The dense jungle behind them swallowed nearly every sound except the gunfire. Bolan crossed mental fingers, hoping that Marisa's faith in her compatriots was not misplaced. If it were, it would be too late for her to regret it. Bolan tripped over a log, nearly buried in dark brown leaves.
As he struggled to his feet, he lost his grip on the woman for a moment, and she cried out, afraid he had left her behind.
He clapped a hand, slippery with decayed vegetation, over her mouth and held it there until she stopped struggling. He leaned forward to whisper in her ear. "Come on, Marisa, hold it together. We're almost to the road. Okay?" At first she didn't respond, but when he asked a second time, she nodded as best she could.
As he let go, he heard a rustle of leaves and dropped to the round, pulling her down with him. Straining his eyes to see in the dark, he saw nothing that looked out of place. The rustling noise had stopped, but he was certain one of the search party was just behind a curtain of thick, umbrellalike leaves. A shot would alert the others, but he couldn't afford to turn his back on a threat that close.
"Wait here," he whispered.
Bolan started to crawl toward the fan of broad leaves, spread open like the fingers of a huge hand. Keeping his eye fixed on the center of the fan, he moved one hand, then a leg, another hand, a second leg. He controlled his breath, taking deep gulps as seldom as he could and taking care to make no noise.
Since he had begun his approach, not a single leaf had fluttered. He was starting to think he had imagined the noise when he spotted something jutting out just past the face of a leaf. It could have been a twig or some sort of weird bug. Or the muzzle of an automatic rifle. Bolan squinted to sharpen the focus, but the effort was futile.
There just wasn't enough light. Lying flat out, Bolan rolled onto his back, waited a few seconds, then rolled again to lie on his stomach about four feet to the left.
As he lay there, he listened for a long moment. The gunfire had tapered off a little, as if the men were trying to conserve ammunition. Or, Bolan though, maybe they had blown off their fear, and fired now only with some reasonable cause.
From his new vantage point, he could still see the projection. And now it looked just a little too perfect, a little too round. Back up on hands and knees, he crept farther to the left. Somehow he had to get in behind the thick leaves. Hi couldn't risk a head-on charge. Even if he didn't get himself killed, the noise of his assault would certainly draw the others.
Sharpening his angle away to the left, he climbed into crouch, moving more quickly now. Fending off the thick undergrowth with his left arm, he slithered into a clump o feathery fronds and slipped up behind a thick-waisted trunk. The tree itself had snapped-off a dozen feet from the ground, and it lay like a broken mast from some longforgotten shipwreck.
Bolan crawled under the trunk and slid along behind it. Falling more and more deeply into a crouch as the tree's crown drew closer, he kept his eyes riveted on the motionless fronds.
He was looking at them from the side now, but still saw nothing. As he reached the tangle of broken branches, he slid in among them, moving each one aside only far enough to get past it. Even the damp, rotten wood could give him away if one of the branches were to snap. He felt the slippery pulp of fungus under his fingertips, where maids of every kind slowly devoured the rotting branches.
As he bent the last branch and ducked under it, he found himself staring straight at the back of a man crouching in the shadows. Bolan cursed himself for not having the Beretta. Its sound suppressor made it perfect for use at the moment. But he didn't have it, and he was going to have to improvise.
The gunfire had dwindled away to occasional single shots. As the searchers spread out in the dense forest, the leaves mulled even those few, and they sounded as if they had come from a long way off.
Placing one foot on the thick carpet of moldering leaves, he leaned his weight forward, then tugged his other leg free of the branches. Holding the tip of his tongue between his teeth, he started forward, the M-16 ready. He closed to within five feet of the man when something snapped underfoot.
The man started to turn as Bolan took another step closer. Raising the assault rifle high in the air, like a pinch hitter conrying to loosen up, he started his swing as the man's profile emerged from the shadows. Bolan saw the mouth open in surprise and the lips begin to form a word. As the rifle contacted against his temple, the man's mouth went slack. He sank straight down, as if a trap door had opened beneath him.
