When he put the phone to his ear, the voice was still talking. With a
silent curse he slipped the receiver back into its cradle. There would
be no call to Hauer. Stern estimated he had less than a minute to
become Professor Natterman again.
Alan Burton lay belly-down in the mud, humping it with the infantryman's
desperate love. Even before he heard the apocalyptic roar of the Vulcan
gun, he had seen the deadly tracer beam reach out from the tower. Now
the gunner was raking repeatedly over the corpses of the Colombians-for
corpses they surely were. When a stream of armor-piercing slugs
intersects a human body at the rate of sixty-six hundred rounds per
minute, the result cannot be described.
Burton had seen it before; he had no desire to again.
Apparently Alberto did. Four times already the big guerilla had lifted
his head over the rim of the bowl to watch the slaughter. The last time
he must have gotten his fill, because Burton could hear the giant
African whimpering beside him in the mud. When one of their escape
helicopters exploded behind them, Alberto began babbling to himself. The
incoherent syllables sounded vaguely religious to Burton, and the
Englishman decided that a bit of prayer might not be out of order, even
for a confirmed old sinner like himself.
When the terrible roar of the Vulcan diminished to desultory bursts,
Alberto tried to jump up and race back to the airstrip. Burton pressed
him violently back into the mud. As far as Burton knew, they still had
one operable helicopter and, hopefully, a pilot. But to run for it now
would be suicide. Any idiot could see that the gunner in the turret was
using night-vision equipment. Burton could picture the smug bastard,
perched up there behind his monstrous weapon, waiting for one desperate
survivor to jump up and bolt for the airstrip. Burton didn't intend to
be the moron who tried that.
But Alberto did. After the Vulcan had lain silent for ninety seconds,
the big African rose tentatively to his knees and beckoned Burton to
follow. The Vulcan burped just once: the three-second burst flashed up
the slope like a lightning bolt. Approximately ninety bullets tore into
Alberto's body, eviscerating and then decapitating him. The mangled
hulk that thudded into the mud next to Burton would be food for the
jackals in an hour.
The Englishman decided not to wait around to see the feast. The Deal be
damned, he thought bitterly. Maybe Shaw will give me another chance.
God knows I didn't have much of one today. With movements so subtle
only a serpent would perceive them, Burton slithered backward through
the mud until he dropped below the Vulcan's angle of fire.
Then he jumped to his feet and ran as he never had in his life, low to
the ground, but fast. When he felt the ground rising beneath his feet,
he knew he was nearing the airstrip.
The Wash brought him up short. Three feet of water raged through its
bottom now, but Burton tobogganed down the steep slope as if the torrent
represented safety rather than potential death. Hoisting his MP-5
submachine gun high above his head, he waded into the flood. It took
superhuman strength to hold himself upright against the current, but he
made it across. He scrambled up the far side of the ravine in twenty
seconds flat and found himself staring into the face of Juan Diaz.
'Madre de Dios!' the Cuban cried.
'The helo?' Burton gasped, his chest heaving.
'They got ours, English. But Fidel-the other pilot-he's waiting for us.
Come! Before they shoot the runway again!'
They ran. Burton could see the airstrip ahead, a glistening asphalt
line. Horn's Learjet waited silently on the apron like a falcon sitting
out a storm. The surviving helicopter stood about forty meters from the
Lear, only twenty meters from the still-burning wreck of its sister
ship. Burton heard its rotors whining as he neared the runway, running
full out.
Then the whine was swallowed by the furious ripping sound of the Vulcan.
Burton looked back. He saw the tenible tracer beam race across the
bowl, leap over the Wash, and streak up behind them. 'Run!'
he screamed at Diaz.
The Cuban needed no prodding; he was ahead of Burton already. The
tracer beam actually passed between the two men as it raced toward
Fidel's chopper, churning the earth into a furrow of death.
Then it happened. Fidel lost his nerve. Seeing the tracers closing in
on him, he simply could not control his panic.
With the only survivors of his team less than thirty meters from his
chopper, the terrified Cuban lifted off. Diaz screamed for his comrade
to wait, but the @errified pilot ignored him.
Burton had seen this a hundred times before. Slowing his sprint, he
unslung his MP-5 and dropped to his knees. The only way to stop a
panicked man from bolting was to put an equal or greater throat in front
of him. Burton sighted his submachine gun in on the windshield of
Fidel's chopper and squeezed off a three-round burst.
'Are you loco?' Diaz screamed. 'You'll crash him.'
'Signal him to put down!'
Fidel's chopper bucked wildly, hovering ten meters off the ground.
Unaccustomed to firing the Vulcan, Jijrgen Luhr had missed the chopper
on the first pass. Tracers danced wildly above the chopper's rotors.
Diaz signaled frantically for his compadre to put down, but Fidel still
seemed uncertain of where the greater danger lay. Burton convinced him
with a sustained burst that fragmented the chopper's windshield. The
JetRanger dropped until it hovered a meter above the runway. Burton
dashed for its side door, passing Diaz on the way. He leaped into the
shuddering machine and trained his weapon on Fidel.
'Don't take off till Diaz is in!'
The little Cuban was close, but not close enough. Without even meaning
to, Fidel jinked his ship two meters higher.
'Down!' Burton roared.
The JetRanger settled, then jerked up again.
Luhr backed his tracers off about forty meters from his target and began
vectoring in again. This time the deadly beam held steady as he walked
it in on the struggling helicopter.
'Jump!' Burton yelled.
Diaz leaped for the chopper's right skid, caught it. Burton got one
