Part 14 (1/2)

'Okay,' he said, beckoning the team.

Charlie was last onto the empty terrace.

'Now to the tennis courts,' Drummond said, starting toward the path. The 'news radio' helicopter sat quietly on the far court.

'Can you hot-wire a helicopter?' helicopter?' Charlie asked, curious as much as anything. He took it for granted Drummond could pilot one. Charlie asked, curious as much as anything. He took it for granted Drummond could pilot one.

'Most helicopters don't require keys,' Drummond said. 'There's nothing to*' He was interrupted by a loud and spine-chilling rifle bolt lock-and-load.

Charlie turned around slowly, as did Drummond and the doctors and nurses. The older of the two backgammon players stood in the library doorway, eyeing them down the barrel of an enormous rifle*quite possibly the one used to bag the elephant in the entry hall. He said, 'Those of you who would rather not be on the receiving end of an eleven-millimeter round, place your hands in the air.'

Isadora's Colt was tucked into Charlie's waistband, beneath his gown. He raised his gloved hands because, like the doctors and nurses, Drummond was raising his.

Swinging the rifle toward Drummond, the backgammon player asked, 'Are you pretending not to remember me, Drummond?'

'I think you've mistaken me for someone else, sir,' Drummond said, his voice raspier and a half-octave lower than usual.

Not a bad play, Charlie thought. In all the surgical garb, Drummond could be almost anyone.

'It's Carlton Otto, old man,' the backgammon player said. 'I was on the plane that got you out of Ulaanbaatar!' He called into the library, 'Archie, where in the blazes is security?'

This was the kind of luck that caused veteran gamblers to leave the profession, Charlie thought, when the palm of Drummond's right glove exploded into rubber sc.r.a.ps. A bullet*somehow he'd maneuvered the barrel of his gun into the glove*flew high, smas.h.i.+ng apart the transom. Glittery shards rained onto Otto, sending him sprawling back into the library.

Charlie looked on in wonder. At the same time, like the doctors and nurses, he dropped to the flagstones in fear of return fire from Otto's veritable cannon. Another shot by Drummond kept Otto inside.

But the escape plan was in critical condition: From the clubhouse roof came a siren*a fusion of whine and honk so shrill that Charlie wasn't sure whether it was an alarm or a weapon. Inquisitive members appeared at windows overlooking the terrace.

Drummond scooped Charlie up from a flagstone by the nape of his gown. 'Push the gurney to the helicopter,' he shouted over the siren. 'I'll cover you.'

The heavy gurney would turn what might be a ten-second dash down the winding path into a gravel-ridden ordeal. 'But the doctor game's up,' Charlie reminded him, hoping he didn't require the reminder.

'We need him,' Drummond said of Cadaret.

Charlie couldn't imagine why. But on account of all the other things he'd experienced today that he would have thought unimaginable, he demurred.

20.

While sliding Cadaret's bulk from the gurney and onto the cabin's bench seat, Charlie watched Drummond free the rotor blades from their restraints, leap through the right c.o.c.kpit door, and strap himself into the pilot's seat without glancing at the complex seat belt. Instead he swatted switches on the overhead console, illuminating the instrument panel. Cadaret's bulk from the gurney and onto the cabin's bench seat, Charlie watched Drummond free the rotor blades from their restraints, leap through the right c.o.c.kpit door, and strap himself into the pilot's seat without glancing at the complex seat belt. Instead he swatted switches on the overhead console, illuminating the instrument panel.

Charlie took a moment to marvel: Just yesterday, he'd thought parallel parking was his father's greatest skill.

Turning his attention to the instrument panel, Drummond became a flurry of switch throwing. With one instrument came a loud, harsh drilling noise. He pulled one of the headsets from the overhead center post and popped the cups over his ears.

Worming his way from the cabin into the c.o.c.kpit, Charlie didn't need to be instructed to do the same. The headset reduced the remaining second or two of drilling to a mild drone. He heard clearly as Drummond explained, into his pipe-cleaner microphone, 'That was the fuel valve, a dead giveaway someone's about to take off in your helicopter.' With a wispy grin he indicated the clubhouse. 'Unless you can't hear it over your rooftop alarm sirens.'

Charlie smiled*the revelation that his father had a lighter side was almost as startling as the revelation that he was a spy. Fastening himself into the copilot's seat, Charlie had the sensation of sitting beside someone he'd just met for the first time.

