Fallout. Part 16

THEY walked for another three hours, sometimes on well-worn paths, sometimes on narrow game trails, and other times through the thick of the jungle Fisher navigated via his GPS unit. The purist orienteer in him resented the gizmo, but the pragmatist in him knew it was a necessary evil. With limited time on his hands, a compa.s.s was a luxury he couldn't afford. walked for another three hours, sometimes on well-worn paths, sometimes on narrow game trails, and other times through the thick of the jungle Fisher navigated via his GPS unit. The purist orienteer in him resented the gizmo, but the pragmatist in him knew it was a necessary evil. With limited time on his hands, a compa.s.s was a luxury he couldn't afford.

Jimiyu, armed with a long Ghurka knife, sliced his way through the foliage with practiced swings of his long arms, ducking and weaving like a boxer as he stepped over roots and ducked under branches and pointed out various plants and animals beside the trail along with a running, colorful commentary: "Very rare . . . do not touch that . . . not poisonous . . . tasty, but hard to catch . . ." "Very rare . . . do not touch that . . . not poisonous . . . tasty, but hard to catch . . ."

At noon they swung back to the northeast, and after another hour's walk Fisher heard the m.u.f.fled roar of water through the trees. The landscape sloped downward until they were picking their way along switchbacked hillside. At last the slope evened out, the trees gave way to low scrub foliage, and they found themselves standing at the edge of a cliff.

Fifty feet below, the river surged down a narrow gorge. The water was a clear blue and in the still pools formed behind the boulders he could see the riverbed covered in smooth, round stones. A hundred yards to their right was a twenty-foot tall waterfall that split into three channels over a jagged rock face before splas.h.i.+ng into a pool below.

Fisher studied the GPS unit. "This is the place." He lifted his binoculars to his eyes and scanned the length of the gorge, tracking along both tree lines as far as he could see in both directions. "I don't see anything," he said.

"You are not looking in the right place," Jimiyu murmured beside him.

"What?"

Jimiyu raised a bony hand and pointed straight ahead at a thick, vine-encrusted tree jutting from the edge of the cliff. Fisher stared at it, seeing nothing for a full thirty seconds, until finally his eyes detected a too-symmetrical shape hidden in the branches: a straight vertical line, another horizontal, a gentle curve . . .

Good G.o.d . . . . . .

What he was seeing wasn't a tree. It was the inverted tail section of an airplane.

Fisher was dumbfounded. Of course, the brother in Fisher had prayed Peter's letter had been more than the ramblings of a sick and dying man, but with the thoughts so seemingly incoherent and far removed from the core of the Carmen Hayes/PuH-19 puzzle, he'd also had his doubts.

But here it was, exactly where the lat.i.tude and longitude indicated: a plane. Now seeing it for what it was, Fisher understood how even the Turkana and Samburu, so intimately familiar with the area, had missed it. While the jungle had long ago erased any sign of the impact itself, it was clear the Sunstar Sunstar had crashed not far from here and ripped through the forest, slowing until the forward half of its fuselage had come to rest perched, hovering, at the edge of this cliff until finally, minutes or hours or days later, physics took over and it tipped over nose first and slid down the cliff face into the river below. Almost six decades of jungle foliage, mold, and lichens had enshrouded the aluminum fuselage, turning it into just another tree trunk. had crashed not far from here and ripped through the forest, slowing until the forward half of its fuselage had come to rest perched, hovering, at the edge of this cliff until finally, minutes or hours or days later, physics took over and it tipped over nose first and slid down the cliff face into the river below. Almost six decades of jungle foliage, mold, and lichens had enshrouded the aluminum fuselage, turning it into just another tree trunk.

Fisher dropped his pack and rifle, then pulled a sixty-foot coil of 10mm climbing rope from his pack. As Jimiyu secured the line to a nearby tree, Fisher looped together a makes.h.i.+ft rappelling rig. He stepped to the edge of the cliff and started down.

Pausing every few feet to poke through the vines and leaves with his knife, Fisher walked himself down the cliff until the jabbing of his knife returned not the hollow gong of aluminum, but the screeching of steel on gla.s.s. This version of Niles Wondrash's plane, a Curtiss C-46 Commando, had four fuselage windows, starting at the wing and moving forward to the c.o.c.kpit windows. The cabin door was set behind these, just forward of the tail fin. Fisher saw no wings, and he a.s.sumed they'd been sheared off during the crash.

