by James Hilton
Danny tilted the rear-view mirror, the lights from Ghost’s sedan dazzling him from behind.
“I wasn’t sure you’d get away from those men again, but Celine was,” Laura said. “You and Clay, I can’t believe you came all the way down here to save us. Just the two of you. When I saw you go into that fighting pit, I’ll admit, I thought you were a goner, but man, I’m so glad I was wrong.” Laura shook her head, her words coming in a flurry. “Celine said you and Clay were both soldiers.”
“Aye, a long time ago,” replied Danny.
“Were you in special forces or something?”
Danny kept his eyes on the road. “No, just regular soldiers.”
“She said you were a green beret or something.”
“Green Jacket. Quite a different beast.”
“But where did you learn to fight like that?”
“I’ve learned enough to get by. There’re men a lot more skilled than me out there.”
“But they aren’t down here risking their lives to save a few college kids,” said Laura.
“I know plenty who would do the same in a heartbeat.”
“My grandfather was a colonel in special forces. He was a bit like you: he didn’t like to talk about Vietnam or the years after. One of his soldiers got into a lot of trouble.”
“Most of us are just thankful if we come home with all of our limbs attached,” said Danny.
“Thank you.”
Danny glanced across at Laura. He gave her the smallest of nods. A second later he braked. “Aw, come on.” On the road ahead, the headlights had picked up the dog he’d become almost used to seeing. Soon, another familiar figure appeared alongside it.
“What is it?” asked Laura, an audible tinge of fear creeping into her voice.
“Jak and Chaac.”
“Huh?”
“Long story, but don’t worry, he’s a friend.” Danny buzzed down the window as Jak approached the pickup.
“You went the wrong way.”
“Aye, we figured that bit out for ourselves,” replied Danny.
“At least you’re on the right path now. You need to keep following this road for about five or six miles straight on. You’ll come to a crossroads. When you do, take the road south. It’s a long trek around but at least you’ll be on a proper route. You can pick up the main highway from there and head back north.” Jak leaned against the side of the pickup door. Chaac stood silently, his tail tracing a slow crescent in the air. The ear with the hole in it twitched, perhaps tickled by some unseen insect.
“Thanks, Jak. You gonna be okay?”
Jak lowered his voice. “I will be fine. The men that are coming are not coming for me.”
“Men? The cartel, Los Espadas?”
“Men are men. There are still more challenges left for you to face. The men that come this way are worse than all you have met so far.”
“Have you seen them?” asked Danny.
“I’ve seen many like them. When I was a very young man, there was a gang that fought for Pancho Villa. It was said they skinned their enemies alive to strike terror into the hearts of men. I think the men that are coming share the same blood as Villa’s men.”
“Get somewhere safe. If you hear gunshots, head in the opposite direction,” said Danny. “We gotta go.”
Jak stabbed the air with his finger. “Go fast, but careful. Be ready for danger. You are not home and free yet.”
Danny gave a parting nod then accelerated away. Two sets of lights followed behind.
Laura looked at Danny, her mouth twisted to one side. “You know, I took modern history in school. Pancho Villa died nearly a century ago.”
“Aye, he’s a strange one, right enough,” said Danny. “Don’t worry about it.”
The three-vehicle convoy powered through the dense jungle, an occasional set of unblinking yellow eyes observing their progress. Danny’s pickup bumped and jostled as he fought to leverage all available speed from the vehicle without crashing again. The occupants of both the rear seats and the flatbed hunkered down in silence. Danny could smell the nervous tension inside the cab.
“We seem to have been going for hours,” said Laura.
Danny glanced at the clock on the dashboard display. “It’s only been twenty minutes. The damn dark and this sad excuse for a road has made for slow going. Once we hit the main road we can floor it and put some miles on the meter.”
65
Weiss looked at the five men, playing the beam of the flashlight over each in turn. Each brandished a weapon. Three held crossbows, one a rifle and the last man had a long-bladed machete.
