by Marc Cameron
As he expected, Pollard met him with the hateful gaze of a man with a plan for vengeance. He was so predictable. What Zamora hadn’t expected was the same look from Yesenia. He made a mental note to have Monagas kill her after the bomb was loaded and they were safely away from any would-be interference by the Chechens.
Borregos and his camouflaged men were just making it into camp when Zamora emerged from the river trail into the clearing. He wiped the sweat out of his eyes with the arm of his shirt. They were so close now. He would be glad to get out of this place.
A small bird suddenly flew from a branch above him, fluttering away like the sound of a beating drum.
Zamora froze. That was it. That was what had been out of place. He had flown in to this camp no fewer than twenty times over the past five years, and each time, a huge flock of white egrets had exploded from the marshes off the end of the runway at the noise of the aircraft’s approach.
There had been no egrets when Borregos’s plane had landed. No egrets because someone had already scared them away.
“Daudov is here,” he hissed to Monagas an instant before the first bullet rustled through the branches and struck Angelo in the chest.
CHAPTER 58
Quinn saw the boat tied alongside the muddy bank at the same moment he heard the shots.
He ducked instinctively, but kept both hands on the gunnel of the boat, leaving his pistol holstered.
“What you do wanna do, l’ami?” Thibodaux said from the tiller.
A steady barrage of automatic gunfire zipped and rattled inside the jungle to their right.
“They’re not shooting at us,” Quinn said, his head on a swivel as he looked up and down the bank. “This would be a good time to go in and get a feel for things when they have their hands full.”
“Agreed,” Aleksandra said, pistol already in her hand.
Thibodaux took the boat past the muddy bank at a fast idle, easing around the bend where the river curved back on itself. He pointed the bow around a protruding root that had caught a raft of floating deadfall. It was a natural breakwater where a boat could be hidden from all but the most curious river traveler.
“You can stay here.” Quinn nodded at Bo. “I need someone to stand guard.”
“Like hell,” Bo said. “You don’t get to drag me down the Road of Death to have me sit and watch the horses. If the bomb’s up there, you’re gonna need all the help you can get.”
Jericho gave a resigned shrug and stepped of the boat onto springy wet ground. “Okay,” he said, drawing his pistol. He gave Severance a tap on the hilt for comfort’s sake. “But stay behind me. Mom will kill me if I let anything happen to you.”
Quinn led the approach with Thibodaux three paces to his left, each picking their way through dense underbrush and tangled vines. Bo and Aleksandra flanked on either side a few steps back. The shooting grew more intense as the little group made their way through the dripping rainforest. Sporadic shots interspersed with rattling volleys followed angry shouts and periodic cries of the wounded. The vegetation began to thin forty yards in from the river and a series of rusted tin buildings became visible through the trees.
Thibodaux sidestepped alongside Quinn, clearing away a spiderweb with the barrel of his gun. He leaned forward, intent on the gunfire, a half grin crossing his face. Heights and bad juju might scare him, but he melded into a gunfight like he was coming home.
“Just so you know, beb,” the big Cajun said without looking up from the undergrowth, “you don’t need to fret about my mama if anything happens to me. My child bride would, however, cut your cojones off.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
Quinn started to push through the undergrowth, but Thibodaux put a hand on his shoulder.
“So, l’ami,” he said. “Who are you thinking of right now, this very moment when your life is on the line?”
“Valentine Zamora,” Quinn lied. Though focused on stopping the bomb, the face he saw before he pressed it out of his mind as he made his way toward the sound of gunfire was Veronica Garcia.
* * *
An unseen hand seemed to grab Aleksandra and pull her forward, toward the sound of gunfire and danger. Some said she had a death wish. A few had accused her of drawing some sort of freakish pleasure at putting herself in harm’s way. In truth it was nothing close to either.
