Clive Cussler - The Navigator

But there was no denying the evidence of their eyes. A name was embossed on the box lid:

THOMAS JEFFERSON

Chapter 48

THE HORSE THUNDERED TOWARD the gorge like a runaway battle tank. Austin fought to stay in the saddle. He was top-heavy from his weapons and armor. One foot had slipped from a stirrup. His steel-encased head bounced like a bobble-head doll’s. His shield was sliding off his arm. The long lance pointed everywhere except where he wanted.

Val’s hooves clattered onto the metal bridge. Through the eye slits, Austin caught a blurred glimpse of a gleaming spear tip and the bull’s-head emblem on Baltazar’s tunic. Then the horses were off the bridge and back on the grassy turf.

Austin let out the breath he’d been holding and tightened the reins. He slowed the horse and brought it around to face Baltazar, who was on the other side of the gorge calmly watching Austin’s disarray. Baltazar lifted the helmet from his head and held it in front of his chest.

He shouted: “Good joust, Austin. But you seem to be having some trouble keeping things together.”

Laughter rippled through the crowd of onlookers.

Austin removed his helmet and wiped the sweat from his eyes with the back of his mailed glove. He ignored the pain from his half-healed rib wound and called back in defiance. “I was distracted by thoughts of my new Bentley.”

Baltazar plucked the car key from the helmet and held it high above his head. “Don’t count your Bentleys before they hatch,” he taunted.

Austin reached into his helmet for the folded paper and held it in a Statue of Liberty pose. “Don’t spend your gold before you find it.”

Maintaining his frozen grin, Baltazar hooked the key back onto the horn and lowered the helmet onto his head.

Austin turned in his saddle and glanced at the lone figure in white sitting in the Bentley. He waved and the figure waved back. The gesture gave him renewed encouragement. He stuffed the paper into his helmet and lowered the steel pot onto his shoulders.

The trumpet blew its warning clarion.

Austin balanced his shield against the saddle and elevated the spear a few times to get a feel for its balance. He tilted his head forward and watched through the eye slits as Baltazar called Adriano over and bent down from the saddle to speak to him.

The second trumpet blast shattered the air.

Austin angled the lance to his left so the point would be in the path of the oncoming rider.

The trumpet sounded for a third time.

Austin apologized to Val and dug his spurs in. Baltazar’s figure grew larger in the vision vents. Austin crouched low behind the shield, keeping his lance aimed at Baltazar’s chest as Squire had advised. His hard breathing sounded like a steam engine inside the helmet.

At the last second, Baltazar raised his lance. The point caught Austin’s helmet under the eye slits and levered the steel pot off his head.

Then they were over the bridge.

Austin wheeled his horse around in time to see his helmet hit the ground near where the bridge joined the edge of the gorge. Adriano ran out and snatched up the helmet. He handed the helmet to Baltazar, who extracted the paper with a flourish. He read the words Austin had written and gave the paper to his hired killer. Adriano headed for an SUV, but before he drove off he handed off the helmet to a jouster, who ran over and tossed it up to Austin.

“Bad luck, Austin,” Baltazar yelled. “But you can still save the woman.”

The trumpet drowned out Austin’s suggestion that Baltazar jump off the bridge.

Both men barely had time to get their helmets back on when the herald sounded the signal to lower lances.

Squire had called the third tilt the money shot.

Austin was rattled at the ease with which Baltazar had placed the lance point. At the same time, the metal-cored spear would give him an advantage. Austin intended to use it. He gritted his teeth and lowered his head.

The trumpet sounded again.

The horses charged. Baltazar was hunkered behind his shield so that only the helmet horns were visible. Austin aimed directly for the shield. Baltazar’s lance hit Austin’s shield dead center. As Squire had predicted, the shaft broke behind the point.

Austin’s lance penetrated Baltazar’s shield as if it were made of air. The sharp point would have neatly skewered Baltazar if Austin’s aim had been better. The point caught a corner of the shield, tore through the leather-and-wood frame, and levered Baltazar out of his stirrups.

He crashed down on the steel bridge and disappeared over the edge.

Austin cursed as only a sailor can. He had zero sympathy for Baltazar. But Baltazar had taken the car key with him.

Then Austin swore again, this time with joy. The twin horns on Baltazar’s helmet were rising above the bridge. Baltazar was trying to pull himself up. The weight of his chain mail and helmet compounded the difficulty. The shield still hung from his arm.

Austin pulled his helmet off and threw his lance aside. He slipped out of the saddle and ran out on the bridge.

Baltazar had one shoulder up. He saw Austin bending over him.

“Help me,” he pleaded.

“Maybe this will lighten your load.” Austin plucked the car key from the horn.

Austin was tempted to send Baltazar to oblivion with a shove of his foot. But Baltazar’s men had recovered from the shock of seeing their leader unhorsed and were running for the bridge.

Austin turned and loped toward the car.

As he drew near, he saw that Carina had her head against the dashboard as if she had been unable to watch the tilt. He called her name. The figure in the passenger seat lifted its head. The unshaven face of one of Baltazar’s men leered at him from under a head covering.

“Thanks for rescuing me,” the man said in a falsetto imitation of a female voice. He reached under the folds of his dress for a gun but got tangled up.

Austin hauled back his mailed right fist and channeled his fury into a crashing blow to the man’s chin that knocked him cold. He pulled the unconscious man from the car. He slipped behind the steering wheel and muttered a prayer that Baltazar hadn’t switched keys. The engine started.

He decided not to head away from the bridge into unknown territory. The woods he saw in the distance might be a dead end.

Baltazar’s men had pulled him back onto the bridge. He screamed at his men to get Austin. Half a dozen guards advanced across the bridge. Austin retrieved the lance he had discarded. He angled the point out as if he were in a tilt, drove away from the gorge, then spun the wheel around and aimed for the bridge.

Baltazar saw the Bentley speeding toward him and ducked behind the tilt barrier, but the lance swept his men from the bridge like crumbs being brushed off a table.

When Austin had gained the other side, he discarded the lance and nailed the accelerator. The wheels spun on the grass, but Austin kept the fishtailing car under control and drove onto the road that led back to the tents.

He glanced in his rearview mirror. An SUV was on his tail. Someone had radioed ahead because another SUV came directly at him. Austin aimed the Bentley at the oncoming vehicle and pressed his hand down on the horn.

The SUV driver must have figured the heavier vehicle would win the game of chicken. At the last second the Bentley swerved aside. The SUV crashed head-on into the chase vehicle.

Austin breezed past the entrance to a driveway that led to a big house in the distance. He stayed on the road for another mile until he came to a gate and guard post. He slowed the car, in expectation that a guard would pop out of the shelter, but he drove up to the gate without being challenged. Austin guessed that the gate guards had been given permission to desert their post for the joust.