Lost Empire (33 page)

Ten miles east of Anosibe Ifody the terrain began to change yet again, giving way to tropical forest interspersed with rugged brown hills that reminded Sam and Remi of Tuscany. Jagged escarpments, glowing brownish gold in the sun, rose above the treetops to the north and south. Shortly after three o’clock they stopped at a Jovenna gas station on the outskirts of Manjakandriana. Remi went inside for snacks and water while Sam pumped the gas.

Down the block, a white Volkswagen Passat police vehicle came around the corner and headed toward the gas station. Moving at a sedate twenty miles per hour, the Passat slowed as it drew even with the Range Rover. After a few more seconds the Passat sped up and continued down the block, where it pulled to the side of the road and parked. Through the rear window Sam saw the driver pluck something off the dashboard and bring it to his mouth.

Remi came out with four bottles of water and a few bags of pretzels. Sam got back in the driver’s seat.

“You’re wearing your frowny face,” Remi observed.

“It may be exhaustion or paranoia, or a combination of the two, but I think that police car is interested in us.”

“Where?”

“Down the block, under the awning with the old Coca-Cola sign.”

Remi checked the side mirror. “I see him.”

“He slowed beside us, then parked and got on the radio.”

Sam started the engine. They sat in silence for a few minutes.

“What exactly are we doing?” Remi asked.

“Giving him a chance.”

Remi caught on: “If it’s official business, he’ll stop us here. If not . . . ‘note-and-notify.’”

“Right.” Sam put the Rover in gear. “Time to play navigator again, Remi. We’re backtracking.”

“To where?”

“Hopefully, nowhere. If he doesn’t follow us, we’ll turn around again.”

“And if he follows us?”

“Then we’re on the run. We’ll be needing one of those unnamed roads you mentioned.”

 

 

“WE’RE ON THE RUN,” Remi announced a few minutes later. Facing backward, she’d been staring through the rear window since they’d left Manjakandriana. “He’s a mile back.”

“We’ve got some dips and turns coming up. Let me know each time you lose sight of him.”

“Why?”

“If we sprint while he’s watching us he’ll know we’re running; this way we may be able to get some distance before he realizes it.”

“Tricky, Fargo.”

“Only if it works.”

“What if he tries to stop us?”

“I don’t even want to think about it.”

 

 

FOR THE NEXT FIFTEEN MINUTES Sam followed Remi’s cues, flooring the gas pedal for a ten count when Remi said, “Go!,” before slowing back down to the speed limit. Slowly but steadily, they put an extra half mile between them and the Passat.

“Are any of those roads not gravel or dirt?” Sam asked.

Remi studied the map. “Hard to tell, but this one coming up looks a tad thicker than the others. So far on this map, that’s usually meant blacktop of some kind. Why do you ask?”

“No dust trail.”

“From a quick turn,” Remi said. “That could work both ways.”

Sam frowned. “Good point. Tell me when the turn’s coming up.”

For the next few minutes Remi matched passing roads and signs against the map’s markings. “Should be the next turn to the south.” She measured the distance with her fingernail. “A quarter mile, give or take. Should be just over this hill.”

“How’s our friend?”

“Hard to be sure, but it looks like he’s picked up speed.”

They crested the hill and started down. Ahead, Sam saw the turnoff Remi had indicated. Sam jammed the accelerator to the floorboard, and the Range Rover surged forward. Her eyes wide, Remi braced herself against the dashboard. A hundred yards from the turn, Sam switched his foot to the brake, pressing as hard as he dared without skidding, and brought the Rover down to sixty-five kilometers per hour, or forty miles per hour.

“Hang on,” Sam said, then slewed the wheel right. Despite the Rover’s high center of gravity, the tires clung to the road, but Sam could see he’d overshot the turn. He eased the wheel left, then tapped the brakes and jerked the wheel right again. The Rover’s tail whipped around. The driver’s-side rear tire slipped off the shoulder. They felt the Rover tipping sideways. Sam resisted the impulse to correct right and instead steered into the skid, dropping the driver’s-side front tire off the shoulder. Now even with each other, the two shoulder-side tires bit down together. Sam gunned it, jerked the wheel to the right, and the Rover vaulted back onto the road.

