cloud of foglike condensation rose from the explosive force of thousands of gallons of water cascading into a lake directly below the steep-sided bluff.
Paul said, “Those falls make Niagara look like a herring~ brook.”
‘All that water has to have an outlet.” Gamay scanned the perimeter of the lake. “Paul, over there! I can see the river. It’s flowing out of the lake. All we have to do is follow it.”
“Not unless you see a gas station, too,” Trout said with a glance at the propane fuel gauge. The tank was practically on empty. “We’re about to drop out of the sky.”
“We can still move forward. Get us as close to the river as possible. We’ll ditch this thing and use the raft.”
Trout did a mental rundown of a water splashdown. The gondola’s weight would pull it under the water. Residual air in the envelope might keep the gondola from going down immediately, but the hundreds of square feet of fabric would pose a hazard, trapping them in its folds. They should both be clear of the airship before it hit water and do their best to keep the raft in tact. It could be their ticket out of the forest.
Paul quickly outlined his analysis and plan. “I think we should cut the raft loose before we land. Otherwise we could lose it.”
Gamay took another look over the side. Nine nylon lines, three at each corner, were attached to the dangling raft.
“There’s a Swiss Army knife in the storage box,” she said.
Paul tested the sharpness of the blade with his thumb and tucked the knife in the big pocket of his cargo shorts.
“You take us in,” he said. “Get us as low to the water as you can. I’ll cut the raft free.”
“Then I bring this buggy to a hover and we abandon ship and go in for a swim,” Gamay said.
“As easy as one-two-three,” Paul said with a grin.
Gamay took over the steering wheel and put the airship into a slow turn away from the falls. Sunlight streaming through the mists that rose off the lake created multiple rainbows. Gamay hoped it was a good sign.
The gondola tilted from Paul’s weight as he climbed out onto the right side of the framework. He looked down at the red tri angle swinging about thirty feet below and made his way to the rear of the gondola behind the tanks and burners. He sawed away at the lines attached to the rear left corner of the raft, then continued across the gondola’s framework and repeated his work. Attached to the gondola only by its nose lines, the raft bobbed and twisted in the wind.
Using a light foot on the burner control, Gamay aimed for a spot near the river, bringing the airship down in a long, easy glide. She was starting to think that his crazy scheme might work. Her optimism vanished as the burner went ploof; then was silent. They had run out of fuel at an altitude of a thousand feet.
There was no immediate change in the airship’s behavior. The heated air maintained the envelope’s streamlined shape, and the propeller kept the craft at a shallow angle. The airship continued on its heading. At five hundred feet altitude the situation began to come apart at the seams. As the air cooled, lift was lost, and the angle of descent became steeper. Pressure inside the envelope diminished as well, and the front end developed a dent. The airship assumed the shape of a rotten tomato and swung to the left.
Paul was working a few feet directly in front of Gamay. He had severed two lines and was about to work on the third. He had become overconfident and had released his safety grip on the framework when the blimp swerved. Not expecting the sudden maneuver, he lost his balance and tumbled off. Gamay yelled helplessly.
The gondola was jerked violently and nosed down. Gamay leaned over and saw Paul clutching the line immediately above the dangling raft, which twisted violently, snapping back and
forth like a child’s swing in the wind. The blimp’s forward motion had slowed almost to a stop. She looked up at the envelope, which had become a formless blob, then back under the gondola. Paul was still hanging on. Trout didn’t want to be under the blimp when it came down. He cut the line and plunged feet first into the water from a height of about fifty feet. As he came to the surface the raft hit the water with a great splash.
Gamay was operating on pure adrenaline. She unsnapped her harness, climbed out onto the side of the gondola, took a deep breath, and dove off. Despite the shakiness of the platform and the fact that it was plunging rapidly toward the water, Gamay did a classic swan dive that would have earned her a top score in an Olympic competition. She hit the water with arms out stretched, her body straight, went deep, then kicked her way quickly back to the shimmering surface. Just in time to see the airship come down directly on top of the raft.
The raft disappeared under the layered folds of the envelope along with any hope it could be used to float their way home. She was more concerned about Paul for the moment and was relieved beyond words when she heard his voice calling, although she still couldn’t see him.
Pulled under by the gondola, the envelope sank, taking the raft with it. She saw Paul’s head bobbing on the other side of the sinking airship. He waved, and they swam toward each other, meeting in the middle. They treaded water for a few moments, gazing with awe at the cascading streams. Then, taking advantage of the push from the water rippling out from the falls, they began to swim for the distant shore.
Chapter 13
FBI special agent Miguel Gomez leaned his beefy wrestler’s body back in his swivel chair, laced his fingers behind his head, and gazed in wonderment at the two men sitting on the other side of his desk.
“You gentlemen must like tortillas one hell of a lot to want to see Enrico Pedralez.”
Austin said, “We’ll pass on the tortillas. We just want to ask Pedralez a few questions.”
“Impossible,” the agent said flatly, shaking his head for emphasis. His eyes were as dark as raisins, and they had the sad and wary expression cops get when they have seen it all.
“I don’t understand,” Austin said, a hint of impatience in his voice. “You make an appointment with his secretary. You go in and have a chat. Just like any businessman.”
“The Farmer isn’t just any businessman.”
“The Farmer? I was unaware he was into agriculture, too.”
Gomez couldn’t hold back a toothy grin. “Guess you could call it agriculture. Did you hear about the big search for bodies buried at a couple of ranches just over the border?”
“Sure,” Austin said. “It was in all the papers. They found dozens of corpses, probably people killed by drug dealers.”
“I was one of the FBI field agents the Mexicans allowed to come in on that operation. The ranches were owned by Enrico, or, rather, in the names of guys who worked for Pedralez.”
Zavala, who was sitting in the other chair, said, “You’re telling us the tortilla king is a drug dealer?”
Gomez leaned forward onto his desk and counted on his fingers. “Drugs, prostitution, extortion, kidnapping, Medicaid fraud, purse snatching, and making a public nuisance of himself. You name it. His organization is like any other conglomerate that doesn’t put all its eggs in one basket. The bad boys are taking their cue from Wall Street. Diversification is the byword in the Mexican mafia these days.”
“Mafia,” Austin said. “That might present a little problem.”
“Nothing little about it,” the agent said. He was on a roll. “The Mexican mafia makes the Sicilians look like choir boys. The old Cosa Nostra would whack a guy, but it was hands off the family. The Russian mob will wipe out your wife and kids if you get out of line, but even with them, it’s purely business. With the Mexicans, it’s personal. Anyone who gets in their way is of fending their machismo. Enrico doesn’t just kill his enemies, he grinds them, their relatives, and their friends into powder.”
“Thanks for the warning,” Austin said, unfazed by the agent’s monologue. “Now will you tell us how we go about seeing him?”
Gomez let out a whooping laugh. He had wondered about this pair since they walked into his office and flashed their NUMA identification. He only knew of the National Underwater & Marine Agency by name, that it was the undersea equivalent of NASA. Austin and Zavala didn’t fit in with his preconceived notion of ocean scientists. The bronze-skinned man with the penetrating blue-green eyes and albino hair looked as if he could knock down walls with those battering-ram shoulders. His partner was soft-spoken, and a slight smile played around his lips, but with a mask and a sword he would have been a casting director’s ideal choice to play Zorro.
“Okay, guys,” Gomez said, shaking his head in defeat. “Since it is still against the law to assist a suicide, I would feel better if you told me what’s going down. Why is NUMA interested in a tortilla plant owned by a Mexican crook?”
