And Stone already knew the answer to the silent question be had asked himself. Before he started running down the reasons for remaining uninvolved, he knew that he could not stay out of this one.
Because it was his fight, from the beginning. When a man took up arms against the savages, there could be no fine dividing lines between the enemies he chose. And if he passed these helpless victims by, he would be worse than those who tormented them originally.
There was something deep inside Mark Stone that would not let him walk away from this one, not while there were lives in danger in the tiny village.
He worked his way back to the others, briefed them on the action up ahead, let them have their own say, voice opinions that differed from his own. But there were no dissenters. Even Jack Mandrell seemed happy, almost eager, to engage the enemy on any front at all, as long as he was doing something, being part of it.
Stone moved along the narrow game trail, swiftly joined Lan Vang again, and nodded confirmation of his plan. They would go straight ahead, right through the village, on their way to the helicopter rendezvous, and if the bandits tried to stop them ...
Well, there was nothing they could do about it, except to fight their way through, level their enemies as they presented themselves for execution.
Stone started counting down to the jump-off, waiting for the others to take their posts in the early-morning darkness. When he heard and felt them at their stations, he was ready, anxious now to get his feet wet, have it over and done with.
In the center of the little village, the bandits were herding unarmed civilians together, grouping them as if for one last collective photograph. But those were automatic weapons they were leveling at the tiny crowd, not cameras, and another moment would see the massacre completed, whether Stone stepped in or not.
Stone raised his own CAR-15, sighting on the nearest bandit, and squeezed off a burst as he exploded from his jungle cover. All around him, weapons opened up along the line of fire, announcing the arrival of the cavalry.
They still might be too late, might rue the day they crossed the bandits' path, but they were in it now, and there was no way out except the other side, dead or free and clear. Mark Stone would not have had it any other way.
Hog Wiley leveled two of the slender bandits with a single burst from his carbine, and watched the clutch of villagers disintegrate, the members streaking off in all directions like so much human shrapnel. He was dodging, weaving, firing at the human targets as they were presented to him, ducking bullets as they reached for him, tugging at his clothing in the darkness.
He felt the enemy approaching from his flank, silently, without a warning sound of any kind. Hog spun to face him, leveling the rifle, squeezing off—and cursing as the slide locked open on an empty chamber.
The bandit was upon him, handgun raised and tracking on his face. Reacting swiftly, Wiley brought the wooden stock of his weapon up and over, smashing into the bandit's gun .hand and knocking the pistol spinning, flashing off in the direction of the central cook fire.
Hog followed up the first advantage of surprise, clubbing his opponent with the rifle stock, smashing cheek and jaw, altering the gunner's face so that even his own mother wouldn't recognize him. Blood and teeth went flying, and on the second stroke, an eyeball was ejected from its socket, swinging on the optic nerve and tattered muscles like a tiny tetherball.
The guy was blinded, reeling in his agony, and Hog finished him with a one-two combination, his combat boots smashing up and into his groin, the rifle stock whipping around and down to meet the crown of his skull as the pain below collapsed him.
Hog left him on the hard-packed earth of the clearing, and moved on in search of other enemies. He reloaded his rifle on the run, discarding the empty magazine and slamming another into the receiver as he circled warily around the fire. Stepping across a civilian, he neared the closest hut—and was surprised by the explosive exit of a battered, naked female. Close behind her raced a bandit, hobbled by the pants that had fallen around his ankles, his manhood erect and bobbing in the breeze.
Hog swung the rifle stock around and hit the fleshy nail right on the head, driving it backward an inch and stopping its owner dead in his tracks. The gunner's mouth fell open, and a strangled little cry emerged before Hog plugged that sewer with the muzzle of his AK-47, squeezing off a two-round burst that took the head and everything above his Adam's apple, and put the whole mess into orbit.
