Chase Baker and the Golden Condor: (A Chase Baker Thriller Series No. 2) by Vincent Zandri Page B

even distribution on this thing.”
    I take another step onto another board. It holds. Then
    another step and another. The bridge begins to sway and rock with my weight. It
    feels as though it might capsize entirely, spilling me out into the chasm. But
    this isn’t my first trek across a rope bridge and I know that the sensation of
    impending doom is mostly psychological.
    I wave my right arm over my right shoulder.
    “Let’s go!” I demand, knowing in my gut that at any moment,
    a team of hostiles could wage a second attack on us, especially when we’re so
    vulnerable. At least, that’s the way I’d do it if I were them.
    I don’t see Leslie enter onto the bridge so much as I feel
    her. The new weight distribution on the rope bridge is causing the center to
    bounce up and down, but not severely so. Leslie can’t weigh more than one
    hundred twenty pounds. It’s Rodney I’m more worried about. He easily tips the
    scales at two hundred twenty-five pounds. In truth, I should make him wait
    until Leslie and I are safely across, but time is of the essence.
    “You okay, Les?” I shout.
    “Right behind you, Chase.”
    “You’re not filming, I hope. I just want you to concentrate
    on your balance.” I turn to catch a glimpse of her. I’ll be damned if she isn’t
    filming the entire walk across the bridge, while she grips the rope on her left
    with her free hand. Guess I never realized just how brave my literary agent is.
    Now I know.
    I’m closing in on the opposite side of the bridge as Leslie
    reaches the very center, where she aims the camera down at her feet in order to
    shoot the river rapids hundreds of feet below her. What a show that is going to
    make; that is, if we survive to produce the tale.
    “Okay, Rodney, you’re next!” I insist, my voice mixing with
    the roar of the rapids below while echoing off the solid rock gorge walls.
    The big man gingerly steps onto the first plank, then the
    second. He’s slowly making his way toward the center of the bridge when a wave
    of razor-sharp-tipped arrows fly directly for us.
     
    “Holy shit, we’re sitting ducks!” Rodney shouts.
    He picks up his pace as the arrows shoot past his head.
    I turn completely around to eye the opposite bank we just
    came from, and see another band of hostile natives emerge from the bush,
    poising themselves before the bridge, combat position. Leslie turns and aims
    the camera at them in order to get the shot. She’s not only brave. She’s crazy.
    Pulling my pistol from the shoulder holster, I trigger off a
    burst of rounds that don’t connect with flesh and bone, but hopefully will make
    them think twice about chasing us over the bridge. Another volley of arrows
    fly, one of them coming so close to Rodney’s head, he flinches. A few seconds
    later I can tell by the trickle of blood that the arrow actually nicked his
    right ear lobe. Anger gets the best of him. He turns, points his AR-15, fires
    from the hip. He drops the first hostile on the far right.
    The bridge is bobbing up and down.
    Leslie is doing all she can to maintain her balance and
    shoot the action with Carlos’s camera. I could easily take the few steps to the
    safety of the bank, but my gut is telling me to help Leslie.
    I don’t take two steps in her direction before the board
    beneath her feet crumbles.

23.
     

     
    Leslie falls but manages to catch herself with both her arms
    wrapped around the bottom bridge support ropes. The video camera slips out of
    her hands, dropping down into the gorge where it’s swallowed up by the rapidly
    moving water.
    “Chase!” she screams.
    “Leslie, don’t move!”
    Another volley of arrows whip past my head. Rodney shoots at
    the hostiles again, but what was just a small handful of natives is now turning
    into an entire army that is not only gathering on the opposite bank, but
    entering onto the bridge.
    “I can’t hold them,” Rodney shouts.
    “Get out of there. Just get the hell off the bridge.”
    I