Clive Cussler - Inca Gold

The sergeant's shouts-- they were almost screams carried over the last echoes of the firing from atop the temple. "They're escaping! Shoot, for the love of Jesus, shoot them!"

The troops did not respond as ordered. Pitt was in a direct line of fire with the helicopter. To fire at him meant riddling their own aircraft. They hesitated, unsure of following the frantic sergeant's commands. Only one man lifted his rifle and fired.

Pitt ignored the bullet that cut a crease in his right thigh. He had other priorities than feeling pain. And then he was under the long tail boom and in the shadow of the clamshell doors, and Rodgers and the Peruvian young people were on their stomachs, leaning out, reaching out to him in the opening between the doors. The helicopter shuddered as it was buffeted by its own downdraft and lurched backward. Pitt extended his arms and jumped.

Giordino bent the helicopter into a hard turn, putting the rotor blades dangerously close to a grove of trees. A bullet shattered his side window and sprayed a shower of silvery fragments across the cockpit, cutting a small gash across his nose. Another round plunked into the rear frame of his seat, missing his spinal cord by a whisker. The helicopter took several more hits before he yanked it over the grove and below the far side, out of the line of fire from the Peruvian assault force.

Soon out of range, he went into a left climbing turn until he had enough altitude to pass over the mountains. At almost 4000 meters (13,000 feet) he had expected to find barren, rocky slopes above a timberline, but was mildly surprised to find the peaks so heavily forested. Once clear of the valley, he set a course to the west. Only then did he turn to Shannon. "You all right?"

"They were trying to kill us," she said mechanically.

"Must not like gringos," Giordino replied, surveying Shannon for damage. Seeing no signs of punctures or blood, he refocused on flying the aircraft and pulled the lever that closed the clamshell doors. Only then did he shout over his shoulder into the main cabin. "Anyone hit back there?"

"Just little old me."

Giordino and Shannon twisted in their seats in unison at recognizing the voice. Pitt. A rather exhausted and mud-encrusted Pitt, it was true, a Pitt with one leg seeping blood through a hastily tied bandanna. But a Pitt as indefatigable as ever leaned through the cabin door with a devilish smirk on his face.

A vast wave of relief swept over Giordino, and he flashed a smile.

"You almost missed your bus again."

"And you still owe me a Dixieland band."

Shannon smiled, knelt in her seat facing backward, threw her arms around Pitt and gave him a big hug. "I was afraid you wouldn't make it."

"I damn near didn't."

She looked down and her smile faded. "You're bleeding."

"A parting shot from the soldiers just before Rodgers and the students pulled me on board. Bless their hearts."

"We've got to get you to a hospital. It looks serious."

"Not unless they were using bullets dipped in hemlock," Pitt said facetiously.

"You should get off that leg. Take my seat."

Pitt eased Shannon around and pressed her back into the copilot's seat. "Stay put, I'll sit in coach with the rest of the peasants." He paused and looked around the control cabin. "This is a real antique."

"She shakes, rattles, and rolls," said Giordino, "but she hangs in the air."

Pitt leaned over Giordino's shoulder and examined the instrument panel, his eyes coming to rest on the fuel gauges. He reached over and tapped the instrument glass. Both needles quivered just below the three-quarter mark. "How far do you figure she'll take us?"

"Fuel range should be in the neighborhood of three hundred and fifty kilometers. If a bullet, didn't bite a hole in one of the tanks, I'd guess she'll carry us about two hundred and eighty."

"Must be a chart of the area around somewhere and a pair of dividers."

Shannon found a navigation kit in a pocket beside her seat and passed it to Pitt. He removed a chart and unfolded it against her back. Using the dividers, careful not to stick the points through the chart paper and stab her, Pitt laid out a course to the Peruvian coast.

"I estimate roughly three hundred kilometers to the Deep Fathom."

"What's Deep Fathom?" asked Shannon.

"Our research ship."

"Surely you don't intend to land at sea when one of Peru's largest cities is much closer?"

"She means the international airport at Trujillo," explained Giordino.

"The Solpemachaco has too many friends to suit me," said Pitt. "Friends who have enough clout to order in a regiment of mercenaries at a moment's notice. Once they spread the word we stole a helicopter and sent the pride of their military to a graveyard, our lives won't be worth the spare tire inside the trunk of an Edsel. We'll be safer on board an American ship outside their offshore limit until we can arrange for our U.S. Embassy staff to make a full report to honest officials in the Peruvian government."

"I see your point," agreed Shannon. "But don't overlook the archaeology students. They know the whole story. Their parents are very influential and will see that a true account of their abduction and the pillaging of national treasures hits the news media."

"You're assuming, of course," Giordino said matter-of-factly, "that a Peruvian posse won't cut us off at any one of twenty passes between here and the sea."

"On the contrary," replied Pitt. "I'm counting on it. Care to bet the other assault helicopter isn't chasing our tail rotor as we speak?"

"So we hug the ground and dodge sheep and cows until we cross over water," acknowledged Giordino.

"Precisely. Cuddling with low clouds won't hurt matters either."

"Forgetting a little something, aren't you?" said Shannon wearily, as though reminding a husband who neglected to carry out the trash. "If my math is correct, our fuel tanks will run dry twenty kilometers short of your ship. I hope you aren't proposing we swim the rest of the way."

"We solve that insignificant problem," said Pitt calmly, "by calling up the ship and arranging for it to run full speed on a converging course."

"Every klick helps," said Giordino, "but we'll still be cutting it a mite fine."

"Survival is guaranteed," Pitt said confidently. "This aircraft carries life vests for everyone on board plus two life rafts. I know-- I checked when I walked through the main cabin." He paused, turned, and looked back. Rodgers was checking to see all the students had their shoulder harnesses on properly.

"Our pursuers will be on to us the instant you make contact with your vessel," Shannon persisted bleakly. "They'll know exactly where to intercept and shoot us down."

"Not," Pitt replied loftily, "if I play my cards right."

Setting the office chair to almost a full reclining position, communications technician Jim Stucky settled in comfortably and began reading a paperback mystery novel by Wick Downing. He had finally gotten used to the thump that reverberated throughout the hull of the NUMA oceanographic ship, Deep Fathom, every time the sonar unit bounced a signal off the seafloor of the Peru Basin. Boredom had set in soon after the vessel began endlessly cruising back and forth charting the geology 2500 fathoms below the ship's keel. Stucky was in the middle of the chapter where a woman's body is found floating inside a waterbed when Pitt's voice crackled over the speaker.

"NUMA calling Deep Fathom. You awake, Stucky?"

Stucky jerked erect and pressed the transmit button. "This is Deep Fathom. I read you, NUMA. Please stand by." While Pitt waited, Stucky alerted his skipper over the ship's speaker system.

Captain Frank Stewart hurried from the bridge into the communications cabin. "Did I hear you correctly? You're in contact with Pitt and Giordino?"