Smokey pressed his boot down on one of the rotor mounts of the drone, pinning it to the floor. He then repeatedly smashed his rifle butt into its circuit board core-crushing its optic array. “Die, fucker!”
As he pounded the small machine, it fired its several small-caliber bullets from tubes on its metal frame-at least one bullet catching Smokey in the ankle before it died.
“Goddammit!” He toppled back.
They were roaring along the airstrip now, nearing eighty miles an hour. The tree line raced past, and the drone swarm fell behind.
Huginn and Muninn caw ed angrily inside their cage as Odin hurled a heavy equipment case at the remaining drone hovering toward the front. “Tin Man, get it!”
By now the cabin was spattered in blood as the wounded team clambered around trying to destroy the last drone.
But the device headed straight for McKinney. She deflected it with the trauma plates strapped to her arm, but it kept driving up against her, its electric blades humming.
She was both horrified and riveted by its appearance this close. It was a simple four-rotor helicopter with blade enclosures, but the frame seemed to be made of thick wire, ending in spiky legs. In the center pod, held in the metal frame, was a series of tightly packed circuit boards and a row of four lenses-its “eyes.” Next to that, in racks, were what looked to be silver compressed-air canisters-the type of thing whipped cream was dispensed with. But these seemed to be spraying the air with some type of chemical that had a faint peppery smell-a pseudopheromone, marking her. And then stacked to either side of the core body were what turned out to be gun barrels.
This is what was crack ing at her as she struggled to kick it away. Bullets pinged off her trauma plates, but then she felt a piercing pain in her upper leg, just as Odin smashed the drone into the floor, and Mooch bashed its core in with his rifle butt.
“Dammit!” She’d never experienced such pain. McKinney writhed on the cabin floor now in a rapidly expanding pool of blood. She raised her gloved hand to see arterial blood spurting out of a hole on her inner thigh.
“Oh, my God…”
Mooch came up alongside her. “Professor’s hit!”
Odin knelt down next to her as well.
Scenery raced by outside, and then McKinney felt gravity press her into the floor, and the trees at the edge of her vision disappeared. “Did we make it?”
Odin got close to her face. “You’re going to be all right.”
The pain was incredible. “Oh, God. Let me see it!”
“No, lay back.”
She could feel someone cutting through her pant leg.
Odin turned. “Mooch, how’s it look?”
“Femoral artery-close to the pelvis. Tourniquet’s out. Keep the pressure on. Here.”
She felt another pain as something was jabbed into her leg. And then a soothing feeling came over her. A warm sensation. Calm.
Odin’s face was right next to hers. He seemed calm too. Normal. She was fading. Her consciousness was ebbing.
“Pass me that Hespan.” The tearing of plastic.
Foxy’s voice. “How is she?”
A serious look crossed Odin’s face.
McKinney felt her vision narrow. Darkness ebbing in like rising water over her face. Hands on her side. Then on her back.
“I need to contain this bleeding. Or she isn’t going to make it.”
McKinney’s focus faded. She tried to speak, but she was so tired now. She sank below the waves. Into the blackness. Into silence.
CHAPTER 22
Linda McKinney awoke to a warm breeze wafting over her face. As her eyes came into focus, she could see gauzy white curtains trailing away from a row of tall windows, undulating with the flowing air. The sun shone in, blinding white. She lay beneath a crisp linen sheet in a proper bed with a sturdy headboard made of rough-hewn pine. Clean down pillows cradled her head. Thick wooden beams traversed the ceiling above her. The walls were of mortared stone. This was an old place. A cross hung from the wall above the bed, and along the wall nearby were framed icons of saints and sepia-toned photos of brown-skinned, black-haired ancestors in starched collars and black dresses.
McKinney felt a sting in her hand and noticed an IV drip running from a needle taped in place in the top of her right hand. It led to an IV bag on a stand nearby. Her right leg felt tight near her pelvis, as though wrapped in bandages-and a biting pain came to her from somewhere deep in her upper thigh. She felt the tautness of stitches.
There was a gentle keek-keek sound.
McKinney looked to the footboard. A large raven regarded her and extended its wings. It then ruffled its throat and head feathers. Caw.
McKinney’s voice came out hoarsely. “Muninn.” She wasn’t sure why she knew the bird was female. Perhaps it was something in the bird’s manner. She just felt like she knew.
The raven caw ed loudly several times, then flew off between the gauzy curtains and out the window.
There were footsteps, and the heavy bedroom door opened to reveal an elderly woman with a deeply tanned, timeworn face. Her long gray hair was wrapped tightly, and she wore a dress of rough brown cloth with a richly embroidered white apron and collar.
McKinney nodded to her.
The old woman spoke soothingly. “Kehaca ti ictok.” She held up one hand.
McKinney tried to remember what Spanish she’d mastered on previous expeditions to South America. But then, she’d spent more time in the Amazon basin. Portuguese wasn’t going to help. Even so, this didn’t sound like Spanish. She cleared her throat and spoke in slow English. “Where is this place?”
The old woman smiled kindly, holding her arm and patting it gently. “Ni we-wen ci.” She turned to the heavy oak door bound by black iron hinges. “Lalenia! Lalenia!” The old woman’s powerful voice startled McKinney. Dogs barked from somewhere outside. McKinney tried to sit up a bit in bed.
More footsteps, and in a moment the heavy door opened again, revealing a much younger Latina in jeans and a white shirt. Her long black hair was tied back to reveal a beautiful almond-shaped face with mocha brown skin. She approached the bed and smiled, motioning to the old woman as she spoke in that same language. “Wala seh yanok Raton. ”
Then the younger woman turned to McKinney and spoke in Spanish-accented English. “How do you feel, Professor McKinney?”
McKinney looked around the room. “Weak. Where am I?”
“You’re in Tamaulipas near Kalitlen.” At McKinney’s blank stare she added, “Rural Mexico.”
“How long have I been unconscious?”
The young woman leaned over to say something quietly to the elderly woman, who nodded and left. The young woman then approached the side of the bed, producing a penlight from her shirt pocket. “You’ve been unconscious for several days. You lost a great deal of blood, and we’ve been rebuilding your platelet count.”
McKinney kept her eyes open as the woman checked her pupil dilation with the light. “I got shot.”
“Yes, I know. The bullet nicked your femoral artery.” The doctor lowered the penlight. “You were very lucky the damage wasn’t worse.”
McKinney remembered wrestling with a hellish toy-one whose brain she’d helped design. “Yes.” She felt suddenly very tired.
“Mooch is a talented surgeon. He was able to stop the bleeding, but it was close. And having O-positive blood probably saved your life.”
“Who are you?”
The woman placed a hand on her own chest. “I am Doctor Garza. You can call me Lalenia. We are in a very remote part of Mexico here. We don’t engage in formalities.”
“Your English is excellent.”
“I went to medical school in the States.”
“What was that other language?”
“That was Huastec, a Mayan dialect. My family has owned land here for generations. Rosario taught it to me when I was very young.”