to the edge of the chopper.
Feet braced on the door ledge, Logan grabbed what was left of Max’s shirt and yanked hard, pulling him inside. “He’s in, he’s in.”
Sam glanced back. Max’s face was shredded with cuts on one side, and his finger looked dislocated. “Where’s Riley?”
“Downriver,” Max gasped. “We got separated at the first blast of water.” The dismal look on his face said he didn’t think he’d survived.
Sam was having none of that shit. He hit the thruster and the redesigned chopper shot over the water like a first-strike launch.
Logan unhooked the harness, shoved a cloth at Max, then took the night vision binoculars to search for Riley.
Sam swooped low and slow, hovering, leaning for a visual, passing the search lamp back and forth. Looks like bubbling stew. All they saw was what the moon reflected. He couldn’t be this far out, he thought. Debris slid weightlessly, roofs, tractors, entire walls off buildings bobbed on the surface. Then he saw him. “There, two o’clock!”
Riley rolled with the flow of mud and water. His dark clothing and the mud hid him, only the flesh of his face and hands were visible and popped through the surface. Like a leaf, nothing stopped him, nothing held him above water.
Logan directed Sam into position over Riley, Max on his knees at the door of the helicopter. “He stopped!”
Sam shined the spotlight. Riley was like a rag caught on a rooftop, his body flung back, water rushing over him. Hold on buddy, posse’s coming. Sam dipped the chopper nose down, the wind making it rock. Logan put on the helmet and clipped the harness. At a thumbs up, Sam hit the cable switch. Logan lowered it over the side.
“Christ,” Max said. “He doesn’t look good.”
A chill tightened his skin.
“Hold it steady.”
But the control stick jumped in his grip, the wind trying to push them out of the sky. Sam knew if he didn’t get some altitude under them, they’d go down.
“Lower, Sam, lower.”
“Christ.”
Max gripped the edge, gave him a play-by-play. “He needs to get some footing to strap him in.”
Jesus, they weren’t going to make it, Sam thought, ears tuned to the engines, the beat of the blades like it was a part of his body. He lowered another foot, his gaze flicking to the surface he could see through the clear nose windows, the mirrors showing the flow behind them. The water just kept coming.
“Logan’s down, keep it steady.”
Sam’s muscles strained on the stick, the chopper like a living being wanting to rest. He made it land on the water, gear up, knowing that was his only choice to get close enough.
“He’s got him! They’re locked. Man, he’s bleeding!”
Sam’s stomach clenched. He couldn’t think of Riley dead. He refused to let it sink into his brain. He smacked the button and the cable rolled in. Instantly he lifted higher, fighting the hot air meeting cold water beneath the chopper in the valley. The weight of the two men made the small craft unstable. The wench groaned under the stress.
Max reached for Riley, pulling him in before Logan. The pair fell on the floor of the chopper and Sam went turbo, speeding toward land.
“Is he breathing?” Sam said.
They said nothing.
“Is he breathing!”
“I don’t know!” Logan yanked off the helmet and grabbed his medical gear strapped to the hull. Max rolled Riley over and water spurted out of his mouth. But he didn’t choke, didn’t stir.
Sam radioed Sebastian at Dragon Six. “Coonass, all aboard. We need an ambulance. We have wounded.”
Logan pressed a stethoscope to Riley’s chest. “He’s alive, barely.” Then he put a mask over Riley’s face, turned on the small oxygen tank, moving it into his lungs and brain as Max ripped open his shirt. “He’s been shot—those bastards!”
Sam almost looked, yet kept his attention on getting them beyond the broken dam and to land. The force of the water from the country’s major water source was still ripping trees out by the roots and tossing them like kindling.
Logan slapped a pad over the wound, and Max held the pressure while Logan fought to keep Riley alive. The chopper shot over the land like a bullet in the sky, sleek and black. She was state of the art and all new, since some piece of shit a year ago loaded his last chopper down with C-4 and blew his baby to hell. He hadn’t worked the kinks out yet. Now was the time.
“Hold on, we’re coming in hot and fast.” Sam banked hard to the left, and quickly set the helicopter on the flight deck near Dragon Six. The giant black cargo plane was the only craft out this far.
Sebastian was waiting with a body board, and rushed forward. Behind him, an ambulance barreled down the narrow landing strip toward the jet. Sam unhooked his helmet mics and rolled from the cockpit to the rear, helping them lift Riley onto the board.
“He looks bad,” Sam said.
“He’s unconscious,” Logan said. “Dislocated shoulder, cracked ribs, a bullet hole, but I think he’s slipped into a coma.”
For a second, they all went still. Logan checked his vitals as the ambulance halted just beyond the rotors. Sam worked off his helmet, spitting mad and helpless as they put Riley and Max in the ambulance and along with Logan, sped off.
The blades were still moving as he dropped onto the edge at the open door and cradled his head. My fault, he thought.
Thirteen hours later
Rohki breathed slowly, the pain jolting up his chest as he limped along the walkway outside the airport. People jolted him and he clenched his teeth and smothered the urge to retaliate. Attention was not what he wanted. He felt the strong fingers circle his arm an instant before the gun at his back. The jerk of his body drove a surge of pain up his spine again as he looked up, staring into strange black eyes surrounded by swarthy skin. Zidane. Around them, taxis took on fares, airport guards chatted instead of watching their posts, tourists loaded with baggage rushed to catch flights out of the flood-torn area. No one paid them any attention as the tall man ushered him away from the crowd.
He jerked his arm free, then regretted the move.
Zidane only gestured to the small jet on the runway, guarded, engines running. “Quickly.”
Together they descended the short ramp and walked toward the plane. Heat rose in waves, blistering his scalp. As he mounted the first step, he felt underdressed for such a luxurious jet. Then he was grabbed back, a curved knife suddenly near his eye.
“The stones.”
“Of course, but they aren’t cut.”
That didn’t seem to concern Zidane and he warned, “You have already tried to sell them once.”
Rohki
