Whipsaw (11 page)

By nightfall of the following day, Bolan began to wonder. The day had dragged on, and he'd kept watching for McRae to come. Hot, wet air, thick as steam, had choked Bolan as he tried to formulate a plan. The camp had fallen strangely silent in the late afternoon. As it continued to grow darker, the silence grew deeper. Finally he heard a key in the lock.

Bolan crouched in the corner. The key continued to grind in the lock as he steeled himself. Clenching his fists, he stared at the door, balancing on the balls of his feet. He heard the latch fall away and slap against the wooden frame. Then the hinges squeaked, and the small block of dim, barred grey was replaced by a tall oblong just as grey and featureless.

Bolan gathered the chains in a loose coil, muming them as best he could and giving himself all the slack he could find. If everything worked, he would be able to come within five feet of the door. It was just a matter of timing. He had already started toward the opening when the outline of a figure detached itself from the grey mass. Bolan held himself back, but the figure heard something and hissed sharply. The head turned, and Bolan recognised Marisa.

She raised one hand and called, "Psst. Mr. Belasko..."

"Here," he called in a low voice just as a second shadow blocked the doorway.

He thought for a second she had set him up, but Carlos ducked inside and pulled the door closed.

"Hurry, Senora Colgan," he whispered.

Marisa slithered over to Bolan's side, and he heard the tiny sound of a small key against case-hardened steel. The lock on his shackles opened, and he eased the chain to the ground. Then she grabbed his arm, as he presented his cuffed hands. When the cuffs snapped open, he felt confused.

"What's going on?" Bolan asked.

"No time for questions. Here, put these on." She handed him a shapeless bundle. But even in the darkness, his fingers recognised the butt of the AutoMag. He slipped the sling over his shoulders, then unfolded the Beretta's harness and shrugged it on, as well.

"Ready?" Carlos asked.

"All set," Bolan said. "Where to?"

"Come..." It was all Marisa said, but there was a new quality to her voice. She seemed uncertain, as if something had happened to tilt her world out of kilter.

Bolan took her hand and moved to the door. She kept close to him, as though she could find some reassurance. Carlos stepped through first, darting into the shadows. Bolan went out and followed Carlos around the corner and into the darkness alongside the hut. Overhead the stars sparkled and something opaque swerved like a drunken kite, then vanished into the trees.

He nearly knocked Carlos down as he swept around the second corner. Carlos held a finger to his lips and waved for Bolan to follow suit, then sprinted into the bush. Bolan plunged after him, tugging Marisa more firmly, half hauling her through the tangled growth. Carlos used the trees as a shield as he circled behind the full length of the compound then halted on the edge of a small clearing.

Bolan saw the jeep squatting there in the darkness. An M60 machine gun was mounted in the rear. Now Bolan took the lead. He dashed into the open and swiftly helped Marisa into the passenger seat. Carlos scrambled behind the wheel as Bolan climbed over the tail and knelt beside the M60.

Carlos turned the key, and the engine sputtered for a second before catching. Marisa got up from the seat, her hands groping for the side of the jeep as Carlos floored it. She lurched to one side. Bolan thought for a moment she had fallen. Momentarily stunned, he realized she was trying to climb out.

"No, no, no," she said, her voice beginning to break as it climbed in pitch and volume. "I can't. I can't leave."

Bolan snaked an arm around her waist and hauled her back. He plopped her firmly into the seat as Carlos swung out of the clearing and bounced through a thin stand of trees.

The jeep rattled through a trench, rose at a steep angle as its left wheels climbed along the length of a fallen tree, then fell with a sickening jolt as it slid off.

Marisa still struggled to pull free of Bolan's grasp, but her writhing gradually stopped. She slumped forward, her head on her chest, and her shoulders shook. Carlos reached over to pat her, then withdrew his hand as the jeep started to fight against him again.

