Jason Frost - Warlord 05 - Terminal Island

by Jason Frost - Warlord 05

  Now he had to find Tim.

  There was a movement over by the drinking fountain. Eric hefted his crossbow. A small orangutan poked the water button. Nothing happened. It made a screeching sound and wandered off. A huge tortoise lumbered into view, walking with such slow and deliberate steps it looked as if it were hauling two tons of coal in its shell.

  Fallows still had not moved. Thin tendrils of white smoke curled up from behind the rock. The bastard was smoking a cigar. He knew Eric was waiting for him, and with his men searching the grounds, he knew he could afford to wait.

  But Eric couldn’t. He had to find Tim before he climbed the wall or was captured by Fallows’ troops. Tim wouldn’t have tried either the openings that Eric had made knowing Eric would be around those two sites. And he knew where the inside wires were being strung to keep the animals so he would avoid them. That really left only a couple of places for him to try to jump the wall. Eric hesitated. Fallows was still there, armed, sure, but here, within his grasp. They could finish it between them right here, right now.

  Eric stood up. With a quick glance at Fallows’ white hair feathered above the rock, Eric ran off looking for Tim.

  “Manusco,” Essex said. “Quit dropping back. You’re supposed to be scouting ahead.”

  “Fucking snakes everywhere, man,” Manusco said. “I don’t mind scouting, but I hear noises up there I ain’t never heard before. Like some goddamn Tarzan movie.”

  “Just get your ass up there or I’ll shoot it off. That’s Tarzan for you.”

  Manusco cursed and jogged up ahead. He didn’t see why they couldn’t walk the concrete trails just like he’d done when he’d visited this place years ago. He and a couple of Marine buddies had come down from the El Toro base. They’d picked up a couple high school girls in front of the ape grotto and left with them. Turned out one was only sixteen. Manusco took her. Never did get to see the rest of the zoo.

  He looked over his shoulder. In the dark he couldn’t see Essex or the others anymore, but he could hear them rustling behind him. Then he heard some rustling in front of him and snapped his gun to his shoulder. He didn’t see anything. There it was again, but it wasn’t in front of him at all. It was above him. He looked up.

  A striped Siberian tiger dropped out of the tree, front paws pushing into Manusco’s chest. Manusco’s gun went flying into the brush. It didn’t matter. The tiger’s claws batted Manusco’s face, ripping his face away with one clean swipe, like erasing a blackboard. Manusco screamed and the other soldiers answered with a burst of gunfire that scared the cat away.

  “Save your goddamn bullets!” Essex yelled. “At least until you see what you’re shooting at.”

  They came upon Manusco writhing blindly on the ground, his face raw meat.

  “Help me, Essex,” he pleaded.

  “No can do, buddy,” Essex said. “Colonel wants me to keep going.” Essex stooped over and picked up Manusco’s SMG. “We’ll try to pick you up on the way out.”

  “For God’s sake, Essex! I can’t see.”

  “Let’s go,” Essex waved to his men. They walked away. Fifty yards later, Westmeyer pulled Essex aside.

  “Christ, man, you could’ve at least finished him off.”

  Essex shrugged off Westmeyer’s hand. “We may need the bullet.”

  “Spock?” D.B. whispered.

  The ape lumbered over to her, sitting at her feet. He signed to be tickled.

  “Not now,” she said. There hadn’t been time to lock him up. Fallows had come sooner than they’d expected. And she certainly didn’t have time to nursemaid a gorilla.

  She stalked along the wall, the SMG gripped tightly in her hands. Her palms were so sweaty she was afraid that if she pulled the trigger, the gun would jump out of her hands.

  Spock grunted crossly at her, signing again for tickles. D.B. pushed him away. Or at least she pushed his chest. He didn’t budge.

  Then she heard the growling of a large cat, a lion or tiger, and the screams of a man. The burst of automatic fire. At the sound, Spock jumped back and dashed off in the opposite direction.

  D.B. saw a flash of yellow fur running through the brush as the Siberian tiger took off past her. She heard men’s voices and walked toward them.

