Nicky.
She rolled from the bed and dropped to the floor on hands and knees.
Frantically she crawled towards the door. She wanted to get to Nicky, she had to get to Nicky.
Halfway across the hut she felt Ramsey's muscular bare arm whipped around her neck from behind, and he forced her to her feet. With the last of her breath, she screamed: 'Sean! He has got me!' 'Bitch,' Ramsey hissed in her car. 'Treacherous bitch.'
And then he raised his voice. 'I'll kill herv he shouted. 'I'll blow her head off.' Then he dragged her to the door and forced her down the steps. 'Move, bitch,' he grated. 'Keep moving. I know who Sean is. He won't fire - not with you as a shield. Move!' The pressure on her throat was choking her. She could not resist it. He ran with her towards Nicky's hut. The communications hut was in flames. From its thatched roof flame and sparks towered into the night sky. It was as bright as a stage. The serpentine shadows of the palm trunk writhed upon the pale sandy earth.
They burst into Nicky's hut. Adra and the child were crouched in the centre of the floor. Adra was covering Nicky with her body.
'Padre!' Nicky shrieked.
'Come with Adra,' Ramsey snapped at him. 'Keep close to her. Follow me.' In a tight group they left the hut and moved towards the car park. Ramsey held Isabella from behind; with his free hand he pressed the pistol to her head.
'I'll blow her head off,' he called into the dancing. shadows. 'Keep your distance.' 'Please, Padre, do not hurt Manuna,' Nicky wailed.
'Keep quiet, boy!' Ramsey snarled at him; and then, raising his voice again: 'Call your dogs off, Sean. Unless you want your sister and her son to die.' After a moment, Sean's voice bellowed out of the shadows: 'Hold your fire, Scouts! Back off, Scouts!' Ramsey kept them moving towards one of the jeeps. Isabella was choking for breath, the muzzle of the pistol was pressed so hard into her ear that the tender skin tore and a drop of blood ran down her neck.
'Please, you're hurting me,' Isabella gasped.
'Don't hurt Mamma,' Nicholas cried, and twisted out of Adra's grip. He ran to Isabella's side, and for a moment Adra was isolated, offering a clear shot.
In the darkness beyond the firelight a yellow flower of gun-flame bloomed, and a single bullet whiplashed across twenty yards of open ground.
The side of Adra's head dissolved in a liquid red smear. She was snatched over backwards to hit the earth with her arms flung wide open.
'Adra!' Nicky screamed, but before he could run to her Ramsey grabbed him around the waist.
'No, leave Adra,' he snapped. 'Stay close to me now, Nicky.' The three of them were in the centre of a brightly lit stage. There was no other living soul in view. The corpse of one of the Cuban woman signallers lay curled against the wall of the burning building, and two dead paratroopers lay at the gate to the compound.
Ramsey called out an order in Spanish to any of his paratroopers that might still be alive, but he knew it was a vain effort. He knew the quality of the attackers. He had recognized the name of her brother the instant Isabella called it out. Sean's shouted order addressed to the Scouts had confirmed it. He guessed that his men were all of them dead. They had probably died in that first storm of gunfire.
These were the notorious Ballantyne Scouts, he was certain of that, but how they had got here eluded him. He knew only that Isabella had somehow managed to call them in. They were out there in the shadows, and they would strike the same way they had killed Adra, swiftly and with deadly accuracy, if he gave them the faintest chance.
The only advantage he had on his side now was time. He knew that Raleigh Tabaka would have heard the gunfire and would be leading a relief column of his guerrillas down from the airfield. They would be here in minutes. He backed towards the nearest of the three parked jeeps in the motor pool.
Sean watched them over the sights of the AKM. He lay at the base of one of the palms, the outline of his head broken by a pile of dead fronds. At this range of forty yards the assault-rifle with the rate-of-fire selector on single shot was only accurate enough to put a bullet into a two-inch circle. He had aimed for the bridge of Adra's nose and hit her in the left eye. The bullet had sheared off the side of her skull.
That kind of accuracy was not sufficient to risk a shot at Ramsey Machado.
The man was good. He was using his two hostages for maximum cover, ducking and weaving like a boxer so that Scan could never hold a steady bead on his head.
