Whipsaw (6 page)

Bolan reached for her hand. It trembled in his grasp, but she refused to let go of the pistol.

"Let go, damn it!" he shouted. "Marisa, we have to get out of here."

He twisted her arm, and the pistol clattered onto the floor of the truck. He groped for it in the dark, conscious of how little time they had left. The orange glow was already getting brighter. He found the pistol and crawled to the rear of the truck. He was too tall to stand upright, and knelt at the crack between the two doors.

Running his fingers along the joint between them, he found the bolts holding the latch in place. He fired two quick shots, with the muzzle held nearly flat against the sheet metal. Behind him Marisa screamed.

Lying on his back, he brought both feet back and slammed them into the door, one on either side of the latch. The doors bowed outward but did not give. He could feel the heat of the flames on his ankles as he pulled them back for another try.

Again he slammed both feet forward, ramming them like pile drivers into the door. This time one flew open. A wave of superheated air surged into the truck.

"Marisa, come on," he shouted. In the dull orange glare, he turned to see her cowering in one corner of the truck.

He stuck the gun in his belt and scrambled toward her. She heard him coming, and shrank even farther into the corner. Without a word he grabbed her under the shoulders and hauled her to her feet. Bending at the waist, he pushed and shoved her toward the open door.

"Stay right there," he said, dropping to the ground.

He reached back up for her, grabbed a knee in each hand and pulled. She toppled forward, and he caught her over his left shoulder. She was heavier than she looked, and the impact of her body nearly knocked him over.

He ran into the trees and set her down.

"Wait here," he said.

"Don't leave me," she said. Her voice was emotionless, almost robotic, but he could sense the terror her inflection tried to conceal.

He sprinted back to the truck and yanked the driver's door open. The driver was slumped forward over the steering wheel. A gaping hole in his skull obscured the left temple. The bullet must have come from the opposite side of the road, Bolan thought as he pulled the driver free. The man was dead, and there was no time for courtesy. He let the body fall to the ground and reached for the second man in the cab. He, too, had been shot, through and through, also from the right side of the road. The glass of the windshield and the passenger window was a mass of cracks, glittering orange with reflected light.

As he backed out of the cab, Bolan snatched the passenger's M-16 and a canvas bag jammed down between the bucket seats. When he stepped down from the running board, he started to back away but tripped and fell. Scrambling to his feet, he noticed the flames now beginning to lick at the huge gas tank under the truck. He stumbled back into the trees, ignoring the slender branches slashing at his face and hands.

He found Marisa right where he'd left her, as if she had grown roots in the rich, loamy soil.

He dropped to the ground beside her.

Bolan reached out to pat her knee. "I'm back," he said.

She said nothing, instead placing a finger to her lips. Thinking she must have heard something, Bolan cocked his head to one side, listening to the jungle.

The only noise he could hear was the crackle of the flames.

"What is it," Bolan whispered, "what do you hear?"

As if in answer, the gas tank on the truck blew, sending a feathery plume of burning fuel high into the air. The trees between him and the truck looked black, as though they had been carved out of coal.

Marisa flinched at the thunderous explosion.

"Juan?" she asked. "Pablito?"

"Dead," Bolan said. "I'm sorry."

Marisa shook her head. "No, you're not. Don't say it to spare my feelings. They were my friends, but you didn't know them."

Bolan marveled at the toughness that seemed as much a part of her as the flesh on her bones, the blood in her veins.

"What happened?" she asked.

"They didn't suffer, if that's what you want to know."

"Thank you for that, but, no, that's not what I want to know. I want to know what happened."

"Someone shot them both. From the right side of the road. An ambush."

"And you saw no one?"

"No."

"But they are still here, the ones who murdered Juan and Pablito. They are close by."

"How do you know?"

"I know because I just heard them. I know because it is always the same."

"Many?"

"Ten or twelve, probably. That is the way it usually goes."

"Then we have to get the hell out of here. Do you know where we are?"

"Yes."

"Then you have to guide me."

"We have to follow the road. That's the only way I know to guide you."

"We can't stay on the road. If there's a dozen men out there looking to kill us, we wouldn't stand a chance."

"We don't have far to go."

"How can you be sure?"

