Bloodline: A Sigma Force Novel (16 page)

“Get him out of here!” Alden yelled, flopping his arm weakly toward the door.

Others rose out of the smoke, shedding rubble, bearing cuts and abrasions. Gray stumbled forward with Seichan.

Kowalski helped Major Jain to her feet. She wobbled slightly but found her footing. “You okay?” he asked

She shook free of him—teetered sideways, then grabbed his arm again. “Maybe not.”

When the Indian woman spotted her captain, she still tried to go to him, concern on her face. Alden waved her off. “Go with them, Jain. Help get them clear.”

“What about you?” Gray grabbed the map from the floor and passed it to Baashi. They still needed the boy to pinpoint the secret medical encampment rumored to be up in the mountains. Even rattled, the commander never lost sight of the mission objective. “Captain, you need medical attention.”

Alden grinned through the gore. “Then I guess I’m bloody well at the right place, aren’t I, commander?” He teetered back to his feet. “Besides, I’ve got two men here. I’m not leaving them until I know they’re safe.”

Or dead
, Tucker added silently.

Punctuating that dour thought, another blast rocked deeper into the camp. Kane flinched, ducking lower.

Gray grabbed the captain by the upper arm. “You’ll do your men no good on your own.” He dragged the Brit out the door. “Come with me.”

Alden looked ready to argue, but Major Jain backed Gray up.

“Commander Pierce is right, sir.”

“Maybe we can argue later!” Kowalski shouted at them by the door. “Chopper’s swinging back this way!”

“Out of here! now!” Gray ordered.

The captain reluctantly followed. They rounded the hut and moved out among the field of parked vehicles.

Tucker guessed where the commander was taking them. He would’ve done the same, to utilize every resource to survive.

Gray led them straight to the minitank, painted white and emblazoned with the Un world logo. The Daimler Ferret armored car still sat where they’d seen it earlier. The peacekeeper posted beside it had climbed into the turret, manning the machine gun. The weapon smoked from prior shots, but the helicopter was currently beyond range on the other side of the camp, although it wouldn’t take long for the chopper to circle back around.

Gray called to the peacekeeper as a handful of refugees fled to either side of them. “You’re a sitting duck up there, soldier! You need to get this vehicle moving, help defend the camp.”

The man, dark-skinned and helmeted, yelled back in a French accent. He was young, likely not even twenty. Fear frosted his words. “I am alone! I cannot shoot and drive,
monsieur
.”

Gray turned to Alden. “
Here
is how you can best help your men. Put this tank in motion. Draw the chopper’s attention and take that bastard down.”

Alden understood. “I’ll do what I can to cover your escape.” The captain pointed to a pair of sand-rail buggies fifty yards away. The skeletal dune runners looked perfectly suited for this rough terrain. “If there are no keys, they’re easy to hotwire. Just jam something sharp into the ignition and twist to get them started.”

The captain’s next words were for his fellow soldier. “Stay with them, Jain. Get them all clear, and I’ll see what I can do from here.”

The major looked exasperated, but she knew how to take orders and nodded.

Gray shook Alden’s hand as they parted ways. “Be safe.”

“You do the same.” The captain stopped long enough to give Baashi a fast hug. “Do what they say!”

“I … I will, Mr. Trevor.”

The captain nodded and climbed into the armored car.

Gray hurried them forward, ordering them to secure their radio earpieces in place.

Ahead, the sand-rail cars were little more than engines strapped to roll cages with some seats bolted in place. They had no windows, fenders, or doors. But Tucker had played with them back in the dunes near Camp Pendleton. Their advantage was a low center of gravity and high flotation tires perfect for skimming over sand and hopping over obstacles.

Kowalski must have had a similar experience and rubbed his palms together as they reached the vehicles. “Which one’s mine?”

Machine-gun fire erupted behind them. They all leaped forward and split on the run, dividing between a smaller two-seater, which Gray and Seichan commandeered, and a larger four-seater with a bench in the rear.

Jain reached the driver’s seat first, but Kowalski wasn’t having any of it.

“I’ll drive!” he yelled.

“Listen, boyo, I’ve had plenty of tactical driving—”

“And I didn’t just get a concussion. So move it, sister!”

She looked ready to bite his head off, but she
was
still wobbly on her feet. She finally relented and abandoned the driver’s seat to Kowalski. He discovered a screwdriver already jammed in place in the steering column, serving as a key. Judging by the roar next to them, Gray started his vehicle with no more difficulty.

Jain took the passenger seat up front, leaving the rear bench to Tucker and the boy. Kane crouched between them, panting, flinging a bit of drool in his adrenaline-fired excitement.

“Hang on!” Kowalski yelled, grinning way too big.

The buggy leaped forward like a bee-stung horse—just as an ear-shattering explosion flung a nearby truck into the air.

Another rocket blast.

Tucker twisted around. Behind them, the helicopter roared out of the camp and aimed toward them. An M230 chain-gun on the chopper’s undercarriage chewed across the sand—chasing after them.

But they weren’t defenseless.

The Ferret armored car raced into view, as fleet-footed on its large tires as its nimble namesake. It crossed into the path of the attack helicopter. From the minitank’s turret, the machine gun chattered, firing up at the bird in the sky.

Captain Alden manned the weapon himself, shrouded in gun smoke and swirls of dusty sand. The minitank skidded around to face the diving helicopter head-on. Rounds cracked into the chopper’s windshield, driving the bird to the side as the pilot panicked.

The armored car spun a full circle and took off, driving wildly through the parked vehicles. The chopper twisted in midair and took off after them, like a hawk after a fleeing rabbit—or, in this case, a fleeing
ferret
.

