The other men with him rolled over it in a tide, searching the jungle around them.
“Anybody catch the direction that came from?”
Beau pointed. “I caught a flash just to the left of that palm.”
There was another flash and bark splintered from the tree beside the group. They raised their rifles, peppering the site and directly to either side of it. A cry pinpointed at least one hit even as a barrage of bullets zinged back in their direction. It was no part of Mac’s plan to get surrounded or pinned down and left.
They traded gunfire with the guerrillas for a few more minutes and then he signaled half the men to fall back and take a new position. They rotated. When the first group found positions and began returning fire, he and the remaining men fell back, passing the first group and finding positions to their rear.
Mac lost track of the time and that worried him. Their pickup could wait just so long without endangering the entire mission. As valuable as what they carrying was, they were still liable to arrive at the beach and discover their ride was gone and they were trapped.
They began moving a little faster, picking off as many of the enemy as they could before dropping back each time but, with the best will in the world, Mac couldn’t convince himself that the numbers were dwindling as fast as reinforcements were coming from the rear.
He finally ordered a full retreat when he thought they must be within a click of their pickup point. He could hear the crash of the surf on the shoreline. Reloading, they switched from sporadic fire to fully automatic, cutting a swath through the jungle growth and then ducking and running at a half crouch before the guerrillas had a chance to return fire.
They burst from the jungle and onto the beach, whipped a quick look around for the boat and charged toward it. Bullets kicked up sand all over them before they’d covered half the distance and he, Beau, Hawk, and Cavanaugh hit the beach while the others made a run for it, laying down a heavy fire to hold the guerrillas back.
Mac felt as if he’d taken cover in an ant bed. Something was sure as fuck crawling all over him and stinging the shit out of him! The moment he heard friendly fire behind him, he rolled and began crawling frantically for the boat, which had already been shoved from the beach.
The gunfire from both directions was nearly deafening when he and the other men scrambled into the water to swim for it and the night air was filled with unholy screams of pain and fear—and roars of fury that had lost any semblance of humanity. Rage surged through him. The weariness that had been dragging at him vanished. He had to fight the urge to turn and attack.
Struggling against it, he plowed through the water toward the boat, almost surprised when he actually managed to catch up with it and grab a handhold on the side. Instead of the helping hand he’d expected, a hand clamped onto his arm, nearly wrenching it out of the socket as he was jerked from the water like a ragdoll. The breath was punched from him as he hit the deck. Before he could recover, something slammed into him bodily.
The rage that had gripped him before exploded. He heaved the man off of him, tearing at him with teeth and nails. In some distant corner of his mind, he was aware of horror at his own actions, but he had no control. It was as if someone else, or some thing, had invaded his body and taken control.
The pickup craft had become a seething mass of heaving, struggling bodies. Animalistic growls, grunts, and roars filled the air in a cacophony of deafening sound that made his blood surge in his veins.
“Mayday! Mayday! We’re under attack! The men! Oh my god! Things! Things! Mayday!”
The voice of the man screaming for help over the radio cut off abruptly. Mac flared his nostrils as the smell of fresh blood filled his lungs. Sucking in a deep breath, he launched a final blow at his opponent and looked around for another.
His ears pricked at the sound of a chopper overhead, swooping low, and he tipped his head back, uttering a bellowed challenge at the men he could smell on it, the fear he could smell.
Crouching low, maddened by the smells, he sprang upward, launching himself into the air. He managed to catch a hold on a runner and lifted his head to glare at the white faced man staring down at him. Even as he heaved his body up to launch himself inside, however, the man shook his paralysis and fired. He grunted as the slugs slammed into his chest and shoulder, trying to ignore the fire running through him and grasp the runner with his other hand.
The man fired again. The bullet slamming into him broke Mac’s hold and he felt himself falling. He blacked out when he hit the water below him.