Weiss had recovered his P7 pistol from the chamber floor. In addition, he now sported a range of other killing tools. The harness of his webbing vest contained three spare mags for the P7, the last two grenades from his stash and a combat knife. On his belt, he carried a tool that he had not used for some time. The SOG-issue tomahawk was brutal, both in close-quarters combat and as a throwing weapon.
“They have quite a lead on us, so we’re going to have to go flat out to catch them, but catch them we will. I want Gunn and the other one dead. No talk, no second chances— dead! Pick your shots and make sure they stay down.”
“What about the others? The girls?”
“We bring back as many as we can,” Weiss said. “If you think there’s a chance of them escaping, they die too. No one can make it out or we’re all finished here.”
“What about the Espadas guys?” asked Thomas, the man with the rifle. His brown hair was scraped back into a tight ponytail.
“If we cross paths, keep out of their line of fire. They are as likely to put you down as the main targets. There is a chance that they have killed Gunn already, in which case I’ll be very angry. I want him for myself,” said Weiss. “Come on, we need to move.”
Weiss moved into the night at a brisk run. The five guards followed close on his heels. Skirting the main house, Weiss made his way to his own private vehicle. The Toyota FJ cruiser was a beast of a machine, the 260 HP engine perfect for the rugged demands of the Yucatán peninsula. Weiss vaulted into the driving seat. The engine sprang to life on the first turn of the ignition. The other five men clambered into the cruiser. Weiss gunned the Toyota before the last man was fully inside. The man gave a short whoop, but managed to haul himself into a sitting position.
“There’s only one road out of here, so Los Espadas will be between us and the ones we need to kill. As soon as I can, I will overtake the cartel men and we will take them for ourselves.” Weiss yelled to make himself heard above the racing engine as it picked up speed.
Thomas wedged the stock of his rifle between his feet to hold it steady. Within seconds the Toyota was powering down the narrow road. A steady rattle of branches impacting the outer skin of the vehicle provided frenetic timpani as they sped into the stygian darkness. Weiss flipped a switch on the dash. The set of roof-mounted halogens lit up the path ahead, the many shades of green lending a hypnotic effect as the Toyota continued to accelerate. He grinned at the passengers with cruel amusement as they were jolted around the cruiser. The German forced the vehicle ever faster, missing trees by mere inches, trees wide enough to kill everyone inside if he collided with even one. The jungle was reduced to a darkened blur as he coaxed every bit of available speed from the cruiser.
Weiss leaned into the steering wheel, scouring the road ahead for any signs of his quarry. Something solid impacted the driver’s side window and door, causing Weiss to jerk the steering hard to the right. “Scheisse!”
The wing mirror on the passenger side was ripped free in a brief explosion of glass and plastic. Weiss swore again.
“Jesus, you’re going to kill us before we get near the other guys,” said a voice from the back seat.
“Shut up or I will definitely kill you!” Weiss allowed the cruiser to slow momentarily as he brought it back under his control. There were no further comments from the passenger.
“Ja,” said Weiss as he steer
ed around a curve. “There they are!”
Multiple lights were now visible less than a quarter-mile ahead.
“Is that them?” asked Thomas.
Weiss considered punching the rifleman in the face. “It could be Domino’s pizza.”
Thomas pulled his chin into his chest. “I was just asking.”
“Of course it is them, and it won’t take me long to catch them.”
“What are you going to do?” asked someone from the back seat. “How will you stop them?”
“Let me worry about that. Just be ready to shoot when I do,” said Weiss. “There! Look, there’s three vehicles. Los Espadas are right on their tail.”
As the road widened, giving a foot or so more safe space on either side of the Toyota, Weiss coaxed the last ounce of extra speed from the vehicle.
Thomas pointed at the pickup now framed in their headlights. “There’s women in the flatbed of that truck.”
Weiss gritted his teeth. “And?”
“If that truck is the cartel truck, why is it filled with our women?”
