IN SLOW MOTION, Jake recalled the snicker on Frank’s face when he’d pointed the pistol at the man earlier. It was the gun Frank had given Jake as a trade for the SIG that was out of ammo. Frank had known the pistol posed no threat, because he must have removed the firing pin from it and the assault rifle. From the sneer on the charging warrior’s face, the man already knew that. He was two steps from launching into Jake.
Jake dropped the pistol, coiled his muscles, and locked his focus on the man, ignoring the unexpected sound of the plane’s engine turning over beside him. The engine coughed, and stopped.
The air whistled at his ear, and an arrow buried itself in the warrior’s throat. The hatchet fell, the man clasped the protruding bolt, and his momentum carried him crashing into the water.
Along with the key.
Another arrow whisked past Jake. The second runner dodged it. He spun and ran toward shore. Jake looked back to see a dripping wet Lucy charging another arrow.
“Forget about it!” he shouted. “Get in the plane. Now!” Alex was kneeling on the pilot’s seat, reaching forward. The engine coughed twice, then settled into idling.
Jake had no time to contemplate how the hell Alex knew how to start the plane. When he spun back around, a dozen more warriors were spilling from the trees and racing toward the dock. They’d be on Jake in thirty seconds, and they all had bows.
He unslung the AA-12 shotgun, flipped off the safety, shouldered it, and fired a spurt of three rounds toward the shoreline. The recoil was much less than he’d expected. He’d aimed high, thinking the rounds would arc down into the line of combatants charging down the hill forty yards from him. Instead, the ground well behind them exploded in a burst of dirt and debris. They all stopped in their tracks. He remembered Tony telling him, Every enemy hates facing a shotgun. A single bullet is one thing, but an expanding blast of lead is another. Apparently the Amazonian natives were no exception. A few charged their bows, but the warrior leading them uttered something and they lowered their weapons.
Jake glanced at Alex, who looked back at him from the cockpit. Lucy, who was sitting in the back of the plane, stared at the two of them like they were crazy.
“We’re not safe yet,” she shouted. Her eyes went wide. “Move!”
Jake dodged to one side, and a dart whizzed past him. It came from the trees fronting Frank’s bar. Jake turned and fired two rounds into the shadows. Tree bark exploded, a man shouted, and Jake ducked as another dart zipped from a different copse of trees. Instead of returning fire, he aimed the shotgun at the padlocked dock cleat in front of him, turned his head away, and fired twice.
The dock shuddered, and a hundred bees stung Jake’s neck, scalp, and hands. When he looked back, there was a huge chunk of dock missing where the cleat had been, and the seaplane was drifting away.
He was about to leap for the pontoon when three natives broke cover and raised their blowguns. He twisted to one side as two more darts whistled past, and a third plinked off one of the useless assault rifle mags tucked into his tactical vest. When he turned back, the plane was twenty feet away.
Between the current and the idling props, the plane moved farther away from him with every beat. The natives had gathered their courage. They spread out and converged on the dock, each holding a blowgun. Even if he blasted them all with the shotgun, there were two dozen more sprinting down the hill. Instead, he raced toward the end of the dock at mini-fueled top speed, stripping off his pack and vest faster than Clark Kent prepping to take flight as Superman. He refused to leave the shotgun behind, so he slung it over his shoulder just before he leaped headlong into the water.
His arms and legs churned the water, but as fast as he was, he was having trouble catching up to the plane. The soggy clothes, boots, and shotgun weighed him down, and he started to feel lightheaded. He glanced back to see several six-man canoes chasing him, the natives’ paddles digging into the water in a practiced dance he couldn’t compete against.
But then the plane’s engine revved and it started to turn around.
Blood pumped faster through his body. He kicked and stroked with every ounce of his strength. The plane completed its turn and the engine revved again. This time it was headed straight for him and the distance was closing fast.
Too fast.
