crouched, making his way cautiously toward the south end of the camp. A cluster of sleeping shacks lay between him and the meth lab, whose stink was acrid in his nose. He glanced at his watch. Once he was in place, he’d have about thirty endless minutes to sit, cooling his jets while the other rescue team did its thing. Of course, the wait would give him time to get the feel of this end of the camp, to find the flow of its movements, maybe even to spot Melina.
Melina ducked inside the dirt-floored shack, its walls a crazed hodgepodge of plywood, random lumber and galvanized tin. A half-dozen hammocks hung around the margins of the room, but the center of the space was open, filled at the moment by a folding table and a cluster of men looking at something on top of it. She edged a little farther into the room, trying to catch a glimpse of what they were all studying so intently.
A crudely sketched map. Based on the maps John had made her memorize earlier, she recognized the terrain. It was the valley holding this camp.
“…probably come over this ridge…don’t know who this bastard is, but let’s assume he’s a one-man army.”
“…handled himself like a military type…had a bag of weapons in his vehicle…”
Melina jolted. These guys had searched the Land Rover? When? Must’ve been during that interminable afternoon she and John had spent sitting in that cantina waiting for the real muscle of Huayar’s outfit to arrive. But then the import of what she was hearing slammed into her. Huayar and his men were expecting John to come after her, and they were laying a massive ambush for him.
Fingers of cold dread clutched at her. Oh, no. Not another ambush. He would fall apart for sure this time. He was only just now beginning to recover from the last one. If anyone else he cared about died in another ill-fated gun battle, John would self-destruct right there, on the spot. Not to mention the fact that she’d undoubtedly die, too, and with her, any hope for her family’s escape alive from this nightmare.
She stood with her back to the wall, as still and silent as a mouse, in hopes that Huayar wouldn’t notice her presence. She had no idea if or how she could help John, but the more she knew about his enemy’s plan, the better. As she listened to Huayar deploying his men in and around the camp in a series of hidden, concentric rings, her last, lingering hopes faded. John could never succeed against this many men, particularly if they were all out there waiting and watching for him.
After an eternity, the minute hand on John’s watch finally passed the thirty-minute mark. His usual patience stretched to its limit, he was immensely relieved simply to move again. He’d picked out his approach about twenty-nine minutes ago, and now he commenced the slow trip down to the camp’s perimeter. His path took him through the gap between a pair of guards who were busily staring outward into the deep jungle. Poor guys had no idea he was parked only about thirty feet from them. Their loss.
That thirty feet took him a good ten minutes to creep until he reached the edge of the camp. The bad news was that Huayar obviously expected trouble tonight. He had patrol teams roaming the entire camp. The good news was they’d been at it long enough to have settled into routine routes walked at predictable paces. It was an easy thing to slip past them.
He wondered briefly how Rescue Team One was doing, but then pushed the thought from his mind. Not his job. They’d do their mission, he’d do his. Momentary satisfaction flowed through him at the well-oiled machine Bravo Squad was. It dawned on him that he’d missed this seamless teamwork, the sense of doing the impossible with ease; hell, of having a goal. Any goal. He’d been drifting along for so long doing nothing. He’d forgotten what having a purpose felt like.
Hathaway sent a single click across the radios. First check-in. Everyone gave a single click response back to indicate their progress one hour into the plan. The other rescue team was supposed to have located the hostages and be near them, ready to commence the actual extraction. They clicked once, and he breathed a sigh of relief.
When his turn in the rotation came up, he gave the single click back to indicate he was on or ahead of schedule-meaning he’d made it into the camp proper.
The check-in finished. No double clicks came back. Perfect. As a commander, he always expected glitches in the plan, and was pleasantly surprised when none popped up. So far, so good.
Just before he’d headed out this way, one of the spotters had reported that Melina had gone into the sleeping shack nearest to the meth lab. Nobody’d seen her since then, so the assumption was she was still in that structure. Not that he was complaining. It would make pulling her out a far sight easier. He could simply go in through a back wall and sneak her out into the woods. No fuss, no muss. At least that was the plan. It was almost too easy. Wary of another trap, he approached the camp this time with even more caution than before.
Rescue Team One should be working their way in through a back window of the bunker right about now. It was a tricky moment, one where they could easily be spotted. The minutes ticked past as he eased from shadow to shadow, making his way slowly around the camp to his target.
Another check-in at an hour plus thirty. Rescue Team One indicated they had a man inside with the hostages. John’s single click indicated that he’d located Melina, was in place near her, awaiting the go-ahead to pull her out.
He heard men’s voices inside the shack he believed her to be in, and eased himself upright enough to peer in a crack about a foot above ground level. Holy crap! Huayar! He froze, his brain going a mile a minute. Melina was in here with him? He allowed his gaze to slide left. Six more men who looked like Huayar’s senior lieutenants. A couple were positively ex-military, still sporting military haircuts and pieces of their former uniforms.
He looked to the right. There. Across the room. Melina’s hiking boots. She was standing in a dark corner, very still. He couldn’t see her face from this angle. Her position in the room could be a problem. He pondered ways to lure her over to this side of the building. Not that it would help as long as Huayar and his men were sitting in there with the lights on where they could see her.
He was going to need a diversion. Preferably one that involved knocking out the camp’s electricity. And then he was going to need a heaping helping of luck. Failing that, he was going to need speed and surprise to get in there, grab her, and get out before Huayar and company realized what was going on. Problem was, the drug lord and his men were all experienced field operators. They wouldn’t panic if the lights went out, and furthermore, they’d quickly and correctly identify a diversion as just that and would tend to stay put right where they were until the dust settled.
He swore under his breath. They might have to resort to the Plan B firefight after all.
Another frustrating half hour passed, and Rescue Team One clicked that it was hung up and unable to egress with the hostages. He clicked that he, too, was unable to proceed. After a brief pause, Hathaway clicked a series of commands that made John’s jaw clench grimly. Plan B, indeed. Hathaway was throwing Plan C and Plan D at Huayar, too.
All hell was about to break loose.
It was all Melina could do to stand there in the corner and not tear her hair out. These men were calmly and coolly plotting John’s death! She wanted to run out of here screaming to him at the top of her lungs, but instead, she had to stand around looking supremely disinterested. She didn’t for a minute think Huayar was actually ignoring her. He was too clever not to be keeping a surreptitious eye on her. He no doubt was gauging her reaction to the entire conversation to see if it got a rise out of her. Hence, the absolute necessity of showing no reaction at all.
She didn’t know whether to pray for John to come right away and get her out of here now, or to pray for him to wait until Huayar and his men eventually let their guard down before he tried a rescue. If they ever let their guard down.
A radio crackled in the middle of the table. A tense voice reported movement in the woods on the west side of camp. Abruptly, all eyes in the shack were on Huayar. Except he looked over at her. Melina steeled herself to look back at him as casually as she could.
“Is that your guy?” Huayar snapped.
“How should I know? I left him back at that village. I can’t imagine why he’d follow me out here. It’s probably a bear, attracted by the smell of food.” She added dryly, “Or maybe the bear’s a meth addict looking to cop a free hit.”
Brief grins greeted her comment, but Huayar’s intense stare never wavered. Still studying her with predatory intensity, he ordered, “Julio, take some men and go have a look.”
One of the flunkies nodded and stepped outside.