She laughed. "I may be frightened, Mr. Belasko, but I'm not stupid. I don't mean to walk in the middle of the road. But if you look closely, you'll realize there is only one road to choose from. Since I know where we were going, I know how to get there. I don't know how far, but it shouldn't be more than three or four miles. It's too bad we don't have Pablito's pack."

"You mean this?" Bolan placed the canvas bag in her lap.

She brushed it with her fingertips, then smiled a sad smile. "So, Pablito will help us get there yet. This is his bag." She reached for the buckles holding the bag closed. One at a time, she undid the two straps, then slid her hand in under the canvas flap.

When she withdrew her hand, she held a small transceiver. She brought the small black box to her lips and kissed it.

"You see?" she asked. "We can call the others and tell them to come get us."

"Then we'll have to stay here, near the truck. Otherwise they won't be able to find us." "S?.."

"You know damn well what I'm talking about. You said yourself there is a dozen men out there. They're looking for us right now. We can't stay here."

"We have no choice."

"Maybe you don't, but I do," Bolan snapped.

"Fine, do whatever you want. At least leave me a gun."

"Don't do this, Marisa."

"Do what, Mr. Belasko?"

"Play on my sympathy."

"I'm surprised. You don't strike me as a man who would even have sympathy. For anyone. And if you think I am not above manipulating you, you're wrong. Do as you please. But I want to warn you that you can't get out of here without our help."

"I'll take my chances on that." Marisa held up a hand. "Quiet," she ordered.

And this time Bolan heard it, too. Voices, too far away to be intelligible, but too dose for comfort. It sounded as if the speakers were arguing.

"What are they saying?" Bolan whispered, bending close to bring his lips to Marisa's ear.

"They are trying to figure out how the driver got out of the truck." She looked at him, her face asking him the same question.

"I had to move him," Bolan explained.

This time Marisa didn't bother to lean close, choosing instead to trust the air to keep her confidence. "They will be searching both sides of the road soon. You'd better hurry if you want to leave."

Bolan squeezed her hand. "No. And don't think it's charity. Listen, get on that radio. If they come too much closer, you won't be able to."

"What are you going to do?"

"That depends."

"On what?"

"On who they are. For all I know, they're the good guys."

"Trust me, Mr. Belasko, they're not. They are the Philippine equivalent of the Salvadoran death squads."

"Maybe, maybe not."

"Damn you, believe whatever you want... I don't care."

Bolan squeezed her hand again. "The radio." Then he was gone.

"Be careful," she whispered after him.

Working his way silently through the trees, Bolan got as close to the ruined truck as he dared. It was still a raging inferno, the blackened metal hulk appearing and disappearing in the very center of an orange cauldron.

From his vantage point, he spotted seven or eight men standing in a ragged semicircle just beyond the reach of the flames. It would have been a sure thing to hit them. With any luck, he could take them all out with a single burst from the M-16. But until he knew what was what and who was who, he wasn't shooting anyone, especially not in the back.

The men were talking among themselves in Spanish. His command of the language was a bit rusty, but he understood enough to get the general drift of the conversation. One thing puzzled him, though. Marisa had said there would be ten to twelve men. That left as many as four unaccounted for.

As if in answer to his question, two more shadows suddenly appeared against the orange backdrop. As they approached the semicircle, the chattering men shut up. One of the two, then, must be their commanding officer.

"Speak English, damn it," one of the newcomers snapped.

"That's just like you Americans," the other said. "So tucking parochial. It's laughable that you should be one of the two most powerful countries in the world."

"Fuck you, Carbajal. When you want our help, you speak English pretty good. Don't go giving me any bullshit about being parochial. So I don't have any Spanish big deal."

"So, where are the others, Mr. Johnson? If you know so much, tell me that."

"How the hell should I know? I already told you, they got wind of something. Everything's going to hell. The bastard the police talked to, Belasko, Belaski or whatever it was, must have known something. We almost nailed him in Manila, but he squeaked through. I'm telling you, he had to be in that truck. It's the only way he could have gotten out of Manila."

"Why is he so important?"

"If I knew that, I'd be a lot happier myself. All I know is, he was tailing Harding before the shit hit the fan at the airport. He was there when it went down. And now he runs down a tucking rabbit hole and disappears."

"And you think we should search the jungle in the middle of the night to find this man?"

"Yeah, I do. And I bet we find the broad with him," the American said.

