Dead Harvest

out.

  It felt like an eternity, standing there, looking down at the body at my feet, but really, it couldn't have been more than a few moments. I was shaken from my reverie by the sound of sirens, distant but approaching. I should have thought to take the gun. I should have thought a lot of things. But the truth is, I didn't think anything at all. I just ran.

  Problem is, some things, you just can't run from.

When I came to, my head was throbbing. By the digital readout on the console, I'd been out less than a minute, but it felt more like a week. For a moment, I didn't move, didn't blink – I just lay there, still as death, so spent was I by our mad flight across Manhattan, not to mention our sudden descent. My everything hurt, but the way I figured it, that meant my everything was still attached, so that wasn't all bad news. In the sudden absence of the helicopter's droning wail, the cabin was so quiet I wondered briefly if I'd been struck deaf. Then I heard a low groan from the back of the cabin, and I realized my ears, at least, were fine.

  The groaning was coming from Kate, who lay prostrate atop our pilot. It seemed he'd cushioned her impact, because she looked pretty much in one piece, if a bit dazed. There was a welt above her right eye from when she'd slammed into the ceiling, and blood ran freely from a scrape on her chin, but when my eyes met hers, she smiled.

  Our pilot had not fared so well. He was still out, and his leg was bent beneath him in a manner not possible given the usual number of joints and bones. His face was a swollen, bloody mess, and his bullet-grazed forearm had soaked through the fabric of his flight suit. Looking at him, I wanted to feel anger at Bishop for forcing me to hurt that man, or horror at what I'd done; I wanted to feel regret for having put the pilot in this position in the first place. I wanted to feel those things because they would have given me something of my past life to hold on to, something human and decent and kind. Mostly, though, I just felt tired.

  'Ugh,' Kate said, rolling off of the pilot and collapsing against the cabin wall that now served as the floor. 'That sucked. Next time you steal a vehicle, make sure it's one you know how to drive, OK?'

  'I didn't steal it – I hijacked it. There's a difference. And I don't think you 'drive' a helicopter.'

  'I think it's pretty clear you don't.'

  'Funny.' I hauled myself up onto my knees. It felt like I was trying to lift a bus. 'What about our pilotfriend? He still breathing?'

  'Yeah,' she said. 'You think he's still a bad guy?'

  'I don't know. If he's out, Bishop's out, so there's a chance Bishop's still around. But if I had to guess, I'd say Bishop bailed the last time our guy came to – I would have. The way that leg's bent, though, I don't think we've got to worry about him giving chase either way.'

  'So what now?'

  'Now we run.'

  I lifted myself up off the chopper window, now buried in the thick, brown-green muck that lined the bottom of the pond. An earthy stench permeated the cabin, and as I rose, I was surprised to find my clothes were damp with muddy pond water. It bubbled upward from the cabin wall beneath us; it oozed from the control panels. I helped Kate to her feet, and looked down at our pilot-friend, the inky water pooling around him.

  'We've got to take him with us,' Kate said. 'If we leave him here, he'll drown.'

  'The water's barely three feet deep, Kate, and coming in slow. He'll be all right till someone gets here.'

  'You can't know that.'

  'I don't know that – but it's the best we can do.'

  'No, it's not. You can help me get him out of here. I can't do it on my own.'

  'Kate, that's nuts – we don't have time.'

  'Yeah? Well, I say we do. You plan to sit and watch while I try, the cops approaching all the while? Or would you rather try and drag me off? Carry me or carry him – it's your choice. At least with him, you've got help, and unlike me, he won't be kicking the whole way.'

  The way that leg looked, he might not be kicking ever again, but I wasn't gonna tell her that. What I said instead was: 'OK. But we'd better hurry.'

  First, though, we had to find a door. The one we'd boarded through now lay beneath our feet – not to mention a good inch of pond water. I scanned the cabin. If there was an emergency hatch, it sure as hell wasn't obvious. That left Plan C.

  What was once the left-hand side of the cockpit window was submerged, the water thick with particles churned up in our landing, but the right-hand side was clear, slate sky hanging low above a canopy of leaves.

  'Cover your eyes,' I said. Kate complied.

  The gun thundered in my hand, painfully loud in the small, quiet space of the cabin. I, too, had covered my eyes against the threat of spraying glass, burying my face in the crook of my elbow. Once the reverberations died down, I allowed myself a peek.

  The glass had buckled outward, the pane a tangled web of cracks framing a hole the size of a quarter. I climbed atop the now-horizontal seat and braced my good leg against the window, my heel atop the hole, and my back pressed tight against the seatback. Then, with an animal cry, I pushed.

  The pane snapped free of its frame, not in a thousand tiny pieces as I expected, but all at once. It smacked into the surface of the water with a slap. Cool air kissed my face, and carried with it the sound of distant sirens. Been hearing those too often lately, I thought.

  'Grab his feet,' I said, looping my arms under the pilot's arms and around his chest. 'And mind that leg.'