Another rifleman was having second thoughts about emerging from the hut, and Wiley helped him make the grim decision, ripping off a burst that cut his legs from under him and deposited him screaming on the doorstep. A combat boot crashed down with crushing force upon the juncture of his skull and spine, and he was silent, still.
Hog Wiley moved away from there, still hunting. There was something in Hog's blood that called for killing now, a fever, a primordial fury, as he witnessed what these human animals had done to helpless villagers. He was a giant avenging angel, cut from no usual angelic pattern, granted, but avenging them in any case, whether or not they recognized salvation when they saw it. The din of battle filled his ears, almost aphrodisiac in its intensity, and he was grinning as he sought the suddenly reluctant enemy in every nook and cranny of the little village, hunting.
Terrance Loughlin crouched and waited as the rifleman came rushing toward him, leveling the bayonet and giving a high, unearthly scream. When he was less than twenty feet away, the Brit let him have a burst, stitching him from groin to throat and opening him like a sack of grain, depositing his entrails on the ground before the body proper made its touchdown.
Moving on into the battle smoke, he watched the others on his flanks, Stone and Wiley, Lan Yang and the P.O.W., Jack Mandrell. It would be easy to pick off a brother by mistake, and such mistakes were costly. A careful soldier lived to fight another day, and Loughlin had survived this long by being careful to the max.
And still, when death came calling for him, he was almost taken unaware. He heard the rush, felt the disturbance of the air on his immediate right—and then the blade of a machete whistled past his face, missing the tip of his nose by a fraction of an inch, ringing off the receiver of his CAR-15.
The blow was stunning, setting up vibrations in his hands and forearms, knocking the autorifle from his grasp and dashing it to earth.
He sprang back, knowing there would be no time to retrieve the assault rifle, clawing at the .45 upon his hip. The machete-wielding bandit was upon him in a split second, shouting, swinging his broad-bladed, chopper like a madman, advancing steadily and driving Loughlin back in the direction of the jungle.
Terrance had the automatic, and was about to draw it and relieve himself of this opponent, when the bandit rushed him, shrieking his hatred in a reedy, high-pitched voice.
The blade was whistling down directly toward his face, and Loughlin went in low, inside the swing, closing the gap instead of retreating, realizing that it was his only chance. He took the blow upon an upraised forearm, coming in beneath the swing, letting the machete whistle past above his head, cleaving empty air, as he blocked the killer's arm. At the same time, the stiffened fingers of his own right hand were stabbing upward, searching for the gunner's solar plexus, finding it and probing deep with lightning speed, knocking the wind out of him, doubling him over.
A roundhouse kick brought the heel of Loughlin's boot against the gasping bandit's skull and drove him sideways, reeling in the open clearing. Loughlin followed through, already reaching for the useless, dangling knife arm, locking on the wrist and twisting, putting weight and leverage behind it, feeling bones as they began to grate together, twisting, snapping audibly.
The bandit screamed, released his death grip on the long machete, and let it fall. Loughlin retrieved it in a second, brought it up and over in a two-handed swing, the razor-edged blade impacting on the nape of its owner's neck at full speed and strength.
The bandit's head appeared to hang there for a moment, suspended in m
idair, and then it bounced away, leaving the decapitated body standing on its own before gravity reasserted itself and pulled it down. Loughlin wasted no time with the dead, already moving back to pick up his rifle before the next attacker found him. He could not count on luck to see him through this one; a soldier made the breaks with what he had available, and Terrance Loughlin was an old hand at survival.
He would survive this one, as well, but other lives would pay the price. He planned to see that all those lives were hostile ones, the dead men only enemies.
Jack Mandrell was smiling as he stroked the trigger of his captured rifle, ripping another automatic burst into the ranks of the retreating bandits, watching as they toppled, spinning, sprawling on the blood-drenched earth. Two of them down, and three. Another, just emerging from a hut upon his right, still zipping up his pants and smiling at the memory of stolen sex, and Mandrell blew him back into the darkened doorway.