She’d had the feeling since she was a small child that her eventual death would be violent. Some boring people died in their sleep or choked on an olive, but by the time Aleks was eleven she’d been certain her own death would be surrounded by a great deal of blood. Where the thought might frighten some or make them live in a sort of plastic bubble of perceived safety, Aleksandra was fascinated by the notion. She reasoned that fate was preordained and, since there was nothing she could do about it anyway, resolved to live moving forward, toward the inevitable, rather than sidestepping through life and hiding from her shadow.
Eyes peeled for the first threat that presented itself, she watched the others in her peripheral vision. The big Cajun plowed his way through the jungle like a bull looking for a lost cow. Bo, the beautiful blond Quinn with the body of a Greek god and the impish smile, moved cavalierly, as if he was eager to impress his older brother, but was a half step out of his natural element.
Jericho, by contrast, seemed more a part of the jungle than someone moving through it. Ducking and turning, stepping and twisting, he made his way around trees and over fallen logs as if there was nothing but the hot humid air between him and his target. She’d known men as cruel as this one, men as intelligent, men as physically capable, and men as driven to do the right thing — but she’d never before known one who possessed all these qualities at once.
Bo had inched his way closer to her as they walked, trying to get out ahead to shield her from danger. It was a sweet gesture and reminded her of Mikhail, but it would not do to allow such a thing. The poor boy would get himself killed. Protecting a fellow combatant was a noble cause, but before one could protect a friend, he had to stay alive.
Frenzied voices shot through the trees with the constant barrage of bullets, directing movement or shouting threats.
Jericho waved his hand in a tight circle above his head, calling the group in close. They lay down on the jungle floor, side by side, shoulders together.
“Count?” Quinn said, looking at Thibodaux.
A greasy centipede-like creature, fully six inches long, slithered over the ground litter between Aleksandra and Quinn. Even if it happened to be poisonous, a bullet would be more permanent, so she ignored it, focusing on Quinn and the more immediate two-legged dangers in the jungle.
“I’m guessing the Chechens only have four or five,” the gunny said, still scanning. “Zamora has maybe… eight.”
Quinn looked at Aleksandra. She nodded, agreeing with Thibodaux’s assessment. “That sounds correct,” she said.
Bo peered around a clump of ferns. “I’m pretty sure that’s one of the Borregos out there,” he said.
“Zamora’s buyer,” Quinn mused.
The gunfire grew more intense, as if someone was preparing to move.
“Whoever they are,” Thibodaux said, pressing his face to the ground, “they’re well armed and carrying a shitload of ammo.”
The angry hiss of a rocket-propelled grenade ripped through the air, confirming Jacques’s assessment. Aleksandra hugged the ground out of instinct as the primary explosion shook the buildings at the northern edge of the tiny compound. A moment later, a secondary boom sucked the oxygen from the air. Louder and more powerful than the first, it sent wood and rusty tin whirring through the air, one piece flying like a saw blade over Thibodaux’s head.
An orange fireball bloomed over the jungle to the north, followed by a mushroom cloud of greasy black smoke.
Jericho sniffed the air. “Smells like fuel. They must have blown up a plane.” He turned and faced her. “What will happen if they hit the bomb?”
“In theory?” She gave a
resigned shrug. “Nothing. In practice, it could arm the device… ”
The shouting grew louder again after a brief lull following the explosion.
Bo moved closer to Aleksandra, touching her on the shoulder to get her attention. He nodded toward a large woodpile three feet high and a good fifteen feet long.
“Stay with me,” he said in a show of bravado that melted Aleksandra’s heart.
A sudden movement to her right caught her eye. Through the dense tangle of vines and undergrowth she saw a flash of curly black hair and the unmistakably flat profile of Julian Monagas. An electric current seemed to jolt her body and she raised half up off her belly as if doing a pushup. Locked on, she shook her head. “No, my dear,” she said a moment before she sprinted into the jungle. “You go with your brother. I have business with someone.”
* * *
“Well, I’ll be!” Thibodaux whistled under his breath. “Would you look at that?”
