago. Even if the Russians or the Chinese found it in one perfect piece, they’d still have to take it apart, reverse-engineer every component and then build the factories and facilities to duplicate what we already possess. What we possessed years ago. By then, we’ll be on to the next technological leap.”
Paul nodded. “Like stealing a used car and watching the owner get a new model to replace it.”
“Couldn’t have said it better myself,” Kurt said.
“It’s still a big loss,” Gamay pointed out.
“If you saw their faces, you’d think it was the end of the world.”
Gamay nodded. Paul did the same.
“And it’s not just our friends at the NSA; the Chinese and the Russians have gone over the top as well.”
“An opportunity comes up to get your hands on the adversaries stuff, you take it,” Paul said. “We always have; can’t blame them for that.”
“I don’t,” Kurt said. “But it’s not done like this. There are unwritten rules to the game. Boundaries that stop it from turning into outright war. None of those seem to be in effect here. The Chinese tried to kill us before we got to square one and the Russians tried to torpedo us twice. The second time, on the surface for everyone to see.”
“So the stakes are higher than they appear,” Paul said.
“Which is interesting, considering how high they seemed to begin with,” Gamay said.
Kurt nodded. “And we’re the only ones in the dark. That needs to change. I want to know what they’re hiding. And I want to know as soon as possible. I need you to find out what you can by linking up with Hiram and Priya on the satellite. I’m sure they can dig something up.”
“And then what?” Paul asked.
Kurt checked his watch; it was a long drive to the archaeological site. “We’ll be out of satellite coverage on the way up the mountain,” Kurt said, “but we should have a signal by the time we get there. That gives you four hours.”
“Four hours to do the impossible,” Gamay said.
Kurt was already on his way back out of the terminal. “It’s more time than I usually give you.”
“That doesn’t make it okay,” Gamay called out.
Kurt pushed through the door and let it close behind him, crossing to the Range Rover and climbing into the driver’s seat.
Emma was in the passenger seat. “Aren’t your friends joining us?”
“I need them to look into something,” Kurt said. “They’ll fly up with Joe, once he arrives.”
“So, it’s just the two of us on a romantic drive in the country,” she said with a grin.
Kurt smiled and turned the key. The engine came to life instantly, the finely tuned machine a symphony to his ears. “Hope you brought a picnic basket.”
“Of a sort,” she said, opening the lid of a small plastic case.
Kurt peered inside. He saw a night vision scope, a black 9mm pistol and a belt with several spare magazines. Underneath, he saw a survival knife and several small demolition charges.
“You forgot the wine,” he said.
“That’s your job,” she joked.
Kurt laughed. He might not have brought wine, but the back of the Range Rover was filled with hiking equipment and tackle, if they needed it. In addition, he’d brought his own weapon: a Heckler & Koch HK45. The weapon was a lightweight tactical .45 caliber pistol; it had a ten-round capacity, a mini-flashlight on the lower rail and tritium sights.
He had brought three spare magazines, each loaded with a separate type of ammunition. The first carried soft-tipped hollow-points; the second carried a mix of standard shells and mini-tracers, specially fabricated by a gunsmith Kurt knew. The third magazine held solid steel slugs coated with a thin layer of titanium and propelled by a more powerful blend of gunpowder; they traveled at higher velocity, and the titanium jacket kept them together at impact.
Kurt had never used them but was told they could punch through an inch of armor plating or two inches of regular steel. He was also warned that the pistol kicked like a mule when fired. He hoped he wouldn’t have to find out, but they’d already been attacked twice and he wasn’t interested in going a third round without punching back.
He dropped the transmission into drive and pulled away from the aircraft.
“So what’s with the explosives?” he asked, getting his bearings and looking for a spot to exit the ramp.
She closed the lid and put the box away. “If we find the Nighthawk and can’t haul it out of the jungle, I have orders to blow the electronics package and the propulsion system.”
It made sense. But he took everything she said with a grain of salt now. From the size of the charges, he estimated each to be the rough equivalent of a grenade. “Those should do the trick,” he said, pulling through the gate. “Next stop, La Jalca and the Fortress in the Clouds.”
