Blue Hope: (Book 2) (Red Hope) Page 22
“Not enough time, Mr. Adam.”
“Okay, so why didn’t the whole crew just parachute directly into the target location like we are?”
“Poachers,” Jeffrey said very seriously.
“Poachers?”
“Yes, Mr. Adam. The region we are going is overgrown with jungle. There are many poachers there who will shoot at any aircraft.”
Adam suddenly looked frightened.
“Are they going to shoot at us!?”
“Probably not. We’re almost 100 miles from the target zone region.”
Adam watched as they left a region of relative flatness with occasional trees and entered a hillier locale with dense green foliage.
“How soon?” Adam asked.
“In about a minute, we should be good to go. We’ll be within a mile of your team and they are expecting us.”
The airplane slowed down, the speed creeping below 100 knots — a speed low enough that it wouldn’t break the skydiver’s necks when they jumped out of the airplane and also slow enough that they wouldn’t immediately hit the airplane’s tail.
“Are you sure you’re ready?” Jeffrey asked, skeptical of Adam’s skills as a skydiver.
“Absolutely.”
Jeffrey opened the door on the side of the airplane. Adam gasped at the sight of the huge hole that went floor to ceiling in the fuselage.
“Remember, Mr. Adam, release your chute at two thousand feet. You don’t want to remain in the air with poachers around.”
Adam panicked.
“Wait! I thought you said — ”
Jeffrey pushed Adam out of the airplane. He fell away with flailing arms and body tumbling. Jeffrey jumped out two seconds later.
Both men rocketed down toward the luscious green jungle. They could see the dirt road that their group was following. Once they landed, Adam and Jeffrey would follow that road until they found the group.
Adam looked at his wrist-mounted altimeter.
“Five thousand feet!” he called out.
He found a stable position, face down with arms and legs out. To his right he saw Jeffrey in the same position, but much higher than him.
“Four thousand!”
Adam’s heart raced a mile a minute. The ground looked way too close.
“Three thousand feet! Ah screw it!” Adam said. The ground was coming up way too fast. He pulled his ripcord and his parachute dumped out of his backpack, caught the rushing airstream and inflated. As the air filled his canopy, he felt the strings pull at him violently, decelerating him from 120mph to much slower. Jeffrey careened down past him with his head turned as if to ask Adam why he released his chute so early.
When Jeffrey appeared to be a tiny dot, Adam saw his parachute open. Jeffrey would reach the ground a solid minute before he did. From this vantage point, Adam could see for miles. It was a glorious green landscape of nature — to the south he saw the drier golden-brown terrain.
Near the top of a nearby hill Adam saw a Jeep parked and two men sitting on the hood. He saw several flashes from the Jeep. A few seconds later, Adam heard a pop pop pop sound. One of his parachute cables snapped and a small portion of the canopy began flailing. Adam suddenly felt like he was falling faster.
He looked down below and Jeffrey’s parachute had the same problem.
Adam looked back at the Jeep. It was now pulsing with flashes. Sounds of bullets zoomed past his ear. Another string snapped and he fell faster. Adam grabbed his steering handles and pulled, trying to zig-zag his flight path to get out of the way of the poacher’s bullets. He looked down. Jeffrey was falling fast too and zig-zagging.
The flashes continued, but the zig-zagging helped prevent any more snapped lines or bullet holes in his body.
Adam looked down and saw Jeffrey plow into a treetop. His parachute’s canopy collapsed. Adam steered in big wide circles to try to hit the same area. He was falling way too fast. He started circling tightly and his body was being flung out like a giant tetherball. He could see leaves now.
Crash!
Adam closed his eyes as he was thrown through the canopy before stopping. He dangled from the tree branches, suspended six feet up from the ground. After gathering his senses, he grabbed his knife out of his pants pocket and started slicing the canopy strings. He held onto a branch as he cut the last one and then fell to the ground with a thud.
Adam laid on the ground on his back — the wind knocked out of him by the backpack of supplies that he’d been wearing on his front.