It was good to fight, to kill.
The accumulated rage of years was high inside him now, and flowing through the muzzle of his borrowed weapon, streaking through the night on steel-jacketed wings.
He was a man again, and there was nothing that the damned Vietnamese could do to rob him of the feeling that that knowledge gave him. They could kill him, and they probably would, but he would die contented now that he had seen the opportunity to pay them back in kind, to let them feel the pain and fear of death with nowhere left to hide.
It didn't matter now what happened to him; life or death, escape or capture, it was all the same to Jack Mandrell. He had seen his chance, seized it with both hands and run with it as far as human strength could take him. He had done his best, enjoyed his freedom for a few hours, and if it all fell apart in the next minute, he would have nothing to regret . . . except perhaps that he had not enjoyed the thrill of meeting Captain Chong and squeezing off a magazine between those hated, sloping eyes.
That would have been a victory, and something to remember as his life was flashing before his eyes, but as it was ...
Mandrell's rifle emptied out in a roaring, bucking burst, and he ditched the empty magazine and snapped a replacement into the receiver. He was running low, no doubt about it, but it didn't matter. If he got the chance, he could retrieve more ammunition from the fallen bandits all around him. If he didn't—well, who gave a damn?
And suddenly he realized that one thing mattered to him, after all. The vision of recapture, of submitting to Chong's rule and punishments again, rose up to haunt him like a nightmare specter, guiding his hand and his hatred as he spied another bandit and sent him sprawling with a well-timed burst of automatic fire.
Jack Mandrell knew that he would never surrender, never allow himself to be held captive in a cage again. Even if he had to die. Even if he had to kill himself.
It was too much to ask of any man, and he would not return to that—whatever might befall him here tonight. Jack Mandrell had found his freedom, and if necessary he would take it with him to the grave. But he would die a man, standing on his own two feet and fighting back, .dishing out some hell to the enemies who had imprisoned him and shamed him through the years, instead of giving up and crawling back to them on hands and knees.
He would live free or die, damned right, and there was no real choice, from where he stood. Freedom was life, and life was freedom. There would be no more of that zombie-like existence in the camps. Mandrell had spent his time in purgatory, and now he was blasting out, and God help anyone or anything who tried to bar his way.
Chapter Nineteen
The sounds of battle were winding down by slow degrees, the rattle of automatic fire becoming more sporadic, less a constant background music for the dance of death. The enemies were few and far between now, scattered fugitives more intent upon escape with skins intact than with continuing the fight or seeking revenge.
Stone ducked through the doorway of a small thatched hut, pursuing the sound of a muffled, sobbing scream that reached his ears above the heavy-metal sounds of combat. Moving swiftly to one side, refusing to be silhouetted in the doorway, he swept the semi-dark interior with his CAR-15, freezing the three occupants in a little tableau.
And it was no nativity scene that met his eyes, but something dark, primeval. Stone took in the elderly couple huddled in the corner, their open throats smiling back at him in the half-light, drooling crimson. Flat, dead eyes regarded his arrival with the ultimate disinterest. Stone had come too late for them, and they no longer had the time to wait for him.
The others, centered in the dingy little room, were still alive—for the moment.
Stone counted two of the bandits. Crouched down between them, sobbing, was the woman he had seen at the beginning of the battle. She was naked now, her face streaked with tears and blood that coursed from scalp wounds where the men had beaten her to force submission. Other cuts and welts were evident upon her body, covering her breasts and belly in an ugly tic-tac-toe of agony.
The bandits faced him, one of them offering a sickly smile and giggling, as if in hope that some fraternity could pass between them. He was reaching for a brotherhood that Stone had never been a part of, seeking for some sympathy from one defiler of women to another—and he had most emphatically come to the wrong place this time.
Stone smiled right back at him—and shot the outlaw's comrade first, his bullets slamming into the gunner's groin, emasculating him before they made the spiral climb through guts and ribcage to kill him on his feet, before he hit the ground.
