“Don’t be stupid, David. What incentive do I have to leave them out there? I get paid by the hour.”

“I’ll call you when I get back to them and give you instructions on how to get there.”

The phone went dead.

“What?” Coleman said.

Rapp shook his head and reached for another Coke. “Nothing’s ever easy.”

14

“WE’RE taking fire,” a voice said over Rapp’s headphones. “Permission to return it.”

“Only if it’s focused and absolutely necessary,” Rapp responded. “We have friendlies on the ground, and we don’t know exactly where they are.”

Their entire complement of choppers was in the air, skimming the trees over the search area and occasionally lowering lines to the ground. The idea was to make it impossible for Gideon Auma’s men to discern the real rescue from the decoys. Not a perfect plan, but the best they could implement under the circumstances.

Fred Mason was keeping their aircraft well above the canopy and out of range of any potential small arms fire. They had coordinates for their target, but the chances of being able to land were low. Apparently, David Chism was hunkered down in a shallow cave halfway up one of the seemingly endless mountains in the area.

“I think I see it,” Mason said over the comm. “Three prominent rocky bands, just like you said.” As they passed overhead, a human form emerged from a curtain of foliage hanging from a cliff face. Chism gazed up at them, waving his arms over his head a couple of times before disappearing again.

“How are we looking?” Rapp asked.

“I think the description was even more optimistic than we thought. Forget landing, I can’t even get close enough to drop you down without putting my rotors into the rock face.”

“I’m not interested in problems, Fred. Give me solutions.”

“We can toss a rope out. If you rappel about forty feet down it, I can probably swing you onto the ledge. When you hit, though, you’ll have to disengage fast as hell. Otherwise, you’ll get dragged back off.”

Rapp looked down at the loose, rocky slope that was his potential landing zone. “That’s a lot of ‘abouts’ and ‘probablys,’ Fred.”

“Relax. There’s definitely a nonzero chance you won’t die.”

“Great. Okay, swing around again. Let’s do this before someone starts shooting at us.”

Rapp slung a tired-looking AK-47 over his shoulder before connecting a rope to the belay device on his harness. Mason’s copilot came back to help him put on a ragged backpack and then used a marker to blacken a section of the rope.

“That’s about forty feet,” she said, slapping him encouragingly on the back before returning to the cockpit.