The Codex (46 page)

He heard more gunfire behind him and glimpsed movement. Vernon and Philip appeared out of the trees beyond the bridge, supporting their father, running as fast as they could. Borabay appeared a moment later farther back, catching up to them. A raking fire came past them, snipping off the heads of the ferns behind them, and too late Tom realized that he, too, was trapped. Tom ran toward them as another staccato peal of gunfire came out of the trees. Tom could now see that Hauser was several hundred yards behind, firing to their left and driving them toward the edge of the chasm and the bridge. Tom ran toward the bridgehead and reached it at the same time as the others. They paused, crouching. Tom could see that the soldiers on the other side, alerted by the gunfire, had already taken up covering positions and were blocking their escape.

“Hauser’s trying to drive us out on the bridge,” cried Philip.

Another burst of gunfire tore some leaves off a tree branch above them.

“We’ve no choice!” Tom cried.

In another moment they were running out on the swaying bridge, half-carrying, half-dragging their father. The soldiers on the far side dropped to their knees, blocking their exit, guns pointed.

“Just keep going,” Tom shouted.

They were about a third of the way across when the soldiers in front of them fired a warning volley above their heads. At the same time a voice rang out from behind them. Tom turned. Hauser and several more soldiers were blocking their retreat at the other end of the bridge.

They were trapped in-between, all five of them.

The soldiers fired a second volley, this one lower. Tom could hear the bullets passing like bees above their heads. They had reached the middle of the bridge, and it was now swaying and jouncing from their motion. Tom looked back, looked forward. They stopped. There was nothing more they could do. It was over.

“Don’t move,” Hauser called out to them, strolling out on the bridge with a smile, weapon trained on them. They watched him approach. Tom glanced at his father. He was looking at Hauser with fear and hatred. The expression on his father’s face frightened him even more than their situation.

Hauser stopped a hundred feet from them, steadying himself on the swaying bridge. “Well, well,” he said. “If it isn’t old Max and his three sons. What a nice family reunion.”

78

During the twelve hours Sally had lain behind the tree trunk, her thoughts had, for some reason, turned to her father. That last summer of his life he had taught her how to shoot. After he died, she had continued to go down to the bluffs to practice shooting apples and oranges, and later pennies and dimes. She had gotten to be an excellent shot, but it was a useless skill—she had no interest in competition or hunting. She had simply enjoyed it. Some people liked to bowl, some liked Ping-Pong—she liked to shoot. Of course, in New Haven it was the most politically incorrect skill of all. Julian was horrified when he found out. He made her promise to give up shooting and keep it a secret—not because he was against guns but because it was déclassé. Julian. She pushed him out of her mind.

She shifted her cramped thighs and wiggled her toes, trying to limber up the stiffened muscles. She gave another handful of nuts to Hairy Bugger, who was still sitting grumpily in his vine cage. She was glad he had been there to keep her company these past hours, even if he was in a foul mood. The poor thing loved his freedom.

Bugger gave a squeak of alarm, and Sally was instantly alert. Then she heard it: some distant shots from the White City, a faint burst from an automatic weapon, then a second. With the binoculars she scanned the forest on the far side of the gorge. There were more shots, and still more, growing louder. A few minutes went by, and then she saw movement.

It was Tom. He had appeared at the edge of the cliffs, running. Philip and Vernon emerged out of the jungle ahead of him, supporting a wounded man between them—an old man in rags, Broadbent.

Borabay was the last to appear, closest to the bridge.

There were more shots, and she now spied Hauser corning out of the trees from behind, flushing them out and driving them like game toward the bridge.

She lowered the binoculars and raised the gun, watching the drama through the scope of the Springfield. It couldn’t be a worse situation. The Broadbents and Borabay were about to be trapped on the bridge. But they had no other choice, with Hauser behind them and the chasm to one side. They hesitated at the bridgehead, then ran out onto the span. Hauser was out of the trees and shouting to the soldiers on the far side, who kneeled and fired warning shots.

