Delta looked at her rifle. She didn’t have much left either. How were they supposed to cover those sitting helpless in the raft?
When another round went off from the Colombians, Delta peppered the jungle with her bullets. And then, it was silent. When she looked through the trees, there was movement coming toward them. It was a calculated, measured move that felt like a check in chess. The blood drained from Delta’s face. She hadn’t anticipated this, nor had she any idea of how to counterattack.
“Fuck! Do you see it?” Josh asked coolly.
Delta nodded.
Two Colombians stood behind a massive tree at the edge of the jungle with a four-foot long bazooka aimed right at the raft. Before Delta could raise her rifle, they fired their first volley toward the raft and missed. The explosion in the water sent fountains bursting thirty feet into the air.
Delta fired a dozen rounds at the men, but the tree gave perfect cover. All of her rounds missed their mark.
“It’s no good,” Josh said, pulling a foot-long Bowie knife from a strap on his leg. “One more volley like that, and they’ll blow that raft to smithereens. Cover me.”
“Josh, no!” Delta yelled, reaching out to try to stop him. But it was too late. Like a wild man, Josh shrieked a warpath scream that reached into the marrow of Delta’s bones. With the Bowie knife raised above his head, his big, burly body was the perfect distraction. The bazooka’s loader frantically reached for his pistol as Josh neared, and the best Delta could do was lay some ground cover for him.
The bazooka men weren’t the only ones with their eyes trained on the advancing lunatic. Several others turned their weapons on Josh, but when the first bullet smashed into him, it didn’t even slow him down.
“No!” Delta cried, standing up from behind the rock to draw some of the fire. Taking careful aim, she located the shooter and fired one round through his chest just as several bullets pinged off the rocks surrounding her. She knew, all too well, what Josh was doing, and in committing himself to saving Sal’s and everyone else’s life, he was forfeiting his own.
When the second and third rounds hit him, they spun him around like a rag doll, but he still did not go down. Delta squeezed off a few more rounds, taking out another shooter, but she still couldn’t hit either of the bazooka men. When she saw the soldier withdraw his pistol and take aim, Delta turned her face away and looked back at the raft, expecting to see that it had gotten well underway, but, to her dismay, it was heading back to shore.
“Go back!” Delta yelled, waving them off. But Sal would have none of it. Jumping out of the raft, she and Carducci scrambled across the sand, while Connie held Taylor close to her in the raft.
Turning her attention back to Josh, Delta watched helplessly as he was hit two more times, once in the shoulder and once in the thigh. Still, he did not go down. Instead, he made his way closer to the stunned men standing behind the tree, who were readjusting their sights on the raft, which had, inexplicably, returned to shore, a move they had not anticipated. A move that just may have saved the life of everyone on board.
As Delta raised her rifle to provide more cover, Carducci landed next to her, his rifle poised. “Stop her,” he ordered, and Delta whirled, just in time to grab Sal around the waist and pull her back down behind the rock.
“No, goddamn it! Let me go!”
“I won’t let you kill yourself too, Sal.” Delta struggled with the little waif, trying to keep her from the same fate awaiting Josh. When Carducci’s rifle kicked, Delta looked over the rock and saw that he had shot one of the bazooka men. The second one, the one holding the bazooka, suddenly turned the muzzle toward them.
“Oh shit,” Carducci muttered, taking aim. But Josh, who was still moving toward the man, was in the way of a clean shot.
“Shoot!” Delta yelled.
“I can’t. I’ll hit Josh!” Carducci waited what seemed a lifetime, and as he watched, incredulous, Josh raised his Bowie, holding the point, and with a flick of his wrist, sent it hurling toward the bazooka man, where it embedded itself in his leg. Falling to the ground with a scream, the soldier reached for his compadre’s pistol, leveled it at Josh, who had slowed down considerably, and proceeded to empty the remaining rounds into Josh’s body. He took three shots in the abdomen, two in his shoulders, two in his legs, and one in his cheek before the ammunition ran out.
That finally stopped him.