Weiss growled. It made no sense. If the cartel had already got the women back, that meant they had already killed the Gunn brothers. But if that was so, why were they still racing through the jungle at top speed in the pitch dark?
As the road bent into a sharp right curve, Weiss got his answer. The man driving the pickup at the rear of the speeding convoy was the big man he had blown into the sinkhole. A boxy sedan car in the middle and another pickup in front completed the running order. If the big guy was bringing up the rear, it made sense that all three vehicles were filled with the escapees.
After giving only a moment of thought to the real whereabouts of the cartel shooters, he turned to Thomas. “Use that rifle! Try to hit the driver if you can, or the tyres if that’s too tricky.”
Thomas leaned out of the window, hugging the rifle tight against his shoulder. Despite the jostling of the Toyota, his first shot exploded through the rear window of the pickup. Weiss thought he could hear screaming.
“Ja! Ja! Again! Shoot them again!”
66
“There’s lights coming up fast,” said Laura. She had twisted all the way around and now stared out past the other two friendly vehicles.
“Shite! That’ll be the other cartel boys. I was hoping we’d be back on the main road before those buggers showed up. We’ll just have to keep moving. Clay will have seen them too. I wish we still had walkie-talkies.” Danny alternated his focus between the road ahead and the fast-approaching lights in the rear-view, lights that could only mean more danger.
Rebecca Dale shook her head. Her voice was an equal mix of fear and anger. “Are they ever gonna quit?”
“Not ’til we make them,” said Danny. The road curved to the right and he focused on not repeating his earlier head-on collision with any rocks. As if in warning, a sharp pain lanced through his neck and shoulder muscles. The earlier crash was beginning to take its toll. Biting down against the discomfort, Danny forced himself to inhale slow and deep. The too-familiar sound of gunfire stopped the breath in his throat. As he glanced into the rear-view mirror, he recognised a telltale muzzle flash. Someone in the vehicle tailing Clay had opened fire. Danny cursed under his breath. His only real choice was to keep moving at full speed, allowing the others to do the same. If he stopped, Ghost and Clay would be forced to stop too. The muscles in his jaw bunched as he registered another muzzle flash. Damn it! Clay and Celine were back there.
With his attention snapping between the road and the rear-view, Danny kept his foot heavy on the gas. Travelling as fast as he could manage, he didn’t see the fallen tree lying across the road until it was too late. The bough was as thick as his thigh with several thinner branches reaching out like a dead man’s fingers. The pickup truck hit the tree hard. The front wheels bucked up and over the obstacle. Then the rear axle ramped up and over too, in a buckaroo motion. The vehicle returned to earth with a heavy thump. A high-pitched wail sounded from the flatbed.
“They all still in there?” asked Danny.
Laura craned her neck to see through the rear window. “I think so. I’m not sure how many got in the back of this truck.”
Ghost’s sedan made an ungodly sound as it too crashed over the fallen tree. The front fender angled to one side then disappeared under the car. A second later, Clay’s pickup and the pursuit vehicle also crowned the tree.
Another gunshot rang out, loud against the night.
“These bloody goat-track roads are hellish!” Moments later, Danny’s mouth twitched into the smallest of smiles as the road widened out to nearly twice its previous width. “Maybe somebody up there likes me after all. We must be getting closer to the main road.”
A quick glance in the mirror showed that both Ghost and Clay were still close behind. So too was the vehicle with the shooter in. As if in confirmation, another shot rang out.
“Shite! I knew our three seconds of luck was too good to be true!” Danny narrowed his eyes at the new set of lights racing directly toward him. He knew this was bad. There was a small chance that the approaching vehicle wasn’t an enemy, but he knew better than to hope.
Laura gripped his shoulder as if he had failed to see the lights speeding their way. “Danny?”
“Hang on tight, ’cos I’m not stopping!”
“We’re going to die playing chicken,” said Laura, her voice small and empty.