"And if we do find him, then what?"

"Ice the tucker."

The other man sighed, then turned to the small group of men. In Spanish he ordered them to fan out from the truck and to shoot anything that moved.

That was all Bolan needed to know. Whatever the hell Marisa was up to, these guys were trouble. Plain and simple. He backed away from the burning truck, its light flickering through the shadows cast by tall trees around him.

Carefully he made his way toward the spot where he had left Marisa. Behind him he could hear the men beating the undergrowth. They were talking in loud voices to keep their fear at bay. He almost missed her as he moved past, not fifteen feet from where she lay coiled in a tight ball, trying to lend in with the floor of the forest or sink to the other side of the shadows.

Bolan moved back toward the hunters a few feet to interpose himself between Marisa and the searchers. Concealng himself among the fronds of a patch of tall ferns, he roached down and waited.

He could see one of them moving straight toward him. The others had spread out to the left. Bolan steeled himself as the searcher drew closer. The fronds waved as the man rushed into them from the other side. Bolan waited until he took one more step. As he brushed by him, Bolan snaked an arm around his neck, crushing the windpipe and preventing him from shouting.

The man tried to breathe, and the gurgle in his throat dribbled away as Bolan exerted still more pressure, bracing his other forearm against the back of his captive's skull. With a sudden jerk, he snapped the neck. Easing up slightly, he felt the head loll to one side, then lowered the lifeless body gently to the ground.

It had been too damn near a miss. And Marisa was a liability, especially in the jungle. At all costs, they had to get closer to the road.

Bolan hauled Marisa up the slippery incline, his feet sliding on the damp, rotten leaves. The firing continued behind them, and stray slugs whined through the branches overhead, showering them both with tattered leaves. Just ahead the lip of the incline curved up nearly vertically. From fifty feet, it looked to be about five or six feet high, but it could be more. It was going to be close.

The nearest of their pursuers was no more than fifty yards behind them. Bolan kept tugging at Marisa's arm, until he thought it would pull out of its socket.

The dense jungle behind them swallowed nearly every sound except the gunfire. Bolan crossed mental fingers, hoping that Marisa's faith in her compatriots was not misplaced. If it were, it would be too late for her to regret it. Bolan tripped over a log, nearly buried in dark brown leaves.

As he struggled to his feet, he lost his grip on the woman for a moment, and she cried out, afraid he had left her behind.

He clapped a hand, slippery with decayed vegetation, over her mouth and held it there until she stopped struggling. He leaned forward to whisper in her ear. "Come on, Marisa, hold it together. We're almost to the road. Okay?" At first she didn't respond, but when he asked a second time, she nodded as best she could.

As he let go, he heard a rustle of leaves and dropped to the round, pulling her down with him. Straining his eyes to see in the dark, he saw nothing that looked out of place. The rustling noise had stopped, but he was certain one of the search party was just behind a curtain of thick, umbrellalike leaves. A shot would alert the others, but he couldn't afford to turn his back on a threat that close.

"Wait here," he whispered.

Bolan started to crawl toward the fan of broad leaves, spread open like the fingers of a huge hand. Keeping his eye fixed on the center of the fan, he moved one hand, then a leg, another hand, a second leg. He controlled his breath, taking deep gulps as seldom as he could and taking care to make no noise.

Since he had begun his approach, not a single leaf had fluttered. He was starting to think he had imagined the noise when he spotted something jutting out just past the face of a leaf. It could have been a twig or some sort of weird bug. Or the muzzle of an automatic rifle. Bolan squinted to sharpen the focus, but the effort was futile.

There just wasn't enough light. Lying flat out, Bolan rolled onto his back, waited a few seconds, then rolled again to lie on his stomach about four feet to the left.

As he lay there, he listened for a long moment. The gunfire had tapered off a little, as if the men were trying to conserve ammunition. Or, Bolan though, maybe they had blown off their fear, and fired now only with some reasonable cause.

From his new vantage point, he could still see the projection. And now it looked just a little too perfect, a little too round. Back up on hands and knees, he crept farther to the left. Somehow he had to get in behind the thick leaves. Hi couldn't risk a head-on charge. Even if he didn't get himself killed, the noise of his assault would certainly draw the others.

