“What did I tell you?” The president sounded both relieved and excited. “They’re here to rescue me already.”

He turned around and leaned back to search the sky, but didn’t have to look hard because, from the west, a helicopter was moving quickly over the forest, engines thumping. From beneath, a piercing white beam cut through the darkness and rain, illuminating the wilderness below.

“Over here!” The president ran to a gap in the trees and began waving his arms like a madman. “Here! Help!”

The helicopter was already moving slowly along the burning scar, descending so that it was almost touching the tops of the trees. It was only a matter of time before it spotted us, but I wasn’t so sure this helicopter was coming to rescue the president. This might be the one I had seen earlier, but this time piloted by Hazar instead of Patu. When I first saw the pod, I had wondered how long it would be before he came to find what he had shot down. Not long, seemed to be the answer.

“Over here!” the president shouted again.

It would reach us in seconds. The noise was growing louder and louder. The treetops were swirling under its downdraught. And then it was so close it was deafening and the dry brown needles and fallen leaves were whipped up off the forest floor to swirl about in a hurricane with the embers and smoke from the fires. Grit battered my face and peppered my eyes. I shut them and turned away, trying to wipe them clean.

When I looked back, the president’s jacket was flapping in the wind, the searchlight was moving closer, and clear as day, I could see the words emblazoned across the side of the helicopter.

Safari Tours.

I stood in the middle of the hurricane as if my body didn’t want to move.

The world swirled around me and an image of Patu flashed into my head. I saw him running in slow motion, I saw Hazar lifting the rifle. I saw the tree explode in a shower of splinters and Patu’s body thrown away, shot and murdered.

“No!” I shouted. “No! It’s him!” I ran to the president, grabbed the back of his jacket and pulled, trying to drag him toward the trees.

“What the hell are you doing?” he yelled, snatching his jacket from my grasp.

“No!” I shouted again over the sound of the approaching helicopter. “It’s someone else, someone called Hazar. Please. You have to believe me. He’s a killer.”

“A killer?” The president looked at me in confusion.

The helicopter was almost on us now. The light was flicking across the treetops, sweeping from side to side, and would soon be pointing right down at us. I kept seeing Hazar’s gun and thinking that it was going to be pointing at us, trapped in that circle of white light.

“Please!” I said. “Get into the trees! Please!”

The president glanced up at the helicopter, then back at me. He must have seen something in my face because he nodded. “All right, kid. Go.”

We turned and ran, just as the beam passed close to the place where we had been standing. We hurried to the thickest trees, and threw ourselves down into the undergrowth.

The president landed with a heavy thump as the beam flicked over us. The piercing light swept around, then quickly twitched back and focused on the metallic pod. The bright white light reflected from the shiny metal and lit up the forest. The dark shadows of tree trunks spiked out at all angles, so that now it really did look as if a UFO had landed. The air was a dust storm of clutter as the helicopter hovered right above the pod.

All around us, the ferns and saplings flowed and flickered in the current. The noise was deafening.

Beside me, the president started to get up, so I put a hand on his back and shook my head at him. “Just wait,” I shouted. “Let’s see who it is.”

The president hesitated, still unsure.

“It’s better to be safe,” I told him. “Just watch. Please.”

He nodded and settled back into the ferns.

For a few seconds nothing happened, then the door slid open on the side of the helicopter and two ropes dropped down into the clearing, where they coiled like snakes. Four men, the ones I had seen earlier that evening, leaped from the helicopter and slipped down the ropes, two at a time. When they reached the ground, they unclipped and fanned out in different directions, crouching and aiming their submachine guns into the forest at different angles.

The president looked confused. These men were heavily armed and looked like soldiers, but I guessed he wasn’t expecting his Navy SEALs to rappel down from a Safari Tours helicopter. He watched, openmouthed, as two more men zipped down the ropes, landed and unclipped.

I recognized Hazar right away. He had his oversize rifle slung over his back and his black hair was shining in the light. He looked around, then raised a gloved hand to the pilot. In response, the ropes sucked back up into the helicopter, the doors slid shut, and the machine turned in the air. It climbed high above the trees, then dipped its nose and flew away across the forest. The whole thing had taken no more than a minute.

