“Booby traps?” asked Harv.

“I’ve thought about that too. I think it’s unlikely they’d have any kind of long-term trip wires or pressure-triggered devices because of all the wildlife in the area. They wouldn’t want a random accident to call attention to their cache. They might have something at the actual location of the buried money, though. If he does, it’ll be a bomb-disposal job. Can your people handle it, Grangeland?” Nathan already knew the answer, he just wanted to distract her from her airsickness.

No answer.

“Grangeland?”

“Yeah, I think so,” she said tightly.

“You okay back there?”

“I’m feeling really woozy.”

“There’re barf bags in the seat pockets. Harv, how far to Dutch Creek Road?”

“Maybe four thousand yards.” He looked down at the satellite image. “Adjust heading to three-four-zero. That should take us pretty close to the LZ.”

Nathan pushed the cyclic slightly to the left and watched the LCD screen’s digital compass rotate. “Copy.… Three-four-zero.” He snuck a look out the port window. The snowcapped peaks of the Flathead Range were a damned beautiful sight. Where the mountains meet the prairies, he thought. Buffalo and Blackfeet Indian territory.

“Should we risk a visual pass down the canyon to the money drop and back?” Harv asked.

“It won’t help us that much. For the kind of detail we’d need, we’d have to move slightly faster than a hover. Let’s set her down right away.”

“You’ll have my undying gratitude,” Grangeland said.

“Reduce speed to sixty knots,” Harv said.

“Sixty knots.” Nathan lowered the collective, pressed the right anti-torque pedal, and pulled back on the cyclic control. Maintaining its altitude, the helicopter flared and rapidly bled off air speed.

“Oh shit,” Grangeland moaned.

“Hang in there,” Harvey encouraged her.

“I’m gonna be sick.”

“We’re ninety seconds from being on the ground.”

She didn’t make it.

Nathan heard violent retching sounds as Grangeland leaned forward and vomited into a barf bag. The distinctive odor filled the cabin.

“Don’t worry about it,” Nathan told her. “Happens to all of us. Keep track of your weapon, Ernie might try something.” She didn’t respond. “Harv, what’s happening?”

Harv whipped around.

“She’s okay,” Harv said. “Crossing Dutch Creek Road. Slow to thirty knots.”

A dirt track passed beneath them, no more than twenty feet below their skids. Sixty seconds later, the landscape suddenly dropped off as they cleared the canyon’s southern ridgeline.

“Set her down inside that copse of trees at two o’clock,” Harv said.

“Power lines?” Nathan asked.

Harv scanned the area. “Clear.”

Twenty seconds later, leaves cartwheeled away from the LZ as Nathan set the chopper down. “Shutting down,” he said. “Any bullet holes in us yet?”

Harv grinned. “The afternoon’s still young.”

* * *