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Jade rolled into a protective fetal curl, covering her head with her arms as the hot shock wave slammed into her, and stayed in that position for several seconds afterward as pieces of flaming debris began raining down all around her. By some miracle, none of it found her, but this was little comfort. Without the Rover....
She pushed the dire thought away and raised her head. “Professor? You still with me?”
“Jade! Over here!”
She started to rise, cocking her head to home in on his voice, but he stopped her with a hiss. “Stay down.”
Something rustled in the grass beside her and she flinched, half-expecting to find herself staring down the gullet of a black caiman, but it was just Professor. “Stay down,” he repeated. “If they suspect we’re still alive, they might shoot another RPG.”
“What, because blowing up the Rover twice sends a stronger message?”
“I meant shoot it at us. RPGs aren’t exactly the ideal antipersonnel weapon, but just like horseshoes, sometimes close is good enough.”
“Oh. I knew that.”
He looked away, searching the surrounding area as if looking for a target. Jade realized that he had his pistol out.
“I saw three or four of them swimming across,” she said.
“I know,” he said without turning to her.
“Have you got a plan?”
“This is it.” He thumbed a lever on the side of his pistol, caught the magazine as it fell from the grip. After a quick visual inspection, he shook his head and slid it home again. “We play possum and hope they don’t trip over us.”
“How are we going to—”
“Shhh!”
Jade frowned. Was Professor silencing her because the bad guys were close or was he just trying to avoid answering her questions? She wasn’t sure which explanation was better, but nevertheless did as instructed, clamping her mouth shut.
At first, the only thing she could hear was the sound of her own breathing, but after a few seconds, she could hear other sounds. The crackling of the flames that were still burning in the wreckage of their Land Rover. The soft rushing sound of the river. The rustling of something or someone moving through the vegetation... Men shouting in Spanish. Not too close, but definitely too close for comfort.
And then she heard something else. The distinctive roar of a jet engine, growing louder with each passing second.
Crap! Just when I thought this day couldn’t get any worse.
She jolted as several rapid-fire reports sounded nearby. Without offering a word of explanation, Professor abruptly rolled over onto her, covering her body with his own, one hand clamped over her mouth. She knew he was just trying to protect her, but it took every ounce of self-control she possessed to simply lay there and let it happen.
A moment later, she heard a scream, which was abruptly cut off by what sounded like a stampede in the tall grass. It took another second or two for the buzz saw report of the distant machine gun to reach her ears, but when it did, she put two and two together.
The approaching aircraft—a helicopter—was shooting at the men on the ground with a large caliber automatic weapon. The kind of weapon soldiers might have.
“We’re saved!” she shouted, or tried to. The exclamation was almost completely muffled by Professor’s hand, and what came out sounded more like “Wuh say.”
“Shhh,” he said again, whispering into her ear. “We don’t know who that is or what they want. They’ll probably shoot first and ask questions later.”
She hated to admit it, but he was right. Nobody knew they were out here, which meant the helicopter wasn’t there to save them. Even if it was the Peruvian military, ready to take down the smugglers or terrorist or whatever they were, they wouldn’t be able to differentiate good guys from bad, not from the air at least.
Okay, so maybe we’re not saved.
The noise grew louder, the helicopter beating the air and flattening the grass with its rotor wash, as it descended, setting down on the road near the burning Rover, less than a hundred yards away. There hadn’t been any shooting after the initial burst, but all that meant was that the soldiers were waiting for some fool to poke his or her head up so they could shoot it off.
She heard more shouting now, which seemed unusual given the amount of ambient noise. Even more surprising however, was what the man was shouting.
“Jade! Jade Ihara!”
“Wuh thu feh?” Jade muttered into Professor’s hand.
As if waiting for that cue, he let go, rolling off her. “Someone here to see you,” he whispered.
Jade glared at him. “What am I supposed to do?”
Professor shrugged. “Ask them what they want.”
“And what if what they want is to blow my head off?”
“I don’t think it is, but I’ll cover you. Trust me.”
“Trust you,” she grumbled, but then rose up on all fours and slowly... very slowly, stood with both hands raised high in the air.
As her head came up above the surrounding foliage, she saw clearly the helicopter idling on the ground, a stone’s throw from the blasted remains of the Land Rover. It was definitely a military aircraft. Its bulbous fuselage bristling with weapons and rocket pods looked like a gigantic high-tech killer wasp. Half-a-dozen men, all wearing green-gray camouflage uniforms were fanning out from it in a loose semi-circle, and as Jade appeared before them, they all shifted their assault rifles toward her.
“Don’t shoot!” she cried. “It’s me. I’m Jade.”
She didn’t know if they could hear or understand, so she reached her hands a little bit higher, and as she did, she realized that one of the men didn’t look like the others. Instead of a camouflage uniform and combat gear, he wore denim jeans and a khaki bush shirt, its long sleeves rolled up above his elbows. He had a thick beard and his uncovered head was an unruly black mop, tousled by the persistent rotor wash. He was good-looking, too; not movie-star or male-model pretty-boy handsome, but rougher, more masculine. His dark eyes locked onto her, and as he started toward her, she knew that he was the one who had been calling her name.
The man turned away for a moment, shouting to the nearest soldier, who in turn barked an order to the others, and just like that, the rifles were aimed elsewhere.
Okay, that’s a hopeful sign, Jade thought.
The man returned his attention to her and kept moving forward until he was only a couple steps away. He cupped a hand over his mouth and in a voice that was only slightly softer than a shout, said, “Dr. Ihara, I presume?”
She grinned, strangely giddy at his use of her academic title. “That’s me.”
“You can put your hands down,” he said, extending his own right hand.
She dropped her arms, feeling a flush of embarrassment, and quickly accepted his hand clasp. “Hi. Call me Jade.”
“Nick Kismet.”
Kismet? Seriously? What is this guy, a rock star or something? She decided not to say it aloud.
His gaze flitted past her just for a moment, then he added, “Tell your friend that it’s safe to come out. We’re the good guys.”
Jade laughed nervously, then turned, searching the grass for Professor but he was nowhere to be seen. She shrugged. “He’s kind of shy. I guess he’ll join us when he’s ready. So what are you doing here, Nick Kismet?”
“Believe it or not, I was looking for you.”
“Well, here I am. But that doesn’t really answer my question.”
He chuckled softly. “It looks like you guys could use a ride out of here. How about we talk about it on the way?”
“On the way to where?”
His expression became a little more serious. “That’s one of the things we need to talk about.”