Page 5 of Clive Cussler's Quantum Tempest

So much for Suárez being out here all alone.

The roaring flames ate away at the remaining roof and walls. Cabrillo ignored the cauldron of unbearable heat as he wrestled the groaning Colombian into the body bag and cinched it up like a madman’s straight jacket, immobilizing Suárez’s limbs, but keeping his head exposed for air.

The headlights squealed to a braking halt outside in a hail of angry shouts. Cabrillo glanced up to see a dozen men with rifles bolting through the headlight beams and splashing into the water.

He grabbed the bagged Colombian and dragged him down the steps in painful thuds, close enough to the water to toss him in and jump in behind him.

Keeping a grip on the bag and holding Suárez’s head above the water, Cabrillo pulled the charging handle on the outside of the Skyhook bag. An attached bottle of helium instantly inflated a heavy black balloon that raced into the sky. Seconds later, the air thundered with the roar of four big Allison turboprops as the Hercules raced in on a low-altitude approach above the rushing water.

Suárez startled, screaming curses and shouting, “Asesino! Asesino! Te mataré!”

Cabrillo was about to shut him up when the air split with a horrifying scream behind them.

The woman in the hut was still alive.

Cabrillo wanted to puke. He should’ve tried to get her.

“Nadia! Nadia!” Suárez was manic with terror.

The wire line connecting the balloon to Suárez’s bag snapped taut as the balloon reached full altitude three hundred feet above the river and clear of the tree line.

Shattering AK-47 gunfire echoed from the shoreline. Bullet splashesgeysered the water around Cabrillo as he spun with Suárez in the swirling current. Cabrillo called out to Overholt.

“We’re good to go, Phaeton.”

“ETA in ten seconds, my boy.”

Cabrillo glanced back at the shore. Some of the trucks were moving again, tracking their progress downriver. In the moonlight Cabrillo caught a glimpse of the truck-mounted heavy machine guns in their beds.

The original plan was for Cabrillo to get Suárez airborne and then he would hike over to the nearby Peruvian border about ten miles away, where a local would guide him to a waiting airplane. But with the arrival of FARC soldiers now tracking him along the shoreline, that plan was in the crapper. They’d cut him down before he could even get out of the river, or worse, snatch him up.

He needed a plan B, and fast.

The Hercules came in like a thunderclap over the tree line, its Y-shaped nose yoke pointed directly at the Skyhook balloon line.

Cabrillo’s instincts took over. He grabbed the restraining straps on Suárez’s bag and scissored his legs around the assassin in a death grip just as the yoke snagged the cable. The two men rocketed into the sky with a spine-jolting snap. Red tracers from the truck-bed machine guns zipped through the night sky, alternately streaking for the Hercules or its human cargo suspended in the air as AKs flashed from the riverbanks.

The two men whirligigged as the Hercules gained altitude. Cabrillo’s guts dumped into the bottom of his boots at the nearly vertical climb. His eyes fixed on the glowing red sparks pouring up from the still-burning hut with each passing spin, wondering if the woman escaped a fiery death.

“Torpedo, status!” Overholt barked over the radio.

“No time to buy a ticket,” Cabrillo shouted as he streaked through the sky at over three hundred miles per hour. “Thought I’d hitch a ride.” Cabrillo’s grip was wrapped through the straps and cemented with another adrenaline surge, but he wondered if he could hold on long enough for Overholt to reel the two of them in.

“We need to stay low,” Overholt said. “That means a lot of turbulence. We’re pulling you up now. You good?”

“Just peachy. One question.”

“What’s that?”

“When does a guy get a cup of coffee and a bag of peanuts on this lousy airline?”

3

Aboard theOregon

Present Day

Juan Cabrillo’s eyes popped open. He was tangled up in a twisted heap of sweaty sheets on his luxurious king-size bed. His eyes still bleary from a fitful sleep, he stared at the coffered ceiling for a moment as he sought his bearings. The spinning blades of the ceiling fan provided a whisper of cleansing air that finally cleared his mind. He suddenly remembered he was in his cabin.