Sharpening his angle away to the left, he climbed into crouch, moving more quickly now. Fending off the thick undergrowth with his left arm, he slithered into a clump o feathery fronds and slipped up behind a thick-waisted trunk. The tree itself had snapped-off a dozen feet from the ground, and it lay like a broken mast from some longforgotten shipwreck.

Bolan crawled under the trunk and slid along behind it. Falling more and more deeply into a crouch as the tree's crown drew closer, he kept his eyes riveted on the motionless fronds.

He was looking at them from the side now, but still saw nothing. As he reached the tangle of broken branches, he slid in among them, moving each one aside only far enough to get past it. Even the damp, rotten wood could give him away if one of the branches were to snap. He felt the slippery pulp of fungus under his fingertips, where maids of every kind slowly devoured the rotting branches.

As he bent the last branch and ducked under it, he found himself staring straight at the back of a man crouching in the shadows. Bolan cursed himself for not having the Beretta. Its sound suppressor made it perfect for use at the moment. But he didn't have it, and he was going to have to improvise.

The gunfire had dwindled away to occasional single shots. As the searchers spread out in the dense forest, the leaves mulled even those few, and they sounded as if they had come from a long way off.

Placing one foot on the thick carpet of moldering leaves, he leaned his weight forward, then tugged his other leg free of the branches. Holding the tip of his tongue between his teeth, he started forward, the M-16 ready. He closed to within five feet of the man when something snapped underfoot.

The man started to turn as Bolan took another step closer. Raising the assault rifle high in the air, like a pinch hitter conrying to loosen up, he started his swing as the man's profile emerged from the shadows. Bolan saw the mouth open in surprise and the lips begin to form a word. As the rifle contacted against his temple, the man's mouth went slack. He sank straight down, as if a trap door had opened beneath him.

He lay there in a heap. Bolan bent over to feel for a pulse. There was one, but it was going to be a while before the crumpled form regained consciousness. Quickly Bolan disentangled the unconscious man's arm from the leather sling of his AK-47, slung it over his own shoulder, then knelt to see what else of use he could find.

The man wore a Browning 9 mm automatic in a canvas holster hooked on a garrison belt.

Bolan undid the belt, tugged it loose and rebuckled it, then draped it over the same shoulder as the AK. Three ammo pouches, one small, probably for the Browning, and two larger, for the AK-47, dangled from the belt, along with a pair of M-59 grenades.

Bolan pushed through the thick, rubbery leaves and sprinted back toward Marisa. She stood where he had left her. Her head was cocked to one side, and she turned slightly as he approached, as if to hear him better. He reached for her outstretched hand and continued on past, barely slowing his pace. She spun in her tracks and fell in behind him, doing her best to match his stride.

As the slope grew steeper, she got the better of him. His weight kept him sliding on the slimy mulch while she seemed to skate on it with effortless grace. When they reached the final ascent, he had to pause for a moment. They were flush up against a vertical wall. It was a good foot taller than Bolan.

"I'll have to lift you up," he whispered. "Just raise your hands over your head and get a solid grip on something." He pressed his back against the wall of vegetation and tugged Marisa toward him. "Okay," he said, "give me your foot."

He made a stirrup of his hands and slipped it under the sole of Marisa's boot. She bounced once, twice, and on the third time, he lifted as she sprang upward. Her hand thrashed in the growth on top of the wall, and suddenly he weight started to decrease. He realized she'd found a handhold and begun to pull herself up. He pulled upward on his linked hands, and she slid up and over him. A moment later she was gone.

Bolan kicked holes in the embankment with the toes of his boots, driving them through the mushy greenery and into the sticky clay behind it. With the second toehold secure, he could reach up and far over the edge to find a sturdy bush rooted deeply enough to bear his weight.

As he pulled himself up and over, he heard the unmistakable sound of an approaching engine. It was just a notch above idle, as if the driver were coasting along, using his engine only enough to keep from rolling to a stop. Bolan got to his knees, only now aware that the jungle had fallen silent behind him. The firing had stopped, and nothing else moved among the trees. The monkeys and the birds seemed to be waiting for something else to happen. Even the tree frogs were silent.

They still had twenty yards to cover before they reached the road itself. Bolan hauled Marisa to her feet and plunged down into the thick undergrowth. He was less concerned about the noise now.

