Silence settled over the tent, tense now with waiting. She picked a spot on the wall to study and shifted her weight from foot to foot, her legs growing tired. There were no empty chairs in the room, and she dared not plop down on somebody’s hammock without permission.
A muffled bang made everyone in the room look up.
She jumped, both at the odd noise, a hollow
A strange rushing noise erupted outside, along with the sounds of shouting and general chaos. Huayar and his lieutenants vacated the tent completely at that outburst. What in the world?
The naked lightbulb hanging in the center of the room flickered and went out. Unsure of what to do with herself, she stepped away from the wall with the notion of heading for the door. But then a black specter rose up before her out of the ground itself, and her mouth opened on a scream.
Off to his right, John saw the water tower keel over in majestic slow motion, spilling its entire contents in a flood that rushed through the center of the camp a foot deep. He didn’t hear the separate charge that took out the camp’s main electric generator, but it was timed to coincide with the flood and mimic a shortout. The camp went black as the lights went off, and the big bonfire met its sudden end in the flood. He raised his night vision goggles from around his neck, and the camp leaped out at him in bright relief. Huayar’s people scurried every which way like a bunch of agitated ants. Assured that no one was looking this way, he peeled back the plywood panel whose screws he’d already loosened, and slipped into the shack. Melina’s familiar profile was just turning toward him.
She lurched, opening her mouth to scream as he lunged forward and wrapped his arms around her, slapping a hand over her mouth. “It’s me, Mel.”
She sagged in his arms, then threw herself against him, all but choking him as she knocked his NVG’s askew.
He whispered, already drawing her toward the hole in the wall, “No time for hugs, baby. We’ve got to go.”
Gunfire erupted outside. Lots of it. Crap. So much for stealth.
“My family-” Melina started.
He cut her off. “Rescue Team One’s with them. You and I won’t leave the area until they do.”
She nodded, her grateful smile looking more like a macabre grimace to him through the goggles.
“Let’s get out of here,” he muttered. He led the way through the hole, holding the plywood back as she crawled through it. The remnants of the flood were seeping this way, turning the camp’s packed dirt into a slippery morass.
She made a noise of disgust, and he cautioned under his breath, “No noise, baby.”
She nodded, picking her way beside him on her hands and knees to the nearest bush. At least it was dry back here. He leaned close to breathe in her ear, “We’ll make our way a little farther up the hill and hide there.”
She gave him a thumbs-up and he spared a moment to smile down at her. He trailed his fingertips gently down her swollen cheek and then touched her lips. It was the best he could do in the circumstances to communicate everything he felt for her. She leaned into his palm with her tender cheek. That had to hurt, and he lifted his hand away from her.
They turned to head up the hill and he took one last glance over his shoulder behind them to check for signs of pursuit.
He stopped. Swore violently under his breath. He murmured to Melina, “Change of plans.”
Chapter 18
Melina turned to look at what had put that ominous tone in John’s voice, and gasped. At least fifty of Huayar’s men surrounded the bunker. Panic leaped in her gut. Her family! She had to do something! She’d go down there and demand to know what Huayar was up to. John would just have to try to rescue her another time. She started to stand up.
“My parents! Mike-” She broke off as John commenced muttering under his breath, a continuous stream of invectives with a distinct note of panic in it. She dropped back down beside him, a sick feeling of dread heavy inside her. “What’s wrong?”
“Ohgodohgodohgod…”
The same litany started up in her head. She was missing something here, and it couldn’t possibly bode well for her family. A man like John in complete meltdown was beyond bad. It was disastrous. She just wasn’t sure how, yet.
He groaned, “Huayar thinks that’s me in there. Oh, God. They’ll be shot like fish in a barrel. My fault. Bastard’s after me…”
“I don’t understand, John. What’s going on?”
“Four guys from Pirate Pete’s…in there with your family…they’ll all die…”
If it was possible to feel any sicker, she did. Not again. Not more of his comrades ambushed, this time in front of his eyes instead of around him. She squeezed her eyes shut, desperately wishing away this nightmare. But when she opened them again, that deadly ring of muzzle flashes around the building was still flashing in the night.
“Gotta save them,” John mumbled.
She grabbed his arm in alarm. “There are dozens of men shooting at that bunker. You can’t take them all. Heck, you probably don’t even have that many bullets!”
He glanced over at her, and she reeled back from the look in his eyes. It was already dead.
“Not. Happening. Again,” he ground out. “Not on my watch.”
He sounded like it was all he could do to hold it together. She said quickly, “I’ll go with you. Tell me what to do.”
“You stay.” He swore again and brought his weapon up into a firing position at his right shoulder. He stood up, emerging out of the brush like death rising from the earth itself.
“But I can’t lose you too-”
He was gone, racing down the hill, silent and lethal, deliberate flashes from his muzzle charting his course for her toward the ring of fire.
Dismayed, terrified, and torn in two, she crouched in the woods with the smells of dirt and crushed leaves rising around her as Death feasted before her. John was going to die. He was going to charge in there all alone and sacrifice himself in the name of trying to save his friends. This time, there was no way he’d walk out of it alive. He’d make darn sure of that. She’d lost him. His demons had won.
A sob shook her.
It was so damned unfair. She’d finally found the man of her heart, and now she was supposed to sit here and watch him die. If only she knew what to do. If only she had a rifle and could shoot them all, or a missile she could shoot to blow up Huayar and his men-
Her thoughts derailed abruptly.
She glanced over at the meth lab not far from her. She was a chemist, for crying out loud. She was the queen of playing with stuff that blew up, and right in front of her was a whole building full of volatile and highly explosive chemicals. She might not manage to destroy the whole camp, but she could create a hell of a diversion for John.
She rose to a half crouch and zigzagged down the hill, dodging trees and brush the same way John had a moment before. She raced into the camp. A man jumped out in front of her, pointing a rifle at her head. She recognized one of Huayar’s men from earlier.
“It’s me!” she shouted in Spanish over the shooting behind him. “I’ve got to secure the lab. It could blow with all this gunfire! Let me pass!”
The guy got an alarmed look in his eyes and waved the tip of his rifle at the lab to his left, indicating for her to get moving.
She ran on, grimly ducking at each new burst of gunfire.
