Page 102 of Clive Cussler's Quantum Tempest

Tamacas slumped unconscious. Fierro instructed his guard to zip-tie his childhood friend, and ordered the pilot to hover in place some five hundred feet above the moonlit sea. The cabin door was flung open and Fierro himself tossed Narcisco into the night sky, cowboy boots and all. The unfettered legs of the lifeless body fluttered in the wind, making Tamacas look like he was running toward the sea. Fierro couldn’t help but grin at the absurdly tragic image.

Narcisco’s body diminished into a silvery splash erupting far below, its noise masked by the Sikorsky’s hovering turbines. His friend’s death was an unfortunate necessity, Fierro seeing no other way to resolve the issue. There was no reasoning with Narcisco’s atavistic impulses nor blunting his reckless behavior. Vargas had always been right. Killing Narcisco was an inevitability he shouldn’t have tried to avoid. He took no pleasure in his friend’s death, but a terrible burden was now lifted from his shoulders.

Fierro shut the cabin door and ordered the pilot to resume his flight plan, his spirits soaring. Project Q would be launching any day now, and the world would never be the same.

?

Panama

Raven and Linc finally took a break about an hour from Eidolon’s camp. Raven called Juan via the emergency radio and filled him in on the details, including the death of their target.

“At least he didn’t fall into anybody else’s hands,” Cabrillo said over the roar of the tilt-rotor engines still heading for theOregon. “Thank God you guys are okay. When will you make the LZ?”

“Six a.m. local, if all goes according to plan.”

“Does it ever?” Juan asked.

“Looking forward to seeing the AW. Getting pretty tired of the walking tour down here.”

“Won’t be in the AW. Gomez just informed me there’s a problem with the hydraulics. Looks like you two will be hitching a ride on the Joby. You’ll just be in range.” The Joby was capable of traveling over five hundred miles with its hydrogen-electric battery system.

“Looking forward to it.”

“If anything changes, let us know. Otherwise, I’ll put a pot of coffee on the burner for you two in the morning. Godspeed.”

“You too, Chairman. I hope you know that Linc and I—”

“Forget it, Rave. I know you two left it all on the mat. That’s all any of us can do. We leave the rest to fate.”

“We never did find that Quds Force camp, either.”

“Are you hearing me, little sister? You get back to the ship safe and sound and I’ll be one happy camper. Got it?”

“Got it.”

“Cabrillo out.”

57

Aboard theBaktun

Amador Fierro piloted the large seaplane onto a splashy landing in the choppy Pacific some hundred yards away from theBaktun. It was a skillful maneuver even for an experienced pilot, and though Fierro was an excellent aviator he hadn’t put much time in behind the yoke of his most recently purchased airplane.

A low, heavy cloud layer hung above the ship like a lingering umbrella of cabin smoke in a cold mountain valley. Fierro feathered the four Rolls-Royce turboprops to a standstill before pulling off his headset and turning the controls over to the plane’s regular pilot, who immediately began his preflight checklist. The plane was still well within its certified range of twenty-nine hundred miles and the fuel tanks were just over half full. A refueling from theBaktunwas possible, but neither desirable nor necessary in the suboptimal conditions.

An inflatable from theBaktunpulled alongside the fuselage cargo door just as Fierro’s supersized bodyguard yanked it open. The two men leaped into the bobbing boat and the helmsman rocketed away. Moments later, the inflatable pulled up next to the pilot’s boarding door near the waterline. Despite his sleepless exhaustion, Fierro grabbed the interior handles and easily pulled himself up, brushing away the assistance offered by the two burly crewmen nearby. His gunman followed suit.

“Welcome aboard, sir,” the Brazilian first officer said. “I hope the boat ride wasn’t too unpleasant.”

“Where’s Stokes?”

“The captain is waiting for you in the CIC.”

Fierro grunted his disapproval. It wasn’t as if Fierro were a mere passenger. Did Stokes forget who owned this boat?

“Take me to him.”

“Yes, sir. Follow me.”