Ejecta Read Online Free Page B

we'll have to disable them, jump in your truck, and haul ass! You have a key?”
    “Yes,” Guiscard answered, as he patted a pants pocket. “Right here.”
    “Excellent,” Palmer replied. “Once we’re clear of the camp you will stop here so I can jump out and drive the Volvo. Let’s leave the driver’s side door unlocked and the key in the ignition.”
    “That’s a good idea,” the Chadian agreed, as he opened the rear doors. “How about an emergency reflector? We could put it out next to the track so I’ll know where to stop.”
    “Perfect,” Palmer responded, “And don’t forget the iron…. We need to pick that up on our way out. Okay, let’s gear up.”
    The better part of fifteen-minutes passed while the three men armed themselves, shouldered small day packs, and made their final checks. “Let’s jump up and down, and see how noisy we are,” Palmer suggested.
    The answer was
very
noisy as various items of equipment
rattled
and
jingled
. So another five-minutes was spent securing loose items before Damya could lead the others west along the game trail that paralleled the main track. The sky was a beautiful shade of lavender by then. The first stars could be seen, and the temperature was beginning to plunge.
    The rifle clutched in Palmer’s hands plus the empty feeling in his gut and the almost supernatural acuteness of his senses were all reminiscent of night operations in Afghanistan. The only sounds to be heard as the geologist followed Guiscard up the trail were the occasional click
of one stone striking another, the soft swish
of a branch as his arm brushed by it, and the steady rasp of his own breathing.
    But Palmer knew how quickly that could change…. Because he could remember the deafening boom of an IED (Improvised Explosive Device) going off, followed by the sudden rattle of automatic weapons as insurgents opened fire on his platoon, and the screams as his men began to die. And each death was a broken promise. A personal failure. Sins for which he could never atone.
    Such were the memories running through the ex-marine’s mind as a helicopter
roared
overhead! The sound was so congruent with Palmer’s memories he thought he was back in Helmand Province for a moment, until the chopper passed overhead, and lights appeared directly in front of them. Headlights, judging from the glare, which were being used to illuminate an improvised LZ.
    The helicopter constituted a nasty surprise, but made such a loud racket that Damya was able to run forward, secure in the knowledge that any noise he and his companions made would be covered by the chopper, which had already begun to descend. And it was a pretty good bet that any sentries would be focused on the aircraft rather than peering into the surrounding darkness looking for infiltrators.
    A short sprint took the three men within five-hundred feet of the desert encampment, where a pile of tumble-down rocks offered a place to hide as the brightly illuminated EC-135 Eurocopter settled onto its skids. Palmer had a pair of binos out by then. So as the helicopter’s twin Turbomeca engines began to spool down he had an excellent view when a door opened and Police Chief Bahir Jann appeared. Ironically it was the Mog’s headlights that were focused directly on him, and judging from the way some of the bandits surged forward to greet the official, Jann was no stranger to them. “Uh oh,” Guiscard whispered from a few inches away. “What now?”
    “We wait,” Palmer replied pragmatically. “And hope for the best.”
    ***
    It was too late for “the best,” or so it seemed to Guiscard. There was no point in saying so however. But had the Chadian chosen to look skyward he would have seen a meteorite streak across the velvety sky. An omen perhaps had the engineer been able to understand it.

Chapter Two
    Seattle-Tacoma International Airport
    After two-years in central America, following muddy trails through the hot, steamy jungle, the airport’s