After thirty seconds, he sat up, panicked.
“Jeffrey!” Adam yelled.
There was no reply.
Adam had a rough guess of where Jeffrey had landed and he began running in that direction. Looking up through the tree branches he saw Jeffrey dangling. Adam climbed up into the tree and carefully inched his way out onto the branch, holding his knife in his teeth.
“Jeffrey?” Adam asked, his voice muted by his teeth clenched on the knife blade.
Still no response.
Adam began quickly cutting the parachute lines up high. When he got to the last few, he grabbed them with one hand and tried to lower Jeffrey down. It was too much weight and Jeffrey plummeted down through the maze of branches like a Plinko chip, landing on the jungle floor.
Adam nearly ran down from the tree and rolled Jeffrey onto his back. He cut away Jeffrey’s front backpack straps and threw it to the side.
Jeffrey wasn’t breathing. Adam felt for a pulse and found nothing.
Adam knew the situation was dire. Remembering his NASA first aid training, he put his hands together on Jeffrey’s sternum and began pushing down rhythmically, performing CPR. However, Adam was shocked to hear cracking and tearing sounds as Jeffrey’s ribs and sternum were breaking.
“Oh my God,” Adam said in disgust. “That sound is just so —”
The crunching sound continued for one more push, but subsided as Adam continued CPR. He checked for a pulse and found nothing.
Just keep going, Adam thought.
Push.
Push.
Push….
Adam tried for a pulse.
“Come on, Jeffrey, come on!”
There it was. Jeffrey had a pulse. A weak one, but it was a pulse.
Jeffrey coughed and gasped for air, but was still unconscious. Adam removed his helmet and threw it into the jungle.
Adam knew that Jeffrey was in need of serious medical attention. The first step was to find the rest of his crew. They had satellite phones and could establish contact with some kind of medical help.
One thing was for sure — Adam couldn’t drag Jeffrey or give him a piggyback ride.
“What would I have done in my Boy Scout days?” Adam asked out loud.
He wandered through the nearby overgrowth and found a few skinny, but strong tree limbs. He came back and used the parachute lines to build a flat A-frame structure. He dragged Jeffrey onto it and picked it up by the top point of the A.
“Here we go, Jeffrey,” Adam said.
He began pulling the A-frame sled through the jungle and toward where he remembered the dirt road was. After a few minutes, he busted through some thick grass and onto the dirt road. The road itself had grass growing out of it — a sure sign that it saw very little traffic. Adam dragged the A-frame relentlessly, only taking breaks to drink from his water bottle.
The sound of an approaching engine made Adam freeze in his tracks. He squinted and thought he saw the front of a Jeep. Adam ran off into the foliage, pulling the A-frame with Jeffrey on it — Adam dove behind a small hill.
The Jeep approached, with men yelling in French. Adam surmised they were looking for him and Jeffrey. After a few seconds, the Jeep continued on, accelerating away.
When the sound was gone, Adam pulled Jeffrey out of the thick jungle and continued following the road.
Nightfall approached and Adam got nervous. What wild animals did this part of Africa have after sunset? Would he run into any more of the deadly two-legged
kind?
As the final rays of sun disappeared, Adam realized that he should’ve seen his advance team by now. To be safe, he pulled over to the side of the road. As he cleared some tall reeds, he suddenly saw flickering light from a campfire. Adam lowered Jeffrey’s A-frame down and creeped up toward the fire. Voices were conversing in French. Adam stepped on a twig , making a sound much louder than he’d thought was possible. The French conversations stopped. Now the only sound was the crackling of the fire.
From behind Adam, the sound of a gun being cocked got his full attention.
“Arrete toi la!” a man’s voice yelled from behind him.
Adam instinctively raised his arms up.
“I’m unarmed,” Adam said.
“Quelle?” the man asked in frustration.
Adam tried desperately to remember his high school French.
“Je ne parle pas francais,” Adam blurted out.