To Scan, his sister's naked body was disconcerting and shocking in the yellow firelight. Her breasts were very pale and tcndcr-looking; the stark black triangle stood out clearly at the base of her belly. He knew that his Scouts were watching her.
Even in the stress of battle, the way that Ramsey Machado held her against his own naked body infuriated Sean and threatened to impair his judgement.
He was tempted to risk a shot. His finger on the trigger lacked only an ounce of pressure, but Ramsey ducked his head behind Isabella's shoulder as they reached the jeep.
Ramsey slid into the driver's seat and dragged Isabella and the child in with him. The engine started with a bellow, and sand spun from beneath the rear wheels as Ramsey accelerated towards the gate.
Sean fired a burst, low at the nearest back wheel, and saw a bullet strike sparks from the spinning steel hub. Then the jeep crashed into the barrier gate and ripped out one of the poles. The gate crumpled before its rush, and the vehicle bounced through the wreckage and roared down the track dragging a tangle of wire and fencc-poles, behind it like a sleigh.
Sean leapt to his feet and raced to the second jeep. Four of his Scouts were pelting for the same vehicle and they piled into the back of it as Sean started the engine. He spun it in a wide circle and then gunned it through the ruined gate. They jolted over the mangled frame and then roared in pursuit of Ramsey and his hostages.
If Isabella's skctch-map was accurate, this track would 53e take them down along the river towards the airstrip, and Esau Gondelc's road-block.
Esau would hose anything that came down the track, from either direction.
An RPG rocket would turn Isabella and her son to mincemeat.
Scan thrust the palm of his hand down on the horn-ring and blew a long wailing blast. He hoped that Esau Gondelc might understand the warning and hold his fire, but he knew it was a forlorn hope. Smoked up with boom, the Scouts would be hot and quick on the trigger.
He had to overtake them. He shoved the pedal flat and roared into the standing wall of white dust left by the vehicle ahead of him on the narrow track. The track turned abruptly right, and for a second he lost it and slewcd over the verge. The jeep canted over on its outside wheels and they crashed and tore through the light brush before he got her back on to the track.
The angle of the breeze altered as they turned, and the dust was blown aside. Only fifty yards ahead he saw the tail-lights of the escaping vehicle, and he hit it with the full beam of his headlights.
In the front seat Ramsey Machado was driving with one hand. His other arm was locked around Isabella's shoulders, holding her in an awkward cramped position. Her head was twisted around on the long column of her neck. Her hair fluttered and rippled in the wind, and her eyes were dark and wide with terror in the pale oval of her face. She was shouting something at him, but the words were whipped away by the wind.
Nicky was clutching the back of Isabella's seat. He was dressed in a white T-shirt and shorts. He was also looking back at the pursuing jeep, and even in these desperate moments Sean was struck by the resemblance of the child to the~ mother. His fury at the man who threatened them smoked in his brain, and armed him with reckless courage.
Then he realized that the other jeep was down on one side. The burst of fire he had given it had ripped the nearside rear tyre. Long tattered shreds of black rubber peeled from the spinning rim. The tangle of fencing wire and the crumpled pipe-frame of the gate dragged behind the damaged vehicle like a drogue, tearing up a spray of sand and dust from the track and slowing it down.
He was gaining on them rapidly. The track had turned away from the beach and was running alongside the steep bank of the river. The mangrove trees loomed in the headlights of the two racing vehicles, and between their trunks the dark water glinted sullenly.
Ramsey glanced back over his shoulder and realized that the other jeep was only three feet from his tail-gate. He ducked his head and released his grip on Bella. He snatched the pistol from his lap and twisted around to aim at Sean's face. The range was under twelve feet, but both jeeps were pounding and swerving over the rough track. The bullet struck the side-post of the windscreen and ricocheted away into the darkness.
One of the Scouts thrust his rifle forward to return fire, but Scan struck the barrel upwards.
'Hold your fire,' he shouted, and drove into the back of the other jeep with a ringing clash of metal.
The impact snapped their heads backwards, and Nicky was thrown over the rear seat with his legs kicking in the air as he struggled to regain his balance.
Jump,' Sean howled at Isabella, but before she could react Ramsey grabbed her again and pulled her close.