When the helicopter was gone, there was a total emptiness left in its wake. Everything was completely still and dark, and I didn’t dare move in case someone heard us.

My eyes didn’t need time to adjust to the darkness, though, because the men in the clearing were already emptying their backpacks and erecting tripods, topped with lights, which they aimed at the escape pod. I glanced at the president. He looked as if he didn’t have a clue what was happening.

Close by, Hazar stood very still and scanned the area once more before looking at the man who had rappelled alongside him. The man responded by taking a strange-looking weapon from his back. He fiddled with it for a moment, then opened it up. I realized then that it was not a weapon but an umbrella, which he held over Hazar’s head.

Hazar stayed where he was, watching his men fixing the lights and setting up what appeared to be a camera.

“What’s going on?” the president whispered.

I nudged him and put a finger to my lips, shaking my head. Noise carried well in the forest at night, and we couldn’t risk these men hearing us.

“Is the camera ready?” Hazar’s accented voice was deep and he spoke slowly.

“Almost, sir,” replied the man who was preparing the camera, pointing it at the escape pod.

“What the hell is the camera for?” This voice made me jump. It was close, no more than five yards away from where we were lying, and whoever had spoken was in the forest; they hadn’t come down from the helicopter.

Obviously Hazar wasn’t expecting the voice, either, because his men whipped around and aimed their weapons toward the place where it had come from.

I pressed myself closer to the ground, making myself as invisible as possible, and nudged the president again, but he had already done the same thing.

“Who’s that?” Hazar spoke quietly.

“Who do you think?” A figure came toward the other men, but was obscured from our view by the trunk of a large pine. It was impossible to get any idea of what he looked like, but he spoke with an American accent, like the president.

“Oh, it’s you,” Hazar said. “You don’t look ready for your close-up; you’re a mess. Have trouble getting here?”

“I did what I had to.”

“When you didn’t show up, I thought maybe your parachute didn’t open.”

“It did,” the man said. “The others weren’t so lucky. What’s the camera for?”

“We’re going to record this moment for posterity,” Hazar said. “Big game hunting never got any bigger.”

“I’m camera shy,” the man replied.

Beside me, the president pushed himself up a little, as if listening intently while trying to see around the tree trunk.

I put out a hand to stop him but he ignored me and started to shuffle to one side, so I grabbed his arm and held him tight. The president stared at me with a grim expression. His eyes narrowed and his jaw bulged, but he nodded and eased back into the undergrowth.

“Are you ready?” Hazar asked.

“Yes, sir,” said the cameraman.

Hazar walked across the clearing to stand beside the pod. He reached out and touched it. The man with the umbrella followed him, keeping Hazar out of the drizzle.

“This is a wonderful moment.” Hazar closed his eyes. “Something to savor.”

When his eyes flicked open again, they reflected the lights, making him look like some kind of forest demon. For a moment, I was reminded of Mom’s stories.

“Tell me the code,” he said.

The man hidden by the tree cleared his throat. “Fourteen-ninety-two.”

The president tensed beside me. His hands drew into fists and his whole body was shaking.

Hazar smiled. “In fourteen hundred and ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue. Fourteen-ninety-two. Nice touch.” He turned and punched three numbers into the keypad.

“Gentlemen.” He looked back at his men. “Prepare to meet the president of the United States of America.”

With a final flourish he keyed in the fourth number and a familiar grinding noise filled the night. It was followed by a long hiss of hydraulics, and as the door popped open and slid to one side, Hazar straightened up and looked into the pod.

“What the hell … ?”

Silhouetted in the light, he stepped forward and paused with one hand on the edge of the door. “What —?” He leaned inside. “Where —?” He backed away in confusion, then whipped around to face the figure behind the tree. “What the hell is this?”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s not there,” Hazar growled.

“What do you mean ‘he’s not there’? Where else would he be?”

“See for yourself.” There was menace in Hazar’s voice as he moved to one side and pointed into the empty pod.

