The helicopter sat motionless, half-in and half-out of Solo's view. His hands were white around the rail, and the pressure on his arms was unbearable. I can't hold it, he thought. I can't...
The chopper began to move. It dipped forward, banking under the trestle, under the hole in the track bed, and Solo saw the pilot then and in the next instant the man with the machine gun. The blades of the copter were tilted forward, directly beneath him now, and the body was raised out and to the side of the trestle wall.
The man with the machine gun saw him then. He saw Solo's head and arms extending out over the hole, and the grin contorted his face as it had before, and he raised the Thompson gun, leaning out of the helicopter doorway.
Solo let go of the rail. He felt the- release of pressure from his arms and heard the sharp crack as the last piece of steel snapped free.
The end of the rail nearest him jolted upward, narrowly missing Solo's chin, and then it plunged down through the hole.
There was just enough time for Solo to see the face of the man with the machine gun, to see the grin change into an expression of pure terror, and then the steel rail crashed with tremendous force into the rotating blades of the helicopter.
There was the grinding, tortured scream of twisted metal, the shattering sound of the glass dome breaking, and Solo saw one of the chopper blades, ripped in half, skim through the air and splinter against the granite canyon wall across from him.
The helicopter began to plunge. It dropped straight down at first, rotors crippled, and then it began to spin, a lazy, revolving spin, almost as if it were falling in slow motion. It grew smaller, smaller, trailing black smoke, a mere speck, and then it disappeared on the canyon floor below. It was quiet again.
Solo lay panting inside the trestle, head cradled in his arms at the edge of the hole. A fever-weakness seemed to have seized him. His chest heaved, and his arms felt slightly numb. He wanted to lay there, rest, just rest. Fatigue had seeped into every corner of his body.
But he got to his knees, and then, his fingers clawing at the rough shed wall, to his feet. He swallowed into a sore, parched throat. The helicopter would have radioed his position, Solo knew. THRUSH agents would be coming along the tracks after him at any moment. He still wasn't out of danger yet.
Solo stood hanging on to the shed wall. The only way past the hole, as he had seen before, was across that single steel rail. Legs rubbery, he stepped to the opposite side again. The ties beneath his feet did not seem any too sturdy. He knelt quickly there, testing the solidarity of the rail with his hand. It seemed firm enough to hold him.
Sweat drenched his entire body. He took a long breath, held it, and exhaled slowly. Then he stepped up onto the rail. It creaked, rocking faintly under him. Facing the shed wall, he leaned his body forward, both hands flat against the wood for balance, and to take his full weight from the rail.
He began to move his feet sideways, slowly, inching his way across the slippery piece of steel. He stared straight ahead, eyes on his hands as he slid them along the wall.
Splinters gouged into his skin, but he paid no attention to the stinging pain.
After what seemed like an eternity, he reached the other side of the hole. He paused there momentarily, breathing deeply, rubbing sheets of sweat from his face and eyes.
He walked through the trestle cautiously, watching the trackbed below him, bypassing ties and rails that looked to be rotted through or about to give way, stopping to test with his hands and feet areas that he was-not sure of. Finally, he reached the end of the trestle and stepped onto the solid ground of the tracks on the other canyon wall.
He wanted to pause there, rest his aching body. But the feel of the ground, its stability, seemed to instill new purpose in him, and he moved onward along the tracks without stopping.
He moved downward, in close to the granite, and when he reached the point where the tracks curved around the canyon wall, he turned, looking across to the wall facing him over the gorge. He saw no one. His breathing became easier. He went around the curve of the tracks and out of sight from the THRUSH pursuers he knew would be following him.
He walked for hours. Afternoon began to give way to night. It grew colder, and he saw clouds forming in the sky above him. It would snow soon, and when it did he would have to reach shelter. He knew the consequences if he didn't. He was already chilled to the marrow. He reached the timberline just as it began to get dark.
Solo saw, as he rounded a bend, that the tracks fell into a long, steep incline, and at the bottom and growing sparsely up the side of the mountain there, was a thick forest of Colorado Blue Spruce. The mountains above him through which he had been making his way, gave way to pitted -gullies and long, flat stretches of woodland.
He had made it out of the Rockies. He began to run. He ran, lurching, stumbling over rocks, down the incline, running almost blindly in the twilight. His breath choked from his lungs in wheezing gasps. But still he ran.
Solo reached the bottom of the incline, smelling the odor of pine and moss, and the chill, building snow in the air. He ran along the trackbed, through the trees, and he stopped running, slowing into a staggering walk, only when his tortured lungs screamed for relief and threatened to burst through his chest.
It had begun to snow when he saw the road. The snow was light at first, thin, misty flakes. It mixed with the gathering darkness to make front and peripheral vision difficult, and when he saw the road he thought his mind was playing tricks on him.
Solo stopped, peering ahead of him. The road bisected the tracks, disappearing into the forest on both sides. But there was a road!
He began to run again and halted where the road crossed the tracks. It was rutted, passable only by jeep, little more than a fire trail. But it had been used often, and recently judging from the freshness of the tire treads he saw there. That had to mean it led to a ranger station; yes, he was sure of it. A ranger station, a fire-prevention outpost, some place where he could get help.
He tried to remember how the terrain had looked from his earlier elevation. To the left, a thick forestland of blue spruce, unbroken wilderness. To the right, higher ground. Ranger stations were always built on higher ground to protect them from the possible danger of fire.
Napoleon Solo turned to the right. He tried to run, but his right leg had grown numb. The gash he had received in Mexico, plus the chilling cold and the countless falls, had begun to take their toll. He could move only in a half-shuffling, half-walking step.
The snow began to flurry, building into a storm. He could see only a few feet in front of him. He had become almost oblivious to the cold, and he knew that was one of the first signs a man experienced before freezing. He knew it, but he could not seem to fight off the torpor that took hold of him, the lethargic feeling of drowsiness.
The road seemed to widen. He saw that, even through the swirling snow, and at first it had no significance for him.
And then he saw the light It glowed ahead of him, a dim yellow, an unblinking yellow eye in the darkness and the falling snow He stared. A light! He had an in sane urge to laugh.
He tried to run, fell to his knees and then sprawled forward. He couldn't get to his feet again; his arms were leaden, frozen from the cold. He began to drag his body toward the light. He tried to call out, but his throat would not work and no words came out. He realized the uselessness of trying to make himself heard over the howling wind.