* * * *
Sylvie’s stomach was cramping with nerves and she had to focus to keep from hyperventilating. She’d told herself that she could play it cool. She thought she’d done well considering she’d never done anything illegal in her life and certainly nothing of this magnitude—which might be construed as treason. Although why the government might view it that way was beyond her! So they had a longstanding grudge against Cuba! She didn’t see why that had to apply to everybody, especially when the Cuban government had offered medical treatment to the people her friends had brought down.
She completely agreed with the views of the group she’d joined. It had actually sounded like a very noble cause, potentially exciting and daring, especially to someone like her who’d never taken any kind of risks before in her life. Talk was cheap. It was the people who took a stand and took action that made a difference and she’d wanted to be one of those people.
She’d been flattered when they’d approached her about borrowing her stepfather’s boat and making the pickup—gung ho to do her part. It wasn’t as if she had to take any real risks like the others were doing. All she had to do was anchor the boat outside Cuban waters and wait.
She’d waited all day. She’d slathered enough suntan lotion on her skin to float the boat to keep from turning into crispy critters Sylvie while she pretended to sunbathe … and waited, and waited some more until the sun had dipped toward the horizon and she’d realized she was going to be moon bathing before much longer.
She could still play it cool. She was just going to have to think of another reason for her prolonged stay at anchor so close to Cuba. She’d almost convinced herself she was going to carry this off … until she heard the blare of the klaxons.
Cold terror swept over her like a rogue wave the moment the damned thing cut loose and she nearly jumped out of her skin.
She settled back on the towel she’d spread on the forward deck of her stepfather’s tiny yacht, squeezing her eyes closed and willing herself to relax. “Keep your head, Sylvie! And keep your cool! You aren’t doing anything wrong. You’re just down in the Caribbean with some friends who are down below scuba diving!
“And why the fuck they aren’t back yet when the damned sun is already setting is a mystery to me!”
The music she’d been playing, partly as a ‘prop’ and partly in the hope that it would help her focus on anything except what she was actually doing anchored less than a mile beyond Cuban waters wasn’t loud enough to completely drown out the sounds of mad activity that accompanied the alarm, unfortunately. After lying for several moments with her ears pricked to pick up the escalating sounds around her, she finally decided to try for a casual roll onto her belly.
She nearly swallowed her tongue when she saw what was coming toward her.
Military boats, bristling with guns and soldiers from Guantanamo!
“Oh shit! Oh fuck! Ohmigod! Breathe, Sylvie! Deep breath in, slowly release.”
She was so paralyzed with sheer terror that her brain was sluggish but eventually it occurred to her that there was nothing ‘natural’ about continuing to sunbathe when it looked like half the base was coming straight toward her. She sat up then and glanced around her at the sea, hoping against hope that she’d see another ship or ships that was the focus of the military vessels steaming toward her.
She didn’t see a ship but as she completed the circuit of her search, she saw what looked like dozens of me
n plowing through the water—swimming and trying to outrun the boats!
She leapt to her feet in a blind panic when her shocked brain finally connected three little words—Klaxons —Escapees—Military. She forgot all about trying to play the cool, unconcerned vacationer minding her own business. Leaping from the deck, she charged toward the pilot deck, slammed her hand down on the anchor retractor button, and started the engine.
The wet smack of bodies tumbling onto the deck made her hair stand on end. She threw a panicked glance behind her and saw that she hadn’t imagined it, men, mostly naked and with the setting sun gleaming on their water slickened skin, were pouring over her bows. She slapped a hand over her mouth to muffle the scream that rose in her throat. Despite her efforts, though, the men who’d bounded onto her deck swiveled their heads in her direction instantly like pointers.
Throwing her hands out, she screamed in earnest, looking wildly around for a weapon or some place to run. There was no place and the urge to hide, she realized dimly, was probably useless. Just as it finally dawned on her that her only option was to bail out of the boat and let them have it, the men, who’d seemed almost as frozen with indecision as she was, charged toward her.
