77

“Emily, why don’t you contact your friends and tell them what we have,”

Emily smiles at you. “OK, I need to use the airplane’s radio,”

Emily moves through to the front of the cockpit, the captain helping her with the radio. You motion for the flight engineer to get to the back, where the two men are tied up.

“Sit!” You command him and tie him to the seat. By the time you get back to the cockpit Emily is done talking to Kate.

“They have given me a location to land the plane,” she tells you. The captain informed me that it’s only a short flight, almost back where we started”

“OK, let’s go!” You strap yourself into the flight engineers seat between the two pilots and monitor that they are flying to the correct coordinates. Emily returns to the passenger compartment, covering the men tied up in there.

It is nearly completely dark outside when the plane lands at a deserted airstrip twenty minutes later. The plane taxis to the end of the runway. Headlights from a van is visible as the captain turns to park the aircraft. The captain and co-pilot goes through the procedure to shut off the plane and you then escort them to the passenger compartment to join their colleagues, Emily tying them up quickly. You head to the cockpit and open the back cargo doors.

Three people heads up the ramp, two men and a women. Emily rushes towards the woman and hugs her.

“Hello, Emily!” Kate says, joyfully. “You’ve had quite an adventure.”

Emily quickly introduces you to Emily, Mike and Jack.

“Wow! That’s a lot of equipment that they stole.” Kate lets out a whistle. “We just need the data though.”

To your surprise, Emily hands the memory stick to you. “Those two started drinking as soon as we took off and then fell fast asleep. I simply picked their pockets. We will go with you and make sure the data is placed in the correct hands.”

The sound of sirens pierce the air. Police lights bathe the far side of the runway in blue, red and white lights. It would be mesmerising if you didn’t feel like they were hunting you.

“Oh no!” exclaims Kate. “We have stashed some dirt bikes here for just this situation!”

The police cars are at the other end of the runway, giving you enough time to reach the dirt bikes. There are only three dirt bikes. Jack, Mike and Kate each take a bike, while Emily gets on the back of your bike. You kick-start it and the engine roars into life.

Mike is the first to go, his back wheel throwing a stream of dirt into the air. Mike and Kate is follows closely. You twist the throttle all the way back. The back wheel digs into the gravel. You fight to control the swaying bike and set off after the red tail lights of the leading bikes. You can hear the sirens following closely behind you. The gravel road you are travelling on winds down the side of the mountain on which the airstrip was situated, gentle curves following the contour downwards.

Up ahead, Mike’s headlight lights up a chevron road sign. The yellow and black markings indicating a sharp turn to the right. Mike can’t quite make the turn and his front wheel loses grip, rider and bike sliding into the hillside. Brake lights ahead of you shows that the rest of the crew is taking less of a risk. You see Mike waving you on as you pass, as least he is not injured.

Headlight reappear in your rear view mirror. The police have four-wheel drives which are much better suited at handling these treacherous conditions. If you are going to shake them you need to take a risk, but that could spell disaster.

If you:

Continue on the dirt track, go to chapter 79

 

Look for a forest trail, go to chapter 80