Quinn watched as Aleksandra ran amid a hail of bullets to disappear into the undergrowth. In the middle of the compound, a tall man with a coal-black beard sat beside an overturned table of heavy timber. Dressed like someone out of an REI advertisement, he appeared to be unarmed. Instead of using the table for cover, he sat cross-legged in the open, cradling a wounded girl in his lap, stroking her long black hair. She wore woodland camouflage fatigues and was presumably one of Zamora’s.
“Why isn’t anyone shooting at him?” Thibodaux grunted.
“Let’s go ask him.” Quinn ran the five paces to the long stack of firewood, crouching behind it. So far, he’d not fired a shot. Bo slid in next to him while Thibodaux, chased by a string of automatic gunfire, dove behind the rusted hulk of a diesel generator ten feet away.
Bullets thwacked against the logs and zinged off the generator as both Zamora’s men and the Chechens focused on this new threat.
Quinn pulled Bo down beside him and assessed the situation. He’d yet to find the bomb, but judging from the fighting, possession of it was still a matter of contention. Less than six feet to his left, the man with the beard sat weeping over the girl, oblivious to all the lead in the air. To his right, Thibodaux engaged one of Daudov’s men, who crept through the jungle trying to flank them.
Quinn tossed a piece of wood at the sobbing man.
“Who are you?” he asked.
The man looked up; his reactions were dull, shell-shocked. “Who are you?”
Quinn tried a different tack. The guy was sitting in the cross fire. He obviously was beyond succumbing to threats. “Is she still alive?”
“What do you care?”
Quinn took a deep breath. “Listen,” he said. “I’m not one of these guys. I can help.”
The man blinked his eyes. “She’s already dead,” he said.
“No, she’s not,” Quinn said. “Look at her chest. It’s still moving. As long as she’s breathing there’s a chance.”
“Not her,” the man said. “I mean my wife. Zamora will kill her no matter what I do.”
“I told you I can help,” Quinn said. “What’s your name?”
The man brightened. “Matt Pollard. I’m a professor at Idaho State.”
“And the bomb?”
“They have it,” the man said, nodding toward Borregos and his men. He hung his head. “Zamora threatened to kill my wife and son if I didn’t bypass the locking system.”
“Do you know where they’re going with it?”
“No idea,” the man said, studying Quinn through bloodshot eyes. “Can you really help my wife?”
“I can,” Quinn said. “Tell me where she is, and I’ll call some people to go check on her. But first we have to stop this bomb—”
Thibodaux loosed three rapid-fire shots, hitting Daudov’s man as he came in from the side. The Chechen staggered forward, firing blindly. Bo flinched, as one of the bullets clipped his left arm.
He looked up at Jericho with an embarrassed grin. “Sorry, bro—” A fountain of blood gushed from the wound between his elbow and armpit. Pulsing in time with his heart, it arced into the air, painting the wood behind him.
CHAPTER 59
“I’ll cover,” Thibodaux barked from behind the generator. He began to lay down steady fire, a shot at the Borregos crew, then another at the Chechens. “You see to him.” He’d run out of ammo in a matter of seconds.
Quinn tucked his 1911 back in the holster and lowered Bo to the ground. He had to stop the bleeding, but he couldn’t do that if he got himself killed. With shots cracking and whirring overhead, his training kicked into high gear.
Flat on his back, he grabbed Bo by the shoulders and dragged him backward to the more protected center of the woodpile, scissoring his body in a motion called shrimping to help him move but stay low at the same time. Blood pumped from the wound in great spurts with each beat of Bo’s heart, and by the time Quinn stopped they were both covered. He kicked a large log loose and slid it under Bo’s boots, elevating his legs.
“Jeez, brother,” Bo groaned. “I screwed up. Go after the bomb. I’ll be fine.”
“Shut up, Boaz,” Quinn said through clenched teeth. He jammed a fist high under Bo’s armpit in an attempt to slow the bleeding while he assessed. “I told you what Mom would do if I let anything happen to you.”
It was the nature of war. Some died no matter what. Some lived no matter what. Some would die unless something was done to save them. KIA — killed in action — couldn’t be helped. DOW was a different thing entirely. Dying of wounds would not be an option for Bo.