“Sharp right!” Remi called, pointing at a gap in the foliage off the shoulder.

Sam reacted instantly, braking hard. The Rover shuddered to a stop. Sam switched into reverse, backed up ten feet, switched back to drive and turned into the gap. Shadows engulfed them. Foliage scraped the car’s sides. He eased forward a few feet until the bumper tapped a wooden cattle gate.

Remi climbed over the center console into the backseat and poked her head up so she could see out the side window.

Sam asked, “Are we off the road?”

“Barely. He should be along anytime now.” Thirty seconds later: “There he goes.” She turned around in the seat, slumped back, and exhaled. “Can we sit here for a—”

From down the main road came the shrieking of brakes, then silence.

Sam and Remi froze.

In the distance an engine revved and tires squealed.

Sam groaned. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Buckle up, Remi.”

 

 

THE ROAD, while in fact blacktop, was narrow and winding, with no centerline and with ragged shoulders. With the Range Rover at top speed, they gained a half mile before they heard the Passat skid into the turn behind them. As they rounded the next corner a sign flashed past.

Remi caught it: “Narrow bridge ahead.”

Sam gunned the engine, eating up the straightaway before the bridge. On either side, the jungle seemed to close in around them. The green tips of branches lashed the side windows. Through the windshield, the bridge appeared.

“They call that a bridge?” Remi called.

Spanning a narrow gorge, the bridge was anchored to each bank by a pair of steel cables, but there were neither center stanchions nor support pylons. Fence-post-and-rope handrails lined each side. The bridge’s surface was little more than parallel twelve-inch planks with nothing but air and the occasional crossbeam between them.

Fifty yards from the structure, Sam slammed on the brakes. He and Remi glanced out the side windows; there was nothing. No breaks in the foliage, no turnoffs. Nowhere to hide. Beside them, a sign read, in French: SINGLE VEHICLE CROSSING ONLY. BRIDGE SPEED LIMIT—6 KPH. Essentially, a walking pace.

Sam looked at Remi, who forced a smile. “Like a Band-Aid,” she said.

“Don’t think, just do it.”

“Right.”

Sam aligned the Rover’s wheels with the bridge’s planks, then stepped on the accelerator. The Rover rolled forward.

Behind them came the sound of tires squealing. Remi turned in her seat and saw the Passat skid around the corner, fishtail slightly, then straighten out.

“Ten to one he was counting on this bridge.”

“No bet,” Sam replied, fingers white on the steering wheel.

The Rover’s front tires thumped over the bridge’s first crossbeam and onto the planks. The wood groaned and creaked. The Rover’s back tires crossed over.

“Point of no return,” Sam said. “Is he slowing down?”

Still turned in her seat, Remi said, “No . . . Okay, he is. He’s not stopping, though.”

Sam depressed the accelerator. The speedometer needle rose past twelve kph.

Remi rolled down her window, stuck her head out, and looked down.

Sam called, “Do I want to know?”

“It’s about a fifty-foot drop into a river.”

“A lazy river, right?”

“Whitewater. Class 4 at least.”

“Okay, sunshine, enough narrative.”

Remi pulled her head back inside and took another look through the rear window. “He’s almost on the bridge. Clearly, the sign doesn’t worry him.”

“Let’s hope he knows more than we do.”

They crossed the halfway point.

A moment later they felt the Range Rover dip slightly. Now double loaded, the bridge began undulating like a jump rope being flicked vertically at both ends. While the movement was but inches, the differing weights and positions of the vehicles began to feed upon each other.

“Interference wave,” Sam muttered.

“Pardon?”

“Physics. When two waves of disparate amplitude combine—”

“Bad things happen,” Remi finished. “I get it.”

The Range Rover was rising and falling erratically now, six inches in each direction, Sam estimated. Remi felt her stomach rise into her throat.

“Do we happen to have any seasickness pills?”

“Sorry, my dear. We’re almost there.”

The bridge’s opposite side loomed before the windshield. Twenty feet . . . ten. Sam set his jaw, waited for the Rover to begin its downward plunge, then goosed the accelerator. The speedometer shot past twenty-five kph. The Rover bumped over the last crossbeam and onto solid ground.