He lay there in a heap. Bolan bent over to feel for a pulse. There was one, but it was going to be a while before the crumpled form regained consciousness. Quickly Bolan disentangled the unconscious man's arm from the leather sling of his AK-47, slung it over his own shoulder, then knelt to see what else of use he could find.
The man wore a Browning 9 mm automatic in a canvas holster hooked on a garrison belt.
Bolan undid the belt, tugged it loose and rebuckled it, then draped it over the same shoulder as the AK. Three ammo pouches, one small, probably for the Browning, and two larger, for the AK-47, dangled from the belt, along with a pair of M-59 grenades.
Bolan pushed through the thick, rubbery leaves and sprinted back toward Marisa. She stood where he had left her. Her head was cocked to one side, and she turned slightly as he approached, as if to hear him better. He reached for her outstretched hand and continued on past, barely slowing his pace. She spun in her tracks and fell in behind him, doing her best to match his stride.
As the slope grew steeper, she got the better of him. His weight kept him sliding on the slimy mulch while she seemed to skate on it with effortless grace. When they reached the final ascent, he had to pause for a moment. They were flush up against a vertical wall. It was a good foot taller than Bolan.
"I'll have to lift you up," he whispered. "Just raise your hands over your head and get a solid grip on something." He pressed his back against the wall of vegetation and tugged Marisa toward him. "Okay," he said, "give me your foot."
He made a stirrup of his hands and slipped it under the sole of Marisa's boot. She bounced once, twice, and on the third time, he lifted as she sprang upward. Her hand thrashed in the growth on top of the wall, and suddenly he weight started to decrease. He realized she'd found a handhold and begun to pull herself up. He pulled upward on his linked hands, and she slid up and over him. A moment later she was gone.
Bolan kicked holes in the embankment with the toes of his boots, driving them through the mushy greenery and into the sticky clay behind it. With the second toehold secure, he could reach up and far over the edge to find a sturdy bush rooted deeply enough to bear his weight.
As he pulled himself up and over, he heard the unmistakable sound of an approaching engine. It was just a notch above idle, as if the driver were coasting along, using his engine only enough to keep from rolling to a stop. Bolan got to his knees, only now aware that the jungle had fallen silent behind him. The firing had stopped, and nothing else moved among the trees. The monkeys and the birds seemed to be waiting for something else to happen. Even the tree frogs were silent.
They still had twenty yards to cover before they reached the road itself. Bolan hauled Marisa to her feet and plunged down into the thick undergrowth. He was less concerned about the noise now.
He had to admire Marisa and her people, at least for their efficiency if nothing else. The jeep was right on time. He didn't want to think about what might happen if he was wrong, if it wasn't the jeep they were waiting for. It just had to be, and that's how they were playing it.
They broke into the open so suddenly that Bolan hadn't seen it coming. In knee-high grass, he stumbled to a halt. A hundred yards away, little more than a block of shadow on wheels, a jeep rolled toward them, its lights out. Bolan fell flat in the tall grass and tugged Marisa down beside him.
"Okay," he said into her ear, "there's a jeep just up the road. See if you can raise him on the radio."
Marisa tugged the small transceiver from a deep
pocket in her jacket. So softly that Bolan wasn't even sure she had spoken, she repeated the same phrase twice.
It was in a language completely alien to him. He guessed it must be Tagalog. In answer, the jeep flashed its headlights once.
"That's Carlos," she whispered.
They heard scrambling behind them, at the bottom of the wall, and Bolan decided they'd better not wait. "Come on," he said, getting to his feet.
Marisa got up without help this time. She groped in the air for his hand. When she found it, she curled her fingers around his and squeezed a moment, then let go. He nodded to himself, and started down the gentle slope to the road. The jeep was still idling its way along, and Bolan stepped into the hard-packed dirt of the road about twenty yards in front of it. He could see the silhouettes of two men in the front seat.
He stuck out an arm to brake Marisa to a halt, and they waited impatiently for the jeep to cover the last fifty feet. The driver braked and rolled to a stop right beside Bolan.