Tucker settled back around, looking forward. Kowalski hit a ridge at full speed and jumped the buggy into the air. The driver hollered his joy. Tucker and Baashi flew into the aluminum half-roof over the bench seat. Tucker managed to get hold of Kane’s leather collar as they crashed back down.

The dog growled angrily, ready to bite someone.

Tucker couldn’t blame him. He glared at the back of Kowalski’s stubbly head, suddenly wishing he were back with the rockets and chain guns. It would be safer than this backseat.

No wonder Gray had fled to the other buggy.

He was no fool.

Maybe this wasn’t so smart.

Gray’s buggy twisted sideways down a steep hill, made treacherous by loose shale and slippery scree. He broadsided a patch of brittle bushes at the bottom of the slope and crashed through them.

Seichan ducked away as thorns and broken branches exploded through the open roll cage.

Once clear, she yelled at him, “Make for the gravel road we saw from the air!”

“That’s what I’m trying to do!”

He had set off overland initially, thinking the road would be too obvious an escape route if the helicopter decided to give chase. He’d already spotted other cars, trucks, even camels fleeing up that road, driven all in the same direction by the attack. He didn’t want to be trapped in that traffic jam if there was a firefight.

His original plan was to travel as far as they could, then cut back to the road. But the hilly terrain proved tougher than it looked, broken up into rocky hummocks, sudden cliffs, and thick patches of bushes and trees. Ahead, it looked even worse as the land pushed up toward the mountains.

Risky or not, the road had to be safer than this.

With that in mind, he drove the car up the next rise to get a better view and gain his bearings. In the rearview mirror, he spotted Kowalski following him. And farther behind him, an ominous column of oily black smoke marked the horizon.

Let’s hope that’s the helicopter
.

“There!” Seichan pointed.

He turned his attention forward. A quarter mile away, the road looked little better than a dry riverbed winding across the bitter terrain. It disappeared into the higher hills and scraggly lower forests.

Kowalski skidded up next to him.

Gray touched his throat mike as he nosed his vehicle down the far side of the rise. “Kowalski, we’re heading back to the road. We’ll make better time there.”

“Too bad,” his partner responded in his ear. “It was just getting fun.”

From the white-knuckled grips of his passengers, Gray doubted they’d describe his driving in such a positive light.

Though the dune runners were made for spinning, jumping, and turning—all necessary skills to traverse this torturous terrain—it still felt like riding a jackhammer on top of a cement mixer. And the last quarter-mile journey back to the road was no gentler on his kidneys.

At last, he fishtailed his buggy onto the gravel, which, after the off-road trek, felt as smooth as a freshly paved highway.

He sped gratefully down the road, which climbed in sweeping switchbacks up into the mountains. Over the next hour, he kept a hard pace, passing the occasional slower truck.

The forest slowly grew thicker and taller as they gained elevation. Rounding a sharp turn, he came close to a head-on collision with a camel. The creature dodged around the buggy with a bleating complaint. Gray noted the empty saddle and the bundle of gear tied to it as the beast continued downhill.

Worried, he slowed his buggy to a stop.

Kowalski flew around the corner with a rumble of his engine and a throaty grind of gears. He came close to rear-ending Gray, but swerved to a halt in time.

Gray cut his engines and signaled Kowalski to do the same.

In the silence, Gray strained—then heard a distinct
pop-pop-pop
.

Rifle fire.

He pictured the empty saddle.

“Ambush,” he said.

Seichan immediately understood, too. “Someone set up a roadblock ahead. They’re sweeping up after the helicopter.”

Gray nodded. Any refugees who attempted to flee into the mountains were being gunned down ahead. But another cold certainty settled in his belly. It had been nagging him since the first rocket blast. He had hoped the air attack had been orchestrated by local insurgents or warlords. Drugs and medical supplies were as good as gold here, especially in the war-torn south. But this ambush on the road into the mountains removed any uncertainty.

This was about Amanda Gant-Bennett.

And worse …

“This is too bold a move for pirates,” he said. “The chopper attack, now this roadblock. They’re not trying to hide their actions any longer. They’re pulling out the big guns and making a final stand.”

“What are you getting at?” Seichan asked.

“This isn’t defense. This is an endgame.” He turned to Seichan. “They wouldn’t move so openly, so brazenly, unless they saw no further need to keep their mountain enclave secret.”

Realization dawned in Seichan’s eyes.

“Either they’ve moved Amanda already—” she started.

Gray finished, “Or she’s dead.”

Amanda tugged against the padded leather cuffs tying her to the hospital bed. Minutes ago, they’d placed an IV catheter in her right arm and given her an injection that fogged the edges of her mind. A saline bag slowly dripped next to her.

She wanted to panic but couldn’t.

More than the drugs, what kept her calm was the steady
beeping
of a fetal heart monitor. The nurse had strapped a sensor belt around her belly. It communicated wirelessly to the bedside device.

My baby’s fine … my baby’s fine …

It was her mantra to keep her sanity.

Especially with all the commotion in the room. Blue-smocked medical personnel came and went, busy behind the privacy screen of the other bed. Elsewhere, soldiers hauled out equipment under the direction of Dr. Blake.

Movement to the side drew her muddled attention to Petra. The nurse hauled a portable anesthetic machine to her bedside.

At the sight of the clear mask hanging from the hoses, Amanda fought against her cuffs, but she was already too weak.

Dr. Blake came over and touched her wrist. He raised a syringe filled with a milky fluid. “Don’t worry. We won’t let any harm come to your baby.”

She was unable to stop him as he inserted the syringe needle into her IV line and slowly pushed the plunger.

Petra lowered a mask toward her face.

She twisted her head away. Across the room, she watched one of the medical staff push aside the privacy screen. At long last, she saw who shared the ward with her, who lay in the other bed.