Remi glanced out the rear window. Her eyes went wide. “Sam . . .”

He turned. Without the Rover’s compensatory weight, the police Passat was absorbing all the motion. The bridge lurched upward, then dropped suddenly, leaving the car suspended for a split second. It was just enough. The Passat dropped but landed slightly off line. The driver’s-side front tire dropped into the center gap. With a gunshotlike crack, the nearest crossbeam gave way. The Passat tipped sideways onto the driver’s door and slipped farther into the rift. The forward third of the car, including the engine compartment, was now dangling in space.

Remi murmured, “Oh, God . . .”

On impulse, Sam opened his door and got out.

“Sam! What are you doing?”

“For all we know, he’s just a cop doing what he was ordered.”

“Or he’ll happily shoot you when you walk up to his car.”

Sam shrugged, then walked back and opened the Rover’s tailgate. He rummaged through his pack and found what he was looking for: a fifty-foot coil of quarter-inch utility paracord. Careful to stay on the Passat’s “up side,” he walked down the plank until he was even with the passenger-side door. Below him, the river rushed past, frothing and sending up plumes of spray. He crouched down and examined the chassis; the situation was more precarious than he’d anticipated. The only thing keeping the Passat from falling was the driver’s-side rear tire, which was wedged between a plank and a crossbeam.

Sam called, “Do you speak English?”

After a few moments’ hesitation, the cop replied in a French-Malagasy accent, “A little English.”

“I’m going to get you out—”

“Yes, thank you, please—”

“Don’t shoot me.”

“Okay.”

“Repeat what I just said.”

“You are going to help me. I will not shoot you with my gun. Here, here . . . I will drop it out the window.”

Sam walked to the rear of the car and peeked around the bumper so he could see the driver’s door. A hand holding a revolver appeared through the open window. The revolver dropped through the gap and tumbled into the mist below. Sam walked back to the passenger door.

“Okay, hang on.”

He uncoiled the paracord, doubled it up, knotted the loose ends together, then tied square knots at three-foot intervals down its length. Once done, he gave the bridge’s side railing a test tug, then tossed one end of the paracord through the passenger window.

“When I say go, I’m going to pull, and you’re going to climb. Understand?”

“I understand. I will climb.”

Sam looped his end of the paracord around one of the posts, gripped it with both hands, then called, “Go!,” and started pulling. The car began rocking and groaning. Wood splintered. “Keep climbing!” Sam ordered.

A pair of black hands appeared through the passenger window, followed by a head and face.

The Passat lurched sideways and slipped a foot. Glass shattered.

“Faster!” Sam yelled. “Climb! Now!”

Sam gave the paracord one last heave, and the cop came tumbling out the window. He landed in a heap, his torso lying across the plank, his legs dangling in space. Sam leaned forward, grabbed his collar, and dragged him forward. With a series of overlapping pops and cracks, the crossbeam gave way, and the Passat slid through the gap and disappeared from view. A moment later, Sam heard a massive splash.

Panting, the man rolled onto his back and looked up at Sam. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” He began coiling the paracord. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t offer you a ride.”

The cop nodded.

“Why were you following us?”

“I do not know. We were given an alert from the district commander. That is all I know.”

“How far did this alert go?”

“Antananarivo and outlying communities.”

“When did you last report in?”

“When I realized you had turned onto this road.”

“What did they say?”

“Nothing,” the cop said.

“Are there any main roads ahead that come from the north?”

The cop thought for a moment. “Asphalt roads? Yes . . . three before the main road west to Tsiafahy.”

“Do you have a cell phone?” Sam asked.

“It was in the car.”

Sam said nothing, continued to stare at the cop.

“I am telling the truth.” The cop patted his front pockets, rolled over, did the same to his back pockets. “It is gone.”

Sam nodded. He finished coiling the paracord, then turned and headed for the Range Rover.

“Thank you!” the cop called again.

“Don’t mention it,” Sam called over his shoulder. “I mean it. Don’t tell them I helped you. The people who are paying your district commander will kill you.”