Chapter 13

Peter had at least seen Frank barreling toward him a moment before he crashed into them, but it hadn’t soften the blow. Geneviève had flailed into him and Frank had driven them both into the grass.

He knew of only one reason Frank would do such a thing.

Sure enough. Gunfire. Up in the air. All the scenarios, all the lectures about domestic crazies and international terrorists did nothing to prepare him for the shock.

Someone was trying to kill him. He didn’t know which was worse, the cold fear that swamped him, or the terror that they might kill Geneviève instead.

Even as Frank rolled over to cover him and Beatrice moved in to cover Geneviève, Peter could see at least some of what was happening. One of the escort planes had shot down one of the Marine One helicopters. Flames coming out of her engines, the helicopter was spiraling down toward the ground, the pilot clearly fighting to perform an auto-rotate landing.

Even as he watched, the second helicopter was struck. The crew chiefs were fighting back with rifles, but were no match for the fighter jet. They were close enough to the ground, that though they pretty much fell out of sky, they didn’t have far to fall. Still they rolled and tumbled until they fetched up hard on part of the temple. A huge stone block high atop a column teetered, wobbled, and then settled without falling.

“I’ve got to move you, now!” Frank grabbed his shoulder and dragged him to his feet.

Geneviève was still struggling to free herself from beneath Beatrice.

“She’s coming with us.”

“No time, Mr. President.” Frank pulled at him again but he resisted.

“My fiancée is coming with us!”

“Fiancée?” Frank stared at him nose-to-nose for two heartbeats as he digested the information, his fist still clamped in the shoulder of Peter’s suit jacket. “Got it. Beat, up! We’re on the move!”

In moments, Peter had Geneviève’s hand clamped in his. The two of them stayed low and sprinted behind Frank.

The plane, having finished the helicopters, now strafed the people on the plateau, scattering them like chaff.

Frank dove behind a low temple wall. Peter dragged Geneviève down with him as he did the same.

The scattered Secret Service agents returned fire, but handguns and small rifles against a jet served as little more than a distraction to the pilot.

Then the agents grouped together and moved away.

“Hey, shouldn’t they be coming to help protect us?”

“Mr. President,” Frank had his gun out and was scanning the sky and ground for other attackers. “Per training, they’re pretending they already have you with them to draw the aggressor’s fire. Now shut up, I’m busy trying to save you.”

Sure enough, the plane took another run at the cluster of agents moving toward the entrance of the temple complex.

Frank was calling into his radio. “Merlin unharmed. Continue to distract.”

The plane fired a rocket that impacted a low stone wall a hundred feet away, close to the clustered agents. There was a roar that pounded against Peter’s ears and a ball of fire. Fragments of rock whistled through the air, he saw two agents drop to the ground.

Then a second plane dove in.

It attacked the first.

“He’s a renegade!” Peter shouted to Frank. It would fit. One plane doing his job, but the other one hijacked for the attack. Target of opportunity.

Frank nodded, “But why would they want to kill you?”

“They don’t.” Geneviève crawled up to face Frank. “Injure, perhaps. The pilot could easily have placed that rocket in the center of those agents. I think that the President is wanted alive, as a bargaining chip. The question is by who?”

Peter looked at her. Her hair was a mess, her lip was bleeding, and her hands scraped raw, but she didn’t seem to care about that. Instead, she looked pissed, and calculating.

“Cambodians?” Frank was watching the two planes dogfight above, but he was clearly paying attention to what Geneviève had to say.

“No. The President is a guest of their country. You saw how offended Minister Pok was by Thailand’s claims to the temple. Nationalist pride. He’d never want to harm the President while he was a guest of Cambodia. Thailand?”

Peter finally saw it.

“Yes, Thailand. And not some random terrorist. This is government sponsored, or at least a faction of it. They hijacked a Cambodian fighter jet to attack us. If he survives the Cambodian jet’s attempt to protect us—”

An explosion shattered the air above. A ball of fire exploded just past the edge of the escarpment. A shattered jet spun downward in flames. No pilot ejected.

“Which was that?”

“The Cambodian, sir. One Thai fighter is still aloft.”

“Then, if Geneviève is right,” Peter kept an eye on the plane. “He will make one or two more runs at us for show, wounding but not killing. After that, he’ll be shot down by the Thai Army forces we saw stationed beyond the entrance. But they’ll shoot him down over Thai soil so that he has a chance to parachute to safety.”

“Then,” Geneviève picked up the story. “Then they will come to capture you, killing all of the Cambodians. They will claim that they saved you and use it as an excuse to attack Cambodia, if not in war, then in the international courts.”

“Which means,” Frank glanced at his watch. “We have about three minutes to get you off this plateau, Mr. President.”

“I know the way!” Genny spoke as if she too were one of his trained agents. “But I need a couteau. A knife.”

Frank looked at her in confusion as she held out a palm. With a shrug, Frank produced one from somewhere.

Geneviève used it to slit the side of her skirt well up her thigh. She handed the knife back to Frank.

“You own me a new skirt, Mr. President.”

“I’ll buy you a wedding dress, Geneviève.”

She flashed him a smile, then was off and running.

Peter made to follow, but Frank stopped him with a hand against the center of his chest.

Frank stared him straight in the eye. “You trust her?”

“A hundred percent. And she’s Southeast Asia Chief of Unit for UNESCO World Heritage. She knows this site better than anyone here.”

Frank processed for an eyeblink, then nodded.

Then Peter, Frank, and Beatrice sprinted after Geneviève.