Alexander nodded, and the lost—and scared—young people jumped into the little craft and putt-putted northeastward, keeping the big previously industrial island to their right until they were past it, and then veering to the shore.
“Who’s going to take us?” a girl from the remaining group asked. “And where’s the guy—the guy who told me to find you?” She turned to Spencer. “He said he’d be here. I don’t want to leave without him.”
“See?” Cash’s eyes burned, and he resolved to hold it together. “He needs us! Dammit—”
“Shut up,” Spencer said casually. “Just….” He paused, and in the space between his words, they all heard it.
The whup-whup-whup whine of a very small helicopter.
“The fuck is that?” Spencer asked, staring at the mosquito-sized aircraft buzzing in from the mainland.
“Damien!” Cash said happily. “That’s Damien!”
“Is not!” Spencer argued, horrified. “Damien wouldn’t be caught dead in something that small. Those things are fuckin’ death traps!”
“He’d do it for Glen,” Cash said, all certainty. “He’d ride a bicycle with wings if Glen’s ass was on the line.”
“Fuckin’ heroes, man. Oughta be a law.” Spencer grimaced. “Okay. I’m gonna climb the cliff again. Do me a favor and catch the rope when it comes down.”
Cash tore his attention from the approach of the helicopter to stare at Spence blankly.
Spence gazed back. “Trust me,” he said, and without waiting for an answer, he turned, took three steps, used the side of the crevice as a push-off and leaped for the piton about twelve feet off the ground. He caught it one-handed just as the fer-de-lance realized he’d had a foot in her turf and sprang out of the crack. The remaining escapees gasped, one girl let out a little shriek, and Cash kept watching as Spencer scaled the side of the cliff with the agility of a spider.
“Oh my God, look at him.” The young woman who said it was a little younger than Cash, her face browned by genetics and a healthy dose of sun, and her black hair sadly butchered under her straw hat. But she had nothing in her eyes but admiration and a certain tired relief. “He’s really something.”
“Totally gay,” Cash said unrepentantly.
“Goddammit.” She sighed. “It never fucking fails. You were my second choice—but the way you’ve been calling after that other guy, I’m thinking—”
Cash glanced at her and grinned. “Yeah. Struck out with all of us. Sorry.”
She smiled back. “All of you?”
“There’s five of us—you’ll meet the other two when you get back to shore.” He turned to the top of the cliff, where Spencer was doing something super tricky with the rope. “What in the name of little green goats….”
“He’s making a ladder,” the girl said, puzzled. “What does he think he’s going to do with that?”
But Cash had an idea, and then he had another one. “He’s going to get me a ride to go help Glen,” he muttered.
“You can’t go!” she countered. “Look, not that I don’t want you to help your friend, but we’ve been living on… on drugged tea and lettuce greens and nothing else, you understand? No protein in our diet, no carbs—we’re exhausted. We can’t run, and one of you needs to pilot the boat.” The tired cheer of her voice frayed. “We need your help!”
Cash nodded. “Don’t worry. I’ll go, Spence’ll stay and help. This only needs one of us.”
Yeah, he knew Spence was the action hero—Spence, Glen, Damie—they could all fly and pilot boats and use guns and all the hero stuff. But Cash could rock-climb, and he could fight, and he was stronger than he looked.
He could grab that rope as Damien flew past.
He watched, heart in mouth, knowing what to expect but impressed still as Spencer spoke briefly to Damien on the sat phone and then finished the final knot on what looked to be a lasso. Damien approached the island almost as if he were planning to fly over it, but instead of buzzing over their heads high enough to miss the foliage on the top of the cliff, he slowed the tiny craft down and hovered there, bobbing lightly in the breeze.
“That thing takes passengers?” The girl next to him voiced the little knot of terror in Cash’s chest.
“Well, if Damien says it does, it does,” he told her loyally, remembering the first time he’d ever seen Glen’s best friend, flying that wounded Black Hawk. “If it even remembers flying in a past life, Glen and Damien can fly it.” He also remembered Damien’s insistence that he and Glen fly together, given that shit only went south when they were apart.
And the way Preston’s only worry was whether or not Damien and Glen would come flying home.
“So I guess we lucked into the A-Team,” the girl said, and it was like the joke steadied her.
“Or the Gay Team,” Cash said with a smirk, and she smiled back.
“Which one are you?”
Cash grinned some more. “I’m the face man,” he said, and together they watched some more as Spencer threw the lasso into the air. One try, two, a pause to knot the base of the lasso again, below the slip knot, probably for weight. Three and—whoop! Right over both runners on the bottom of the helicopter. Cash tensed. This was his chance to do right.
Spencer hollered and pulled the knot tight, and then let the rope ladder play out to the base of the cliff. Cash took the same running jump Spencer had, but he refused to stick his foot in the side of the crevice because he didn’t have boots on and he wasn’t insane. He used a hump in the rock to push off, and as the ladder started to lift off the ground, Cash leaped and grabbed hold, snagging the second rung from the bottom and holding on tight as the little aircraft rocked.
“Goddammit, Cash!” Spencer called from the top of the cliff.
“Get these people to safety!” Cash called back. “I’ll take care of him. I promise!”
“Shit! He’s gonna fuckin’ kill me!”
Cash struggled with the rope ladder instead of answering, the smooth nylon rope slippery. He wrapped his hands in the “rung” twice and struggled to get his feet on the first level so he wasn’t dangling like a monkey from a barrel. Damien, apparently catching on to the change of plan, ascended smoothly, looping around the island from the south so he was coming up behind the gun turrets. Cash flailed his legs for a terrifying second, dangling above the crystalline green waters of the Sea of Cortez, before he finally found purchase, the buffeting of the air trying with every breath to rip him from safety.
Glen. He had to get to Glen. It was throbbing in his head, and he kept it there, his true north, and he gamely didn’t think about the fact that this was the most terrifying thing he’d ever done.
Emotional Rescue
GLEN managed to beat the lunatic with the gun to the top of the gun turret with enough time to disable the gun itself. He practically sagged with relief, but he heard Barron cursing at him from a terrifyingly close distance and tried to get his shit together.
He did not want to shoot this guy.