Suddenly they were out over the water, dropping and hitting hard. The deceleration was sudden, whiplashing the passengers forward against their seat belts.
They came up off the water for a second and touched down again. The Renegade settled this time, cutting a white swath across the glassy surface of the lake.
“Hold on,” Hawker said.
“Why? We’re down,” Danielle said.
He looked over at her. How to explain it? “We don’t have any brakes.”
She looked up.
He did the same. The lake’s embankment was coming at them fast, at twenty or maybe thirty miles per hour. They were slowing marginally but they were not going to be able to stop.
Hawker braced himself and the Renegade slammed into the bank and skidded up onto it.
It stopped abruptly.
Leaning forward over her seat belt, Danielle looked over at him. Her thick brown hair had covered her face. With a puff of air she blew some of it back and then used her hands to pull the rest of it behind her ear.
“No brakes,” she said, looking anything but amused. “You got us a plane with no brakes.”
“It’s a float plane,” he said. “None of them have brakes. I guess maybe they have anchors or something. I don’t know. I never flew one before.”
“You took us up in a type of plane you never flew before, to a place you weren’t sure we would be able to land safely in?”
For some reason he found her anger amusing, endearing. “To be fair,” he said, “I actually was sure we’d be able to land safely, I just also happened to be wrong.”
She unbuckled her seat belt and popped the latch on her door, pushing it upward.
“Get me out of this contraption.” she said, grabbing the flashlight and climbing out onto the sloping embankment.
The seat popped forward and Yuri climbed through.
McCarter followed behind him. He clapped Hawker on the shoulder. “I hate to tell you, but this hasn’t done anything to assuage my fear of flying. Especially with you. But since I thought we were about to die, and we’re somehow still alive, I say ‘good landing.’”
Hawker stayed in his seat for a few minutes to shut the plane down. They weren’t going to be flying out of there, but the battery still had juice and the plane still had radios. Hawker guessed there was a chance they might need them.
He climbed out and shut the door.
The stars and moon were brilliant. They cast a fair amount of light around the edge of the lake. It was smaller than he thought, maybe seven hundred feet across, with fifty-foot trees around its edges. It had been like trying to land on a runway with walls at each end.
It was a hell of a landing, all but impossible to pull off safely, yet they’d done it. He didn’t know whether to pat himself on the back or be surprised by their good luck.
Then his eyes turned to the tree line up ahead of them. He saw a flicker of light, white light first, from the beams of flashlights and then several glimpses of orange flames. A group of people were marching through the trees toward them, carrying flashlights and torches and who knew what else. And all Hawker could think of was the angry villagers coming out to seize Frankenstein.
CHAPTER 47
Danielle noticed the smell of smoke even before she saw the torchlight flickering in the forest ahead of them.
A moment of apprehension gripped her, but she didn’t share Hawker’s overriding suspiciousness of everything and she thought there could be a chance that meeting other people out here would be helpful. Certainly the men and women of Oco’s village had been fundamental to their initial success.
Still, she shielded Yuri by stepping in front of him as she waited for the oncoming party to reach them.
“I’m telling you,” Hawker said, “we should get out of here.”
“It’ll be all right,” she replied. “I’m almost sure of it.”
McCarter stood by expectantly. He turned on a flashlight and waved.
The train of torches changed direction, heading straight for them.
“There must be a town around here,” McCarter said. “If we’re looking for another Mayan ruin, the locals might know about it. There are hundreds of structures hidden in the jungle, most never seen by outsiders. This could be a stroke of good luck.”
The torches grew closer, winding down a slight hill, until several men came through the brush and trained a series of powerful flashlights on the NRI group. The glare blinded Danielle and she put a hand up.
“Nos puede ayudar usted, por favor?” she said. Can you help us, please?
The lights continued to shine in her eyes.
“Necesitamos ayuda,” she said. We need help.
A rough voice answered her. “Ponga los manos,” the man said. Put up your hands.
And then she heard a sound that needed no translation: the pumping of a shotgun and the racking of the slides on several other guns.
Danielle raised her hands, trying hard not to look in Hawker’s direction.
In a minute they were surrounded by a group of eight men, several of whom had weapons. They were led by an older, shorter man with a full beard and mustache who carried a flashlight and a pistol.
While one of the men searched the plane, another took her backpack and McCarter’s. A third man patted them down and confiscated a black handgun from Hawker.
The man with the beard walked around them, making a wide, slow circle. He seemed to be studying them, at the moment focusing on Yuri. Finally he put his pistol away.
“What are you doing here, señorita?”
That, Danielle thought, she could not explain without sounding crazy.
“We crashed here,” she said. “My husband was trying to fly us over to Puerto Vallarta. But he forgot to check winds or to fill the tanks before we took off.”
The man came closer, looking into her face and then at her hands. “If he is your husband, then where is your ring?”
Before she could answer, he added. “And if you had not circled overhead for an hour, you could have easily made it to the coast. So I think maybe you have a different story to tell. No?”
Danielle felt a sense of fury at getting caught in the lie. It was a stupid lie, easy to see through. She wondered why she’d even thought it would work.
Hawker leaned over to her. “I told you we should have run.”
“Now is really not the time,” she said.
“I’m just pointing it out.”
“Point it out later,” she shot back.
The bearded man turned to the others. “Hmm … maybe they are married after all.”
The men laughed. And the leader stepped over to McCarter. He shone the light in McCarter’s face, studying him for a long time.
“Could you please lower the light?” McCarter said. “It’s hurting my eyes.”
The man turned the beam away, aiming it at Hawker’s face in a similar manner. Hawker squinted into the light as if it were some kind of challenge. He said nothing.
The man who’d gone to search the plane popped out of the cabin. “Nada aquí,” he said. Nothing here.
Another man had been going through their backpacks. He handed the satellite phone and the spherical, glasslike stone to the bearded man.
As it passed in front of them, Yuri tried to pull free from Danielle; he wanted to touch it. She held him back, but the bearded man had seen his reaction.
“Is this your child?” he asked.
“He’s adopted,” she said. “And he has special needs, so if you don’t mind …”
The bearded man handed the stone back to the underling who’d found it. Yuri tracked it as it went, relaxing only when it had been placed in the sand-filled, lead-lined container.
“So many lies,” their captor said. “I think you might need to see a priest.”