A moment later they were free. The jeep bounced through another ditch and gained the road. Bolan looked behind, but everything seemed as dark and quiet as before. Carlos settled down and let the engine drop from a full-throated roar to a steady rumble. He kept looking over his shoulder as if he couldn't believe they hadn't been followed.

Marisa continued to collapse in on herself. She seemed to shrink in the seat as though dissolving in her own tears. Bolan kept one hand on her shoulder to provide her with reassuring human contact.

They drove without headlights, Carlos leaning forward now to see the road as well as he could. The yellow beige of the clay surface looked like a washed-out brown under the starlight. It snaked ahead of them, but the jeep held steady and Carlos began to relax a little. Four or five miles from the camp, Bolan tapped him on the shoulder.

"Pull over," he said.

Carlos turned to look at him as if he'd just been asked to do the impossible. He glanced at Marisa, but she was still lost in herself. She either hadn't heard Bolan's command or didn't care enough to object. Carlos shrugged, threw the transmission into neutral and coasted until he found a small open area off the left side of the road. The jeep rolled to a halt as branches began to scrape at its undercarriage.

"Now," Bolan said, "what's going on?"

Carlos shrugged again. "We had to leave, senor."

"Why?"

Carlos looked at Marisa again. Clearly he was waiting to see if she'd object to an answer. When she didn't say anything, he sighed.

"Senor McRae..."

"What about him?"

"Senora Colgan... she heard him talking."

"Spit it out, Carlos. What did she hear?"

"He was talking about you, senor. And he said... he was going to kill you, just like he did the boys. Only slower."

Bolan nodded. That figured. But why had Marisa intervened? And where had Colgan been while that had been going on?

"And Senora Colgan objected, is that it?"

"Si, senor, and Senor Colgan, too. He objected, too."

"And what did McRae do?"

"Nothing, senior. He left, that's all I know."

"Where did he go?"

"I don't know."

"Did anyone leave with him?"

"Si, senor. Three or four, maybe more. But I don't know where they went."

"Does anyone else know? Any of the other men?"

"I don't know, senor. I don't know anything more than I just told you."

Marisa stirred in her seat, and Bolan thought she was going to say something, but she just curled up and continued to shake. It was a noiseless tremor. Her whole body quivered as if she were inhabited by a silent motor.

"What about Senor Colgan? Where is he?"

"He went after Senor McRae..."

"Alone?"

"With two men. He took guns and he went. He didn't say when he would be back."

"Why did he go after McRae?"

Carlos shrugged and spread his hands in a helpless gesture.

Marisa unwound slowly, like a flower blooming in stopaction photography. She turned to Bolan but said nothing at first. In the darkness Bolan couldn't see her face very well, and he was grateful.

After swallowing hard, she started to speak hesitantly. "He accidentally found out something about McRae," she said. Her voice was cold, remote as the moon. "I don't know what it was."

"Didn't he say anything?"

"He was in a rage. Whatever it was, it must have been terrible. He said McRae was a traitor, that he had betrayed him and that he had to be stopped."

"Stopped from what?"

"I don't know."

"Did he say where McRae had gone? Anything that would tell us where to look?"

"We can't do that. McRae will kill you. He has several men with him. I don't know how many, but he was probably going to meet up with others. Who knows how many they could be? What can we do?"

"We can try to find your husband. He's not safe with McRae."

"McRae wouldn't dare hurt him. Thomas is frightful when he's angry, but he's not afraid of anyone or anything."

Bolan bent close to her, looking into her eyes intently. "Marisa, stop lying. If you know anything, you better tell me now."

She wrenched her head away. "There is nothing to tell."

"Your husband's life is at stake. He's gone after Harding, hasn't he? He knows where to find the man. And that's where McRae went, too, isn't it?"

"No!"

"Tell me!"

"I don't know, damn you, I don't know."

She jumped from the jeep and started to run. Within a half dozen steps, her feet became entangled in a vine, and she fell heavily. Bolan raced to her, but she kicked at him and rolled on her back. He caught one hand, then the other.

