And then he heard it, far off in the distance but recognizable all the same.
A helicopter, coming this way.
A Black Hawk.
Which meant 7.62mm machine guns and miniguns, .50in Gatling guns, 70mm Hydra rockets, Hellfire laser-guided missiles and Stinger air-to-air missiles.
And maybe a whole bunch of commandos, armed to the teeth.
He took the watch, with its locator beacon – possibly activated by Lisa Garfield’s fingerprint – and ran to the side of the platform, where he hurled it as far away into the rainforest as he could.
“Move!” he shouted to everyone at the top of his voice. “Everybody, move, now!”
Forster scanned the dark canopy beneath them as they flew low over the rainforest, looking for any sign of life.
“We’re nearly there?” he asked Lightfoot, who was up front with his co-pilot.
“Yes, sir,” Lightfoot answered. “We’re gonna be right over it real soon.”
Forster could see nothing out of the windows, nothing through the regular monitors – and, for the time being at least, nothing through the night vision and thermal scopes.
“Wait a minute,” he said, pointing to the thermal screen. “What’s that?”
Lightfoot looked, and nodded. “Heat signature confirmed,” he said. “Looks like flame, dead ahead. Damn, that canopy must be thick, to hide it like that.”
“We’ve got movement,” Forster said next, as human images started to appear on the thermal scope, running wildly in all directions. It looked like they’d heard the chopper coming, and decided it was bad news.
Which it most decidedly was.
“They’re high up,” Lightfoot said. “It’s weird, like they’re just under the canopy.”
“Treehouses maybe,” Forster said with a smile. “Safe from the ground maybe. But definitely not from us.” The smile turned to a grin. “Open fire.”
Chapter Five
The first set of rounds tore through the rainforest canopy like a swarm of angry hornets, blasting the tops of the trees to pieces.
Lee dove for cover, taking three villagers down with him, covering them with his body as the bullets raged overhead.
The research team was scared, hardly able to move with the fear; but the villagers were terrified, never having seen or heard anything like it in their lives. It was an attack from Heaven itself, and set them into wild panic. They were suddenly running everywhere, and as the chopper passed back and forth on its strafing runs, rounds chopping down ever closer, the first people started to get hit, 7.62 and .50 rounds blasting them apart like leaves; blood, bone and tissue was sprayed around the walkways and huts, and the scene was a nightmarish, surreal bloodbath that Lee wondered if they could ever escape from.
“Get down onto the forest floor!” he yelled above the hail of machinegun fire. “Gail! Tell the villagers to leave the trees, to get down to the ground!”
He looked around the area, trying to find her, darkness of the night punctuated by the startling muzzle blasts of the chopper’s guns.
Then he spotted her at the other side of the platform, hugging the floor, head down. “Gale!” Lee called. “Come on, snap out of it! Tell these villagers to get down off the trees!”
Her head raised tentatively, and she nodded; was about to call out, then stopped as a local woman was hit in the chest by a .50in round, her entire back blasted out across the dining platform, covering it in hot, sticky, black blood. Gale muffled a scream and got her head back down.
Dammit.
He got up into a crouch, tapping the three villagers below him and pointing in the direction of the climbing platform he’d ascended yesterday, then pointing downwards, hoping they would get the idea; they nodded and started crawling in that direction, while Lee began to crawl the opposite way, toward Gale.
He passed the other members of the research team as he went, all clinging to the floor for dear life. “Guys!” he called out. “Americans! Listen to me – your only chance is to get to the forest floor. It’s eighty feet down, and the bullets won’t penetrate down that far.” Well, he thought, not as powerfully, anyway. “You need to climb down, now. Get moving!”
He watched as they all reluctantly started crawling, even Jake and Eva with their injuries. The only one not stirring, Lee noticed in the dark, was Stephen; and when Lee crawled over to him to help, he could see why – the top of the man’s skull had been ripped off, and his brain was leaking out onto the timber floor.
He turned and saw Gale crawling toward the climbing platform. “No,” he hissed. “Not you. You’ve got to help me warn these people. Tell them to get down from the village.” Lee looked across and saw the first people, in the dark distance, begin to ease themselves off the climbing platform and onto the vines that would take them downward; and then he looked back to the rest of the village, getting torn to pieces as the tribespeople continued to run in wild panic. “Come on!”
Slowly, reluctantly, Gale nodded her head, and Lee took her hand as they crawled further into the village. “There!” Lee said. “That’s the chief, call him!”
Gale did as she was told, and the chief turned to them; Lee beckoned him over and – dazed and confused – the man stumbled in their direction, hot rounds missing him by mere inches.
Lee gestured for the man to get down, and he did, hunkering down on his hands and knees. “Gale,” he said steadily, trying to keep everyone calm even as the minigun tore apart the wood structure around them, “tell him to get his people down into the forest. They need to get to ground level, and then run. Okay? Multiple directions. And make sure he tells them to take weapons.”
“W . . . Why?” Gale stuttered, but he didn’t want to scare her by saying it was in case the commandos followed them down.
“Just tell him,” Lee said.