Although this was Charlie's first time aboard a real helicopter, PlayStation's version had familiarized him with some of the controls, including the cyclic, the stick that tilts the rotor blades in order to direct the s.h.i.+p, as well as the collective, the big lever between the pilot and copilot seats that governs ascent. Drummond rolled the motorcycle-handle-style throttle atop the collective, then placed a finger on the starter b.u.t.ton. Charlie a.s.sumed Drummond would now press the b.u.t.ton, the engine would bellow, the s.h.i.+p would throb, and they'd bound into the sky.

But Drummond had more switches to flick and b.u.t.tons to press. Other than the toggles overhead labeled FAN and XPNDR*which Drummond avoided*Charlie couldn't guess their functions. ENDCR? RMI? INV? Most of the dials and gauges and other gla.s.s bubbles on the instrument panel had no labels at all.

When Drummond finally pressed the starter b.u.t.ton, the engine whine drowned out the siren. Now everyone on the club grounds knew both precisely where Drummond and Charlie were and what they were up to. Still, the s.h.i.+p sat on the tennis court, with Drummond continuing to tweak the instruments.

Helicopter takeoff wasn't as simple as PlayStation portrayed it, Charlie thought, or even as simple as an Apollo launch. Unless one of Drummond's blocked mental channels was to blame.

'Would there be a way to speed things up,' Charlie asked, 'if, say, hypothetically, more bad guys were about to show up any second and shoot at us?'

Drummond tapped the temperature gauge. 'Overheating during the start can cause catastrophic engine failure, which would be worse.'

'Sorry, don't mind me,' said Charlie. Feeling his face redden, he turned away, focusing intently on the altimeter.

It read 0 feet, of course.

Drummond cracked the throttle. Fuel howled into the engine. The rotors awoke. The blades tingled. The helicopter went nowhere. Drummond was fixated on the temperature gauge.

Charlie noticed a flash of light from the terrace. Without ado, Drummond jerked open his window, drew his gun, and fired. More than a hundred feet away, a guard grabbed at his shoulder and toppled over the bal.u.s.trade. A rifle fell from his hands, its scope catching the sunlight and replicating the flash Charlie had seen a moment ago.

'Forgetting how you even spotted him, I wouldn't have thought that shot was possible,' Charlie said.

His attention back on the instrument panel, Drummond said, 'The hard part is acting like I do it all the time.'

No, Charlie decided, definitely not the same guy he'd known from 1979 until today.

Four more guards had streamed out of the library, rifles in hand. Drummond glanced from them to the temperature gauge. Of the two, the temperature gauge appeared to trouble him more.

'No choice now,' he grumbled.

He snapped two more switches and wrenched the throttle. The engine responded with a roar. The blades reached full chop, raising dirt and gra.s.s all around. He jerked up the collective. With it went the nose, followed by the skids. Every part of the s.h.i.+p down to the lug nuts trembled.

'Let's get some air,' he said, punching the cyclic.

At once it seemed like the s.h.i.+p was falling upward. Past the clubhouse. Past the treetops. Into a white explosion of sunlight.

On the terrace, uniforms billowed in the helicopter's wash as the men traced the path of the helicopter with their rifle barrels. Their muzzles lit up like flashbulbs. With white knuckles, Charlie grabbed onto the center support strut and braced for the bullets.

They struck immediately, but without the rammed-by-an-asteroid effect he'd expected*it was more like birds pecking at the fuselage.

After five or six such pecks, a rope of blood whipped past his eyes, splattering against his window and peppering his face with warm droplets. He looked anxiously to the pilot's seat.

Drummond was unscathed. 'Our pa.s.senger,' Drummond explained, with a tilt of the head. 'Upper thigh, apparently not serious, thankfully.'

Charlie turned around to see Cadaret stirring, as if in the midst of a bad dream. The seat cus.h.i.+on beneath him had turned crimson. Beyond basic humanity, Charlie wasn't sure why Drummond cared. He decided not to distract him with questions.

The pecking continued. Charlie held his breath, if only because it allowed him to do something besides thinking about a midair explosion.

The pecks dwindled as the helicopter continued skyward. When the altimeter read 1,700 feet, the guards quit altogether.

Charlie took a deep breath of the cabin air. It was rich with the waxy aroma of aircraft hydraulic fluid people often a.s.sociate with going on vacation. He admired the plush carpet of treetops below. The old yellow general store appeared quaint. The rhythmic thumping of the rotors became a song of respite.

It was interrupted by a sickly gasp from the engine.