In a moment all five of the Broadbents, including Borabay, were trapped in the middle of the bridge, with Hauser and four soldiers at one end and four at the other. Totally trapped. The firing died down and all was silent.

Hauser, with a grimace on his face, now began walking along the precarious bridge toward them, his weapon leveled.

Sally felt her heart hammering in her chest. Her moment had come. Her hands were shaking, sweating. She remembered her father. Calm your breathing. Allow your airflow to stop. Find your heartbeat. Shoot in between.

Sally aimed at Hauser as he strolled along the bridge. The bridge was swaying, but she felt her chances of scoring a hit were better than fifty-fifty. They would be even better once he stopped walking.

Hauser advanced to within a hundred feet of the Broadbents and paused. She could kill him—she would kill him. She centered his torso in her crosshairs, but she did not squeeze the trigger. Instead, she asked herself: What will happen after I kill Hauser?

The answer wasn’t hard to figure out. This was not The Wizard of Oz, and the Honduran soldiers on each side of the bridge would not lay down their guns saying, “Hail, Dorothy!” These were brutal mercenaries. If she shot Hauser, the soldiers would almost certainly open fire and massacre all the Broadbents on the bridge. There were ten soldiers—four at her end and now six at the other—and she couldn’t hope to pick them all off, especially the six at the far end, who were virtually out of range. The chamber of the Springfield held only five shots, and when those were done she would have to pull back the bolt and manually reload five more, a long process. And she only had ten rounds anyway.

Whatever she did had to be done in five shots.

She felt a sense of panic. She had to think of a plan, a way to bring about an outcome where they all survived. Hauser was swaggering toward them with his rifle, and he clearly intended to kill them. Yes, she would have to kill him, and then it would be all over for the Broadbents.

Her mind reeled. There would be no misstep here, no second chance. She had to get this right. She played every option she could think of through her head, but they all ended the same way, with the Broadbents dead. Her hand shook; the figure of Hauser jittered in the scope. If I kill Hauser, they’re dead. If I don’t kill Hauser, they’re dead.

She watched helplessly as Hauser aimed his weapon. He was smiling. He looked like a man about to enjoy himself.

79

Tom watched Hauser walk down the bridge, an arrogant smile of triumph on his face. He paused about a hundred feet from them. He swiveled the muzzle of the gun toward Tom. “Take off the pack and lay it down.”

Tom carefully took off the pack but, instead of laying it down, held it over the gorge by a strap. “It’s the Codex.”

Hauser fired a round from his gun that snipped a piece of bamboo from the railing less than a foot from Tom. “Lay it down!”

Tom did not move. He continued holding the book over the gorge. “Shoot me and it goes over the side.”

There was a silence. Hauser moved the muzzle of his gun toward Broadbent. “All right. Lay it down or Daddy dies. Last warning.”

“Let him kill me,” Broadbent growled.

“And after Dad there are your two brothers. Don’t be stupid, and put it down.”

After a brief moment Tom laid it down. He had no choice.

“The machete next.”

Tom eased it out of its sheath and dropped it.

“Well, well,” said Hauser, his face relaxing. He turned his gaze on their father. “Max. We meet again.”

The old man, grasping his sons to help him stand, raised his head and spoke. “Your quarrel is with me. Let the boys go.”

The smile on Hauser’s face took on a frostier look. “On the contrary, you’re going to have the pleasure of seeing them die first.” Broadbent’s head jerked a little. Tom tightened his grip. The bridge swayed slightly, the cold mists drifting upward. Borabay took a step forward but was stayed by Philip.

“Well then, who’s first? The Indian? No, let’s do him later. We’ll go by age. Philip? Step away from the others so I don’t have to kill you all at once.”

After a brief hesitation Philip stepped to one side. Vernon reached out to him, grasped his arm, and tried to pull him back. He shook it off and took another step.

