Michael Vey 3 ~ Battle of the Ampere by Richard Paul Evans Read Free Book Online Page A

they didn’t have radio coverage here.”
    “ Madre de Dios ,” he said. “ Esquivar una bala . We were lucky. We need to get out of here. The Elgen usually travel like lobos . And their radios have tracking devices. We need to leave before these guards are found missing.”
    “Where do we go?”
    “We need to radio the voice,” Jaime said. “But we cannot carry the tower. We will have to find a mountain.”
    “Where?”
    “West of here. It is also in the direction of the mountain pass the army will take to Lima.”
    “How long will it take us to get there?”
    “To the mountain it is several days without packs. But we have much to carry. The radio and decoder are very heavy. I will need a gun and ammunition. And we will need food.” He sighed. “It took me a month to carry all this in. We must leave in minutes. We must burn everything we do not take.”
    “But won’t they see the smoke?” Tessa said.
    “Yes, but it is too much for us to carry,” Jaime said. “We must take that chance and be gone before they arrive.”
    “I’ll start the fire,” I said.
    “No, we must be ready to go before we start a fire. In case they are near.”
    “What do we need to do?” Tessa asked, forcing herself to her feet.
    “Help me pack the supplies,” he said to Tessa. “Michael, the Elgen have helped us. Please gather what they have dropped into a pile. Then we will soak it with gasoline.”
    “On it,” I said.
    Jaime and Tessa disappeared into the tent while I walked around the camp and picked up all the papers and books the Elgen hadalready brought out. I piled them in the center of the clearing, then dragged some logs over and made a fire pit.
    As I was finishing, Jaime and Tessa came out carrying three large backpacks. Jaime took two of the guards’ utility belts and fastened them around his waist. I took one of the backpacks from Jaime, and we carried the packs outside the clearing. I turned back toward the camp. “Are we ready to start the fire?”
    “ Sí ,” Jaime said.
    Laying down my pack, I went back and emptied three five-gallon cans of gasoline over the pit. Then I created a lightning ball and threw it onto the pile. It burst into flames as tall as me. Black smoke began rising above the canopy.
    “Pronto,” Jaime said. “We have just revealed our location. We must go.”
    I started to put my pack back on when I had an idea. “Wait. The turret guns.”
    “What about them?” Jaime said.
    “Can you put them on a delay?”
    “A delay? Why?” Then a knowing smile lit his face. “Ah, entiendo .” He went over and punched something in on the sentries’ computer. As he returned he picked up the remote, pushed it, then tossed it into the bushes. “Thirty seconds should be enough.”
    “What did he do?” Tessa asked.
    “He put the sentry on a delay. That way if an Elgen patrol walks into the camp, it will give them time so they’ll all be within range.”
    “You are clever,” Tessa said.
    “Come, clever boy,” Jaime said. “Vámonos!”

H iking through the thick of the jungle was difficult and exhausting, especially after all we had been through. The jungle was hot and wet, as were we, though most of the moisture that soaked our clothing was probably our own sweat.
    About an hour after leaving our camp, we heard the firing of the sentry guns.
    “Sounds like the Elgen found our camp,” Tessa said.
    “Or a monkey,” I said.
    “Poor monkeys,” Tessa said.
    We walked the rest of the day and continued hiking at night, our trail lit by Tessa’s glow and mine. Jaime knew the jungle well and, with a compass and machete, kept us moving at an exhausting pace. It must have been at least two in the morning when Tessa suddenly stopped walking. “I’ve got to stop. I can’t walk any more.”
    “Me too,” I said. “I’m exhausted.”
    Jaime looked at us. “Okay. We can sleep for a few hours. But not too long.”
    Tessa shrugged off her pack and dropped it on the ground. “Better than