He had to admire Marisa and her people, at least for their efficiency if nothing else. The jeep was right on time. He didn't want to think about what might happen if he was wrong, if it wasn't the jeep they were waiting for. It just had to be, and that's how they were playing it.

They broke into the open so suddenly that Bolan hadn't seen it coming. In knee-high grass, he stumbled to a halt. A hundred yards away, little more than a block of shadow on wheels, a jeep rolled toward them, its lights out. Bolan fell flat in the tall grass and tugged Marisa down beside him.

"Okay," he said into her ear, "there's a jeep just up the road. See if you can raise him on the radio."

Marisa tugged the small transceiver from a deep pocket in her jacket. So softly that Bolan wasn't even sure she had spoken, she repeated the same phrase twice.

It was in a language completely alien to him. He guessed it must be Tagalog. In answer, the jeep flashed its headlights once.

"That's Carlos," she whispered.

They heard scrambling behind them, at the bottom of the wall, and Bolan decided they'd better not wait. "Come on," he said, getting to his feet.

Marisa got up without help this time. She groped in the air for his hand. When she found it, she curled her fingers around his and squeezed a moment, then let go. He nodded to himself, and started down the gentle slope to the road. The jeep was still idling its way along, and Bolan stepped into the hard-packed dirt of the road about twenty yards in front of it. He could see the silhouettes of two men in the front seat.

He stuck out an arm to brake Marisa to a halt, and they waited impatiently for the jeep to cover the last fifty feet. The driver braked and rolled to a stop right beside Bolan.

"Get in quickly," he said in an urgent, low tone.

Bolan boosted Marisa into the jeep and climbed into the back seat alongside of her. Kicking the bans into reverse, the driver backed into a tight K, and dropped into first. The gears whined and Bolan heard shouting from the thick brush.

"Step on it," he barked.

The driver floored it, and the jeep spurted forward, its tires slipping momentarily on the damp clay surface of the road. The driver shifted into second, and the engine roared until he popped the clutch. A burst of rifle fire spanged into the ass end of the jeep and whined off into the jungle on the far side of the road.

They rounded a curve just as another burst, this time from several weapons, raked the clay all around them. A moment later they were out of sight. The gunmen continued to fire, spraying the jungle in the vain hope that a lucky slug might take out a tire. Over the roaring of their engine, the gunfire faded away. Rounding a second curve, the driver clicked on his headlights and shifted into third.

The road wound ahead of them, twisting and turning, as if it were trying to evade the blinding glare of the headlights. The driver was good, but the slippery road made it tough to control the jeep on the tighter curves. Even the thick treads of the jeep's tires struggled to hang on.

The careering vehicle yawed wildly before the tires bit, then it lurched ahead, gaining speed until the driver braked into a skid at the next curve, fought to regain control, only to repeat the process in succession again.

"What's that up ahead?" Bolan shouted, tapping the driver on the shoulder.

The driver shouted something Bolan couldn't catch over the screaming engine. Two pairs of orange rectangles seemed to hover in the air about a quarter mile ahead. They were in a long straightaway, and the jeep was picking up speed.

Closing fast on the hovering lights, they were only a hundred yards away when Bolan realized it was a pair of jeeps, their parking lights lit, straddling the roadway.

A sudden explosion, like a meteor shower, lanced overhead. Bolan recognized the hammering of an M-60 immediately. The driver spun the wheel sharply, and the jeep skidded several feet broadside before its tires bit, then it plunged into the tall grass alongside the road. The M-60 stabbed at them again, tracers ripping the darkness as they homed in. Carlos had killed his lights and was barreling straight ahead. The jeep canted to one side as it rocked over the uneven ground beneath the grass.

Bolan swung his M-16 up and sprayed an entire clip, aiming just above the hoods of the two jeeps. He was rewarded by a cascade of shattering glass. The M-60 stopped instantly, and they plunged on past. Bolan jammed a second clip into the M-16 and cut loose again.

This time the others in the blockade fired back.

Their rifles ripped at the careering jeep in search of flesh. Bolan pulled the pin on one of his two grenades and tossed it backward. The deadly hook shot found the rim and dropped in between the two pairs of orange lights. It went off almost at once. In the sudden fireball, he could see one jeep upend while the other rocked over on two wheels, then settled back just as its gas tank blew.

An orange cloud mushroomed up into the night.

They were safe for the moment.