"Get in quickly," he said in an urgent, low tone.
Bolan boosted Marisa into the jeep and climbed into the back seat alongside of her. Kicking the bans into reverse, the driver backed into a tight K, and dropped into first. The gears whined and Bolan heard shouting from the thick brush.
"Step on it," he barked.
The driver floored it, and the jeep spurted forward, its tires slipping momentarily on the damp clay surface of the road. The driver shifted into second, and the engine roared until he popped the clutch. A burst of rifle fire spanged into the ass end of the jeep and whined off into the jungle on the far side of the road.
They rounded a curve just as another burst, this time from several weapons, raked the clay all around them. A moment later they were out of sight. The gunmen continued to fire, spraying the jungle in the vain hope that a lucky slug might take out a tire. Over the roaring of their engine, the gunfire faded away. Rounding a second curve, the driver clicked on his headlights and shifted into third.
The road wound ahead of them, twisting and turning, as if it were trying to evade the blinding glare of the headlights. The driver was good, but the slippery road made it tough to control the jeep on the tighter curves. Even the thick treads of the jeep's tires struggled to hang on.
The careering vehicle yawed wildly before the tires bit, then it lurched ahead, gaining speed until the driver braked into a skid at the next curve, fought to regain control, only to repeat the process in succession again.
"What's that up ahead?" Bolan shouted, tapping the driver on the shoulder.
The driver shouted something Bolan couldn't catch over the screaming engine. Two pairs of orange rectangles seemed to hover in the air about a quarter mile ahead. They were in a long straightaway, and the jeep was picking up speed.
Closing fast on the hovering lights, they were only a hundred yards away when Bolan realized it was a pair of jeeps, their parking lights lit, straddling the roadway.
A sudden explosion, like a meteor shower, lanced overhead. Bolan recognized the hammering of an M-60 immediately. The driver spun the wheel sharply, and the jeep skidded several feet broadside before its tires bit, then it plunged into the tall grass alongside the road. The M-60 stabbed at them again, tracers ripping the darkness as they homed in. Carlos had killed his lights and was barreling straight ahead. The jeep canted to one side as it rocked over the uneven ground beneath the grass.
Bolan swung his M-16 up and sprayed an entire clip, aiming just above the hoods of the two jeeps. He was rewarded by a cascade of shattering glass. The M-60 stopped instantly, and they plunged on past. Bolan jammed a second clip into the M-16 and cut loose again.
This time the others in the blockade fired back.
Their rifles ripped at the careering jeep in search of flesh. Bolan pulled the pin on one of his two grenades and tossed it backward. The deadly hook shot found the rim and dropped in between the two pairs of orange lights. It went off almost at once. In the sudden fireball, he could see one jeep upend while the other rocked over on two wheels, then settled back just as its gas tank blew.
An orange cloud mushroomed up into the night.
They were safe for the moment.
10
Bolan sat in the jeep, taking it all in. The camp was a model of efficiency. More than a dozen buildings, and not a single one could be seen from the air, so cleverly had they been woven in and around the rain forest. Even the clearing at its heart looked pristine.
It was beginning to brighten, and Bolan glanced at his watch. It was five-thirty, and the sun was due in just a few minutes. In another hour or two, the morning mist would burn off, and by midday, everyone alive in this part of Luzon would be counting the minutes until sundown. Bolan had seen similar places before, though none so economically designed. It was the precision that stunned him, and bothered him more than a little. Just this cursory examination convinced him that Marisa's group was not just a spontaneous movement of inexperienced peasants.
The camp had something of the textbook about it, something of the ideal that is seldom approached in field conditions. And never achieved.
And yet, here it was. Picture perfect.
Why? The question rattled around Bolan's brain like a runaway pinball. Who the hell were these people? And what did they really want? The most troublesome question was who was helping them to get it?
Marisa had promised that answers to his questions would be forthcoming. He doubted that more than most things, and Mack Bolan was a man who took very little on faith. As he sat there, the sky turned a milky white.