The figure hesitated, then came out from behind the tree and strode over to investigate. We could see him more clearly now — the dirty suit, a lot like the president’s, and the muddy shoes that had once been shiny — but his back was to us, hiding his face.

“Turn around,” the president whispered beside me.

The man in the suit looked inside the pod. “It doesn’t make any sense. How the hell did he get out? I removed the handle inside. He couldn’t open the door unless someone —”

Hazar pointed to one of his men, who came forward and drove the butt of his weapon into the suited man’s back, just below his right shoulder. It came down with a hard crunch, and I heard the air go right out of him as he crumpled in a heap. He lay facedown, then groaned and rolled over.

Two more of Hazar’s soldiers came forward and stood over the man, casting shadows across his face as they aimed their weapons down at him.

“We had a deal.” Hazar ran a hand over his beard and spoke through his teeth. “You promised to deliver the president.” He moved to stand over the suited man and exploded as if he couldn’t contain his anger anymore. “NOW DO IT!”

“He’s supposed to be in there,” said the man in the suit. “I did everything exactly as I said I would.”

“Then how do you explain his absence?”

“Someone must have opened the door for him. It’s the only explanation.”

“Out here?” Hazar looked about and spread his arms wide. “In the middle of nowhere?”

“How about you let me get up and try to figure it out?”

Hazar considered the man’s suggestion, then stepped back and ordered his soldiers to stand down. They lowered their weapons and the suited man got to his feet and began moving around the clearing, studying the ground. Hazar’s men stuck close to him, blocking us from getting a good look at him.

“What are you doing?” Hazar asked.

“Looking for something. Anything.” He stopped and crouched, putting his fingers to the damp soil.

“What is it? What have you found?”

“A footprint.” The man stood up again. “Someone did help him get out. Someone with a small shoe size.”

“Small shoe size? What does that mean?”

“Usually it means small feet.”

“Don’t try to be clever with me.” Hazar snapped his fingers and one of his men sprang into action, raising his weapon. Before he could put it to his shoulder, though, the man in the suit whipped out a pistol as if from nowhere and fired two shots into the soldier’s chest.

Gunfire echoed in the wilderness and the soldier collapsed, but hadn’t even hit the mud before the suited man was moving. He crossed the short distance to Hazar in an instant and grabbed hold of him, twisting his body so he was shielding himself from the other soldiers. He pressed the barrel of his pistol under Hazar’s chin and spoke clearly.

“I’ve gone to a lot of trouble to organize this hunt for you, you overprivileged psychopath. Not because I wanted to, but because I need the very generous amount of money you’re offering. I do not intend to lose that money because you can’t control your temper or because my plans are ruined by someone with small feet. Do you understand?”

Hazar only nodded. His expression was surprisingly calm.

“If I’m going to collect that money, though, I need to deliver you the president — which I intend to do. Until then, you need to keep me alive, because without me, you will never have access to this” — with his left hand, he dug a phone from his pocket and held it up for Hazar to see — “or to the information it can give us. And before you get any ideas, Hazar, this can’t be accessed without my password. Now, do we have an understanding, or should I just kill you now?”

Hazar seemed impressed rather than angry at the suited man’s outburst. He smiled and held out his hands. “Fair enough. You argue a good point. So what does your useful telephone tell you? How long before the Americans figure out their mistakes?”

The man in the suit removed his pistol from under Hazar’s chin and stepped away, keeping the weapon pointed at Hazar’s head.

“There really is no need for that,” Hazar said. “You have my word.”

“For what that’s worth.” The man slowly lowered his pistol, holding it by his side.

Hazar shrugged. “How much time do we have?”

“Well, I disposed of the transponder, as I said I would, so right now they’ll be looking for it somewhere over the Norwegian Sea. We have a good head start, and they won’t think of looking anywhere near here until at least dawn tomorrow. No one is coming until then, so for now I suggest you call your helicopter back, because we’re going to need the rest of your gear.” The man put away his weapon. “Let’s do what you came here for. We’ll have a hunt.”

“Follow the small shoe prints?” Hazar asked.

The suited man nodded. “Follow the small shoe prints.”