“Oh,” the man said. “Stop right there!”
CHAPTER 54
Approaching the Tonga Trench
Pacific Ocean
Alexis walked onto the bridge of the Deep SEAK Explorer ship. Captain Nadino stood at a large central desk examining a set of maps. He looked up and noticed Alexis.
“My dear NASA director!” he said with a warm happy smile.
“Hello, Captain. Is it time yet?”
“Well, I was just studying the weather charts. The worst of the storm has passed. We still have big waves, but we are going to head toward the target. We should be there by this time tomorrow.”
“That is the best news I’ve heard in a long time.”
“We aim to please,” the Captain said, tipping his hat.
“I should think so. We’re paying fifty thousand a day to rent this boat.”
The captain was taken aback by her shortchanging the amazing technology onboard the Deep SEAK Explorer.
“Alexis… if I may call you that,” Captain Nadino said. “This is not a boat as you say. We don’t have oars. We don’t paddle our way across the oceans. This is a ship. And we have the latest in maritime technology including one of only three vessels on Earth that have ever touched the bottom of the Mariana and Tonga trenches.”
Alexis’s cheeks grew flushed.
“My apologies captain. Please do what you do best.”
The captain smiled and looked towards his main pilot named Mr. Ricks.
“Mr. Ricks, set speed for twenty knots until the waves die down, then aim for thirty.”
“Yes, captain,” Mr. Ricks nodded.
Alexis grabbed for the nearest table as the ship accelerated.
CHAPTER 55
Africa
Adam stood frozen — a gun poked him in the back. The man who had told him to hold still was now forcing him to walk through the jungle toward the light of the campfire.
“Plongez,” the man said.
“What?” Adam asked.
Wham!
Adam slammed his head into a low-hanging tree branch.
Several men in the distance laughed out loud.
“He told you to duck, you idiot,” a stranger’s voice explained.
Adam squinted his eyes to see who was talking.
He could make out three men sitting around a campfire, all wearing baseball hats with the NASA logo on them.
Adam was confused. He looked behind him and saw the man with the gun now smiling and lowering his gun.
“Are you guys,” Adam paused. “Are you the team that Chris Tankovitch sent?”
The man closest to him stood up and shook his hand.
“I’m Leroy McLaster, I’m one of the paleontologists that Chris asked to go on this crazy trip. There’s three of us here plus a few guides.”
Adam was relieved that he wasn’t about to be killed by poachers.
“I’m Adam Alston.”
In unison, all three men said, “The man from Mars!”
They all laughed loudly.
“Hey,” Adam said. “I thought there were supposed to be six NASA guys?”
“The others got sick right after landing,” Leroy answered. “I think they drank the water or something. So we told them to stay back in town. They were puking their guts out.”
“Oh,” Adam said, looking at the men standing around the campfire.
Leroy spoke up again. “You’re a famous man, Mr. Alston.”
“Just call me Adam, please.”
“All right,” Leroy agreed. “The guy with the red jacket is Roger Leuda. He’s a geologist. The guy without a jacket is Roger Vickery. He’s an archaeologist.”
“Two Rogers, huh?”
“Yes, bit complicated, so we just call them Roger One and Roger Two.”
“Roger that,” Adam joked.
“Yup, we’ve never heard that before,” one of the Rogers said coldly.
“Anyway,” Adam said. “Nice to meet you all, but we have a bit of an emergency.”
The other two men stood up.
“My skydiving guide, Jeffrey, landed hard and I had to use CPR on him. I’ve been pulling him for about two miles.”
“Where is he?”
“He’s back on the edge of the road, hidden behind some shrubs. Your guy with the gun here only saw me. Can I get your help?”
The group of men stomped back through the jungle, ducking under the branch. They found Jeffrey, still unconscious on the A-frame, and dragged it over to their campsite. They set him down gently a few feet from the campfire.
“I’m going to get the medic,” Leroy said. He walked toward a tent beside a large truck.