"Leave me alone."

"I just can't do that."

"It's your fault. All your fault. If you hadn't come here, none of this would have happened."

"I didn't come of my own free will. You know that, and you know why. That's more than I know. Now tell me what I want to know. Come on, Marisa, there's no time."

"He... he found out that McRae was working with the Leyte Brigade. They were going to attack the NPA camp we visited the other day. McRae was using Thomas, sabotaging everything he tried to do. Learning the location of NPA camps and passing them along to Harding."

"And what about Cordero? What do you know about him?"

"Nothing. He was here once, that's all."

"What do you know about Harding's plans to terrorise Manila?"

"Only that... Thomas said maybe something like that would happen. He was arguing with McRae and I over heard them. But it was a while ago, before Thomas learned what he later found. He, Thomas... It's got nothing to do with him. That's Harding."

"What else?"

"That's it, I swear..."

Bolan stared at her, struck dumb. He looked at Carlos, and thought of the three monkeys.

He knew which one he was.

Bolan leaned against the front fender of the jeep.

Behind him, Marisa and Carlos conversed in hoarse whispers. She had asked for a chance to talk to Carlos alone, and Bolan, hopeful that she would see just how limited her options were, had agreed.

The sounds of the night began to change as the sky started to brighten. The night creatures gradually settled into their burrows or found places to sleep high in the canopy. It was too early yet for the day shift, but it wouldn't be long. The whispers lost their intensity behind him, and Bolan sensed that Marisa had come to some agreement with Carlos. What it might be, he would soon find out.

The deep blue-black velvet turned milky gray, like a charcoal wash. The stars died away one by one, and the horizon began to sharpen; a white line, tinged with red, like a taut wire stretched from peak to peak along the Sierra Madre range. It looked as if the ocean had burst into flame and a tidal wave of molten color were sweeping across the trackless Pacific.

Then, so suddenly he couldn't believe it could be so silent, the sun appeared, a brilliant red mound in the east, and the sky caught fire. Far to the east, wispy red clouds, like huge pennants fluttering in impossibly slow motion, turned pink and bleached before his eyes.

He heard Marisa's soft approach. She placed a hand on his shoulder. "Mr. Belasko," she whispered, "you're right."

He turned to her with a sober look.

"We have to hurry, Senor Belasko," Carlos said, climbing into the jeep. When Bolan and Marisa climbed in, he started the engine.

Bolan sat on the jump seat beside the M-60.

He let one arm dangle over the big machine gun as the jeep lurched into the road. Directly ahead, the sky was wall-to-wall red. Then, as if someone had changed a filter, it turned orange. By the time they had gone a hundred yards, the orange had faded to yellow.

Morning was getting started in earnest, and Bolan felt as if something had changed. The world was somehow a different place. Overnight the script had been rewritten, and he felt as if his part had been expanded. A warning tingled down his spine. Such a change could mean only one thing.

And he didn't want to think about what that might be.

The jungle came alive as they passed, and Bolan had the sense that he was being watched. On the opposite side of the jeep, he spotted a pair of wooden crates banded with galvanized metal strips. He reached around the gun, pulled the top crate off its companion and scraped it along the floor of the jeep.

Marisa turned toward the sound as though she wanted to know what he was doing. He was thankful she didn't seem to notice the belt of ammunition as he grabbed the end and tugged it free. He locked it down with a sharp click, and Marisa nodded as if she had heard the sound before. She turned back to the front without saying anything, her head tilted at that odd angle he had grown used to.

"Carlos," he shouted, "can you find the camp we visited the other day?"

Carlos nodded. "Si," he shouted. "I know where it is."

"Is there any place we can leave Mrs. Colgan?"

Carlos shook his head. "No, senor. No place..." Bolan let that sink in, watching Marisa to see what her reaction might be. She might as well have been made of stone for all the emotion she showed.

