“What about Hazar?” I shouted as we hurried back toward the president’s office. “Did you tie him?”

“Yes.”

“He’ll drown.”

“Nothing we can do about that now,” he replied. “No time. Got to save ourselves.” He stopped by the exit and grabbed the red lever. “You’re more important, Oskari. Hazar will have to take his chances.” He twisted the lever and swung the door out, letting in a blast of cold air that reeked of aviation fuel.

There was something else, too — the sound of the helicopter hovering overhead. I had forgotten all about it because we hadn’t been able to hear it inside the sealed aircraft, but now it made me hesitate. Hazar’s men were still up there, waiting for their boss.

“Jump!” the president shouted.

I looked down at the surface of the lake.

“Now!” He shoved me out.

Bow in hand, I hit the water and went under as the president splashed down beside me. We surfaced together to take a gulp of stinking air and swam away from the plane, heading toward the shore.

The helicopter continued to hover overhead, waiting hopelessly for Hazar to complete his mission.

“We have to go under,” I said. “They’ll see us.”

The president nodded, and we took a deep breath before diving down and swimming as far as we could before resurfacing for air. When we had gotten a few yards away, I came up for breath and looked back to see the plane slowly disappearing beneath the lake. The tail that had once been standing proud, emblazoned with the US flag, was now gone, and the scorched area at the rear of the plane had sunk out of sight, too. It was like the lake was eating Air Force One.

I ducked back under and watched through the murky gloom as the massive bulk of the aircraft slipped backward, like a dying beast. The water seemed to boil as bubbles rushed around it, escaping from the air pockets that had saved our lives. The lights continued to flicker and blink, flashing red and green and yellow. Many were almost out of sight now, though, unable to pierce the darkness into which they were falling. A few more minutes and the plane would be at the bottom of the lake, taking Morris and Hazar with it.

When I resurfaced again, the president was looking back at his plane, too. Everything behind the wings was gone now; all that remained in view was the front part of the aircraft, where his office and suite were located, and the communications center and flight deck above.

The helicopter continued to hover overhead, casting ripples across the lake.

“Come on,” I said, shivering. “We can’t let them see us.”

The president watched for a moment longer, then dived under and followed me as we swam for the shore, passing beneath the countless dead fish flashing silver on the waves above.

The water was greasy with fuel, and each time we came up for breath the stink of it hurt my nostrils and made me light-headed. As we came closer to the shore, though, it lessened, gradually washing off our skin and clothing each time we went under.

I couldn’t believe we had beaten Hazar and Morris — but I also couldn’t help thinking about Hazar tied up in the president’s suite, panicking as the plane dragged him down to his death. There was something else, too: the constant presence of the men in the helicopter. All it would take was for one of them to look across the water and see us making our escape.

When we were close to the bank, I glanced back to see the helicopter hovering over what was left of the plane. It was almost gone now — the door we had jumped from was beneath the water, and the nose of the jet was at a more severe angle, pointing to the tops of the stunted trees on the small lake island that had kept Air Force One afloat during the night.

But something caught my attention.

Some kind of movement.

I blinked water from my eyes and looked again. Maybe it had been a curious bird, or debris swept up by the helicopter’s downdraught.

There it was again, though. Movement in the plane’s cockpit window.

“What’s that?” I said, wiping my face, trying to clear my vision.

The president stopped beside me and turned to watch. “I don’t see any —”

Something seemed to grow from the window. A dark shape that pushed upward like a moth emerging from a chrysalis.

“Hazar,” I said. It had to be.

“I tied him up.”

“Not well enough.”

As we watched, Hazar pulled himself through the broken cockpit window and crawled onto the nose of the jet. He paused, then got to his feet and looked out across the lake in our direction.

“He can’t see us,” the president said.

But Hazar lifted a hand and pointed right at us, then turned and signaled to the men in the helicopter.

“Yes, he can,” I said.

One of the soldiers leaned out and handed something down to Hazar. Part of a weapon I had seen before.

“Start swimming,” I said. “Now.”

We both turned and began swimming as fast as we could toward the shore. I knew what Hazar would do next. He would put that rifle together, fitting each part into place, and it wouldn’t take him long.

“Faster!” I shouted at the president, who was starting to fall behind. We were both exhausted, but I had something to make me swim faster — I knew what a good shot Hazar was. I had seen Patu run for his life and fail.

We made it to the shallows and put our feet down on the soft ground, wading quickly onto the shore. The muddy bank was open and clear for twenty yards or so before the tree line of the forest. Here and there, piles of driftwood lay like old bones, and craggy rocks and boulders littered the dirt as if they had been dropped from the sky. Those giant stones were the only cover available between the shore and the forest.

“Keep going!” I shouted. “To the rocks!”

We ran and stumbled to a collection of dark gray boulders, reaching them and diving for cover as Hazar’s first shot hit the ground halfway up the shore. It whizzed past us and smacked into the mud with a soft thump that sprayed a great gout of mud into the gray air. The sound of the gunshot reached us a fraction of a second later, a loud CRACK! that echoed around the lake, sending birds into the sky above the trees.