“You’ll burn in hell, Hauser,” roared Broadbent.

Hauser smiled pleasantly and raised the muzzle of his rifle. Tom looked away.

80

But the shot didn’t come. Tom looked up. Hauser’s attention had suddenly been diverted to something behind them. Tom turned around and saw a flash of black: An animal was bounding along one of the cables of the bridge toward them, a monkey racing along with his tail up—Hairy Bugger.

With a screech of joy Bugger leapt into Tom’s arms, and Tom saw that he had a canister almost as large as himself tied to his midriff. It was the aluminum bottle of white gas from their backpacking stove. There was something scrawled on it—

I CAN HIT THIS S.

Tom wondered what the hell it meant, what Sally had in mind.

Hauser raised his gun. “Okay, everybody calm down. Everybody keep still. Now: Show me what it is the monkey just brought you. Slowly.”

All at once, Sally’s plan came to Tom. He untied the canister.

“Hold it out at arm’s length. Let me see it.”

Tom held the canister out. “It’s a liter of white gas.”

“Toss it over the side.”

Tom spoke quietly. “There’s a sharpshooter on our side who’s got a bead on this bottle as we speak. As you know, white gas is explosively flammable.”

Hauser’s face showed no trace of emotion or reaction. He merely raised his gun.

“Hauser, if she hits this can, the bridge burns. You’ll be cut off. You’ll be trapped in the White City forever.”

Ten electric seconds passed, and then Hauser spoke. “If the bridge burns, you’ll die, too.”

“You’re going to kill us anyway.”

Hauser said, “It’s a bluff.”

Tom did not respond. Seconds ticked by. Hauser’s face betrayed nothing.

Tom said, “Hauser, she might just put a bullet through you.”

Hauser raised his gun, and in that moment a bullet struck the bamboo bridge surface two feet in front of Hauser’s boots with a snick! sending a spray of bamboo splinters up into his face. The report came a moment later, rolling across the chasm.

Hauser hastily lowered his gun muzzle.

“Now that we’ve established this is not bullshit, you tell your soldiers to let us pass.”

“And?” said Hauser.

“You can have the bridge, the tomb, and the Codex. All we want is our lives.”

Now Hauser shouldered his weapon. “My compliments,” he said.

Tom, with slow movements, took the canister and, using a loose piece of twine from the bridge, tied it around one of the main cables.

“Tell your men to let us pass. You stay where you are. If anything bad happens to us, our sharpshooter shoots the canister and your precious bridge burns with you on it. Understand?”

Hauser nodded.

“I didn’t hear the order, Hauser.”

Hauser cupped his hands over his mouth. “Men!” he called in Spanish. “Let them leave! Do not molest them as they go! I am releasing them!”

There was a pause.

Hauser shouted, “I want a response to that order!”

“Si, señor,” came the reply.

The Broadbents began walking off the bridge.

81

Hauser stood in the middle of the bridge, his mind having accepted the fact that a sharpshooter—no doubt that blond woman who had come with Tom Broadbent—had him in her crosshairs. A useless old hunting rifle, the soldier had told him. Right. She had placed a bullet at his feet at 350 yards. To think that she now had him in her sights was an unpleasant and yet oddly thrilling feeling.

He looked at the bottle tied to the cable. The distance from where he was standing to the bottle was less than one hundred feet. The sharpshooter was shooting from more than three hundred yards. The bridge was swaying in the updrafts. It would be a difficult shot, hitting a target moving through three dimensions. An almost impossible shot, in fact. In ten seconds he could reach the bottle, tear it off the cable, and drop it in the abyss. If he then turned and ran back toward the far end of the bridge, he would be a moving target rapidly going out of range. How likely would it be that she could hit him? He would be running fast along a swaying bridge—again moving in three spatial dimensions relative to her firing point. She would not be able to draw a bead on him. On top of that she was a woman. Obviously she could shoot, but no woman could shoot that well.