  They weren’t making much effort to be quiet. They didn’t have to. Half a dozen men with sub-machine guns could make as much noise as they wanted.

  She crouched down under a bush, waiting for them to march past her. This is always where the big fat snake comes slithering up, she thought, looking around. But there were no snakes or spiders. Just a small douc langur, its monkey face bristling with white whiskers. Wendy had pointed one out earlier, explaining that they were endangered because they came from such war-ravaged areas as Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. And now San Diego, D.B. thought.

  When the men were well gone, D.B. hopped up and continued searching for Tim. She had walked less than twenty yards when a hand whipped around her mouth. She could taste the salt and dirt of his skin.

  “Whoa,” he said, squeezing her so hard, the air whooshed out of her chest. She went limp, though she was still conscious. His hand still clamped over her mouth, he turned her around so she could see him.

  She had never seen him before. But she knew right away from the arrogant smirk, the dark eyes, the white hair, who he was.

  He pulled his knife out and poked the point against her belly. She tried to pull back but he held her fast.

  “Tim,” he said. “Where’s Eric hiding Tim?”

  D.B. knew from looking into his face that he would stab her. She could refuse to answer, the kind of heroic gesture she imagined Faye Dunaway or Vanessa Redgrave might make. But she was neither; she wanted to live so badly she started to sob uncontrollably. Mucus snorted from her nose and she didn’t have the strength to wipe it away.

  “Where?” Fallows demanded, his grip tighter, the knife now piercing a quarter inch of skin.

  She closed her eyes, for a moment envisioned Eric leaping from a tree, his crossbow firing in mid-air, the arrow slicing through Fallows’ neck. But when she opened her eyes, Fallows was still there, his cruel grin hovering inches away from her face. His breath was strangely sweet, like birch bark.

  Then the loud crashing of branches, the whooping noise, the thundering gallop of heavy steps. D.B. looked over Fallows’ shoulder expecting to see elephants or rhinos stampeding. But what she saw was one lone gorilla named Spock charging at Fallows.

  Fallows pushed her away and drew his Walther out.

  Spock was less than ten feet away. And coming.

  D.B. scrambled for her fallen SMG.

  Dr. Wendy Chen felt a certain exhilaration crouched in the brush behind a refreshment stand waiting for the voices to come closer. These were American soldiers coming, perhaps among them the very one who had killed her father. Not likely, she knew, but it helped her prepare for what she knew she must do.

  She did not blame all Americans. She didn’t even blame soldiers. She blamed people who liked war, who enjoyed fighting. Eric was not such a man, she could tell, though she could also tell he was good at it. These men coming were such men. Killers by choice.

  She waited as they walked closer. Eric had warned them not to engage the soldiers as a group, to only pick off the strays, and only when they could hit and run away. She hoped there would be one stray. She lifted her gun in anticipation.

  “What the fuck’s that?” one of the men said. She could barely see their outline in the dark.

  “A giraffe, idiot,” someone answered.

  Gunfire chattered loudly. Wendy watched the giraffe wobble on its long legs, then topple over into a tree.

  “Now it’s just a rug,” the first man said.

  “Don’t waste bullets, Collins.”

  “I just don’t like big animals following us around.”

  “It wasn’t following us, Collins, it was eating from the top of that tree.”

  “Well, fuck him anyway.”

  They walk
ed on.

  “Ouch. There’s barbed wire all over the place, man.”

  “And that giraffe is blocking the path.”

  “Thanks, Collins. Now we’ve got to walk over that thing.”

  Wendy watched them climb over the carcass of Nina, the Masai giraffe who’d been bred and raised right here in the zoo. Their boots mashed her delicate ribcage. One man sliced a swatch of her spotted fur for a souvenir.

  Wendy didn’t think about it. She just pulled the trigger. The SMG shook in her hand, the muzzle flashing as bullet after bullet cut through the brush. Two of the men fell over dead. The others dove for cover and returned fire.

  Wendy darted to the left, but a bullet chopped into her calf, dumping her on the ground. She scrambled on hands and knees, but another bullet skimmed off her back and dropped her face-down in the dirt. She tried to crawl, but the pain was too great.