Above all else, Quinn knew he had to stop the bleeding. Two minutes was enough to bleed out completely if the wound was bad enough. The human body was extremely resilient at mending itself, but it needed blood to feed the brain. He had to treat Bo for shock, and the best way to do that was to keep him in the fight — give him a job to do and keep him focused.
Reaching into the channel left by the bullet, Quinn searched behind the bicep and connective tissues to find the bleeder. As he’d suspected, the brachial artery had been clipped. Slick with the warmth of his baby brother’s blood, he used his thumb and forefinger to squeeze the offending vessel shut. Just smaller than a soda straw, it was snot slick and wriggled as if it had a mind of its own. His fingers slipped free and a fresh crimson arc sprayed Quinn’s face. He used his shoulder to clear his eyes, methodically probing to find the artery again and get a better grip.
“Bo,” he said through clenched teeth. “How we doing?”
“I’m good.” Bo grimaced. “You done this sort of thing before?”
“A time or two,” Quinn said.
“Ever lost anyone?” Bo looked him dead in the eye.
“A couple of the pigs and one goat,” Quinn said. “But they were way worse than you. This is just a flesh wound.”
“Pigs,” Bo sighed. “That makes me feel better.”
Quinn could feel his brother’s pulse throbbing quickly beneath his fingertips, working to push the life’s blood from his body. The heart pumped faster as it lost blood, working extra hard to get what was left to vital areas like the brain. It was an odd sensation and he found himself thankful he’d experienced it before.
No matter what animal rights activists felt about the practice of “pig lab” training for military corpsmen and combat rescue officers, there was no mannequin or “lifelike” device that came close to working on something that was actually alive. Quivering flesh, the copper scent, and even the slickness of warm blood could be duplicated. But life, that vital essence that made animals different from sugar beets or ears of corn, was inimitable, no matter how sophisticated the tech.
As cruel as it was, cutting a few sedated pigs was a small price to pay for the training that Quinn now used in an attempt to save his kid brother’s life.
“Listen to me,” he said, ducking a spray of woodchips from a fresh string of gunfire. “We need to get a tourniquet on this A-SAP. You understand?”
“Okay,” Bo said, nodding. He was alert and engaged
. That was good, Quinn thought. As long as he was engaged, he could fight to live.
“Outstanding,” Quinn said. “Now reach in the right thigh pocket of my pants and get my wound kit. I can’t let go or you’ll start bleeding again.”
Bo nodded, breathing deeply. He was no stranger to pain — and Quinn was certain he was causing quite a bit digging around next to torn muscle and chipped bone.
The size of a fat wallet, the Cordura pouch held the basic gear to treat a gunshot wound — windlass tourniquet, coagulant gauze for stuffing the wound, H bandage, chest-seal, and a three-inch needle. He’d seen firsthand how many soldiers died of blood loss while they waited for a medevac. Since his first deployment, he rarely went anywhere without the small kit.
“High or die, brother.” Quinn talked him through application of the tourniquet, pulling the nylon strapping tight, then twisting the pencil-size metal windlass to further compress the artery above the wound.
Halfway through the process Bo suddenly looked up. Turning, he grabbed the pistol from his lap and shot over Quinn’s shoulder, deafening him in the process.
Quinn glanced back to see one of Borregos’s men fall on his way to reach Pollard.
“If I’m going to die,” Bo groaned, “might as well take someone with me.
Thibodaux, in a fierce gun battle with two Chechens working their way around the cook shed, hardly had time to look up.
The tourniquet in place, Quinn slowly released his grip on the artery. Blood oozed but didn’t spurt.
“Good job,” Quinn said, pushing the wound kit into Bo’s good hand. “There’s a packet of QuikClot gauze in there. Shove as much of it in the wound as you can.” He pulled the 1911 from his holster. “I’m going to help Jacques kill the guys who shot you.”
CHAPTER 60
Gunfire pinged off the heavy generator as Quinn slid in beside Thibodaux. The big Cajun turned too late as one of the bullets cut a fuel line, spraying him in the face with a slurry of metal shards and diesel fuel.