Adam knelt down next to Jeffrey to check his breathing.
“So you had to use CPR?” Roger One asked.
“Yes, first time I’ve ever had to do that.”
“Did you hear all the crunching?”
“Yeah…” Adam paused. “They don’t warn you about that in first aid class.”
Roger One sat down and picked up a coffee cup.
“Well,” he said between sips. “You did good work there, Adam. Jeffrey owes his life to you.”
There’s a first time for everything, Adam thought to himself.
Leroy walked back into the light of the fire, followed by a black man wearing a safari hat who carried a medical bag.
“This is Dr. Rolatu,” Leroy said.
Adam shook the doctor’s hand.
They both knelt down next to Jeffrey. The doctor opened his bag and pulled out a stethoscope and began probing various locations on Jeffrey’s chest and back, asking Adam to help gently roll him sideways.
“His lungs are clear — I don’t hear any congestion or aspiration pneumonia. His pulse is normal, too.”
Jeffrey opened his eyes wide, looking left and right.
“Jeffrey!” the doctor said with excitement. “We were worried about you.”
“My chest hurts so bad,” Jeffrey whispered.
The doctor reached into his bag and pulled out a tablet computer that had a box plugged into the bottom of it. Wires dangled out of it like cooked spaghetti.
“What’s that?” Jeffrey and Adam asked at the same time.
“Gentlemen, this is a portable EKG. I’m going to monitor his heart for the next ten minutes. Jeffrey, I need you to relax and sit still.”
“Sure thing, Doctor, but can I get a drink of water?”
Adam stood up and grabbed a canteen out of his backpack. He brought it back and gently poured some into Jeffrey’s mouth.
“I think you’ll be okay,” Dr. Rolatu said. “Your chest is going to hurt like hell for several weeks. I’ve got some medication that will help.”
The doctor hooked up the wires to various places on Jeffrey’s chest and patted him on the shoulder.
“You’ve had a rough day. Please rest some more and don’t move for another ten minutes.”
Adam stood up and walked over to Leroy who was downing the last of his coffee.
“Adam, let me officially introduce you to Victor. He’s our main guide.”
/> The two men walked over to the large truck. Sitting in the front seat was a man wearing a tan jacket with pockets all over it — it was the man who’d poked the gun in his back and walked him through the jungle.
“Victor, this is Adam Alston,” Leroy said.
Victor turned toward Adam with an emotionless face.
“We have already met,” Victor said coldly with an accent sprinkled with tinges of French and African Bantu. He went back to looking at a map.
“Victor, I need to tell you something,” Adam said. “While we were parachuting in, we saw poachers. They shot at us several times.”
“Yes, we heard their gunshots. You are lucky. They were playing games with you.”
“Playing games?” Adam said incredulously. “They ruined our parachutes and we almost died on impact.”
“If they were really trying, you would have been dead before you hit the ground.”
Adam grimaced. “Aren’t you worried about the poachers?”
“No, they should not bother us tonight,” Victor said with a confident tone.
“How do you know that?”
“Because I have already paid them a bribe. You see Mr. Adam, as your guide, it is my job to know how to deal with these — local — situations.”
“Oh,” Adam said curtly. “Well, what happens tomorrow?”
“We have about another eighty miles to go, but the trip will be difficult. Depending on how Dunongo goes, we will get to your target zone tomorrow night.”
“What’s Dunongo?” Adam asked.
“It is a place,” Victor explained. “Now get some sleep. You have had a rough day. The doctor will take care of Jeffrey tonight. We will see how he is tomorrow. In Dunongo we can charter a driver to take him back to the city. For a fee, of course.
“Of course,” Adam replied.
CHAPTER 56
Africa
(Daybreak)
The sun rose over the lush mountain ridge — rays of light hit Adam like lasers. He woke up, slightly confused at his location. He had a net draped over his cot.
Adam tried to get out of his cot. His body said no. He must’ve pulled a muscle in his back during the parachuting adventure.