Chapter 6
Tim drives as if the devil were after him. Undisturbed, they arrive at Steve's guesthouse in Dakar. He lets them out and then drives on. He wants to park the car further away in a side street. Catherine and Sara go ahead to Steve's room. Catherine gets her cell phone from the safe. Steve whispered the safe code to her as she hugged him. Then she has Sara call her father. She doesn't check in with anyone else because they still don't know who the mole is. Her eyes keep wandering to the door. Slowly, however, Steve should join them again. In fact, he should have arrived in Dakar before them. Unless they caught him.
Nervously, she paces up and down. Sara steps up to her and puts her hand on her shoulder.
"If what you told me about Steve is true, he'll be walking in the door any minute. You'll see." A moment later, there's a knock at the door. Catherine's heart leaps. "Who is it?" "It's Tim." She opens the door, a little disappointed. "Isn't Steve here yet?" Catherine shakes her head. Tim's expression darkens. "Not good, not good at all. He should be here by now."
In pain, Steve tries to keep the Cessna in the air, he's still way too close to the hijackers' ranch, if he goes down here they'll realize he's on his own. He needs to buy Catherine and the others more time. He has seen the guards run to their vehicles and follow the plane.
He has deliberately chosen to head inland rather than toward Dakar. And he hopes that the hijackers will believe his feint, that he wants to land at one of the many small inland airports there. As he waited, he picked out one on the map that might roughly fit and near which there are some ranches where one can seek refuge.
He sets the autopilot accordingly and searches his backpack for painkillers; he still has some ibuprofen somewhere. He swallows one with some water and hopes that the pain of the gunshot wound will get better. As far as he can tell, the wound has stopped bleeding. He closes his eyes for a moment and tries to breathe deeply.
Steve looks at the clock again, if everything has gone well Catherine and the others should be in Dakar by now. He looks at the displays. It is still a few miles to the airfield he is aiming for. He never intended to land there in case the pursuers were already waiting for him. He checks all the settings of the autopilot again.
Then he pulls the parachute out from under the pilot's seat and straps it on. He hangs his backpack on one of the carabiners. He opens the side door and jumps.
He briefly goes into free fall, but without an altimeter he pulls the cord relatively quickly to open the parachute. It takes a short moment, then the resistance of the parachute pulls him up a bit. Slowly he glides down.
With the help of the night vision device, he tries to navigate his way to a flat surface. Shortly before reaching the ground, he drops his backpack to be able to catch himself better.
He comes up well, but then suddenly the wind shifts and an updraft pulls the parachute up again and turns around itself. Steve is pulled up with it so that he loses the ground under his feet again. Then he is knocked over and falls on his back. His eyes go black with pain for a moment. Hectically he tries to breathe away the pain, while the chute drags him over the stony ground. Finally, Steve is able to cut the strings of the chute with his knife and then remains lying there as if stunned.
She can't get any rest. Tim has taken over the first watch so that she can close her eyes a bit. Her thoughts, however, are with Steve all the time. The fact that she doesn't know what's going on with him is almost driving her crazy right now. If there's one thing she doesn't want, it's to lose him.
And certainly not because she asked him for help. Catherine blames herself for calling him at all, without her he wouldn't be here now at all.
And why didn't she insist that he drive away from the ranch with them? Deep down, she knows that his diversion probably saved her.
Still, at least he would be alive.
Her heart becomes heavy. Again she struggles with her decision to leave him.
His sad and deeply hurt face was really burned into her memory.
Tears gather in her eyes, then she realizes that someone is hugging her from behind. Sara has moved closer to her and is now squeezing her lightly. "You love him, don't you?"
Catherine can't answer, her throat is tight. She nods.
"He'll come for sure, you'll see." Catherine can no longer stop the tears and they trail down her face.