by Andy Lucas
‘Okay. Let’s try it.’
‘Sometimes the road ahead is not as we would like.’
Pace took a few minutes to film the tree and hide with the MicroCam, adding a few whispered words of voice-over to explain what had happened to them and what they were intending to try and do. Satisfied, he followed Cosmos down a vine; not quite as gracefully but a whole lot better than the day before. Sleep, together with the pills, had stabilised his wound.
Barely had his feet touched the soft earth than Ruby moved over to him and slipped her hand briefly into his. She gave a quick squeeze before pulling it away again, as if letting him know everything was okay. Nearby, Cosmos pulled on his backpack. She already had hers on.
Sten in hand, Pace pulled on his own backpack. He ran his fingers over the weapon quickly and slipped the safety catch off. He was ready to kill again if he had to.
Cosmos took the lead, taking them back towards the road. Pace brought up the rear, sandwiching Ruby in between them. He held the Sten lightly as he walked, keeping his finger away from the trigger again, in case he stumbled. The last thing he wanted to do was risk pouring bullets into the backs of his friends if he fell over.
He wasn’t concerned about losing their way in the gloom, despite their little column twisting and turning all the time to avoid obstacles. Cosmos’s stride never faltered and Pace had absolute faith that the giant would guide them safely back to the road, which he did.
Why had Ruby and he had sex last night? What was that really all about? It had felt amazing but almost unreal now he looked back on it; not making love but powerful, carnal need. He also wondered about their chances. Was there really any hope of slipping past armed men unnoticed, even if a heavy storm came? Would anybody come to help them, and where the bloody hell was Hammond?
Good questions all, he knew, as he trudged through the shadowy gloom.
8
Cosmos was dead right about the rain. They reached the road just as someone cranked the tap open another notch. It fell strongly but there was no accompanying storm this time. Visibility wasn’t obscured very much but the dawn shadows helped to flatten everything out. Pace figured they would have to keep a distance of at least five metres between them and any pair of observant eyes for the mix of rain and gloom to effectively make them invisible. That would mean passing around the very edges of the staging area.
The pounding of falling water on the road would offer good sound cover but getting safely to one of the hovercraft seemed an impossible dream. The odds on being killed were so high that Pace had to put money on the other guy.
Tension bit into everybody. Water-beaded frowns became set and eyes grew thoughtful. All of them ditched their brightly coloured ponchos, placing them in packs deliberately smeared with handfuls of mud to try to disguise their luminous markings.
Whenever they caught each other’s gaze, as they paused and crouched at the edge of the road every few hundred feet or so, badly forced smiles magically appeared. There was nothing left to say. They couldn’t go deeper into the Amazon and killers, like it or not, dogged their heels. They had only one chance and it wasn’t much of one.
‘We should try to sneak up to the hovercraft as quietly as we can,’ suggested Ruby, wiping water from her eyes for the hundredth time. ‘There’s no point making a mad dash. We don’t know what state they’re in. They may have been sabotaged, or secured somehow. It could take time to get one going, so time is what we’ll need.’
‘Let’s hope they see it the same way,’ Pace said grimly.
‘Let’s hope they don’t see it at all,’ she replied, quick as a flash. At least her mind was back on the ball, he thought. She would need her wits about her when the time came. ‘I’m the only one here who knows how to pilot one but it isn’t too difficult. You’ll pick it up quickly enough once we get going.’
That was true. Ruby and Prassal had been the nominated pilots for Team Two. Each driver had been given one week’s instruction on a rough section of the Colorado River, a month before he’d even joined up.
‘We’ll get you aboard,’ Pace promised, crossing mental fingers. ‘After that, as you say, it’s up to you.’
‘The electrical systems should come on-line almost immediately. That’s how they’ve been designed, as long as the batteries are still charged. As long as the engine hasn’t been tampered with either, or the controls, we might be able to get one moving within a minute, maybe a minute and a half.’
