“Don’t you have any kids of your own?”
“None that I care about.”
He turned and raised a finger to punch the code on the hover-carrier door pad.
A thumping sound like a thousand birds beating their wings at the same time interrupted him, while a sharp and violent wind spat sand across the sky. I looked up, but the wind filled my eyes with tears. A rocket scorched overhead, and the lead hover-carrier exploded in flames. Machine gun fire ripped the air. Nasri screamed as the door shredded in his hands. His men dropped to their knees to return fire, but bullets cut through their kev-jackets as though they were blankets.
Smoke, shrapnel, pandemonium, and death were everywhere. I reached for Will, and we flung ourselves to the ground—with nothing but rubble to save us.
CHAPTER 13
The helicopter hovered fifty meters above the ground, firing short bursts from its mounted guns. The ground exploded in shattered rock. Nasri’s men ran for cover behind the wreck of the hover-carrier, but they were easy prey for the guns that picked them off like targets on a screen. Their small arms fire fell harmlessly back from the sky, and they were quickly silenced.
The two surviving carriers sped off into the desert with the copter in pursuit. The carriers were fast, but the helicopter was faster, and it caught the first one about three kilometers downriver. With two rockets it left the carrier a smoldering hulk in the sand. Even from a distance, Will and I could see orange flames lick the ground while black smoke curled into the sky. The other carrier was luckier. It raced in the opposite direction and soon disappeared beyond the range of the copter. The pilot circled overhead with no chance of pursuit. Nose bowed low and blades rotating slowly, the copter made its way back to the site.
The canyon floor was deserted. The massive drilling machines worked unattended like robots on an alien planet, mining for water below the dead lake’s surface. The walls of the canyon reverberated with the sound of metal grinding rock. Gray dust floated in the air, coating everything with a ghostly pallor. Even the guards had disappeared, retreating underground like snakes.
The copter landed on the abandoned floor. I peered out from behind the small pile of rocks that had protected us as the door popped open and the pilot emerged. He was followed by another man about fifteen centimeters taller and ten kilos heavier. The pilot was tattooed up his bare arms and open vest, and even his helmet had decals and insignias. The other man, however, was unadorned, except for a single small tattoo of a bird on his neck.
“Ulysses!” I cried. I ran from the hiding place before Will could stop me.
Ulysses turned toward the sound of my voice. When he saw me, he dropped to one knee and raised his arms. I ran right into him, throwing my hands around his thick neck. His chest was warm and full, and I buried my head in the rough fabric of his shirt.
“I thought you were dead,” I whispered.
“I thought you were dead!” he roared.
I hugged him harder and was surprised at how good it felt. It had been a long time since I had hugged anyone like that, and I held on tightly. Finally I stepped back and looked at him. There was a new wound on his forehead, and when I touched it gently, he flinched.
“That’s the worst of it,” he said. The story tumbled out of his mouth in a rush: After the dam had burst, he had been knocked unconscious and awoke in the truck, one leg wedged under the seat and his arms tangled in wire. Somehow he hadn’t drowned, and the truck had been pushed by the waters to drier ground. He had managed to extricate his arms and leg, then to crawl through the open door and collapse. The helicopter had found him lying on the ground about half a kilometer from the truck, nearly dead of dehydration even though the waters from the dam still flowed nearby.
Most of the pirates’ equipment had been destroyed, and at least half his men were dead or missing. The dogs were gone, and he assumed they were dead too. Only two trucks still functioned, and the pirates had salvaged parts for a third. Ulysses left the survivors to repair what they could while he and the pilot took off to search for Will and me. They ambushed some of Nasri’s men on the road, and from them they learned we were in the canyon.
“We couldn’t leave you in the hands of PELA,” he concluded.