Now with a point of reference, he scaled upward, again tapping his knife. The windows were set roughly ten feet apart, so . . . He stopped climbing and studied the fuselage, trying to discern angles and shapes until finally he could make out an up-sloping curve he felt certain was the rear vertical fin. He spun his body and wedged his feet into the vines, then began cutting at the foliage with his knife until slowly, foot by foot, a patch of fuselage appeared, followed soon after by an inset hatch handle and a vertical seam. He wedged the point of his knife into the seam and began prying, moving inch by inch as though prying open a paint can. After five minutes of work, he heard a groaning screech of metal on metal. The hatch gave way and fell open. Fisher pushed off, avoiding the swinging metal, then swung back and kicked his legs through the opening and wriggled forward until his b.u.t.t was resting on the hatch jamb.

"I'm in!" he called up to Jimiyu.

On hands and knees the Kenyan leaned over the cliff face and offered him a smile and a thumbs-up. "Be very careful, Sam. Many creatures have probably made that their home, you know."

Great, Fisher thought. He hadn't considered that. Fisher thought. He hadn't considered that.

He pulled the LED headlamp from his belt, settled it on his head, and toggled the ON b.u.t.ton. The beam illuminated the opposite cabin wall, its smooth aluminum surface mottled with mildew. He played the light down the vertical shaft of the cabin. The wall and floor were empty. No seats, no storage racks, no nothing. All of that, either knocked loose during the crash or simply loosened by time and gravity, had likely tumbled down the length of the cabin and into the c.o.c.kpit below. Fisher did some mental measurements: The cliff was roughly fifty feet tall and about ten feet of the plane's tail had been jutting above the rim of the cliff. The C-46 Commando was seventy-five feet long, which meant the forward fifteen feet of the craft, including the c.o.c.kpit, was submerged in the river.

The interior was surprisingly clear of jungle growth. Sealed as it was, with the only breaches probably being the shattered c.o.c.kpit windows, nothing had had a chance to take root. The Commando was a virtual time capsule. He aimed the headlamp down the length of the cabin, but the walls, having lost their sheen, reflected nothing back. It was like staring down a mine shaft.

Fisher reeled in the rope below him, bunched it in one hand, then tossed it into the cabin. The loose end gave a hollow ting ting as it bounced off the aluminum, then there was silence. as it bounced off the aluminum, then there was silence.

He lowered himself through the darkness, scanning the light over the walls as he went, until finally his feet touched a horizontal surface-a section of the c.o.c.kpit bulkhead. Stacked in a jumble around him were the Commando's seats. Through the tangle of braces and armrests and skeletal seat backs he could see the upper curve of the c.o.c.kpit door opening; a few feet through that, his headlamp beam glinted off water. Just outside the plane's thin aluminum skin he could hear the gurgle of the river's current. The stench of mold was pervasive now, stinging his eyes and making it hard to breathe as though the air itself had grown thick.

It took fifteen minutes to s.h.i.+ft and precariously restack the seats enough to allow him access to the c.o.c.kpit. He lowered himself into a kneeling position, knees braced on either side of the door, rotated the rappelling rig around until it was facing backward, then he lowered himself again until he was lying splayed across the doorway.

Partially blinded by the glare of his flashlight on the water, which had filled the c.o.c.kpit to a point just below the winds.h.i.+eld, Fisher didn't immediately see the skulls.

There were two of them, one on either side of him in the pilot's and copilot's seats. Each was devoid of all traces of flesh, save a few desiccated chunks that hung like beef jerky from the facial bones. The torsos, which were submerged from the waist down, were clothed in tatters and in between the strips of fabric Fisher could see glimpses of white bone. Each skeleton hung suspended from its seat back belt and harness, arms dangling and fingertips dipped in the water.

Fisher scanned the interior, looking for anything that might positively identify the craft or its occupants. Then he saw it, jutting from the pilot's inside jacket pocket, a brown rectangular package. Right arm braced for support on the c.o.c.kpit bulkhead, Fisher leaned forward and gingerly removed the package.

It was oilskin. Fisher opened the folds. Inside was a well-preserved paperback-size leather journal. On the cover in faded, gold-embossed letters were the initials NW.

Niles Wondrash.

Fisher rewrapped the journal and slid it into the thigh pocket of his cargo pants. He was about to turn and leave, when he saw the glint of steel behind Wondrash's seat back. Fisher carefully tore away a section of the seat's moldering fabric until he could see the object.

It was a screw-top stainless steel canister, roughly the size of two soda cans stacked atop one another.

He grabbed it, then turned and started climbing.

31.

PAPONDIT, KENYA.

"I a.s.sume you haven't opened it?" Lambert said. a.s.sume you haven't opened it?" Lambert said.

Fisher switched the satellite phone to his left ear and moved out of the sun beneath the low-hanging branches of an olive tree. In the distance, over some scattered kopjes kopjes-low, rocky mounds-and forested savanna, he could see the surface of Lake Victoria s.h.i.+mmering blue in the heat. Fifty feet away Jimiyu sat in the Range Rover's driver's seat on the shoulder of the road.