She tracked the vehicle as it passed through the airport’s main gate and moved east. When it shifted into the right-hand lane and moved onto the mountain road, she lowered her binoculars and picked up a radio.
“Target moving,” she said, speaking into the radio. “Route 6A, as expected. We’ll follow at a distance. Be ready at the intercept point.”
“Affirmative,” a voice replied.
She clipped the radio to her belt and walked to a white Audi A8. Jian sat at the wheel, his broad shoulders filling the cockpit of the sleek car.
She climbed in the passenger’s side, slammed the door and nodded. “Go.”
26
The route from Cajamarca wound its way eastward, climbing higher into the mountains as it went. Paved at first, the road surface changed to a combination of gravel and hard-packed clay after an hour of driving. As the footing worsened, Kurt dialed back the speed. They continued to climb, curving around the switchbacks, while ducking in and out of patchy fog.
The higher they went, the cooler it got. Passing eight thousand feet, they found spitting rain. At nine thousand feet, they were in the clouds. At ninety-five hundred, they finally broke out into the sunlight.
A wide valley appeared on the left, its floor a thousand feet below. Successive layers of jagged mountains rose up behind it. The visibility was twenty miles or more.
“Welcome to the Andes,” Kurt said.
From this point on, the road clung to the shoulder of the mountains. It grew narrower out of necessity and, in certain spots, had been cut right into the cliffside, requiring the cars to drive beneath an overhang of solid rock.
While the terrain to the right-hand side changed often, the view to the left was constant, nothing but a sheer drop.
“They might have splurged on a guardrail,” Emma said.
“And ruin the view?” Kurt replied, laughing.
Instead of a barrier, the road sported a low curb, painted in alternating blocks of black and white. Not only wouldn’t it stop anything larger than a model car, hitting it would be like catching one’s foot on a tree root—more likely to tip a vehicle over the edge.
“Just be glad this isn’t an English colony,” Kurt added. “Otherwise, we’d be driving on that side.”
The mountain bulged outward and the road bent out around its waist, offering a view back in the direction they’d come. They were on the leeward side now and the slopes were tawny brown and spotted with patchy scrub brush and a smattering of gray rock. All of it tied together by the zigzagging ribbon of route 6A.
Kurt stole a quick glance. Emma shifted in her seat and took it all in.
“How much traffic do you think this road gets?” she asked casually.
“Not much,” he said. “We’ve passed two trucks and an old Jeep in the last hour. Why?”
“I count three cars following us,” she said. “Two black, one white. By the dust they’re kicking up, I’d say they’re moving a lot faster than they should be.”
Kurt set his jaw. “I was hoping we’d left all that behind.”
Emma reached into the “picnic basket” at her feet. She pulled out the 9mm Beretta, made sure it was loaded and switched the safety off.
Kurt drove faster, but there wasn’t a turnoff until they hit the plateau. If the cars behind them proved to be trouble, they’d have to deal with them here and now.
It took several minutes but the trio of vehicles finally appeared in the rearview mirror. Between the vibration from the road and the dust streaming out behind them, it was a blurred image, but it was all Kurt needed. The two black cars were staggered up front in an attacking formation, the white car trailing a short distance behind. All of them charging up the hill in a cloud of dust.
“Here they come.”
Emma slipped out of her seat belt and lowered her window. Holding the Beretta on her lap, she poked her head outside and risked a look. She could see little inside the dark interiors, but when a man popped out through the side window, she knew what was about to happen.
He brought a submachine gun up and opened fire. Emma ducked back into the Rover as a series of tiny explosions raced along the dusty slope to the right. The first shots went wide, but a second burst clipped the driver’s side-view mirror and shattered it. “So much for our relaxing drive in the country.”
Kurt mashed the pedal to the floor. The supercharged engine answered and the Range Rover surged ahead.
For a moment, it seemed they might leave their enemies behind, but the cars following them were also high-performance models. They had the horses to answer and they quickly closed the gap.
Kurt crouched low on the wheel as another spread of bullets punched angry holes in the sheet metal. One blasted out the taillight, while another hit the rear window, rendering it a mess of cracks and fissures that was impossible to see through.