The grinning idiot saw what was coming now, and he was trying every other tack he knew, from tears to jabbered pleas, abruptly kneeling as the automatic rifle tracked in his direction.
Stone left him to it for perhaps three heartbeats, then he blew the bandit's slimy ass away and watched him come apart beneath the stream of manglers, jerking back and forth like a marionette in the hands of some spastic puppeteer.
Stone let the clip empty out and then reloaded swiftly, in a single fluid motion, as he left the hut. There was no way for him to offer consolation to the woman, no more time for lingering in that house of death. She would do what she must, and he had done the only thing he could to help her. It was in larger, universal hands, and out of his.
Outside, the night was silent now, except for whispered voices that Stone recognized immediately. Hog and Loughlin, calling to each other on the killing ground, Lan Vang responding from his little corner of the war. And then Mandrell, the P.O.W, rounded the corner of a nearby hut, rifle slung across one shoulder at a jaunty angle, smiling like a boy out on his first hunt of the season.
They regrouped around the cook fire, taking stock of their situation, and Wiley retrieved the other P.O.W.'s from their cover in the bush. All the bandits were accounted for, and if any of them escaped, that was all right with Stone. They would still be running this time tomorrow, no thought of coming back with reinforcements. There would be no more danger from that quarter, certainly, but they were far from out of trouble yet.
It took another lengthy moment for the villagers to start returning, filtering back from the jungle darkness, taking no chances as they cautiously approached the strangers who had saved them from the outlaws. They were wary, never knowing whether their saviors of the moment might become their new tormentors, but in time they grouped together, drawing closer, one old man moving forward to address the little clutch of armed commandos.
"I am Tran Binh," he announced. "I am the headman of this village."
Stone nodded a greeting, wishing he would get to the point and let them go.
"You have done us a service, preserved us from this filth. We owe you much."
"Forget it," Stone replied. "The scum were in our way. We removed them."
"As you say, but there are debts which we cannot repay, except in kind. A warning. You are all in danger, even as we speak."
Stone frowned, and Wiley cracked, "The old bird's psychic."
"Danger? What danger do you speak of?" Stone inquired. The head man poi
nted to westward, in the general direction of their march.
"The Pathet Lao are coming," he explained. "A large patrol was seen by one of our scouts earlier this evening. They are coming this way, rounding up refugees, hunting for guerrillas in the forest."
He paused before continuing, sweeping Stone and the others with narrowed, knowing eyes, taking in their stock of weapons and their military uniforms.
"We were about to break camp and leave, when the bandits surprised us. It was my fault. I forgot to post a sentry in my haste to get away."
"Forget about it," Stone advised him. "Everybody makes mistakes, and you survived this one. When will the Pathet Lao arrive?"
"Soon. I cannot say with certainty, but they were three or four hours out when we were warned. Almost three hours ago."
Stone cursed, and Wiley seconded it. They were running out of time, behind their schedule now, with the Vietnamese upon their track and doubtless closing fast. If there was anything they didn't need precisely at that moment, it was other enemies approaching from the west, cutting off their avenue of retreat, their line of exit to the chopper rendezvous and home.
They didn't need it, but now they had it, all the same.
Mark Stone was thinking rapidly, weighing the alternatives. They could strike off at an oblique angle, cutting a detour through the forest, but the time that they would lose, even supposing that they met no flankers from the Pathet Lao patrol, would put them hours behind their already failing schedule. If they blundered straight ahead, unmindful of the threat, they ran the risk of confronting a superior enemy force in the dark, on unfamiliar ground. They could easily be wiped out before they knew what hit them.
And that brought him to the one alternative that seemed to offer any hope of success: to stay in place, wait out the storm, and hope the Pathet Lao were every bit as prompt as the headman seemed to indicate.
M.I.A. Hunter Page 13