Bolan took the M-16 from a rack against the sidewall of the jeep and balanced it across his knees. The fire control lever was on full-auto, and he adjusted it to semi, then took off the safety. Four clips jutted out of a plastic canister suspended from the rack. He stuffed two of them into his shirt pocket and tucked the other pair into the back pocket of his pants.

Something told him he was going to need all the hardware he could carry before the day was out. He recognised the terrain. If memory served, they were only a mile or so from the turnoff to the NPA camp.

Bolan surveyed the tree line to the left, his eye drawn by something that had registered without really being seen. His ears perked up, and he heard the cry of frightened birds. Like a rolling wave, a cloud of parrots pulsed for a moment above the trees, then sank again. It must have been the birds he'd registered before. As he watched, it rose again, this time higher, then seemed to fracture. The birds fluttered like scraps of bright confetti, then sank down out of sight. As they disappeared, their excited cries swept across the canopy before dying away. And in the echo, he heard another, unnatural sound. Felt it, really, as the floorboard of the jeep picked up the throbbing, vibrating in sympathy.

The pulse grew stronger, and his body reacted to it. Automatically he draped an arm over the M-60. The pulse grew stronger, and he could hear it now, too. A deep throbbing, fading away then coming back even stronger, it seemed to gather more and more strength each time it ceased. And he didn't have to see its source to know what it was. A Huey, somewhere off to the left, had climbed above the trees and had started toward them.

It spelled trouble to Bolan.

The NPA camp had been almost Stone Age in its simplicity. Automatic weapons, yes. But there had been only two vehicles, both in desperate need of repair. They had little fuel to speak of. The idea that they commanded a chopper was unthinkable. Only two options suggested themselves. It was either a Philippine Army ship or it belonged to the Leyte Brigade.

The pulse fractured now, and he realized there were at least two birds. The strange inconsistency of the sound was created by the overlapping rhythm of the two engines, a rhythm that changed constantly as the ships changed speed and their respective distances from him changed along with it. One, from the sound of it, was moving away, heading south. The other seemed to be coming their way.

"Carlos," Bolan shouted, "pull off the road."

Carlos swiveled around. When he saw Bolan pointing at the sky, he nodded that he understood.

The jeep veered suddenly, jolting Marisa. She turned to Bolan. "What's happening?" she shouted. "Why are we leaving the road?"

"Helicopters," Bolan yelled in her ears. "At least two, maybe more. If they're army, they might take us for NPA, and if they're not..." He didn't have to tell Marisa what that would mean.

The chopper roared closer. It was still too far away to see, probably keeping low, just above the trees. Unlike in Vietnam, it had little to fear flying so dose to the ground here. The NPA had nothing much beyond small arms, and most of its widely scattered units were no match in firepower for a single Huey carrying the usual complement of guns and possibly rockets.

Carlos wrestled the jeep's steering wheel, struggling to get under the trees. If they were out of sight, they should be all right, since the chopper had no particular reason to be looking for them.

The bushes began to dose around the nose of the jeep just as the chopper appeared overhead, sudden as a wasp. It roared past, and Bolan thought for a moment they hadn't been seen, but the Huey slowed, banked in a tight circle and hovered over the middle of the road about four hundred yards past them.

"Get out," Bolan shouted. "They spotted us."

He pushed Marisa down to Carlos, who struggled through the dense undergrowth, hacking at it with a machete to cut a narrow swath for the two of them to slip through.

Carlos looked back and Bolan waved him on. "Keep going!"

The chopper pilot seemed to be debating what to do. The big bird hung there in the air. Its engine was a dull undercurrent under the steady whomping of the huge rotor blades. It was side-on, and Bolan spotted two men in the open door. A Browning M-3, a half-inch machine gun on a pintle, was starkly outlined against the bright sky through the open belly of the aircraft.

Bolan swung the M-60 around and made sure the safety was off. He didn't want to waste time on a fight, but it didn't look as if the chopper was going to give him a choice. As near as he could tell, the M-3 was the only armament, other than whatever small arms the crew and passengers might have.

