“Shush.” Emma put her arm around her. “Do you think… they might get Steve back?”
Jenny’s mouth opened and she looked at her with incredulity. After a moment, she just shook her head.
Emma nodded. “I know, I was just… hoping.” She motioned to Bellakov who was watching the jungle in the direction Ben and Koenig had gone. “That asshole did nothing.”
Jenny let her eyes drift to the man. “I think… I think he probably knew it had been tracking us.” Her eyes narrowed. “Maybe he let it take Steve in the hope that it would be sated and leave us alone.”
“Oh Jesus.” Emma felt a little sick at the thought. “Could that asshole basically be prepared to sacrifice one of us to save his own skin?”
Jenny exhaled shakily. “I don’t think I want to know.”
Emma ground her teeth. “I do.”
Ben and Walt pushed back out of the jungle, and Ben quickly found Jenny and Emma. He went to the zoologist and took her hand and then looked deep into her eyes.
“I’m sorry; he’s gone.”
She dropped her head. “I knew it.”
Walt Koenig crossed to where Bellakov stood and the pair spoke quietly.
Ben released her hand and she walked away to sit down by herself. Emma put a hand up on his shoulder but her eyes went to Bellakov. “We tracked it for a while, but it could go places we couldn’t. After a while, it just vanished; maybe into a hole or up into the trees.” He shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“I think…” Emma continued to watch Bellakov and Koenig. “I think Bellakov let it happen.” She looked up into Ben’s face.
“What?” Ben frowned. “What do you mean?”
“He was just watching, standing back. He just let it happen, like he didn’t care.” She swallowed nervously. “He could have taken a shot, but he didn’t.” Emma folded her arms, tight, and went to sit with Jenny.
Ben remembered what Bellakov had said about the airplane: there were too many people, he’d said. He shook the thought away. No way, he thought. But…
He turned back to the jungle where the monster snake had taken Steve Chambers, his friend. The guy was always smiling, adventurous, and it only seemed like yesterday they were riding pushbikes together.
First Andrea, then Dan, and now Steve, gone. Only days ago, none of them had expected to be here, and now…
He jammed his handgun back in his holster, only from habit. The weapon was now empty. He took one last look at the dark jungle.
Goodbye, buddy, he whispered, and then turned away.
“Come on, people, we’re out of here.”
In another hour, they found one of the trees that Ben had blazed, indicating their original path back to the clearing and the downed fighter plane. For some reason, the familiarity comforted them all the way to the clearing.
Ben held a hand up to his eyes and walked toward the plateau edge, feeling his hopes sink a little. The clouds had dropped, and where they stood was like a vast island amidst a sea of dirty cotton wool. The cliff wall still fell a few hundred feet to the cloud tops, but now everything else below it was hidden.
Strangely, the clouds slowly rotated, and the sky above was darkening even though sundown was many hours away. A slight breeze had sprung up, but seemed to come from below them, rising up over the cliff edge and into their faces.
Ben took in a deep breath and let it out slowly — whatever was happening, whatever Benjamin had feared would trap him in 1908, had begun, for them.
Bellakov eased up beside him, gun under his arm. “You know what they say about falling out of a plane?” He turned and grinned. “It’s not the fall that kills you, but the sudden stop at the end.”
Ben nodded. “Yep, if we can’t see the ground, we can’t find a clearing, and if we can’t find a clearing, we’ll probably glide into a stand of trees and end up like squashed bugs.”
The others joined them. “I knew you were insane, but if I think you’re planning to do what I think…” Walt slapped him on the shoulder “…then count me the hell in.”
“Well? Would someone clue me in?” Emma asked.
“Both of us?” Jenny’s brows were up.
Ben turned first to Bellakov. “Janus, give us some cover while I look this guy over. Don’t want anything surprising us while we’re between the jungle and a cliff edge.”
“You got it, buddy.” Bellakov turned to the jungle, walking a few dozen steps toward a boulder, and sitting down on it. He sat down in a place where he could keep one eye on the jungle, and one back on the group — good enough, Ben thought.
“Buddy now?” Emma glared at the man.
“Not even close.” Ben headed to the Corsair Fighter plane carcass and first walked all the way around it. Then he went in close to run one hand over the metal skin, and then checked underneath it. The wheels had collapsed, but the pilot, Lieutenant John Carter, had done one hellova job in coming in clean, and making it over the lip of the cliff, plus, managing to stop just short of the tree line. Carrier deck landing expertise, Ben guessed.
Ben gritted his teeth, reached in and grabbed Carter’s skeleton under the arms of the flight jacket. He eased him out, and then laid him carefully on the ground.
“Thanks for everything, Lieutenant. We’ll take it from here.”
He climbed back up to peer inside. The cockpit was intact and the rear empty. The plane’s wings were primarily intact as well, but structurally, he wouldn’t know until he was in the air whether they’d take the stress or simply snap off turning the plane into a torpedo. Ben chuckled mirthlessly — only find out in the air — talk about a death wish.
Ben reached in and moved the wheel, watching the effect on the wings. Amazingly, the flaps still worked, just. But when he tried the rear flap rudder, something pinged, and then it froze solid — not good, but also not a real tragedy as he doubted turning left or right would be a priority, and if he could manage a leveling out to keep the nose up, then that was first prize.
Ben rested his forearms on the cockpit edge and looked to the nose; the 13-foot, three-blade propeller was broken off, but the nose cone was still intact. Everything else was still there, and as he expected, it was the engine that’d be the problem — the Corsair used the largest engine available at the time: the 2,000 horsepower, 18-cylinder Pratt & Whitney Double Wasp radial — it was why it was so dominant in the skies.
But it was the source of all that muscle power that was the problem — the engine weighed in at 2,300 pounds of dead weight. Even if they were loaded in the back, they’d never weight-compensate, and they’d go nose-down immediately. Without an engine, they’d nosedive all the way to the jungle floor.
Ben straightened. The only way to achieve any semblance of a glide was to balance the weight, but first they needed to make the plane significantly lighter — at least 2,000 pounds lighter.
Ben turned. “The engine has gotta go.”
Walt Koenig blew air between pressed lips. “Got a winch and a tool shop?”
“No, but we got rocks as hammers, knives as screwdrivers, and muscles for leverage.” Ben dusted off his hands. “Plus, we’ve got the most important ingredient of all.” He turned and grinned. “Survival motivation.”
Walt returned the smile and saluted. “Works for me.”
Ben turned about for a moment and then looked back at the Corsair. He placed his hands on his hips, thinking through what they needed to do.