Swaying like a disoriented drunk, Josh dropped to his knees before collapsing face-first into the sand, more than a dozen rounds of bullet holes draining the rest of his life from his body.
“Damn you, Delta, let me go!”
Holding tight to Sal, Delta stroked the back of her head. “He’s gone, Sal. He’s gone. You won’t do him any good getting yourself killed.”
“I don’t care!” Sal struggled harder, making it difficult for Delta to hold her. Sal was small, but the man had just given his life for hers, and her anguish made her strong.
Carducci turned to Delta and her wiggling bundle. “Sal,” he said calmly.
Sal turned her angry eyes on him and glared, still fighting in Delta’s arms. “Help me, Tony! I have to get to Josh!”
Carducci looked at Sal warmly. “I’m sorry.” Pulling his big fist back, Carducci punched Sal so hard that her army cap flew off her head. She now lolled unconscious against Delta’s shoulder. Delta stared at Carducci in silent understanding and nodded.
“Sal wasn’t going to go back to that raft without him,” Delta said wearily.
Carducci nodded. “Neither are we.”
“What? Carducci, don’t be dumb.”
Handing Delta his rifle, Carducci looked hard into Delta’s face. “I was out here all night buried in sand with the guy. You learn a lot about someone under those conditions. You learn even more about yourself.”
“Tony, wait.”
Carducci hesitated a moment and then squatted next to Delta, who still held Sal in her arms. “If we leave him here, he’ll will take all the heat from the international press for what’s gone on down here. Can you see it? ‘Berserk Vet Runs Amok in Central America’? he deserves better than that, Delta. He deserves better from us.”
Delta nodded. “I agree. That’s not why I stopped you.”
Carducci tilted his head in question. “Why, then?”
Delta pointed to the jungle with her rifle. “Listen.”
Carducci looked up and realized there hadn’t been any shots fired for several minutes. “Reloading?”
A slow grin spread on Delta’s face. “Uh uh.” Tenderly touching the jaguar tooth necklace around her neck, Delta knew why there would be no more shots today. “The Bri took them out. All of them.”
Carducci looked surprised. “How do you know?”
Shrugging, Delta peered into the forest. “I just know. Don’t ask me to explain.”
As she and Carducci gazed into the jungle for a sign that the battle was over, Delta caught sight of a small, wrinkled old man, holding a bow in one hand and a walking stick in the other. When he saw Delta looking at him, he raised his staff in the air and pointed to a capuchin monkey hanging from its tail just feet above the old man’s head. Turning around, the old man motioned to the monkey, who followed him, and they both disappeared silently into the rainforest.
“Itka,” Delta murmured, suddenly seeing all of the warriors melt back into the forest. “And Kiki.”
“Kiki, Bianca’s monkey?”
Grinning, Delta nodded, knowing now who was responsible for sending the cavalry to them.
“I don’t see a damn thing,” Carducci said, squinting.
Delta slowly rose, cradling Sal in her arms. “It’s okay, Carducci. Go get Josh.”
Carducci looked over at Delta, his eyes brimming with tears. “You sure?”
Delta nodded. “The Bri have taken care of our enemies.”
Carducci wiped his eyes and set his rifle against the rocks. “If only he’d waited just thirty seconds more. I should have—”
&nb
sp; Delta reached out and touched Carducci’s shoulder. “Should have what, Tony? Tackled him? Shot him in the leg? The man was a soldier. He died a soldier’s death. You couldn’t have stopped him, nor should you have. He saved our lives. It’s how he wanted it.”
Carducci stared at Delta for a moment before shaking his head sadly. “I’ve never seen anything like that in my life.”
Delta stared out at the jungle and back at Josh’s body lying in the sand. “And I doubt you ever will again. That kind of courage, that kind of man is one in a billion. Come on. Let’s go get him.” Setting Sal gently in the sand, Delta rose from behind their rocky cover.
Carducci followed Delta, half expecting the Colombians to shoot them where they stood. But there were no rifle remarks or pistol shots, only the eerie silence heard when great beings leave the world, the sound of a space that can never be filled.
“What in the hell are we gonna do about Sal?” Carducci asked when they knelt next to Josh’s bullet-ridden body.