There was only one way on or off the pilot deck. She had to charge straight toward the men coming at her. The hope that she could outrun them, reach the side of the boat, and leap off was dashed when the man in the lead, a wild-eyed black haired devil built like a tank, slammed into her, manacling his hands around her arms like titanium cuffs. Gunfire exploded around them in almost the same instant. Splinters of wood flew from the deck in every direction. The man who’d grabbed her hit the deck in response, on top of her.
Shock prevented her from feeling any pain at all for several seconds but nothing shielded her from the collapse of her lungs beneath his weight. A grunt was forced from her.
“Get us the fuck out of here, Hawk!” the man on top of her bellowed, deafening her.
They rolled over as the boat shot forward in a wide arc. The man who’d tackled her leapt to his feet anyway, scanned the deck in an all encompassing glance, and scooped her up, running at a half crouch across the deck and leaping through the open hatch.
Dangling from one of his arms like a ragdoll, Sylvie grunted again when they landed, still too stunned to focus on anything but trying to catch her breath. After quickly scanning the tiny main cabin, he released her. She promptly landed with a thump on the floor. “You hurt?”
Sylvie looked up at his face owl-eyed.
“Are you hurt?” he demanded impatiently.
She was beginning to feel like every bone in her body had been crushed or mangled. Before she could summon speech, though, he ran his hands over her. Apparently satisfied when he didn’t see any blood or find any holes, he surged upright. “Stay put if you don’t want your head blown off.”
Sylvie managed a shaky nod, but he didn’t even wait to see it. He threw the warning at her as turned away and bounded up the ladder to the deck. Sylvie managed a squeak of terror as another barrage of bullets cut through the side of the boat. A shiver skated through her. Within a few moments, she was shaking so badly her teeth were chattering. She drew up into a tight ball, trying to conserve what little warmth she had, but it wasn’t nearly enough when she wasn’t wearing anything but a bikini that wasn’t much more than a couple of postage stamps joined together with strings.
She’d figured it might be a good distraction if anyone happened to get nosey enough to investigate what she was doing.
There were at least two dozen hard faced, mostly naked men on the boat with her at the moment, though, and drawing their attention was the last thing she wanted. Easing up cautiously, she glanced around to get her bearings in the darkening cabin. The bedding was stored beneath the benches that formed a dining booth during the day and made up into a queen sized bed at night. She slithered across the floor on her belly, her ears pricked for any sound that might indicate they could hear her. When she reached the bench, she eased the seat up and levered herself up high enough to peer inside. It was too dark by now to really see anything, but she remembered that the bedding only took up a little over half the space.
After darting a quick glance toward the stairs, she climbed in, burrowed as deeply under the folded covers and linens as she could and slowly lowered the seat again. It was a snug fit with her body mass added to the contents, but it wouldn’t make much of a hiding place if she dumped the covers on the floor. In any case, she was freezing.
Thankfully, she began to warm up by degrees until the shivering finally stopped. Her mind seemed completely detached from everything, however. Disconnected thoughts drifted through her mind between a mental inventory that catalogued everything on her that hurt. All things considered, the pain was minimal. She felt bruised all over, ached from being body slammed on the deck, but nothing hurt enough to suggest she was actually injured.
The gunfire continued sporadically for a while and finally died altogether. Since the boat was still moving through the water at its top speed, bucking like a wild bronco, she decided that didn’t mean everybody up top was dead. In any case, she could hear them moving around, could hear snatches of conversation.
They were speaking English—with American accents.
That didn’t make any sense to her at all, but she couldn’t decide whether it really didn’t or if the terror she’d experienced had totally screwed her mind up. It didn’t seem to matter much. As frightened as she still was, as unreliable as her thought processes were, there were facts about her situation that were unavoidable and indisputable.
The men had to be escaped prisoners from Guantanamo.
