looked down with sleepy eyes and saw a crossroads: two intersecting highways cut through an infinity of scrubby desert. As he looked more closely, he saw a truck kicking up sand and dust as it approached the intersection. Buddy piloted the 'copter down, landing it close to where the two roads met.
Caroline was awake now. They helped her out and she swayed a little as she tried to stand, choking on the thick dust kicked up by the rotor blades still turning slowly above their heads. The truck had pulled up a few metres away from them. A tall man with shaggy blond hair and a neatly trimmed beard climbed out. Kendrick ransacked his memories, trying to remember where he'd seen him before.
Samuel Veliz, he remembered, the memory rushing back Veliz had arrived in Ward Seventeen only just before the liberation and so had never made it down to the killing levels. Although Kendrick had never spoken directly with the man before, he remembered that Veliz had given evidence against Maze guards during the subsequent trials.
'Is that the lady?' Veliz strode forward. Caroline peered at him awkwardly, as though she wasn't sure what was going on. Kendrick kept an arm around her shoulders, more to support her than anything else.
'Kendrick, I'm sorry,' she murmured. Kendrick shook his head, as if to say It doesn't matter. Together, he and Veliz helped her into the rear of the truck where a cot had been arranged for her.
'Where are you taking her?' Kendrick asked Veliz.
'Frisco. Then offshore to…' Veliz glanced over at Buddy, who nodded that it was okay. 'Offshore to the launch ship. They've got facilities there that don't necessarily involve UN nanoware restrictions. Long as you don't tell nobody,' he added, grinning slyly.
'I won't,' Kendrick promised sincerely.
Veliz looked at him curiously. 'So how come you two guys ain't heading there right now?'
Buddy stepped forward. 'We've got some things to take care of first. When you see Sabak, tell him I'll be there a little later than expected.'
'Okay, but there isn't much time left,' Veliz warned. 'When we go, we go.'
'I know that,' Buddy replied, casting a significant glance in Kendrick's direction. 'We'll head for LA first, if there's time. But not just yet.'
Over the next several hours they stopped twice again, dropping into small, private airstrips for refuelling as they continued south. The landscape changed beneath them, becoming rougher, wilder, before all visible signs of civilization disappeared beneath a verdant jungle canopy. At one point they saw a ruined highway passing through the jungle from horizon to horizon, cutting the green world into two halves.
With its camouflage on, the helicopter appeared from below as just a pale blue outline that would darken as the day moved on to dusk. From only a few dozen metres away, you could barely hear the sound of the rotors. Although it looked ready for a scrapyard, hidden under its scarred and dented interior lurked some pretty state-of- the-art technology. In fact, it had been optimized for smuggling. Of course, good-quality thermal-imaging equipment could penetrate its disguise in a second, but some kind of concealment was better than nothing.
Finally, when it seemed their journey would last for ever, Buddy skilfully guided the 'copter down through a narrow gap in the canopy, somehow managing to drop the craft onto a patch of even ground. While Kendrick watched his knuckles turn white with terror, Buddy appeared calm throughout this operation, the only noticeable tension in the lines around his mouth.
They stepped out into an inferno of heat even worse than the one that Kendrick had experienced during his trip to Cambodia. Animal noises echoed through the tropical forest and hot mist rose in occasional wisps from the tree trunks whose vast gnarled roots dug hungrily into rich black soil. A bird with brightly coloured feathers flashed shrieking through the air above them, heading for the treetops high above. The very air tasted honeyed and thick.
Kendrick felt a fresh chill of fear down his spine. This was Los Muertos territory, and they could have been tracked even before they'd landed.
'That's possible,' Buddy admitted when Kendrick voiced his worries. 'But it's a chance we're going to have to take. Remember the last time we were here, with that kid Louie? Keep in mind that we're right in the middle of tens of thousands of square miles of jungle territory. Los Muertos can't cover more than a fraction of that.'
Kendrick eyed the helicopter, seeing the way its camouflage software reflected the vegetation around them like a constantly shifting funhouse mirror. He had no doubt that from further away the machine would blend in perfectly with its surroundings.
'Do Los Muertos have satellite capability? Could they track us that way?'
'I don't think so – though I think they have people who hack into commercial GPS satellite feeds.'
Earlier, Buddy had copied the maps that Kendrick had downloaded into his own wand. Now he peered into its tiny screen, lost in thought.
'Okay,' he said, dropping the device back into his pocket. 'Your secret entrance is maybe fifteen klicks east of here. We can get ourselves there in a couple of hours, and get out some time before dawn – with any luck. That'll give us plenty of time to take a good look around while we're down there.'
'Couldn't we have landed closer?'
Buddy shook his head. 'Terrain's no good for landing any further east. And we can't follow the highway, either: too good a chance of being spotted by road patrols.'
Kendrick shrugged. 'So I guess we just walk?' His back already itched from the river of sweat pouring down it.
Buddy flipped open a storage hatch, pulling out some bundles and dropping them to the ground. Then he tossed one of a pair of water bottles over to Kendrick. Next he produced a machete.
Buddy slammed the hatch closed and began to pack some of the stuff he'd taken out into a backpack.
He looked up at Kendrick. 'This is not going to be a picnic. It's going to be a long, hard slog. Do you understand that?'
'I hear you. Remember, I've been in places like this with you before.'
'Even so, it's easy to forget.' Buddy handed him the backpack. 'We'll take turns carrying this. You first.'
Kendrick slung the backpack over his shoulders. Although it looked large and bulky, it turned out to be surprisingly light. The heaviest items they had with them were the water bottles.
At first they made good progress, since the jungle had been relatively sparse where Buddy had dropped them down. They kept within a few hundred metres of the highway but far enough away so that anyone using it would be unlikely to spot them. This undeniably made the going a lot harder, but both men considered it far better than getting shot at.
After an hour or so Kendrick's muscles began to ache badly. Though the ground was level, every step taken involved a negotiation of tree roots and tangled vines, to the accompaniment of the constant shrieks of outraged birds and monkeys. The sun glancing down through the high canopy revealed slippery mosses coating the rocks, and fallen branches seemed to reach out malevolently to trip them up. They trampled through wide-leaved plants that grew wherever sunlight reached the soil and enormous ferns batted at their faces as they passed.
But just as the pain in Kendrick's sinews and joints threatened to become unbearable it faded away magically, becoming distant, easier to ignore. The augmentations had just kicked in, tweaking his nervous system to allow him to keep going far beyond his usual limits. He wished it had been that easy when he had suffered the seizures.
After a couple of hours the going got harder as the terrain began to rise. Buddy glanced down at his wand from time to time, checking the GPS and keeping them on course.
They had run into no one so far, which made Kendrick paranoid. He wondered if they had just been lucky, or if they were being tracked without their knowledge.
'Okay,' Buddy announced some indeterminate time later, halting with his back against the vast trunk of a banyan tree, his shirt stained black with sweat. 'Okay, that's good time. Only five kilometres to go, and we're ahead of schedule. Maybe another couple of hours if we keep up this pace, and we'll be there.' He nodded, as if