‘Our future seems full of ifs,’ commented Cosmos casually.
‘How noisy is it going to be when you kick over the engine?’ Pace had seen a photograph of one of hovercraft but had been too busy concentrating on getting his video skills up to scratch to worry about someone else’s speciality.
Squinting against rain that began to grow even heavier, she shook her head. ‘Shouldn’t be a problem. They were designed to be quieter than normal,’ she explained. They had pushed their mouthpieces out of the way as they were so close together but her words were still subdued and fragmented by the rain. ‘The speed is there but the mufflers on the exhaust ports, placed to the rear, port and starboard, are very effective. When we used them in the States, you couldn’t really hear anything above the sound of the river.’
‘But white water’s loud, so that’s not saying much.’
‘Sure,’ she admitted, hands in the air, ‘a hovercraft makes more noise than a regular boat, even with mufflers. But for hovercraft, and remember these are very small really, they run quietly.’
‘Still, we can’t hang around.’
‘It will be loud,’ she admitted with a resigned shrug.
‘It is the only way,’ Cosmos interrupted.
‘Look on the bright side,’ she said, patting Cosmos’s shoulder affectionately. ‘With volume comes great speed.’
‘So we may get away without being sunk,’ he returned the pat brightly. ‘Our plan must be clear.’ Cosmos was the only one of them to have seen the staging post and the positioning of guards first hand. He had to take the lead and solemnly accepted the responsibility. All their lives would ride on his insight and judgement. Pace and Ruby were ready to do whatever he told them.
Cosmos ran through the plan with them briefly again, making sure they all knew what they were going to do. Satisfied, he pondered for a second, then collected himself. Using his finger he carved out a rough map of the staging area in the soft mud at their feet to add clarity to his words.
The main river cut across the road at the staging area, which was why they had seen no sign of it yet. He then drew the outline of a large building just to the right hand side of the road. The building appeared to be only a few metres from what looked like a small jetty, sticking out into the water. A couple of finger stabs marked the hovercraft, one either side of the jetty. There should have been three machines but Cosmos only marked two points. Pace queried it and he nodded. ‘When I looked, there were only two. The other must have been taken away.’
‘Where did they take it?’
‘I did not see it being removed,’ Cosmos replied. ‘I only saw two.’
‘What about guards?’ How many did you see? How were they working, in two’s or in three’s?’
‘Never three, not together.’ Cosmos shook his head. ‘They were paired, some static but others patrolled up and down the road for,’ he thought intently for a moment, ‘about fifty metres in either direction.’
‘Waiting to catch us,’ said Ruby coldly. ‘Bastards.’
‘Catch us, then kill us,’ Cosmos corrected.
There were no other markings on the little sketch at their feet, which was already beginning to wash away despite the cover provided by the tree edges above them. No guard sites were been marked and Cosmos quickly fingered them in.
There were four static sites; two at the roadside and one at the rear of the building, with another at its front. The sites covered both the river and the jetty. The two sites out on the road were spaced, according to Cosmos, about sixty metres apa
rt.
One was open and plainly visible but the other had been concealed on the opposite side of the road. Anybody spotting the visible post would naturally slip across the road, right into the sights of hidden guns. Cosmos explained he only spotted the ruse by observing a shift change and being surprised to see a couple of hard-eyed men emerge from jungle cover opposite the visible post. If he hadn’t seen it, they would be about to spring the trap.
‘Could there be other concealed posts?’ Pace’s hands gripped the Sten easily, pleased to feel the reassuring piece of metal beneath his fingers. ‘Did you see any signs of others?’
Cosmos shook his head. ‘No. I thought the same thing and stayed where I was for many hours. There were no more guard changes and I saw no others.’ He looked confident enough about what he was saying. ‘No, I am sure there are no others, not close to the checkpoint anyway. Further up the road, who knows? There could well be more traps, just in case anyone does slip past.’