"Which one?" Fisher asked. "The journal or the canister?"

"The canister."

Fisher smiled into the phone. "A mysterious sixty-year-old stainless steel canister I found inside a plane in the middle of the jungle. No, Lamb, I didn't open it."

"Didn't think so."

"As for the journal, the cover looks to be in good shape, but the edges of the pages feel spongy. I think it's best we wait for Quantico. If I open it, there's a good chance we'll lose whatever's in there."

"I agree."

"Anything more from Omurbai?" Fisher asked.

"More of the same, but his speeches are taking on a hysterical tone-the evils of the West, of 'infidel' cultures, of technology, and so on. As we'd guessed, he's sealed the border to all non-Muslims but has extended an invitation to all Muslims who want to, and I quote, 'partake in the jihad to end all jihads and to live in harmony in the true way of Islam, ' unquote."

"Gracious of him." Fisher checked his watch. "Jimiyu and I just fueled up, and we're on our way to the second set of coordinates. I'll be in touch."

FROM Kusa they followed the C19, a heavily potholed road that meandered along the coastline southeast for a few miles before curving northwest into the Winam Gulf Peninsula, then on to Kendu Bay. On both shoulders, scrub gra.s.s, freshly green with spring, spread over rolling savanna. Here and there Fisher could see cones of earth rising from the landscape. Volcanic plugs, Jimiyu explained, exposed by erosion. Kusa they followed the C19, a heavily potholed road that meandered along the coastline southeast for a few miles before curving northwest into the Winam Gulf Peninsula, then on to Kendu Bay. On both shoulders, scrub gra.s.s, freshly green with spring, spread over rolling savanna. Here and there Fisher could see cones of earth rising from the landscape. Volcanic plugs, Jimiyu explained, exposed by erosion.

Four miles from the coordinates, Fisher's satellite phone chimed. He answered it and barely got one word out before Aly's panicked voice came over the line: "Sam, I'm sorry, I didn't want to tell them, but-"

"Aly, what-"

"They said they were going-"

"Aly, stop, slow down," Fisher commanded. "What's happened?"

There were a few seconds of silence. Fisher could hear her trying to catch her breath. "They came the night after you left. They broke into the house, tied me up, wanted to know where you'd gone. They had knives. They said they would-"

Fisher clutched the phone tighter. "Did they hurt you, are you hurt?"

"No, I'm fine, but I told them, Sam. I'm sorry, but-"

The driver's side window shattered. Jimiyu cried out and fell sideways into Fisher, who dropped the satellite phone; it clattered across the floorboards and disappeared. The Rover veered left, off the road, b.u.mped up onto the shoulder, down into a depression, and began tipping onto its side. Fisher reached across Jimiyu's body, grabbed the wheel, straightened the Rover out, then groped with his foot until he felt the gas pedal and stomped on it. The engine roared. The Rover lurched up the hill.

"Jimiyu, can you hear me?" Fisher yelled. Using his free hand, he grabbed the Kenyan's shoulder and shook him. "Jimiyu!"

Jimiyu groaned.

A second bullet punched through the rear window and slammed into the dashboard. Fisher ducked down. Somewhere he could hear Aly's tinny voice calling, "Sam . . . Sam . . . are you there . . . ?" A third and fourth bullet tore through the back window, shattering it and spiderwebbing the winds.h.i.+eld. Through the cracks he saw a kopje looming.

He jerked the wheel to the right, felt the left front tire b.u.mp over a rock, then they were tipping, the sky canting through the winds.h.i.+eld.

FISHER forced open his eyes-one of his lids felt glued shut with what he a.s.sumed was blood-and looked around. The Rover had rolled once and come to rest on its roof, but the solid-cage construction had kept the interior intact, save his side window, which had shattered with the compression. Through the side window Fisher could see scrub gra.s.s. Jimiyu, whose seat belt had been demolished by the first bullet, lay in a heap, wedged between the dashboard and the winds.h.i.+eld. Fisher realized the Rover's engine was still running. He vaguely thought, forced open his eyes-one of his lids felt glued shut with what he a.s.sumed was blood-and looked around. The Rover had rolled once and come to rest on its roof, but the solid-cage construction had kept the interior intact, save his side window, which had shattered with the compression. Through the side window Fisher could see scrub gra.s.s. Jimiyu, whose seat belt had been demolished by the first bullet, lay in a heap, wedged between the dashboard and the winds.h.i.+eld. Fisher realized the Rover's engine was still running. He vaguely thought, Gas leak Gas leak, then Fire Fire, then reached over and switched off the ignition. He undid his own seat belt, then rolled onto his side and reached toward Jimiyu. He found his hand and gave it a squeeze.

"Jimiyu," Fisher whispered. "Can you hear me?"

". . . es . . ."