Delta reached out and brushed some sand from off Josh’s temple. If it was possible, Josh actually looked peaceful, as if he was glad to have forfeited his own life for theirs. “I don’t know, Carducci. I really don’t know.”
“How’s Taylor doing?” Delta asked Connie as they loaded Josh’s body into the raft.
Connie shrugged helplessly as the weight from Josh’s body sank the raft six inches deeper in the water. Her brown eyes held a mixture of sadness and anger. “Not good. She’s shocky.” Connie reached out and touched Delta’s arm. “How are you? You okay?”
Delta shrugged, staring down at the man who had given his life to help save his new family. Her heart hurt, and she wondered if Sal’s heart would ever mend from this loss. “I’m ready for this to be over.”
Connie nodded. “You did well, Del. And so did you, Tony.”
Carducci started the small engine on the raft and sat wearily next to it. “Then how come I feel like a failure?”
Connie placed her hand on his shoulder and gave it a quick squeeze. “You did your best. That’s all anyone has the right to ask.”
Carducci covered his face with his hands and shook his head. It sounded like he was crying. “If only he’d waited. If only—”
Connie sat next to him and held him. “Delta and I have never lived by if onlys, Tony. Every decision we make in our lives has several if onlys attached to it. If only Josh hadn’t come down here. If only we kept the cave from being blown to bits. Josh knew what he was doing. He knew he wouldn’t make it. He gave his life for us, for Sal. And if onlys minimize his courage.”
Carducci looked up from his hands, his eyes filled with tears. “How can you be so calm about this, Connie? We lost him. He’s dead.”
Connie looked back at the jungle and sighed. “Not to me, he isn’t. What Josh did will live in my heart forever.”
Carducci sniffed once and stared at the jungle in silence, only turning his head to see what Delta was doing.
“She’s not going to be very happy with you, I’m afraid,” Delta said to Carducci, gently stroking Sal’s hair as she started to surface.
Carducci shrugged. “I couldn’t think of anything else to do. It didn’t look like you could hold her much longer.”
Delta nodded, resting her tired head in her hands. At her feet lay a man who was the embodiment of a warrior. He had acted with courage and valor, and Delta vowed he would get the burial a warrior deserved. It was hard to believe he had sacrificed himself, but she knew why. He’d made an oath a lifetime ago to protect Sal and keep her from harm. It was an oath he never took lightly, and when the moment came for him to make the sacrifice, she was sure he made it in the blink of an eye. She knew if he hadn’t kept the bazooka from firing, the Colombians would have eventually blown up the raft, as well as the rocks they had used for cover. He had seen to it that neither of those things happened. His was the purest form of love she had ever seen, and she knew his death was a loss from which Sal might never recover. It would take everything in their power to see Sal through.
Life seemed so unfair.
“Josh,” Sal muttered, slowly opening her eyes. Her left cheek was swollen and red from where Carducci had punched her. Seeing Josh lying still at her feet, Sal slid down to the bottom of the raft and lay on top of him, weeping quietly. “No… not you. Please, God, not him.”
“Sal…”
“Leave her be, Tony,” Delta said gently.
As the raft cut its way through the water, Delta stroked Sal’s head, which heaved and jerked from her sobbing. Sal was not a big woman, but against the chest of the man who saved her life, she appeared smaller than ever, and she seemed to shrink with every sob.
In the distance, out of firing range, was a small fishing boat. Turning to Connie, Delta asked, “Is that the boat?”
Connie shrugged. “I guess so. Sal was sketchy on the details. She said some girl in a fishing boat.”
“Wait. What? A girl was on the boat?”
Connie nodded. “That’s what Sal said.” Connie looked at Sal, hoping she would answer Delta’s questions, but Sal was in no shape to do anything except grieve.
“A fishing boat?”
Connie nodded again. “Uh huh. Why?”
“Did Sal say anything else?”
“Like I said, she was sketchy on the details. She did say the girl seemed okay.”
“And does she speak English?”
“I don’t know. Why all the questions?”