‘It all depends on their numbers then,’ Ruby concluded. ‘How many men have you seen altogether, Cosmos?’
‘The rain and darkness made it difficult for me,’ he readily admitted, ‘and I might have counted one twice, or two as one.’
‘What’s your best guess?’ By now the rain had obliterated the sketch. ‘Nobody’s going to hold you responsible for a miscount.’
‘I think about thirty soldiers, all armed with automatic weapons. If there are others, they kept out of sight.’
Thirty-something against three, or put another way dozens of modern weapons against one Second World War relic. It was a sobering thought, and one Pace decided to ignore, as was knowing that he would probably have to kill again within the next few minutes.
There was little chance of them slipping in and stealing a hovercraft from right under the noses of over two dozen men, undetected. They were expected; he had no doubt that Wolf had been rescued by now and would have prepared his men for their arrival.
‘They’re going to start shooting the moment they catch a glimpse of us,’ said Ruby.
‘And I will shoot back.’ Catching a breath and finding the courage few men can summon, ever, he set his jaw rigid and stood up. There would be no more talking, or waiting. Without another word, he headed out onto the middle of the road, driven with purpose.
He was joined by the others. The road was a slick of reddish mud at the edges, where it sucked his boots down a few inches, squelching but firmer in the centre. Facing up the road, knowing violence waited just a few short metres ahead, he inched his way forward. The Sten was braced into his shoulder, barrel pointing ahead of him as he swept it slowly from side to side. His finger rested lightly on the trigger, ready to squeeze it the moment anybody emerged from the grey wall of rain to confront them.
Apart from anything else Pace was pleased Ruby was a few paces behind. The thought of steel-jacketed pieces of lead tearing the life from her slight figure was not a pleasant one. He wasn’t overly keen on his own death but it was hers that seemed to sting him the most. Was it his male protective instinct? Or was it that his baby sister was gone, and Sarah had deserted him?
He felt he’d failed both of them somehow and resolved to be there for Ruby at least.
The plan was simple; they weren’t good enough to launch anything clever. They could not split up and attack at different angles, for instance, because they only had a single gun.
Without surprise, sheer speed had to be their main weapon. They had no way of knowing what sophisticated tracking and detection sensors the mercenaries might have laid down, so attempting to come at the hut from the jungle side had been out, as was pushing into the river and swimming up to get the hovercraft. These stretches of the Amazon were teeming with black caymans, giant anacondas and the odd school of piranha. They were more partial to being shot than eaten.
Shrouded by the rain, mist wafting around their feet as the water vapour collected and immediately began to evaporate in the rising heat, their approach didn’t have much further to go before they would be vulnerable. Sucking in a preparatory breath, his hands gripped more tightly around the gun and his knuckles whitened, if only he’d spared a second to glance down and look.
As planned, Pace headed in first, with Cosmos and Ruby in single file directly behind him, offering only a one-person width target to the enemy. He would fire at anything that moved to stop them, covering the others who were to make a mad dash for the nearest hovercraft they could see. He would keep shooting until the ammunition he’d taken from Byrne ran dry.
The first guard post was ten metres further on, manned by at least two mercenaries. Just to aggravate matters a little more, the rain decided the moment had come to ease down to a pathetic drizzle; in a matter of seconds visibility sprang an extra five metres in every direction. The perimeter of the guard site immediately jumped into view.
In it, one standing and the other sitting, were two figures. Pace stopped dead in his tracks, foot raised in mid-step. He waited for the shots to ring out but, luckily, the men had their backs to him. No immediate cry rang out.
But then the bullets did fly. Not from their guns but from his own. Sixty year-old ammunition spewed from the Sten’s muzzle as it barked angrily, the staccato clatter echoing flatly in the rising, oppressive heat. The gun bucked in his grip, firing a lengthy, lethal burst.
Ahead, men twitched and fell from view, killed instantly and thrown onto the floor of the sandbag-rimmed position by bullets that severed arteries and ligaments, shattered bone and punctured into brain matter. Pace charged forward, Sten poised.
