Nighthawk (with Graham Brown) by Clive Cussler

Author:Clive Cussler [Cussler, Clive]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Thriller
ISBN: 9780399184017
Publisher: G.P. Putnam’s Sons; Penguin Random House
Published: 2017-05-10T14:46:01+00:00

28

The mountain road to La Jalca had been blocked. The bridge was gone; its twisted metal frame now lay at the bottom of the canyon while the road itself was covered with a swath of gravel, boulders and rock ten feet deep—remnants of the avalanche unleashed by the errant Chinese missile.

The man who’d fired that missile was gone as well, but Daiyu and Jian had escaped by driving back into the shelter of the tunnel and staying put until the rumbling ceased. They sat in darkness until the choking dust began to settle and a small gap of light appeared near the top of the tunnel.

“We should go back,” Jian suggested. “We have a helicopter waiting in Cajamarca. We should make contact with command, secure reinforcements and fly to the ruins. Take them from the sky.”

Daiyu shook her head. “We go forward,” she insisted. “Not back. If we keep up a good pace, we can reach La Jalca by midnight. Take them in their sleep.”

“We’re at a disadvantage now,” he argued. “The kill team is gone. The Americans know we’re following them.”

“If anything, they think we’re dead,” she replied. “That gives us the advantage. And remember, our mission is to prevent the Americans from finding the Nighthawk at all costs. Driving all the way back to Cajamarca, reaching out to General Zhang and waiting for more support, will take far too long. We must go forward. You start clearing a way through and I’ll gather the weapons and supplies.”

Jian stared at her for a moment and then did as ordered. He stepped from the car, climbed onto the rubble pile and began digging with his bare hands. The loose gravel was easy to move and the small boulders and rocks were no match for his great strength. He tossed them aside with ease and before long he’d dug enough of a channel for them to squirm through.

He emerged into the fresh air, covered from head to toe in dust. Daiyu came out behind him, handed him a backpack and pulled on one of her own. As she scanned the slope for a safe route to take, Jian picked his way to the edge of the cliff, looking for the other car.

“Don’t bother,” she called out. “They’re gone.”

He knew that. He looked anyway. It was a long drop. There was no sign of the car at the bottom, just a sloping pile of rock that had buried it.

As Jian stared into the abyss, Daiyu looked upward. A trick of the inner ear, caused by tilting the head backward, exaggerated the grade of the hill. Even knowing that, she was impressed that the Americans had managed to climb it without flipping their vehicle or rolling back down the hill. She’d underestimated them, something she would not do again.

She turned to Jian. “Ready?”

He nodded.

She pointed to a trail on the right. “This way looks to have better traction. Follow me.”

The climb was more perilous on foot than in a vehicle. Thorny bushes and high-mountain cacti clawed at them mercilessly.

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