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.”
CHAPTER 35
MADAGASCAR, INDIAN OCEAN