Emma leaned out the window to return fire. She hit the lead BMW with several shots, but it drifted to Kurt’s side and the back of the Rover blocked it from her view.
She turned in her seat and aimed for the back window. “Cover your ears.”
There was no hope of that, but Kurt appreciated the warning. She opened fire, blasting out the remnants of the back window with her first shot and empting the rest of the magazine into the nearest chase car. It dropped back for a moment but soon came on again.
Kurt pulled the .45 out of his shoulder holster and handed it to her. “Try this.”
Emma took it and aimed. The first shot almost knocked her out of her seat. She righted herself and fired three more times.
The armor-piercing shells found their mark. Steam and smoke blasted from the punctured engine block of the BMW as its radiator exploded. The car swerved toward the cliff and then back the other way, going up the slope at an angle, rolling over onto its roof and then sliding back onto the road and coming to a stop just short of the cliff’s edge.
The other cars passed and left it behind.
“I like this,” Emma shouted over the noise. “Can I keep it?”
“Get rid of the two cars and it’s yours.”
Emma climbed between the seats and into the back for a better spot to shoot from while Kurt did his best to present an elusive target. He kept the gas pedal pinned to the floor as long as possible, thundering toward each turn and then tapping the brakes before cutting the wheel and hitting the gas again.
On one inside turn, they banged an overhanging rock. It put a huge downward dent in the roof. A sharp outside turn came up quicker than Kurt had expected. As Kurt hit the brakes, the Rover started skidding.
Kurt released his tight grip on the steering wheel and stepped back on the gas. He’d raced in off-road rallies both in cars and on dirt bikes; he knew that getting through a turn like this required power to the wheels.
They hugged the edge, sliding and drifting and threatening to tip. From Kurt’s position, all he could see was the drop, not an inch of road left. As if they’d gone over the edge and were already airborne. And then the heavy tread bit into the road once more, the tires spat dirt and the Rover surged back to the inside of the curve.
“That was close,” he shouted. “Almost found out if man was truly meant to fly.”
Emma didn’t reply. It was so loud inside the Rover that she didn’t hear him. She was perched on the backseat, holding the .45 in a police grip with two hands.
The cars had fallen back as they refused to take the turns at full speed. But instead of closing in on the straightaway as they had before, they held their distance this time.
Emma watched the passenger emerge through the sunroof of the lead car, the upper half of his body visible. He brought out a long weapon with a pointed end.
“Go faster,” she called out.
“Can’t go much faster,” he replied.
“Go faster, Kurt! They have an RPG.”
In the white Audi, Daiyu could see the Americans accelerating and weaving left and right, trying to present a difficult target. “That’s it,” she urged under her breath. “Speed up.”
She pressed a button on the headset she wore. “Push them,” she urged. “Push them harder.”
“We have no shot,” one member of the kill squad called back.
“It doesn’t matter,” Daiyu replied. “Push them to the limit. We’re almost there.”
The car ahead of them accelerated and Daiyu switched channels. “Thirty seconds,” she said. “Be ready to detonate.”
“Ready,” another voice replied.
“Blow the bridge as soon as they come out of the tunnel.”
Up ahead, Kurt was almost shocked to still be alive. Unfortunately, a long, straight tunnel loomed in front of them where this section of road had been carved into the side of the mountain. The overhanging rock closed down on the left and the road soon became dim and dark.
“They’re coming again,” Emma said as the lead car began to close the gap.
“I see that,” Kurt said.
“The road is getting narrower.”
“I see that, too.”
Emma put the empty .45 down and grabbed her Beretta, ejecting the empty magazine and reloading. Kurt kept the pedal down as they roared through the tunnel. The growl of the engines reverberated off the walls. Headlights blazed behind them, daylight appeared in the distance. At any second, Emma expected to see the flare of the rocket coming their way.
But they raced out into the sunlight again still in one piece. The wall to their right softened into a hilly slope and the road angled downward toward an iron bridge that crossed a narrow chasm and looked as if it had been built in the forties or fifties. As they charged toward it, a series of detonations erupted along the bridge. Two larger blasts followed, one at each end.
Nighthawk Page 17