  “Collins, you and DeVito check it out. See if we got him. The rest of you, keep hunting for that kid.”

  Wendy heard them whooshing through the brush as they came toward her. She picked up her gun and rolled onto her side for a better shot. But when she tried to hook her finger around the trigger, she discovered the trigger wasn’t there. Bullets had clipped off the trigger and busted up the firing mechanism. The gun was useless.

  “Over there!” Collins said.

  She heard them both running now. She closed her eyes, just for a moment, she thought. When she opened them again, they were standing next to her. Collins was nudging her wound with his foot.

  “Looks bad, honey,” he said. He looked at his partner. “You believe this, DeVito. Fucking woman, and a slant at that.”

  DeVito raised his gun. “Let’s do her and get back.”

  “Not so fast,” Collins said. “She’s not too bad looking. A quick hump before we do it couldn’t hurt anything. You can have sloppy seconds.”

  DeVito thought about it a second, then shook his head. “Fallows would have our asses.” He aimed his gun again at Wendy’s chest.

  The arrow entered DeVito’s face just below the right eye. It spun him around as if in a clumsy square dance. His finger flexed against the trigger and he fired a dozen rounds into the ground as he fell.

  Collins opened fire randomly, spraying a cluster of trees. The arrow that got him couldn’t be heard over his gunfire. Nevertheless, it punched through his heart with a satisfying thump that knocked him on his back. He managed to flop about a few seconds before dying.

  Eric rushed to Wendy’s side. “How bad?”

  “Falls somewhere between bowling and miniature golf.”

  He smiled, examined her back. “Not bad.”

  “You wouldn’t lie to me, would you?”

  “Yes. But this time I don’t have to. Just stay put.” He dragged her to a tree and propped her up against the trunk. He handed her Collins’ gun. “Try not to break this one.”

  “Eric?”

  “What?”

  “I got two of them.”

  “Plus these two, that leaves two or three in their party. Have you seen Tim?”

  She shook her head. The effort spent a spasm of pain through her back. She clenched her teeth.

  Eric ran off, disappearing so silently into woods that she wasn’t even sure when it happened. One moment she was watching him running, the next he wasn’t there.

  By the time Eric caught up with Garvey, it was too late.

  Garvey’s men had rejoined with Essex’s group. And Essex had Tim.

  “Quit squirming, kid,” Essex said. “You’re safe now. We got ya.”

  “Where’d you find him?” Garvey asked.

  “Going over the wall back there. Got his leg tangled up in the barbed wire.”

  “Thanks, guys,” Tim said. “I was looking for you.”

  “Then why didn’t you call us?” Garvey asked. “We were all over the place.”

  Tim rubbed his scratched leg. “Couldn’t take the chance. If Ravensmith heard me he’d be all over me. In fact, he could be out there right now, taking aim on us.”

  Garvey and Essex looked around. Their men quickly crouched down, bringing their weapons up.

  Eric continued to watch. There were too many of them now. Any attack could get Tim accidentally killed.

  “We’d better get back to the colonel,” Essex suggested.

  They formed a circle around Tim and double-timed it back along the wall.

  Eric followed along, keeping hidden in the brush. The animals wouldn’t attack them now. Too many.

  When they arrived back at the place where they’d climbed in, General Bao Nhu was waiting with a few other men. They must have scaled the wall after Fallows’ men split up.

  “Where’s the colonel,” Nhu asked.

  Essex shrugged. “We left him here.”

  “Maybe we should send out a patrol,” Garvey said.

  “You volunteering, Garvey?” Essex grinned.

  “Are you?”

  “I’ve had enough of this place. Fucking animals everywhere. I don’t even like vegetables, let alone all this shit.”

  “I’ll go look for him,” Tim offered. “I know my way around.”

  Eric moved closer. He couldn’t tell if Tim’s offer was a ploy to escape them, or if he was really concerned for Fallows. Either way, once he was out of their sight, Eric could try to grab him again.

  “I think not, Tim,” Nhu said. “We will wait three more minutes, then leave. Colonel Fallows is quite capable of taking care of himself.”

