Ahead of them the Urubamba River was racing up into their faces at a terrifying rate of knots. The Frenchman responded with a whispered curse and then a hefty pull back on the collective.
He was late and the chopper’s skids broke the surface of the river and ripped through the rushing torrent, spraying water up on both sides of the helicopter. For a second the chopper was destabilized and Reaper pushed his left boot down hard on the rudder to avoid tipping over and losing his lift.
They spun around like a speeding car on a greasy skid pan and a second later it was facing the opposite direction.
Kruger was now bearing down on them, so close that an impact was almost inevitable, but he pulled up on the collective and shot over the top of them at high speed. Its skids barely missed the speeding rotors of the ECHO helicopter, but then it was clear.
Reaper was still trying to bring their helicopter under control and stop the spin, which he did by careful use of the rudders and then pushed forward on the cyclic stick to get his forward momentum back. He lifted the collective and they shot up into the air again, leaving the rushing Urubamba far below them.
“That was thirty seconds I hope I never have to repeat,” Lea said.
“What are you talking about!” Lexi said. “It was great!”
Lea turned in her seat and gave her a sideways glance. “If you say so.”
“I do! What do you think, Ryan?”
“I think I need to change my underwear.”
Reaper was now following Kruger and rising up behind him like an Exocet missile. “Now the bastards are running from us.”
Lea opened her window and opened fire with her handgun, and from where they were sitting they could see her bullets striking the rear of the chopper’s main body.
Kruger responded in a heartbeat, spinning around to the right and ascending in order to fly over the top of a series of drumlins before climbing more sharply and reaching a smooth plateau.
Reaper pursued, and the two choppers were now racing in the Peruvian sunshine across the rocky scree-covered plateau on their way to a higher ridgeline.
Lea fired again but this time she missed and now she was out of bullets. She cursed and shook her head, but Lexi took over. Trying to bring a helicopter down with a handgun was a long shot at the best of times but at this speed it was almost impossible.
Lexi tried her best but she too was out of bullets in seconds and then the game was almost over. When Kruger flew up into the clouds and disappeared out of sight, the game was completely over.
“We can still find them!” Lea said.
Reaper shook his head. “Not now… not in these clouds. Not without any weapons. We’re out of luck.”
“So what now?” Lexi said, the frustration clear in her voice.
“Now we find Joe and Scarlet.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Hawke tapped the fuel gauge and sighed. The problem with these small helicopters is they had small fuel tanks, and this one wasn't full to start with. He looked out into the world’s biggest jungle and surveyed an empty horizon with concern.
“What is it?” Scarlet asked, noticing him tap the gauge once again.
“Nothing we can do anything about, put it that way.”
“Oh, how very reassuring,” she said. “Don’t ever train to be a commercial airline pilot, for fuck’s sake.”
“Don’t worry — I won’t,” he said.
And then the radio crackled. “What’s up?”
It was Reaper’s voice, calling over the comms from the other chopper. They had coordinated their positions over the radio and were now flying side by side.
“Just a little low on fuel,” Hawke said. “Nothing serious.”
“How low, Joe?”
Lea’s voice now, and she didn’t sound impressed with the nonchalant way he had reported the fuel situation.
“We’re fine, but we might need a ride home with you guys if that’s okay.”
“Always happy to give Scarlet a ride,” Reaper replied.
“In your dreams, Vincent,” came the crackly reply.
Hawke smiled as the banter unfolded over the comms between the two helicopters. They were thundering their way from Machu Picchu to the location where they all hoped they would find Paititi, the Lost City of the Incas, and keeping their spirits up was essential to any successful mission.
“You’re sure you can remember the location, mate?”
No response from the other chopper.
“Ryan?”
“Yeah, no problem.”
“Good,” Hawke said. “We need to send the coordinates to Lund in case there’s trouble.”
“You’re sure, aren’t you, Ry?” Lea said. “Cause this ain’t the sort of place we want to get lost.”
“I said I could remember it,” he snapped.
Hawke left it there. He knew Saqqal and Kruger had a head start on them, but there was no doubt in his heart at all that his friends in the ECHO team wouldn’t be able to turn it around to their own advantage. They had never failed on a mission yet and they weren’t about to start now…. except maybe the Seastead.
The thought rose in his mind like a ghost drifting through a misty graveyard. Had they failed at the Seastead? Yes, maybe they had, he thought. They had allowed the Oracle to flee into the storm and take the Mictlan idol with him, and if that wasn’t bad enough they had let Kruger slip away with Ryan as a hostage as well. He was safe now but it could have ended with his death, just like it did for Maria.
He wished he could shake the thought out of his head forever, but that would mean forgetting about her altogether.
Scarlet leaned forward in her seat and switched off the radio so their conversation was private. “You’re thinking about Maria?”
He turned to face her, startled. “Yes… how did you know?”
“You looked so angry all of a sudden. I know you, Joe.”
Hawke didn’t know how to answer. Like with Sophie and Olivia, he held himself personally responsible for Maria’s death. Eden might be the head of the ECHO team, but Hawke was the man in charge in the field and he felt the pressure of it more with every mission.
Now he had to move Maria into the growing list of men and women who had died under his command, and it was starting to get to him. He found himself increasingly uncertain if he wanted to lead the team, just at exactly the same time as Eden had been knocked out of the game and landed in hospital with a life-threatening injury. If there was a way for him to fight through all of this and find any peace, then he didn’t know how to do it.
All he knew how to do was push thoughts like this aside and focus on the task at hand. There was no strategic success without tactical success. The ghost of a smile played on his cut lips as he recalled his training back in the marines. But it worked, and now his head was full of Ziad Saqqal, Dirk Kruger and the peculiar Rajavi. They didn’t have much to go on, but they never needed much, and this was one mission that everyone was going to survive.
He felt Scarlet glaring at him and turned to see her smiling. She looked good when she smiled, but it happened so rarely that he barely recognized her.
“What?”
“You’re all right for a stupid bastard, did you know that?”
“Thanks, I think…”
“Welcome.”
“How’s Jack?”
“Camo? He can survive being ridden hard and put away wet, if that’s what you mean.”
“Not exactly what I was getting at.”