If we had been any slower, the shot would have hit the president.

“He got out?” he said. “How the hell did he get out?”

“Doesn’t matter,” I said. “It’s not important.”

I crawled along the ground and risked a peek through the narrow gap between two rocks. The helicopter was still there, hovering, and Hazar was standing by the plane’s cockpit window, rifle to his shoulder.

That was all I saw before I pulled away. And it was just as well, because Hazar had spotted me. As I moved back, a bullet struck the gap between the rocks, spraying sharp fragments and passing through to hit the mud behind me with a thump.

Once again, the sound of the shot cracked in the air a moment later.

“He has a good scope,” I said. “And he’s a good shot.”

“Oh my God,” the president said. “Is this ever going to end?”

“Yes,” I said. “It is.”

If we tried to make it to the tree line, Hazar would kill us. If we tried to make it to the water, Hazar would kill us. If we stayed where we were, Hazar would get into his helicopter and come over to kill us.

The only thing left was for us to attack.

I remembered what Dad had taught me, what he had reminded me about yesterday when we had driven up to the Place of Skulls. The two most important things. My knife and my fire kit.

As long as you have those two things, you can survive anywhere and anything. Carry them on you at all times. Never put them in your pack, and don’t lose them. Out there, they can be the difference between life and death.

My knife and my fire kit.

And my bow.

“I have an idea,” I said. “Get me a stick.”

“What?”

“A stick. Arrow-length.”

While the president shuffled over to the pile of driftwood behind us, I slipped my knife from its sheath and put it on the ground in front of me. I then took the fire kit from my zipped pocket, relieved to see that the waterproof tub was still sealed tight.

“Will this do?” the president said, holding up a slightly crooked stick.

“It’ll have to.” I used my knife to shorten it and notch a groove into one end. I quickly sharpened the other end to a point with two or three rapid cuts. With that done, I cut a thin strip from the hem of my shirt and put it between my teeth while I twisted open the waterproof tub.

“Knife and a fire kit,” the president said, starting to understand.

I nodded without looking at him, and took out the storm-proof matches.

“I guess this counts as an emergency, right?” he asked.

“Right,” I said through clamped teeth.

I cracked the seal on the yellow container and took out four of the matches.

I put them around the sharpened end of the arrow and held them in place with my left hand, using my right to take the strip of shirt from my mouth. Wrapping the cotton around the matches, I tied them to the stick with a simple knot, then nocked the makeshift arrow to my bow.

There were no feathered flights, and the stick was too crooked to fly straight, but I hoped it would be enough. It was all we had left.

Shifting onto my knees, I drew the bow back, gritting my teeth and calling on all the strength I had left. My arms shook, but I put every bit of energy into it. I had to make this count. It was our last chance.

When the string touched my cheek for the second time that day, I knew my plan would work.

“Light it,” I said, leaning back, angling the arrow toward the sky.

The president already had a match in his hand, and he struck it on the side of the container. When he touched it to the tip of the arrow, the other four matches flared with a whisper. I watched until I was certain they were alight, then I released the string.

Without flights, the arrow spun and twisted as it flew, but it sailed high. Propelled by the full power of the bow, it went up and up, arcing over the rocks, over the mud and over the lake until it finally began to descend, falling out of view.

Then, above the sound of the helicopter, we heard the distinctive WHUMP! of fuel catching fire, and large flames leaped into view over the top of the boulders.

“It worked,” I whispered, and scrambled over to the gap in the rocks.

What I saw through that gap was like Hell.

“Look!” I grabbed the president’s arm, and together we stood to see the surface of the lake burning and dancing in a huge wall of flame. Everything in front of us was on fire, flickering in places, erupting into huge columns in others. The inferno was alive, racing from place to place on the lake, hungrily burning every drop of aviation fuel as it streaked toward the plane.

We couldn’t see Hazar. The flames were too high. We could see the helicopter, though. We saw the way the rotor blades fanned the blaze as the aircraft tried to rise into the sky, but it was too late. The fire burned too fast and hot for anything to survive. It smothered the plane, engulfing its fuel-covered body, sucking into every air space, racing into the fuel tanks, and detonating in a massive eruption.

The helicopter was engulfed by the ball of flame, wrapped in the orange-and-black cloud that blew high into the sky. It spun and buffeted, then it added to the explosion, blowing outward into a thousand pieces.

The heat and the blast flashed back across the surface of the lake, peppering the shore with debris. Pieces of metal and plastic shot in all directions like a thousand bullets. The rocks sheltered us from the worst of it, but they couldn’t protect us from the concussive wave that knocked us off our feet. Nor could they protect us from the rain of fragments that came pouring down from the hellish, burning sky, thumping into the mud and scattering into the trees beyond.

Everything was overcome with heat and noise and smoke, and in the midst of the hurricane of fire, there was a sharp bump on my head and a moment of pain.