“I can’t believe this is happening, I can’t, I can’t, who’s doing this, who are they, who –”
“Gale,” Lee said sharply. “Get a grip of yourself and do what I say. Now.”
She nodded slowly, gathered herself, and translated. The chief looked at her with quizzical eyes, asked questions, and a debate ensued that ended quickly with a curt nod of the chief’s head.
“Okay,” she whispered. “He’ll tell them.”
“Good,” Lee said. “Now let’s move.” He didn’t want to worry her by saying that they might launch missiles at them next.
The air was filled with the acrid stench of gun smoke and human fear, the sound of rotor blades, gunfire and screaming almost deafening. But Lee still saw and heard the chief when he walked boldly out onto the main walkway, climbed up onto the post to stand tall, and addressed his villagers. He shouted out to them, and they stopped and listened, respect for the chief overriding – for a few precious moments, at least – their terror.
Bullets flew around the man as he shouted out to his people, but he remained miraculously unharmed; and then the people began to move, less panicked now, to the edges of huts and platforms, throwing off vines and doing as he’d instructed.
And then Lee noticed the chief collapse in pain, and realized he’d been hit all along, had merely put on a brave face for his people, and Lee was up and running toward him, catching him just before he toppled the wrong way over the bridge. He dragged him inside a hut as the chopper made another strafing run, and this time the missiles started to come, huts and platforms and walkways incinerated by the Hellfires, noise and destruction all around them, and Lee covered the man with his own body before pulling back to have a look at the damage the chief had sustained.
It was bad, through the lung, and he was already coughing up blood. Lee took off his shirt and rolled it into a ball, stuffing it against the wound before taking off his belt and cinching it tight around the chest, pulling the already blood-soaked shirt hard against the wound.
He dragged the man back across the platform, heading for the vines. He saw Gale ahead of him, disappearing over the side, and felt relieved that five members of the tea
m seemed to have made it, at least.
He shrugged the chief onto his shoulders in a fireman’s carry as he reached the edge, the world exploding around him, and he looked over and saw people climbing down below him. He swung onto a vine, holding firmly onto it with one hand while the other fed through the chief’s legs before taking its grip on the vine.
And then, planting his boots against the trunk as the annihilation of the village continued around him, he began the treacherous descent.
Chapter Six
“Want me to take another run?” Lightfoot asked.
Forster used the thermal and night vision scopes to monitor the damage done so far. “No,” he said. “I think it’s time we put boots on the ground, don’t you? Take us into a hover.”
He could see that the people were trying to get out of the canopy now, to take their chances on the rainforest floor.
If Forster and his guys moved fast enough, the researchers and villagers might have a nice little surprise waiting for them when they landed.
“Come on guys,” he said, as he moved into the main troop area. “Let’s get down there.”
It started to rain when Lee was halfway down the vine, a storm that came out of nowhere, obscuring everything, the noise of the torrential downpour almost drowning out the sound of the rotors above him.
He thought the explosions had stopped now, and the gunfire; and if he wasn’t mistaken, the chopper seemed to be hovering in one spot. Which could only mean . . .
Damn.
They were coming down, and he knew they’d be fast-roping to the forest floor, maybe quicker than Lee would get there himself.
“Latan,” Lee whispered urgently to the chief, whose head lay near to his own. “Latan.”
It was one of the only words he knew in the tribal language.
It meant fight.
He needed the chief to tell his people. Fighting was the only chance they had.
“Latan,” he repeated, like a mantra. “Latan, latan, latan –”
“Latan!” he heard the chief shout then, voice filled with power. He shouted more words at his people, the sound penetrating the rain and rotor blades, inciting the villagers to action.
And then he stopped abruptly, filled with a hacking cough that spilled thick, black blood over Lee’s shoulder and chest; and then Lee felt the weight change, the body sag, and he knew the man was dead.
He heard the familiar sound of fast-roping next, heavy workman’s gloves sliding down a thick braided rope suspended from the Black Hawk above.
He realized there were probably two ropes, one on each side of the helicopter, and he wondered helplessly how many mercenary killers were coming.
They must have been so close to him, to hear them over the rain, and he turned his head, saw the first man pass him on the way down, already firing at the people below with his submachine gun.
They were still twenty feet from the forest floor, but Lee no longer cared; he dropped the body of the village chief straight down, watching as the first man got hit by the dead body and knocked off the rope, falling helplessly to the floor. But before they hit, Lee was already jumping, knowing that the spacing was typically three meters between men – the perfect distance to allow the first to land and move safely out of the way before the next man came.
Sure enough, Lee contacted the second man almost immediately, intercepting him as he descended, knocking him clear of the thick rope. He grabbed hold tight and, as they fell, saw the commando wore NVGs; they’d be able to pick out the good guys as clear as day, and it would be a turkey shoot for these pros. The least he could do, he figured, was to take out one of them.
He kept on top of the man as he landed, crushing him underneath his own body, the unfortunate commando cushioning Lee’s own fall.
