Dead Harvest

  Of course, if I couldn't stop us from crashing, any debate over killing the pilot was gonna be kind of moot.

  I scampered back to the pilot's seat while the street rushed upward to meet us. Forty yards, thirty. The chopper spun still, and I watched horrified as, beneath us, Sixth Avenue erupted into chaos: cars were abandoned as their drivers fled, pedestrians trampled one another in a desperate attempt to get away; a cab leapt the curb and launched headlong into a sausage cart. Twenty yards, ten. Behind me, Kate raised her head, her mutter of confusion becoming a frightened wail as she realized we were going down. I gripped the up-lever with all I had and yanked it backward, just moments from impact.

  The chopper began to rise.

  The street receded beneath us, but we weren't out of the woods yet. Still we hurtled forward, the helicopter spinning wildly, and no amount of my slamming on the pedals at my feet seemed to change that. Sixth Avenue, so broad and impressive in my youth, was suddenly the eye of a needle – it was all I could do not to slam into the massive buildings that jutted skyward to either side. To make matters worse, thick black smoke billowed from our tail, blanketing the street, while on the control panel, a dozen alarms flashed and chimed. I didn't know exactly what they meant, but I was pretty sure I caught the gist: no matter what I did, we weren't long for the sky.

  One of our skids caught on a street light, and the helicopter shuddered. I jerked the joystick aside, nearly careening into one of the buildings that whizzed past on my right. The skid clattered, useless, to the street below. A moment later, the street light followed, slamming down atop an abandoned Lincoln Town Car in a flurry of sparks and broken glass.

  At the far end of the cabin, Bishop or our pilot stirred. Kate didn't wait to find out which of them was driving – she clocked him full-swing with the same fire extinguisher he'd used to hit me. He went down in a tangle of limbs, out this time for sure.

  The chopper swung wildly now from right to left, and there was only so much I could do to correct. We were maybe twenty feet above the street, but we were barreling along too fast to simply jump – and besides, if we abandoned the bird now, she was gonna wind up rearranging some real estate, not to mention killing dozens. But as the familiar Art Deco facade of the RitzCarlton loomed large over us and I caught a glimpse of the sea of greenery beyond, I had me an idea.

  We were gonna land in the park.

  OK, land might've been too generous a term, what with a non-pilot at the stick and one of our skids a few hundred yards behind us, but still, if I could slow her down enough and drop her somewhere soft, maybe we could walk away from this OK. At least, that's what I would have been thinking had my thoughts not been preoccupied by a silent mantra of oh shit oh shit oh shit. With the chopper threatening to shake itself apart, and the joystick unresponsive, that last block and a half was one tough needle to thread.

  Without warning, we kicked sideways. Behind us, a latticework of scaffolding buckled where our blades had torn through it, and collapsed to the pavement beneath. The helicopter pitched and tumbled like a rowboat in a hurricane, and there was nothing left for me to do.

  One way or another, this bird was going down.

27.

The chopper shook so badly that my vision blurred and the horizon was rendered indistinct, but still I gripped the joystick between my knees, struggling with all I had to keep the chopper on course. Even in the best of circumstances, there was no way in hell I was gonna land this thing smoothly, but minus one skid, and with the controls unresponsive, I figured my only shot was to drop us in some water. Even then, I didn't know if we'd survive.

  We rocketed over the intersection of Sixth and Central Park South, and the buildings of Midtown dropped away. The treetops of the park scraped against the underside of the helicopter like the scrabbling of some unholy scavengers, eager to partake of the tasty morsels within. I tried my damnedest to gain a little altitude, but the scrabbling continued. It looked like we were out of up.

  I considered my options. The reservoir was damn near two miles away – no way were we gonna stay up that long. Besides, the reservoir is huge – even if I brought her down OK, we'd likely drown before we reached the shore. The lake was a better bet – a little closer, a little shallower – but still, I didn't see this bucket getting that far. That left the pond. Plenty close, if a bit shallow for my liking. Would a few feet of water be enough to cushion our impact? I suddenly found myself wishing I'd done a little better in physics as a kid – or, failing that, that I'd taken it more recently than seventy-odd years ago.

  Oh, well, I thought – only one way to find out.

  I yanked the joystick to the right. The chopper banked. She lost a little altitude as well, and a maelstrom of leaves and branches raged around us. I caught a glimpse of shimmering water just ahead before the chopper plunged entirely below the tree line, and then I saw nothing but green.

  There was nothing left to do but pray.

  We emerged from the canopy like a slug from a barrel, our rotor twisted and unmoving above us, our landing skids both certainly gone. The cabin tilted, and I fell from the pilot's seat, slamming hard into the window beside me. Through it, I saw the water rise to meet us, and then a murky nothing as it engulfed us in a roar of surf and a screech of rending metal. And then my forehead met the windshield, and the world went dark.

The gun was a dull, ugly affair, all scuffed and gray and worn. A tiny little revolver with a nasty snub nose and a peeling leather grip, it had the look of a featherweight boxer gone to seed. I hefted it in my hand, marveling at its weight. Then I extended my arm outward, lining the sight up with the clock that sat behind a wire cage just a few feet above the countertop.

  'Whoa, pal, that iron's hot! Do me favor and maybe don't go ventilating my shop, huh?'

  I looked at him and set the gun down on the counter. He was a wiry guy of maybe forty, with beady close-set eyes and nervous hands, which at the moment were tapping out a jaunty number on the countertop. He wore a pair of baggy wool trousers, held up by a set of suspenders over a greasestained T-shirt. Except for me and him, the hock shop was empty. I looked him up and down, and wondered was he always this nervous, or was it my sparkling personality that had him on edge. Then again, I guess it coulda been the gun.

  'You always keep 'em loaded?' I asked.

  'No, not always. But guys like you, they come in wantin' a piece, I've found it ain't wise to keep