The others were right behind him.
9
Time slowed to a crawl as he dashed madly for the safety of the hovercraft; shrouded somewhere up beyond the fog of steaming water vapour. Startled shouts cut the early morning air. The concealed guard position further up the road was rendered useless as they cut off straight into camp, aiming for the river.
He hoped the others were still behind him because he had no time to look. A narrow path curved away to the right, just as Cosmos described, and this was where he headed. As he moved, his mind absorbed more details of his surroundings.
The muddy path veered around for a hundred yards or so, leading to the front steps of a pre-fabricated, breeze block and corrugated steel hut, built on posts that raised it about six feet off of the ground; obviously to protect from flooding. It continued past the building and veered away to the left, where a sudden sparkle of light reflecting on water caught his eye.
The jetty was plain to see, constructed of fresh timber, roughly hewn. His heart leaped a mile upwards because there, riding peacefully at anchor, sat a solitary, turquoise painted hovercraft.
Pace couldn’t tell if it was damaged, fuelled, or even filled with the enemy, just waiting. All he knew was that it was there, the fibreglass superstructure smoothly moulded and the wire-caged composite fan blades offering a glimmer of hope.
A wasp buzzed dangerously close to his right ear. He half moved to swat it when another flew past his knee. Not wasps; or insects of any kind; bullets from a dozen or so figures, now spilling out onto the covered porch of the hut, most half-dressed in grey combat fatigues; missing boots and shirts, and each looking dazed and angry. They weren’t too confused to grab their machine guns and start shooting in his direction, he mused.
Cursing as he took to his heels like a startled rabbit. He dug deeply into his reserves of strength and added a few extra miles per hour.
The next three, maybe four seconds, buffeted to a tumultuous crescendo that sent water and dirt explosions erupting all around him. He slowed slightly, turned his body and squeezed the trigger as the Sten came to bear on the hut. He made no attempt to aim properly; it was more a need to throw off their aim than to be effective with his own.
The old gun spat its own bullets smoothly but suddenly he was knocked off his feet by the concussion blast of a hastily tossed grenade that exploded barely fifteen feet to his left; detonating in a small depression that swa
llowed most of the shrapnel. He didn’t feel any pain and scrambled to get up.
Pace was covered in mud and overcome by a wave of cool, rational thinking. Cosmos and Ruby were level with him, then they overtook him. Ruby turned her head despairingly towards him but he frantically waved her on.
She didn’t look back again and he had no time to follow the remainder of their flight.
Gripping the Sten, he started jogging backwards in their tracks, sighting the hut and the enemy behind as he did so. Men kept spilling out of it towards him, fanning out and diving for cover as they dispersed.
Bullets tore into the ground all around him but he doggedly continued firing, grimly satisfied to see his own bullets knock over at least two men. He kept backing up, knowing that at any moment a bullet with his name on it would find him.
Suddenly there came a roar from behind him. Instinctively he flinched before his brain recognised the sound as the hovercraft’s engine being kicked over.
The others had reached the machine and the gunning engine was the pre-agreed signal for him to stop covering their escape and run like hell. Half stumbling on a twisted root, he bolted towards the hovercraft. Ruby was nowhere to be seen but Cosmos was busily throwing off the front and rear mooring lines. About twenty feet separated them but it may well have been a mile. His shoulders tensed for the impact of a bullet as he started to zigzag wildly in the hope of presenting a more awkward target.
He actually reached the edge of the wooden jetty before a bullet struck home, creasing the top of his shoulder. Blood exploded in a welter but it gouged a furrow only a couple of centimetres deep into the flesh. Cosmos covered the few feet left between them, snatched him up like a sack of old potatoes and bundled him through the open cockpit roof, where he landed, head first, in the co-pilot’s seat. There was a mass of disorienting movement all around him and he felt a surge of power press him into the seat.