Lee groaned in pain, but jumped up and raced ahead, back to the rope, just as the third man arrived. Lee swept the gun aside and kicked the man in the face, driving the goggles hard back into the guy’s eyes, making him scream underneath the black combat mask he wore. He dropped to the rain-soaked ground, and Lee struck him in the side of the neck with the edge of his hand, before looking up and seeing the muzzle of an HK MP7 coming straight down toward him. But he ignored it and grabbed the end of the rope, pulling it violently one way, and then the other, the trigger pulled but the bullets going wide, the body falling soon after. It landed right next to him and Lee kicked the man in the chest, then the head, even as he continued to swing the big, heavy rope, each oscillation getting larger and larger, until the men above him – four that he could count – began to lose their grip, and fall from the sky, landing around him in pained heaps, dark puddles splashing around their injured bodies.
Lee heard gunfire from his left, knew that the other rope’s team must have landed okay, and he turned and watched as they worked their way into the forest, muzzle flashes illuminating the horrendous sight of villagers – women and children – being gunned down in cold blood.
He heard movement nearby, saw one of the commandos who had fallen try to get up, to get his MP7 aimed; Lee was about to pounce, when suddenly, the man’s head was smashed apart, a villager with a heavy club right there, screaming at the commando in the rain. And then the other fallen commandos were attacked by the villagers, with clubs, spears, arrows, hands, feet and teeth; they set upon the men with utter savagery, and Lee turned away, and ran toward the men who’d descended the other rope, to try and stop the massacre.
But then they started to go down, too; and through the pouring rain, Lee saw arrows sticking out of throats, spears running through ribs and chest and legs.
Latan.
The villagers were fighting back.
Just then, Lee saw Gale on the flooded ground, and he bent to her. “Are you okay?” he yelled.
She nodded, hardly able to speak. “Ye . . . Yes!”
“Get your team together,” he told her. “And as many of the villagers as you can.”
“Why?” she asked, eyes wide.
Lee pointed to the helicopter above them. “Because we’re hitching a lift home.”
Chapter Seven
By the time Lee reached the chopper, his arms were burning in pain. Those thick ropes were, he reflected, definitely easier to fast-rope down than they were to climb up, especially when there was more than a hundred feet to climb, in the pouring rain.
But he got there eventually, careful as he reached the open doorway; he could sense that someone was there.
Using what little strength he had left in his arms, he swung himself up and inside, kicking out with both feet as he went, scything the legs out from under the person who waited there. The man went down, and Lee scrambled aboard, elbowing him in the face as he tried to get back up.
Lee’s body was hit then by a second man, presumably the one monitoring the rope at the opposite door, and he felt himself being propelled back toward the open space behind him. He dropped suddenly, planting a foot in the guy’s stomach as he sat down and turning him over his head, straight out of the open door.
Instinctively, Lee spun around, onto his front, anchoring his feet inside, and reached out his hand for the falling man, who reached up with his own, panic in his eyes as he fell. Lee was scared he was too late, but then the man’s hand clamped around his own, and he hauled him back up, into the chopper. The man started to thank him, but Lee cut him off with a headbutt that knocked him out cold. After all, just because Lee didn’t want to kill him, didn’t mean he wanted the guy left awake.
Lee’s attention turned again then, as he saw the co-pilot coming out of the cockpit, aiming a Glock 9mm at him. Lee saw flak vests on the seats nearby – an old-school habit to help protect from incoming fire from the ground – and he grabbed one and held it up in front of him as he walked forward, feeling the impact as the vest absorbed the first shot, and then the second. There wasn’t a third, as Lee gauged his distance and kicked the co-pilot in the gut, doubling him over; and then Lee knocked the gun aside, and slammed the vest down hard ont
o the back of his head. The guy collapsed to the floor, out for the count.
The next moment, Lee was in the cockpit, the co-pilot’s pistol to the pilot’s head. “Don’t even think about moving this thing,” Lee said. “Just keep it nice and steady, okay?”
The man ignored him, but did as he was told, obviously not knowing that Lee had no intention of using the gun.
Lee could no longer hear gunfire from down below, and he peered forward at the monitors, saw that the crazed, frantic movement had stopped. There were still bodies everywhere, but also plenty of moving ones.
Lee reached forward and activated the loudspeakers. “Gale,” he spoke into the PA system. “We’ve got our ride out of here. Please start making everyone form an orderly queue for boarding.”
Chapter Eight
The boarding process wasn’t nearly as easy as he’d have liked it. The able-bodied came up the rope first, those best able to climb by themselves; the rest had to be hauled up by hand, which was both painful and exhausting, with the very real fear ever present that people’s grip would fail them, and they’d plummet back down to the forest floor below.
But mercifully, that didn’t happen, and even the injured managed to make it onboard. Through the PA, he’d asked Gale and whoever else was able to verify the numbers of dead, and make sure nobody else could be saved; if anyone down there was still breathing, Lee wanted them brought up to the chopper.
As it was, there were four surviving members of the research team. Sadly, Jake Harwood hadn’t made it, shot through the heart with an MP7. But Lee made sure the body was on board, ready for burial back home. He’d also retrieved the body of Stephen Roberts from the village.
There were also ten villagers onboard, which stretched capacity to well beyond maximum; but where there was a will, there was a way, and Lee managed to find the space for them.
THE EXTRACTOR Page 13