  “Another testimonial, General,” Fallows said, stepping out of the brush. A smear of blood spread across his forehead. He limped slightly. He put his hand on Tim’s shoulder. “And you, thanks for offering to look for me.”

  Eric raised his eyebrows. The distance would be tricky, but possible.

  But Fallows pulled Tim in front of him, slapping the boy fraternally on the back. Now Tim was positioned between Eric’s arrow and Fallows. Fallows glanced out into the woods while he spoke to the others, as if he knew Eric was there taking aim.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Fallows said. “Last one in, General, is last one out. You and Essex keep us covered.”

  Nhu stiffed at Fallows’ insulting orders, but he turned and aimed his gun in Eric’s general direction. Essex did the same.

  “Ready? Now!”

  As Fallows and Tim climbed the wall, Essex and Nhu sprayed bullets randomly around them.

  Eric heard a few chew the leaves next to him and he ducked lower, unable to get off a shot. The shooting and climbing continued as Fallows men scaled the wall under the cover of Nhu and Essex’s arc of bullets. Eric was frustrated, anxious to at least return fire, but any movement now could be fatal.

  Finally only Nhu and Essex were left. Nhu pulled rank and started up the wall. Essex opened fire.

  With only one of them shooting, Eric waited for his chance, popped up, and fired a bolt into Essex’s chest. Nhu was hanging from his hands on the edge of the wall, pulling himself up. When he looked over his shoulder and saw Essex collapse, he scrambled up the wall.

  Eric ran forward a few more yards, dropped to one knee, cocked and loaded the bow, aimed, and fired. The bolt zipped through the night and pinned Nhu’s left shoulder to the wall. Nhu’s left hand immediately lost grip of the wall and he dangled from one hand. One of Fallows’ soldiers who was in the process of gingerly stepping over the barbed wire, turned, saw Nhu, and opened fire on Eric’s running body.

  Eric dove behind an exotic tree as the soldier’s bullets battered the tree trunk into flying chips. Eric loaded his bow, rolled over to the other side of the tree, and sent an arrow fast as a bird blink into the man’s stomach. The soldier fell over, his leg tangled in barbed wire. He flopped hard against the wall, dangling there by one twisted leg.

  Nhu couldn’t climb or hold on any more. His hand started to open and he dropped to the ground. His weight pulled the bolt from the wall, but a bloody splotch still dotted where it had carved a hole.

  Eric wa
ited to see if anyone would come back for Nhu. He wasn’t surprised that no one did.

  After a few minutes, he walked over to the former general. Nhu had broken the bolt and pulled the point the rest of the way through his shoulder. He was packing patches of cloth he’d torn from his shirt against the wound when Eric arrived. Eric bent over and picked up Nhu’s SMG that lay less than ten feet from him.

  “No point in going for it, was there, Eric?”

  “Not much.”

  “You would have only put another arrow in my other shoulder, am.I right?”

  Eric shrugged. “Or leg. I hadn’t decided.”

  “The point is, you want something from me or you would have killed me on the first shot. Correct?” The general winced from pain as he pressed his bandage to his wound.

  Eric looked around. Where was D.B.? Now that the shooting was over, she should be coming out, talking away or singing some appropriate snatch of lyric. “D.B.?” he shouted.

  No response.

  Just the clattering of animals, screeching of birds. No D.B.

  He resisted the temptation to run and look for her. If she was dead there was nothing he could do. If she was hiding out of earshot, she’d come out sooner or later. But right now he had General Bao Nhu and he needed information.

  “Fallows was in a hurry to leave,” Eric said. “That’s not like him, especially knowing I was here.”

  Nhu coughed, grasped his chest. “I think the fall hurt me more than your arrow.”

  “Are you going to give me trouble?” Eric said.

  “Me? Eric, you know me better than that. I know that sooner or later every man talks. It is simply a matter of finding out not only how much pain he will endure, but what kind of pain. Some men can take physical pain for days — whippings, beatings, broken bones — but take this same man and threaten to cut off his nose, or balls, and he will talk immediately. Each man is different, yet in the end we are all the same. We surrender. Me, I’ve decided to cut out the middle man. What do you want to know?”