“Only if we lose.” Danny floored the gas. He thumped his palm down on the horn and kept it there. The sound brought new wails from the rear seats and flatbed of the truck. Danny relaxed. A head-on collision was less than five seconds away.
I’m not swerving.
Four.
I’m not stopping.
Three.
Chrissie Haims back in Miami was mighty fine.
Two.
Shite! We’re dead.
One…
67
The sound from the rear of the pickup was horrendous. The few in the flatbed of the truck huddled low but their screams were loud and shrill. The back window had been blown in, scattering glass through the cab. The windscreen was spiderwebbed too, severely reducing visibility. Another bullet cut through the cab and punched into the console inches from Clay’s torso. Lights began to blink on the dashboard.
“What’s happening?” asked Celine.
“I think the ramp over that log has done some damage.”
Crack!
Celine ducked her head low.
“Celine!” Clay’s face burned red as he reached out to her.
After patting her hand to her head several times, she puffed out her cheeks. “No blood.”
“Hunker down as low as you can,” said Clay. He cast a baleful look at the vehicle behind. He considered slamming on the brakes, but that would prove fatal for the people in the flatbed. He repeated his words, this time to everyone within hearing range. “Hunker down as low as you can!”
Clay guided the pickup through a dense green arch. Leaf-laden branches slapped against the truck, then the road widened noticeably.
Crack! Another bullet cut through the air near Clay’s head.
A woman shouted through the smashed rear window. “Pass me that shotgun!”
Clay glanced back at her. Her black hair clung to her face in long unruly strands. “Can you shoot?”
Her eyes flashed. “Born and raised in Wyoming.”
“Okay, then.” Clay nodded to Celine. She leaned to one side and gripped the Remington in both hands. Turning the weapon in her hands, she passed it back stock-first.
“What’s your name?” shouted Clay.
“Kelly. Kelly Jones.”
“Give ’em hell, Kelly.”
Almost before he had finished talking, the boom of the shotgun split the night. The vehicle that had dogged them relentlessly veered to one side. The shotgun fired another three times in succession. The rapid rate of fire gave a brief strobe effect in the rear-view mirror.
The tw
in headlights behind tilted to an impossible angle. The scars on the left side of his face crinkled as he watched the vehicle slam first into an outcrop of rock, then, in a shower of sparks, ramp high into the air. As the vehicle piled back into the road one of the headlights exploded and the hood flew open like the jaws of a feeding shark. The vehicle swung across the width of the road before rolling to a stop. A man leapt from the driver’s door. The shock of white hair identified him.
“That asshole’s still alive?” In the seconds that the crash had held his attention, Clay had not registered the scene unfolding directly ahead: a new set of lights speeding down the road, on a direct collision course with Danny’s truck.
Time seemed to slow as the lights grew brighter. In both the sedan and the pickup, Clay could see heads cast into silhouette. Danny, Ghost, Celine’s friends and the others they’d rescued. Powerless to change the outcome, Clay gritted his teeth. A single word formed in his mind: Danny!
68
Danny’s knuckles turned white as he gripped the steering wheel. The approaching lights had grown impossibly bright. They weren’t stopping. A furious roar escaped his throat. If this was the end, he would go in defiance.
The sound of screeching metal filled the truck as the other vehicle veered off at the last possible second. As the pickup took the brunt of the sideswipe, Danny strained to keep his vehicle on the road. The vehicle shuddered as sparks formed a brief flashing aurora around the truck.
“They’re real bright sparks,” shouted Danny. Both Laura and Rebecca stared at him with wide eyes.
The vehicle was a blur as it flashed past Ghost’s and Clay’s vehicles, skidding into a tight revolution. Another loud rending of metal filled the air as it rammed into the vehicle that had been hounding his older brother. A quick check confirmed that both Clay and Ghost were still following close behind. Danny puffed air through his nose. Hopefully the cartel men were all dead, or at least too injured to continue.