Martina listened. There was a very faint whine in the distance. “The helicopters, probably.”
Jilly shook her head. “Doesn’t sound like helicopters.”
A couple seconds later, they all heard a rhythmic thump-thump-thump.
“That’sthe helicopters,” Jilly said.
She was right, Martina realized. The whine was still there, too. Its volume had increased a bit, and it seemed to be coming from ground level as opposed to the sky.
Sims was crouched just behind the two front seats of the helicopter, trying to spot the motorcycle below. The satellite images had gotten them this far, but now it was a matter of eyeballs.
“There, sir,” the co-pilot said, with a quick nod out the window. “Running along that old wash.”
Sims adjusted his position, then immediately saw movement about a mile ahead.
“Get us down there.”
“Sir,” the pilot said. “We’re already twenty miles outside the containment zone.”
“I don’t care where we are. If the person on that bike is infected, we could have a new outbreak on our hands. Our job is to make sure that doesn’t happen.”Yet, he thought, but didn’t add.
The other thing he didn’t voice was his desire to clean up a situation that they had created themselves. The person on the motorcycle had come from the canyon they’d visited that morning. Apparently there hadn’t been two riders, but three. This third person must have hidden from Sims and his men, and that annoyed him.
It should have never happened. They should have checked for additional people but they hadn’t, and it had been his fault. Two bikes, two sleeping bags, two people. Logical, but wrong.
“Hang on, sir,” the pilot said.
A second later, the helicopters dipped in unison toward the fleeing motorcycle.
Jilly and Martina used a stack of barrels to climb up on top of the gas station, then moved to the back edge so they could see what was going on.
“That whine’s a motorcycle. I’d know that anywhere,” Jilly said.
Martina had recognized it, too. It was a common enough noise in the desert around Ridgecrest. But though she was looking toward where she thought the noise was coming from, she couldn’t see anything.
Jilly suddenly pointed repeatedly at the desert. “There, there, there!”
Martina put a hand on her forehead, shading her eyes. “I don’t see it.”
“It’s there! Along that wash.”
Something glinted in the distance, sunlight on a helmet, Martina realized as she finally spotted the motorcycle rider. For a few moments, she watched him — she assumed it was a him — heading in their direction.
“Is that one of the people who lives here?” she wondered out loud.
“I didn’t hear anyone leave earlier, but I guess it could be,” Jilly said.
Until that moment, Martina had thought the helicopters and the motorcycle had had nothing to do with each other. But suddenly both helicopters dove down toward the bike.
“What are they doing?” she asked.
Under Sims’s directions, the helicopters bracketed the motorcycle, his aircraft coming up on its left, the other on its right.
“We’ll take the shot,” Sims said into the radio. “If he doesn’t go down, you’re up.”
Paul felt the thumping of the helicopters in his chest. He allowed himself a quick glance back, and was surprised to see they were approaching him from either side.
There was movement at the open door of the helicopter to his left. He turned forward, checking the terrain ahead, then chanced another glance back. A man stood in the doorway now, held in place by what looked like a strap. In his arm was a rifle.
Without even thinking about it, Paul released the accelerator and pulled on the brakes.
Just then he heard something whiz by him through the air. Involuntarily, he jerked the handlebars to the side. The front tire of the bike turned with it, catching the edge of a sagebrush. Before Paul knew it, he was once more tumbling through the air.
“Is that a hit?” Sims asked. “Is that a hit?”
There was a brief delay. “I’m not sure, sir. But he is down.”
“Get us back there.”
Martina actually screamed when the driver of the motorcycle flew off his bike.
“Did they… shoot at him?” Jilly asked.
“I’m not sure,” Martina replied.
“I thought I saw a flash.”
Below them, one of the cars in the lot started up. Almost immediately, they could hear tires spinning for a moment on the dirty asphalt, then catching hold. Martina glanced over the other side, just in time to see the cute college boy race away from the gas station in his Jeep and head into the desert toward the downed driver.
The helicopters had both swung around and were now hovering above the motorcyclist. Sims was pretty sure it was a man.
“Does anyone see any movement?” he asked.
“No, sir.”
“No, sir.”
“All right, then everyone suit up, and let’s bag him—”
The radio crackled. “Sir, civilian approaching.”
Out of reflex, Sims looked over at the other helicopter. “What?”
“Just ahead, sir,” the man in the other aircraft said. “A Jeep. There are also a couple people standing on one of the buildings at the roadside stop along the highway, looking this way, and several more doing the same from ground level.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“No, sir.”
Sims looked out the open doorway and spotted the Jeep. He quickly realized it would get to the motorcycle rider only seconds after they landed. What would they do then? Kill the Jeep driver, too? What about the people in town watching? He was pretty sure Mr. Shell did not want that kind of bloodbath.
Dammit!
He looked down at the motorcyclist again, then tapped the pilot on the shoulder. “Head back to base.”
Even before they made the turn for home, he had his satellite phone out. The quarantine zone would have to be expanded to include that little bit of nowhere in case the motorcyclist was infected. But even if he wasn’t, and those in the town didn’t actually die from the disease, the quarantine would make it easier for Sims and his men to go in and deal with the witnesses.
It was an aggravating problem but fixable.
It didn’t even dawn on him that he should have also requested a communications blackout of the area. He thought that was already a part of the quarantine. Why wouldn’t it be?
It was another lesson they’d learn for next time.
Paul remembered flying off his bike, but didn’t remember landing. That was because the impact had knocked him unconscious. So the next thing he was aware of was a man lifting him off the ground.
“What…what’s going on?”
“Just relax,” the guy said. “You’re going to be fine.”
Where had the guy come from? The helicopter? But they were going to shoot him, weren’t they?
Then he saw the vehicle he was being carried to, a dark red, old-model Jeep, not a helicopter.
Someone passing by on the road, maybe? Did it really matter?
As the man helped him into the front seat, Paul knocked his injured knee against the dash, which caused him to wince in pain, which in turn caused him to cough a couple of times.
“Sorry,” the guy said.
“I’m…okay.”
The man got behind the wheel and started up the Jeep. As they turned around, Paul caught sight of his motorcycle. It was lying half in a creosote bush, its handlebars skewed. He could see a hole in his gas tank, but nothing was dripping out.
Just enough, he thought with a smile.Just enough.
32
Martina and Jilly climbed down off the roof as the Jeep returned. By then, many of the rest of the people stranded in Cryer’s Corner had come outside to see what all the noise was about. Word of what had happened spread quickly.