Worse than an attack was the possibility that the chopper might dispatch a ground unit or call in additional support from the other chopper. Shaking his head, Bolan rubbed the sweat beading on his forehead with the back of his hand. The chopper suddenly rose straight in the air, climbing nearly five hundred feet before pivoting on its rotor shaft and swooping toward him at an acute downward angle.

The big bird roared overhead, not more than seventy feet above him, and immediately swung broadside. The door gunner cut loose, and a swarm of half-inch hornets ripped at the leaves just behind him. The gunner swiveled the muzzle down a little, and the pilot tried to steady the bird. Bolan opened up with the M-60, raking the side of the Huey with a short burst until the chopper climbed an invisible wire. It looked like a spider climbing a filament or some ghastly yo-yo abruptly called up to a hidden hand.

Bolan cut loose again with a short burst, but other than a few stray sparks from one strut, he did no damage. The door gunner seemed unused to his weapon and swept the muzzle too far around. His next hail ripped chunks of clay from the road surface, scattering Bolan and the jeep with blobs of soil as sticky as putty. They flattened against the windshield of the jeep, then fell away, leaving round blotches on the glass.

The pilot, realizing his gunner needed help, urged the chopper down, keeping it broadside for a moment, then pivoting again until just the barrel of the M-3 was visible in the open door. Bolan raked the nose and was rewarded with a spiral web of brilliant white cracks in the bubble. The glass was tough and refused to shatter.

Bolan dropped his aim and chewed at the undercarriage. One strut came loose and dangled from a single bolt. It flapped in the rotor wash, then began to swing in a strange circle as the chopper changed its tack again. A couple of men had joined the door gunner, and Bolan could see the barrels of two assault rifles braced against the floor of the chopper. The pilot angled his ship over, and all three guns opened up.

The distinctive pop of a rifle grenade sent Bolan diving over the tail of the jeep into the bushes. The grenade went off with a dull thud, and more dirt cascaded down over him. Bolan got to his feet and dodged into the trees, then cut back. He dove under the layer of bright green and wormed his way back, waiting for the chopper to sweep by, looking for him.

When the engine grew louder, then died away, he saw the antitorque rotor glinting in the sunlight as the Huey passed by. Slipping backward toward the jeep, Bolan hurled himself over the tailgate and swung the M-60 a hundred and eighty degrees. It was his only chance. If he didn't nail the bastard, he might not get another one.

Tugging a length of the ammo belt free to make sure there were no snags, he started hammering. The big 7.62 mm bucked in his hands. He could feel its chatter in his bones from his knees on the floorboard right up through the top of his head. The door gunner, caught by surprise by a burst from behind as the chopper hovered to regroup, pitched forward and out the open door.

Bolan watched the ungainly swan dive with grim satisfaction, then hacked away at the tail. The pilot suddenly realized what was happening and started to climb. Plumes of smoke, probably a ruptured oil line, spewed out a ragged line of holes in the fuselage. The antitorque rotor suddenly stuttered, one shattered blade arcing off like a shiny comet. The imbalance tore its companion to pieces with stability gone, the chopper began to spin. The pilot tried to adjust, but he was helpless.

The smoke suddenly spouted flame, and Bolan banged away at it, trying to widen the fissures in the fuselage. A moment more, and it was all gone.

A huge bright flower bloomed and died in seconds, leaving a black smudge on the blue sky and shattered pieces arcing away in every direction. The shiny metal flashed again and again as it tumbled down.

The orange light was gone. The junk had all landed.

Only a round black ball rolled away toward the ocean. Bolan was conscious of his breath scratching at his throat, and the pounding of his heart, like a huge drum, echoed in his ears.

One down.

Then the second bird swooped down, its engine masked by the rumble of the burning ship. Bolan braced for a second assault, but the new bird just roared off, following the highway. For one instant, in the open door, he glimpsed an uninterested onlooker. It was Charles Harding. And he was smiling.