Had to get Drake to stop. Had to let the kids get away.
“Drake,” Edilio said. But his mouth was as dry as the sand. What came out was a barely audible rasp.
“Drake!” Edilio yelled. “Drake!”
Drake froze. He turned, not in a hurry, slow. Languid.
Drake smiled his feral smile. His eyes were blue and empty of anything but amusement. His dark hair was matted and filthy. His skin seemed to be smeared with mud. There was dirt in his teeth.
“Why, Edilio,” Drake said. “Long time, wetback.”
“Drake,” Edilio said, his voice failing him again.
“Yes, Edilio?” Drake said with exaggerated politeness. “Something you wanted to say?”
Edilio’s stomach heaved. Drake was dead. Dead.
“You…you’re under arrest.”
Drake barked a surprised laugh. “Under arrest?”
“That’s right,” Edilio said.
Drake took a step toward him.
“Stop. Stop right there!” Edilio warned.
Drake kept moving. “But I’m coming to surrender, Edilio. Slap the cuffs on me, officer.”
“Stop! Stop or I’ll shoot!”
Kids beyond Drake were still running. Far enough? Edilio had to give them all the time he could.
Drake nodded, understanding. “I see. You’re such a good boy, Edilio. Making sure the kiddies get out of the way before you gun me down.”
Edilio guessed that Drake’s whip would reach ten, maybe twelve feet. He was no more than twice that distance now. Edilio aimed for the center of Drake’s body, the largest target, that’s what he’d read you were supposed to do.
Another step. Another. Drake advanced.
Edilio stepped backward. Again.
“Oh, no fair,” Drake mocked. “Keeping me out of range like that.”
Drake moved suddenly, with shocking speed.
BAM!
Click!
The first round hit Drake in his chest. But no other bullets flew.
Jammed! The gun was jammed. The sand was in the firing mechanism. Edilio yanked the bolt back, trying to-
Too late.
Drake lashed him, curled his whip around Edilio’s legs and suddenly Edilio was on his back, gasping for breath and Drake was standing over him.
The serpentine hand wound its way around Edilio’s throat. Edilio thrashed. He tried to swing the gun like a club, but Drake blocked it easily with his free hand.
“I’d whip you, Edilio, but I don’t really have time for fun,” Drake said.
Edilio’s brain swirled, crazy, fading. Through blood-reddened eyes he saw Drake’s smile inches from his face, savoring the close-up joy of watching Edilio die.
Drake grinned. And then, as Edilio lost consciousness, as he fell into a pit of blackness, he saw metal wires growing across Drake’s mud-flecked teeth.
FORTY-ONE
SANJIT HAD FORGOTTEN every single thing he thought he had learned about flying a helicopter.
Something about a lever that changed the pitch of the rotor blades.
Something about angle of attack.
A cyclic. Pedals. A collective. Which was which?
He tried the pedals. The tail of the helicopter swung violently to the left. He took his feet off the pedals. The helicopter had almost spun off the deck.
“Well, that works okay!” Sanjit shouted, desperately hoping to reassure the others.
“You should probably go up first, before you try turning!” Virtue yelled.
“You think?”
Now he remembered something. You twisted something to make the rotors give you lift. What was there he could twist?
Left hand. The collective. Or was it the cyclic? Who cared, it was the only thing that twisted.
He twisted it. Gently. Sure enough, the engine noise increased and changed in pitch. And the helicopter lifted off.
Then it began to spin. The helicopter drifted toward the bow, toward the superstructure while the tail spun the helicopter like a top, clockwise.
Like a Tilt-A-Whirl.
Pedals. Had to use them to…
The helicopter stopped spinning clockwise. It hesitated. Then it began to spin counterclockwise.
Sanjit was distantly aware that several voices were screaming. Five kids in the chopper. Five screams. Including his own.
Pedals again. And the helicopter stopped spinning. It was still drifting toward the yacht’s superstructure, but now it was doing so backward.
He twisted the collective all the way, all the way, baby, and the helicopter shot upward. Like a ride Sanjit had been on in Las Vegas once. Like the helicopter was on a string and someone was yanking it toward the clouds.
Up and over the superstructure. Sanjit saw it pass beneath his feet.
WHACK! WHACK! WHACK!
The rotors had hit something. Bits of wire and metal poles flew away. The yacht’s radio antenna.
The helicopter was still rising and still drifting backward toward the cliff.
The other thing. The watchamacallit the cyclic the stick the thing near his right hand grab it grab it do something something something push it forward forward forward. Spinning again! He’d forgotten the pedals the stupid pedals and his feet couldn’t find them now and the helicopter had spun 180 degrees and with the cyclic tilted forward was now zooming straight for the cliff wall.
It was maybe a hundred feet away.
Fifty feet.
In a split second they would be dead. And there was nothing he could do to stop it happening.
Diana ran across the overgrown lawn. Caine was ahead of her, faster, she had to catch him.
The sound of the helicopter engine was growing louder, closer.
Caine stopped at the edge of the cliff. Diana reached it, panting, a dozen feet away from Caine.
In a flash Diana understood what Sanjit had been hiding. Far below a white yacht lay crumpled against the rocks. A helicopter struggled aloft, spinning crazily this way and then that.
Caine’s face formed a wicked smile.
Penny was just laboring up behind. Bug, well, he might be there, too. No way to know.
Diana rushed to Caine. “Don’t do it!” she cried.
He turned a furious face to her. “Shut up, Diana.”
As they watched, the helicopter spun again and surged toward the cliff.
Caine raised his hands and the helicopter stopped moving forward. It was so close that the rotor hacked apart a bush that clung to the cliff face.
“Caine, don’t do this,” Diana pleaded.
“What do you care?” Caine asked, genuinely puzzled.
“Look! Look at them. They have little kids in there. Little children.”
The bubble canopy of the helicopter was no more than a rock throw away. Sanjit struggled with the controls. Virtue beside him, gripped his seat cushion. Three smaller kids were huddled in the back seat, screaming, covering their eyes, not so young they didn’t know they were a split second from death.
“I guess Sanjit should have thought about that before he lied to me,” Caine said.
Diana grabbed his arm, thought better of it, and reached for his face. She pressed one hand against his cheek. “Don’t do it, Caine. I’m begging you.”
“I’ll do it,” Penny said, appearing on Caine’s other side. “Let’s see him fly when the cockpit is full of scorpions!”
The wrong thing to say, Diana knew.
Caine snarled, “You’ll do nothing, Penny. I make the decisions here.”
“No, you do what she tells you to do,” Penny said. She practically spit the words at Diana. “This witch! Pretty girl, here.”
“Back off, Penny!” Caine warned.
“I’m not scared of you, Caine,” Penny shouted. “She tried to kill you while you were unconscious. She-”
Before she could finish the accusation Penny flew through the air. She floated, screaming, in midair, above the thrashing rotor blades.
“Go ahead, Penny!” Caine bellowed. “Threaten me with your powers! Make me lose focus!”