He had set the Skyfari in motion, like a battalion of aged tanks heading off into battle.
I heard the voices from below me, two people yelling at each other, before I heard the rifle discharge. Then instantly, there was the terrible noise made by two bullets that struck my bucket and sent it rocking forward into the darkness of the night sky.
FORTY-EIGHT
“Light, Coop!” Mike shouted. “Shine the light on the ground.”
I could tell from his voice that he was in the gondola behind me, as I expected. It must have been out in the open skyway, too, creaking its way over the forest and grassy field.
I took the flashlight from my jeans pocket, switched it on, and lifted it over my head, holding the end of it with the tips of my fingers.
Mike fired at the ground—three shots in quick succession. He didn’t hit his mark. No one screamed out as though injured.
I put the light down. It could only be another minute or two before we reached the Bronx River.
“Keep cool,” Mike shouted to me.
The water wasn’t very deep at this point in its flow from Westchester to the East River, but it was polluted and muddy—and often had a tough current, as I knew from a case at the botanical garden years earlier. Even if our pursuers could swim, it would slow them down and give us a considerable advantage, for as long as we could stay safe in our aerial cages.
The voices were below me now. I could hear two men exchanging words. They sounded agitated. I couldn’t understand them, so I was agitated, too.
“The woman,” one of them yelled, this time in English. “Get the woman!”
I had exposed myself by holding up the flashlight. That also made it obvious that I wasn’t the one with Dibaba’s gun. They must have thought I was unarmed.
“In a ball, Coop,” Mike shouted. “Go fetal.”
He had heard them too.
I scrunched up on the floor of the bucket. The first two shots—coming from a bit ahead of the direction in which I was moving—missed the target completely. The third one hit the roof of the gondola.
Mike must have stood and lined up his scope. He fired a shot and the men below made a lot of noise. Neither sounded injured, but he must have gotten close enough to force them on the run again.
I thought I heard a siren in the distance. I couldn’t be sure whether it was on the highway outside the zoo, or inside the park property.
“Now!” a man screamed. “Shoot now.”
There was the crack of a gun, way too close to me. The bucket staggered—like a drunk getting off a barstool and losing his legs beneath him. But this staggering motion came from above.
The marksman must have struck one of the steel cables holding the bucket onto the track. My car stopped abruptly and just swung back and forth in place. Now I was nauseous as well as cold, and terrifically frightened, too.
“Hold on, Coop,” Mike said. “You’ve got three more cables holding you up, if that’s what you’re thinking. Just stay steady.”
Before I could respond to him, he let go with three or four shots at the twosome on the ground.
I was afraid to move from my position on the floor of the bucket, afraid that by unbalancing it I would rip it free from the other cables that were holding me up, and drop to my death.
The men were laughing now, gleeful that they had crippled my carriage and had me dangling overhead. A few more well-placed shots would have me in their hands.
I sat upright, taking care not to move quickly. I needed to quell the nausea that was rising from my stomach to my throat.
“Stay still, kid. I hear sirens out there.”
Mike’s gondola, on the adjacent track, was just about even with mine by now. There was nothing he could do to stop it, and no way he could come to my assistance. He was about to cross over the river and leave me.
“Why can’t you shoot one of them, Mike?” I said, trying to suppress my tears.
“What the hell do you think I’m trying to do?” he called out.
Now his voice was coming from the other side of my bucket. He had lapped me and was heading off into the park, going farther and farther away.
“Back at you, Coop,” he said, firing off several rounds from his tram, but getting only laughter in return from the men on the ground.
I tried to swallow his words. Back at you, Coop. Mike had given me his Glock and now he expected me to use it.
The attackers fired twice more at the cables, and although they missed, the bucket still swung wildly.
I got on my knees, pulled on the wire mesh until I had forced an opening in one of the squares that was wide enough to hold the head of the flashlight.
I picked up the Glock and played with it for a few seconds, until it felt almost comfortable in my hands. I opened the safety.
I braced myself against the low steel wall of the bucket, brought my eyes up to the level where the mesh hit the solid metal base, turned on the flashlight, and glanced quickly at the ground beneath me.
I could make out two figures. I could see the rifle barrel sticking out in front of one of them.
I stuck the tip of the Glock through the mesh, pointed it directly downward, and fired blindly six times. Then I dropped back down onto the floor of the bucket.
One of the men started screaming immediately. It was the sound of a person in pain, not just fear.
I heard his screams for only a couple of seconds. They were drowned out by the noise of four or five sirens on the radio cars speeding into place just across the river, inside the zoo.
FORTY-NINE
“Pick your head up, Coop,” Mike said. “I’m right below you. I need to see that you’re all right.”
“I’m good where I am. On the floor of the bucket.”
“Seasick yet?”
“Totally.”
“If that’s all you come out of this with, kid,” Mike said, “then you’re all right.”
“Can’t you make it stop swinging?”
“There’s a mechanic on the way to guarantee safe passage.”
It was about twenty minutes after I’d fired off my shots. I could hear the voices of all the cops who had responded to Mike’s call, and who were gathered after several of them took the perps away. They were scouring and securing the scene as best they could in the dark.
“I hit one of the guys, didn’t I?”
“You did.”
“I didn’t kill him, did I?”
“No, but you didn’t kill any animals either. I’d call it a victory.”
“What did I hit?” I asked.
“The shooter’s foot. He dropped the gun and fell to the ground and was still here when we all trekked over.”
“Across the river?”
“In a rubber boat, kid,” Mike said. “I dinghied back to get you. I bet nobody’s ever done that for you before.”
Every time the wind came up, my bucket would swing uncontrollably.
“How far off the ground am I?” I asked. Mike knew how I hated heights.
“Eight, maybe ten feet.”
“I can’t wait much longer or I’ll lose it,” I said.
I sat up straighter, careful not to rock the bucket.
“We can do this,” I said. “I can open the door and a bunch of you guys can help me climb down.”