The alarm had sounded and not only had boats been dispatched to recapture them, but they’d wanted the men back dead or alive and hadn’t cared which.
* * * *
Hawk settled heavily on the deck beside Mac, trying to ignore the burn of the wound in his left arm. “We’ve managed to put some distance between us and them, Sarg, but we’re pretty much out of ammo. What’s the plan?”
Mac snorted with disgust. “Aside from trying to stay alive? No clue.”
Hawk nodded. He hadn’t really expected Mac to have a plan, but he’d hoped he did.
“Guess it’ll be a short ride.”
“How’s the fuel holding up?”
Hawk shrugged. “This thing’s built for speed. The good news is that it was fast enough to outrun ‘em—what they had to throw at us so far, anyway. The bad news is, fast equals fuel guzzler at this speed. It’s anybody’s guess how far we can get in it.”
Mac frowned. Coming to a decision, he got to his feet wearily. “I think I’ll go have a chat with our ‘guest’ and see what she knows.”
Hawk looked at him surprise. “You think she’d know anything about the fuel consumption?”
“She’ll know where she came from. I’m guessing whoever the boat belongs to, they were expecting to get back.”
“Duh,” Hawk muttered, irritated with himself. “You think, whatever this thing is we’ve got, it’s gonna turn us into mindless beasts permanently?”
Mac flicked a sharp look at him. He swallowed a little sickly. “I wouldn’t worry too much about it, Hawk. You lost a lot of blood.”
A flicker of relief went through Hawk. “Hadn’t thought about that.”
Mac glanced around at the men on the deck. “Get some rest while you can. Everybody needs to be sharp. No telling what we’ve got ahead of us.”
“It’s a fuckin’ shame it didn’t occur to those bastards that we might need to be fresh when we escaped their fuckin’ torture chambers,” Hawk said dryly. “I ain’t slept in … shit! I can’t remember. Not since ‘it’ happened, I don’t think.”
Mac sent him an irritated look when he followed him down into the main cabin. He didn’t say anything, though, and Hawk decided it was a warning to cut the chitchat rather than irritation that he’d followed him.
It was dark as shit down in the main cabin, but that
was one of the few benefits they’d discovered about the parasites they’d picked up in the jungle. Their vision was a hell of a lot better than it had been before, better than the ‘perfect’ required just to get into special forces—because it was better than human—which they weren’t anymore.
Not that any of them wanted to admit it, but they all knew it.
Mac glanced around and finally moved to a light switch. It controlled a wall sconce by the couch. After studying it a moment, he decided not to worry about it. No doubt they were still on radar anyway and the bastards from Guantanamo knew exactly where they were.
It was no surprise to see that their guest wasn’t where he’d left her. He scanned the room, sniffing the air. Whatever it was she had all over her—suntan lotion if he didn’t miss his guess—was strong enough to seem omnipresent, though, making it pretty well impossible to pinpoint her exact location.
It was too small a craft to have many places to hide, though.
Shrugging, he took a few moments to check out what they had and discovered the craft boasted a fairly luxurious captain’s cabin at the bow, two smaller guest cabins barely big enough for the beds in them, and two ‘heads’. The head, or bathroom, for the guests was barely big enough to turn around in and the one for the main cabin not much bigger. He had the impression, though, that the boat had never been intended for any sort of prolonged voyage and had probably never been used for one.
It hadn’t completely lost the ‘new’ smell.
The question was, what was the woman doing on the boat alone?
He found a couple of canvas bags when he did a more thorough search of the cabins, but those only seemed to present him with more questions. There was clothing for two or three different people in each bag—a curious packing arrangement.
Shrugging, he emptied the bags and tossed them to Hawk. “These will work for supplies. Check out the mess and see what kind of stores they brought with them.”
“Any sign of the woman?”
“Not yet, but she didn’t go far,” Mac said dryly.
Mark of the Wolf; Hell's Breed Page 18
