am going to risk a peep, to make sure it's the Pegasus job - not that
there can be many other choppers in this area. Keep your head down!'
He lifted his head slowly and cautiously, and one glance was sufficient
to confirm all his speculations. Half a mile upstream, the Pegasus jet
Ranger hovered over the river. It was moving slowly away from him, so
that from this angle Nicholas was unable to see through the windscreen
into the cockpit. But at that moment the engine beat changed as the
pilot changed pitch and pulled on the collective.
As the aircraft rose vertically and turned northwards, Nicholas caught a
glimpse of the passengers. Jake Helm sat in the front seat beside the
pilot, and Colonel Nogo was in the seat behind him. They were both
staring down into the river valley, but in seconds the helicopter lifted
them away and the machine disappeared beyond the ridge, flying in the
direction of the escarpment, and the sound of its engines dwindled into
silence. Nicholas crawled out from beneath the boulder and pulled Royan
to her feet.
'No more doubts. We know who we are dealing with now. That was Helm and
No in the chopper. Helm 9 almost certainly laid the gelly, and Nogo
probably led the men who hit our camp last night. Each of them doing the
job he does best,' Nicholas told her. 'So that confirms it.
Whoever owns Pegasus is the ugly behind all this. Helm and Nogo are
merely the stooges.'
'But Nogo is an officer in the Ethiopian army,' she protested.
'Welcome to Africa.' He did not smile as he said it.
'Here everything is for sale at a price, including government officials
and army officers.' Now he scowled so that the caked dust on his face
was dislodged and filtered down in a fine powdering. 'Now, however, our
main concern is to get out of the gorge and back to civilization.'
He looked up the slope. The trail above them had been obliterated
beneath the rock fall. 'We can't get back that way,' he told her, and
took her hand. But when he lifted her to her feet she gasped and quickly
shifted her weight to her right leg.
My knee!' Then she smiled bravely. 'It will be all right.)
However, she was limping heavily as they scrambled down to the rivet,
terrified that their movements would set off another rock slide. They
ended up waist'deep in the water under the bank.
Royan stood behind Nicholas and washed the blood and dust from the wound
in his scalp. 'Not too bad,' she told him. 'Doesn't need a stitch.'
'I have a tube of Betadyne in my pack,' he said. He fished it out, and
she smeared the wound with the yellow brown ointment before binding it
up with the Paisley bandana.
'That will do.' She patted his shoulder.
'Thank the Lord for my burn-bag,'Nicholas remarked as he zipped it
closed. 'At least we have a few essentials with us. Now our next job is
to look for any other survivors.'
'Tamte!'she exclaimed.
They floundered along the bank. The river was clogged with loose rock
and earth that had fallen from the cliff. In the deeper places they were
forced in up to their armpits, and Nicholas carried his pack at arm's