“Do you remember if Sal told you her name?” Delta also looked at Sal now, wishing she could interrupt her weeping for just a moment to see if the boat they were heading toward was the boat she thought it was.
Connie thought for a moment. “I don’t think so.”
Delta peered at the horizon, trying to catch a better look at the boat. If her suspicions were correct, Flora would be waiting to greet them.
“If we’re going to that boat, then where’s Logan’s?”
“Sal said the plan was to put the hostages on the newer boat and get them to the coast, where they could receive medical attention and stay out of harm’s way. I suppose they’ve already made it.”
“And so, now, our guys are on that fishing boat?”
Connie nodded. “Sal did mention something about the Colombians using it to transport gold.”
Delta’s eyes grew wide with anxiety. “Shit! It is Flora.”
“What? Who in the hell is Flora?”
Delta ignored Connie’s question and whirled around to Carducci. “Tony, stop the engine.”
Carducci looked at her sideways. “Why?”
“Something’s not right. Stop the goddamned engine.”
Carducci did as she said, and immediately, the little raft slowed to a near stop.
Connie leaned over and lightly rubbed Delta’s back. “What is it, Del?”
Delta stared at the old wooden boat in the distance, every fiber in her body shouting at her. She had learned long ago to listen carefully to that part of her, and she couldn’t help but heed the warning within her now as lit up inside her.
“It’s Zahn.”
Carducci shook his head. “Come on, Del, that guy’s long gone. Josh said he’s not going to stay around when all his men are dead.”
Delta was quiet for a moment, listening to her inner voice, the voice she had not listened to the night Miles Brookman was killed. From then on, Delta Stevens had listened to her instincts, and her instincts now were telling her that something was off. “If everything’s okay, why haven’t Megan and Gina come back for us?”
Carducci’s mouth opened, but nothing came out. He and Connie looked at each other.
Delta studied the fishing boat thoughtfully. If she was Megan, and she knew the danger was past, she would have started the fishing boat and come to pick them up. “If nothing’s wrong, Megan and Gina would be bringing that boat to get us.”
Sal looked up from her crying, tears streaking her face. “They have binoculars,” she said softly. �
�They shoulda known by now that they can come get us.”
Delta closed her eyes and centered herself. Her gut raged at her, telling her all the things she didn’t want to know. “He’s on that boat.”
“You don’t know that,” Connie said, slight panic in her voice. “It’s an old boat. Maybe it had engine trouble or something.”
“I’ve been on that boat, Con, and it purrs like a Ferrari. Trust me on this. Zahn’s not leaving here without his gold and without taking us out.”
Connie shielded her eyes from the sun and looked at the fishing boat. “It does seem odd that they haven’t made an effort to come and get us.”
Sal rose from the bottom of the raft and pulled a Bowie knife similar to Josh’s from the same type of belt. “I say we hop onboard and gut the fucker.”
Connie, Carducci, and Delta all looked at each other. Grief or not, she was right. If he was onboard, this would be the last play of the game. “Sal’s right. If he wants us, he’s gonna get us.”
“Oh man, I don’t like the sound of that,” Carducci said, sighing. “I’ve seen that look before, Delta, and no good ever comes of it.”
Delta turned to the trio, fighting the rising fear that Megan, Gina, and the others onboard might already be dead. “Let’s give him what he thinks he wants. Right between the eyes.”
Sal cheered. “Now, that’s my kind of plan.”
Delta inhaled a deep breath. “It’s risky, but I think I have a plan that’ll work. Here’s what we’re going to do.”
Delta, Connie, and Sal floated the raft up to the side of the boat, waiting for the inevitable rifle to be pointed in their faces. Since Zahn hadn’t picked them off yet, Delta figured there was more on his agenda than just their deaths.
Before sending Carducci over the side of the raft, Delta had rubbed some of Josh’s blood over Taylor’s arms and face and positioned her so she appeared as dead as he was. Leaving her in the raft was the only option, and though it could put Taylor at risk, Delta could think of no other way to keep her safe.
Storm Surge (Delta Stevens Crime Logs Book 6) Page 24