“The Vietcong,” Dallas answered for him. “Right, Dan?”
Dan nodded. “It’s hard to shake the old cautions, but I do know we’re almost certainly alone up here. We must have hit a mountain plateau.”
“Well, eventually someone will show up, right?” Dallas prodded.
“Sure,” Dan agreed. “Eventually. But God knows when.”
“So what do we do?” Britta asked.
“We walk out of here,” Robert MacCabe said, noticing how fast Dan nodded in response. “And if it’s only six or eight miles back there to the ocean, at most it’ll take us five or six hours.” The image of his computer flitted across his mind, and the fact that he’d just seen it on the floor. Robert returned to the remains of the cabin and climbed inside to retrieve it, finding it still intact.
“What happens if we take off walking and then rescue arrives?” Britta asked.
“Then Mr. Barnes gets help even quicker, and we end up in a thinly disguised physical fitness run,” Robert replied, as he joined them again.
“Barnes is semiconscious,” Graham Tash said. “We need to leave a note or something, so if someone does come, they’ll know we’re walking out.”
“We’ll do better than that. If they come, I’ll tell them,” Susan Tash said. Graham looked at her in alarm.
“I’m going to stay here, Graham,” she explained. “I’m a nurse, remember?”
“No, Suze! I’ll stay.”
She shook her head. “My ankle is hurting and I’m wearing heels. Walking any distance is just not an option for me in bare feet or heels.”
“Well, then, I’ll stay, too,” Graham said.
“No, Graham. You’re a good hiker, and if anything occurs with the rest of the group… if there are injuries we don’t know about, you need to be there. I’ll be fine. Heck, I’ll probably get rescued first.”
“How about tigers and snakes and such?” Dallas asked.
Graham’s worried eyes were firmly on his wife, his mind registering the fact that her bright yellow dress was becoming more visible by the second in the growing light of dawn. After several long seconds he shook his head. “Tigers don’t exist around here, and you’d almost have to look for a snake to bite you. Only monkeys. Thousands of them.”
Dallas looked at each of them in turn. “Okay. Dan, are you staying here?”
“I’m going,” the copilot said. “Anything’s better than just sitting here in agony. I’ll… just hang on to someone’s shirttail.”
“We should get moving, then,” Robert prompted.
Britta looked around uncomfortably, weighing her sense of duty with her sense of revulsion at remaining one minute longer than necessary in the midst of such carnage. “I’ll go, too, unless Susan wants to borrow my shoes.”
Susan shook her head no.
Dr. Graham Tash gently tugged at Susan’s sleeve as he looked at the others. “Ah, give me just a minute, will you? And Britta, we’ll want to take a few basics with us from the first-aid kit, just in case.”
Britta nodded and turned back to the wrecked upper cabin. Graham and Susan walked a few paces from the group to talk. He turned at last and put his hands on Susan’s shoulders. “Honey, I’m terrified of your staying here alone.”
“Nonsense. We’re both still in shock, but other than my twisted ankle, we’re physically okay. That man needs help and the rest of the group may need you. We’re professional medical people, Graham. This can’t be personal.”
“The hell it can’t! You’re my life, Honey. I love you!”
She put the palm of her hand on his cheek. “And I love you. But I don’t believe God kept us alive just to tear us apart. Now keep these folks safe and go get help. No one’s shooting at anyone in Vietnam these days. I’ll be fine.”
Graham pulled Susan to him and hugged her tightly, stroking her hair until she pulled away. She smiled and kissed him lightly, then turned and headed back to the wreckage.
Arlin Schoen sat on the edge of a plush leather armchair and took the receiver to the satellite telephone, pulling it to his ear and nodding to the broad-shouldered, heavyset man who’d taken the call.
The thoroughly controlled voice of the man on the other end spoke with unhurried ease, as though nothing had gone wrong. “What’s your status, Arlin?”
“I was going to call you. They went down about twelve miles west of Da Nang, in the mountains. We’re orbiting offshore, undetected so far.”
“Did you fly over the site?”
“We did. Couldn’t see a thing except the fires. That was before dawn.”
There was a sigh on the other end. “We can’t rule out survivors. But I can’t get you any more assets out there now. You’re on your own to solve this.”
Schoen shifted the receiver to the other hand, weighing his words carefully. “I know. Some could have made it. So far no rescue forces have launched. I don’t think these local morons realize anyone crashed.”
“We must stay on schedule. No loose ends, or loose lips, to tell tales and undo everything we’ve put in motion. You know that.”
Schoen took a deep breath. To go in was a huge risk, but to imperil the operation after all that had happened was unacceptable. “We’re going in, of course.”
“I agree,” the voice on the phone replied. “Get in and get out fast. In twenty-four hours the entire world will be crawling all over this one. Don’t forget the timetable.”
“I won’t.”
“This was your show, Arlin. I had your assurances it was the best solution and that you could make it work.”
“It is, and I will. Relax.”
Within five minutes, the Global Express touched down on Da Nang’s runway under an emergency declaration, leaving the tower operators in a state of confusion over where the sleek business jet had come from. A quick exchange of American currency at the door of the jet produced the local military garrison commander, a bored Vietnamese army officer who emerged ten minutes later with a smile and a briefcase containing $200,000 U.S. small bills.
Within fifteen minutes, the leader and crew of the American business jet lifted off in an ancient, American-built Bell UH-1 helicopter.
CHAPTER 20
Robert MacCabe squinted at the eastern horizon, trying to calculate the distance they’d come in almost a half hour of walking.
Maybe a quarter mile. Maybe more.
After a lifetime of backpacking and hiking, taking the lead was a natural role, even if the northern coastal jungle of Vietnam was unknown to him.
Vietnam was someone else’s experience — the name of a war his father had fought as a Navy staff officer in the Pentagon; something that had caused the previous generation to break out in a serious case of hysteria and protesting hippies. The rest was merely a tumultuous chapter in American history to be studied in school. He had been a child when the helicopters plucked the last Americans off the Embassy roof in Saigon.
Robert looked around at Britta as she helped the copilot back to his feet. For the third time in less than ten minutes, Dan had stumbled on jungle undergrowth, his hand slipping away from Britta’s as he plunged forward into the fragrant but insect-laden vegetation. She helped him up, and Graham looked him over.
“Dan, are you okay?” Robert called.
“Yeah, I’m okay.” The copilot nodded, brushing twigs and leaves out of his hair and water droplets off the uniform coat Britta had retrieved from the cockpit.