"Stay still, don't move. Squeeze my hand if you understand."

Squeeze.

"Play dead. They'll be coming to finish us off."

Squeeze.

Fisher rolled over. He looked between the seats, searching for the M-14, and spotted the stock between the center console, which had detached itself during the rollover, and the roof. He grabbed the stock, gave it a tug. It didn't budge.

From outside came the roaring of an engine, then tires skidding on dirt. Three car doors opened and slammed, and Fisher heard boots crunching on gravel.

He reached out, wrapped both hands around the stock, took in a deep breath, and heaved. The M-14 came loose, the b.u.t.t smacking him in the lip. He tasted blood. Rifle held lengthwise down his body, he pushed off the dash with his legs, squirming until his torso was out the side window, then pushed again and drew his knees out.

On the other side of the Rover he heard a whispered voice say something, then once more. It took a moment for Fisher to realize it was Kyrgyz-something about going around.

Slowly, quietly, Fisher rose into a crouch. He flipped off the M-14's safety, took a few breaths to clear his head, then crab-walked to the rear of the Rover. Around the corner post he heard footsteps chafing the gra.s.s. He switched the M-14 to his left hand, drew the Applegate, flipped it open, and clenched it in his right hand, blade down and pointing back along his forearm. A thought popped into his head: Crime scene Crime scene. He laid the M-14 in the gra.s.s.

The footsteps came closer. Fisher saw a man-shaped shadow fall across the gra.s.s. In one smooth motion, Fisher stepped around the Rover's corner post and rose up, grabbing and lifting the man's rifle stock while sweeping the Applegate up in a tight arc. He jammed it hilt-deep into the hollow spot behind the man's jaw and beneath his ear. The man never made a sound, dead before he hit the ground.

Fisher kept moving. He reversed the man's rifle-a FAMAS 5.56mm-shouldered it, took three quick steps out from behind the Rover, and saw a man turning toward him. He fired twice. Both rounds punched through the man's sternum. Even as he fell, Fisher was moving again, this time in the opposite direction, back across the rear of the Rover, where he dropped to one knee and leaned out, rifle at his shoulder. The last man was moving down the pa.s.senger side, his FAMAS coming up. Fisher fired. The bullet caught the man in the hip and spun him around. He screamed and toppled onto his side and kept rolling, trying to bring the FAMAS to bear. Fisher fired again. The bullet drilled a neat hole in the man's forehead. His head snapped back, and he went limp.

Moving on instinct, he checked each man to ensure he was dead and for any identifying papers (there were none), then crouched down and took ten seconds to catch his breath. He looked around. No cars on the road, none visible. He thought for a moment, running scenarios in his head, then made his decision. He dropped the FAMAS in the dirt, then hurried back to the driver's side window and dropped to his belly.

"Jimiyu, can you hear me?"

There were a few seconds of silence, the Kenyan cleared his throat and said softly, "I can hear you. Is it safe to no longer be dead?"

32.

HE pulled Jimiyu from the Rover and checked him over. The bullet, moving slightly backward to forward, had carved a groove in the bony tip of his shoulder, then punched cleanly through the skin of his neck between a tendon and his jugular vein. There was a lot of blood but only superficial damage. A half inch to the right, and Jimiyu would be dead. pulled Jimiyu from the Rover and checked him over. The bullet, moving slightly backward to forward, had carved a groove in the bony tip of his shoulder, then punched cleanly through the skin of his neck between a tendon and his jugular vein. There was a lot of blood but only superficial damage. A half inch to the right, and Jimiyu would be dead.

Fisher dug the first aid kit from the Rover's glove compartment, then dressed both his wounds and covered him with a blanket.

Next he picked up the M-14 and jogged the quarter mile to a rocky outcrop overlooking the lake. He hurled the rifle far into the water, then ran back to the Rover.

"Who were those men?" Jimiyu asked.

"The less you know, the better," Fisher said. "They were highway bandits. They ambushed us, and we never saw them coming. When you woke up, the Rover was lying on its side, and the men were already dead. You didn't see anything, didn't hear anything, and you don't remember anything after your window shattered. Got it?"

Jimiyu nodded. "I understand." Then, softly: "You killed them, Sam." There was no reproach in the Kenyan's voice, only astonishment.

"I'm sorry I got you into this."

"No apologies necessary, my new friend. What do we do now?"

The police were going to be involved; there was no way around it, which is why he'd chosen to not use the M-14 and to dispose of it. The better he could play the lucky victim, the easier things would go.

He hit speed dial on his satellite phone. When Grimsdottir answered, he said simply, "Napper, three, mess. Stand by." Then he hung up and dialed Aly. She picked up on the first ring.

"My G.o.d, what happened?" she asked. "I heard shots over the phone-"

"Have you called the police?"