The sun must have risen above the mountains now, but the morning soup was still too thick for its color to come through.
The others had left him unattended, as though he posed no threat to them. They were either supremely confident of their position, or Marisa had been telling him the truth. Neither seemed too likely, and yet, there he was, alone in the middle of the Luzon jungle, in the very heart of the guerrilla camp, and no one seemed to give a damn.
He climbed down from the jeep to stretch his legs, reached over the bullet-scarred rear panel and snatched the canvas bag Marisa had left behind.
With nothing better to do, he decided to go through it.
Bolan dropped the bag on the hood and unbuckled the flaps. And there were his Beretta 93-R and his .44 AutoMag, each wrapped carefully in oiled cloth. It seemed that Marisa and her people even worried about rust.
Somewhere behind the semicircle of thatched huts, a rooster cut loose. Almost as if it had been a signal, Marisa reappeared in the doorway through which she had gone five minutes before. Behind her a tall man, a thatch of unruly red hair tumbling over sun-leathered skin, ducked under the lintel and followed her.
Bolan studied the man as he approached. About six three or four, he looked to weigh no more than a hundred and ninety, if that. He had an easy gait, a casual, almost jaunty walk that was as far from Charles Harding's ramrod strut as it could be. His shoulders were broad, and even under the camou shirt, Bolan could see the power of the man.
The tall man draped an arm over Marisa's shoulder, guiding her gently with pressure from his fingers. When they were three feet away, he let the arm fall and Marisa stopped. She held out a hand, and Bolan took it in his own. Then turning slightly and moving a step away, she allowed the tall man to take her place. He, too, held out a hand as Marisa said, "Mr. Belasko, this is Tom Colgan."
Bolan tried not to react. Marisa, of course, couldn't see him. Colgan himself, though, was another matter. Bolan could hear Frank Henson's voice in his head, saying "Colgan" over and over again. He noticed the man's eyes and wondered just how much they could see. Like two blue beacons, they burned with a dark light, set deep in the leathery skin. Bolan had the funny feeling that Colgan could look right through him, even see the bones buried deep inside him, as if looking at an X ray.
The eyes looked as though they had a life of their own. He'd seen eyes like them before, but not lately.
They were the ey
es of a madman or, perhaps worse, a zealot.
The tall man clasped Bolan's hand in both of his own and shook it warmly.
"Tom is my husband," Marisa said.
"I see," Bolan replied.
She laughed. "I don't think you do." The laughter was genuine, as if some great pressure inside her had been mysteriously released or a weight lifted from her shoulders by an unseen hand.
"I've been waiting to meet you, Mr. Belasko. You are wondering how I knew you were coming. I understand. Let's get you something to eat. We can talk over breakfast."
Bolan nodded. "Fine."
"This way," Colgan said. He turned, and without waiting but to see whether Bolan would follow, he walked toward one end of the half moon of buildings. Marisa followed, glancing back at Bolan over her shoulder.
Bolan fell in behind the couple, wondering what other surprises lay in store for him. That there would be more was beyond question. Colgan ducked to enter the last building on the left, and Marisa disappeared right after him. Bolan hesitated for a moment, then stepped into the dimly lit interior.
The mess hall was functionally laid out; four rows of tables and benches, all roughly hewn from the same raw wood, ran the length of the building, leaving aisles after every pair to make navigation easier. A door, similar to the one he'd just entered, sat in the middle of the far wall, and two more opposed one another at either end.
One of the tables was already set for three. The simple tin dishes and Army-issue utensils brought Bolan back years to a time he'd rather forget.
Colgan helped Marisa slide in between bench and table, then sat across from her. He nodded toward the remaining plate, next to Marisa, and said, "Help yourself. We don't stand on ceremony here."
Bolan looked at the food, mostly rice with an admixture of a stringy red vegetable somewhere between pimiento and pepper and thick hunks of something that was probably fish.
Bolan took a mouthful, tasted it cautiously, then swallowed. It wasn't bad, but it was not going to be the latest rage in nouvelle cuisine, either.
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