He slowed his strokes, trying to recoup the strength he’d need to yank himself aboard the fast-moving pontoon. The rear passenger door opened, and Lucy held it open with a bloody foot. She raised her bow and loosed an arrow toward the lead canoe less than thirty yards behind him. The arrow missed, and the paddles dug deeper.
“Don’t slow down!” he shouted as he noticed the chunk of dock floating along the other side of the seaplane. The chain was still looped around the strut. The free end with the padlocked cleat—and the thick plank of wood it was attached to—danced on the water. He kicked hard, angling toward that side of the plane. For a moment he thought he wouldn’t make it. He wasn’t moving fast enough, and the aircraft was headed straight for him. He saw Alex’s shocked expression as his son realized it, too. Then Alex ducked from sight and the plane veered to Jake’s left, the pontoon gliding past him. He used a final spurt of energy to grab the chain and yank himself up. Unsecured, the pilot-side door swung back and forth as the plane bounced on the rippling water. Jake saw Alex bracing himself on the seat as he stretched his short legs to push on the rudder pedal. Jake pulled himself onto the seat and grabbed the controls.
“I got it,” he said. Alex scrambled over the console to the passenger seat. Jake jammed the throttle forward. Lucy let go another arrow, and the canoes were so close now she couldn’t miss. A native fell into the water. Darts plinked off Alex’s door. With the bend in the river up ahead, there wasn’t enough distance to lift off, but Jake didn’t slow until the natives were well behind them. When they passed Frank’s place, Jake turned to set up for a downriver takeoff.
“Oh, no!” Alex shouted, rushing into the backseat. “Lucy’s hit.”
Jake turned to see her stretched out on the seat, her legs riddled with tiny, bloody bites. A school of piranhas must have feasted on her while she’d wrestled to open the dock chain. But it wasn’t the bites that clutched at his heart. It was the red-shafted poison dart protruding from her shoulder. Her eyes were closed, her face was white, and her chest wasn’t moving.
Jake turned back around and choked back a swell of sadness as yet another innocent lost her life because of him. The canoes were adjusting their positions in front of him, hoping to block his path. It was a smart move, because even though the speeding plane would crash through the boats, it couldn’t do so without destroying the pontoons and the seaplane would nose into the water. That wasn’t about to stop him, though. His blood boiled at the loss of the girl with the warrior spirit, and he wasn’t going to let her death go unanswered.
He glanced back. Tears were streaming down Alex’s face. Lucy’s foot dangled partway outside the airplane, preventing the door from closing. Alex saw it, too. “I’ll get it, Dad.”
The shotgun was digging into Jake’s back. He unslung it and rested it on his lap. He eased the throttle forward and steered toward the left shoreline. The line of canoes stretched from one side of the river to the other, the natives paddling to hold them in position. They must have thought his move toward the shoreline was a feint to get around them, because they adjusted to prevent it.
Perfect.
As he passed Frank’s bar, he spotted a group of villagers carting something up the hill. He guessed it was Mandu and her friends hauling the bastard away.
“You go, girl,” he whispered. “While I avenge your daughter.”
He goosed the throttle and aimed the plane at the leftmost boat in the line. The natives got twitchy. As the plane rocketed forward as if it would crash into them, one man dove into the water. At the last second, Jake eased the throttle and spun the aircraft to make it parallel to the line of canoes. He kicked his door open, held it in place with his foot, and as soon as he was alongside the first boat, he fired a burst from the shotgun.
The canoe exploded in a shower of blood and shrapnel. The plane continued its track along the line of boats. He opened fire on the second, and the third, screaming his rage. By then the rest of the canoes were scattered like droplets of oil on a flaming skillet.
When it was over, Jake had to take several breaths to calm himself. Glancing in the rearview mirror, he was grateful to see Alex had buried his face in his hands. Pushing out a long breath, he turned the plane downriver, lowered the flaps, and pushed the throttle to its limit.