Night Rescuer

God. The cluttered stacks of barrels, crude cook fires and filthy packing tables were as different from her pristine, stainless steel lab as could be. By the dim flicker of the firelight, she raced around the room, searching frantically for what she’d need. It had to be fast. Simple. A half-dozen ways to combine the many volatile components of methamphetamine into an explosive mix came to her mind, but many of them were multi-step reactions she didn’t have time to mess with. She needed a bomb, not a fire.

There. A stack of foot-long metal bottles. Perfect. Propane camp fuel. She ran to one of the big cauldrons hanging over a flame and swung it aside, dumping its liquid contents on the ground. She held her breath as a cloud of noxious fumes rose up. She didn’t even want to think about what was in that cloud-vaporized drain cleaner, toluene brake fluid, chloroform-ugh.

Her eyes watering, she swung the now-empty cauldron back over the fire. Quickly, she grabbed an armful of the propane fuel bottles and tossed them into the pot. She added a bucket of red phosphorus, and tossed in a pile of sodium shavings for good measure. It would take a minute or two to heat the bottles sufficiently for one of them to blow. But once it went, the chain reaction would be spectacular.

She glanced around the room. She could enhance the whole thing with some vaporized gases in here, too. Ahh. There. Ether. She ran over to the store of ether tanks and opened all the stopcocks. Like any decent meth lab, this place was well-ventilated to prevent a buildup of explosive gases. Holding her breath as best she could, she raced around the room, closing all the shutters she could reach.

She reached an opening that looked out upon the bunker and the circling mass of Huayar’s men. She paused to take in the scene. Where was John? Was he already one of those ominous black heaps of clothing on the ground? Or was he still out there somewhere, fighting for all he was worth to save his buddies? Please be alive.

John dodged behind a shack, running low around its far side and double-tapping a pair of bullets into the nearest bandit. A second hostile turned, and John dropped him, too. Gripped in a fugue state of see-and-kill, he roamed the night, shooting everyone who crossed his path. Must save those men.

A mountain in Afghanistan flashed before his eyes. Taptap. Another bandit down. Blood. So damned much blood. He shot another pair of Huayar’s men. The screams. He’d never forget his men’s dying pleas for help. And there he’d been, shot in the back himself, helpless as a baby. A bandit spun to face him, raising his weapon, startled. John mowed him down with a fusillade of shots. Only long habit with ammunition preservation stopped him from emptying his weapon into the Afghani-no, wait, Peruvian-rebel.

He blinked, disoriented. Where was he? Trees. Greenery. Shouted Spanish commands. Peru. He passed a grimy hand across his eyes.

Melina.

As soon as he thought of her, the worst of his flashback drained away, replaced by a sense of calm. He knew what he had to do. If she wouldn’t leave until her family did, then he’d just have to free her family for her, even if it meant giving his life to do it. He’d die for her in a second. He looked around, surprised to see how close to the main ring of Huayar’s men he’d pushed. He was all but on top of the line.

The majority of Huayar’s men hadn’t caught on to the fact yet that shots were coming from behind them, in addition to theirs pouring into the bunker. The rescue team inside had yet to fire. They probably were afraid to draw fire to the hostages, not to mention that their current rules of engagement precluded them from starting a gun battle on Peruvian soil.

John eased backward into the deep shadows beside a shack and took stock. He needed better cover if he was going to shoot a hole in this mass of men. All of a sudden, the night and shadows and the muzzle bursts looked just like that other firefight, that other line of hostile shooters unloading on him and his men. Except this time, he was on his feet, his weapon nestled against his shoulder, and the bad guys were in his sights. He wasn’t technically part of Hathaway’s team, therefore, by his reasoning, he was exempt from the no gunfighting order. Satisfaction surged through him. Payback time.

He took aim, firing deliberately and to kill. He had about two hundred more rounds on him, which should be enough to hold him for another ten to twelve minutes. Plenty of time to eliminate Huayar and his men. But if he had anything to say about it, this whole thing would be over long before then.

“Cowboy, pull back. You’re entering our field of fire.”

He started at hearing his handle over the radios. It had been a while since anyone used it. Besides, he was in command and gave the orders on this mountain-no wait. Hathaway was here. How did he get out here? Disoriented, John vaguely heard his commander repeat the command. Whatever.

Resolutely, he kept on firing.

“Pull back, John. Now.” That was Hathaway’s clipped voice barking the order at him. He responded reflexively to the whiplash tone in his commander’s voice and lowered his weapon. He took a step back.

Hathaway ordered sharply, “Secure your target, Cowboy.”

His target. Melina. A small measure of sanity seeped back into his consciousness. He was in a valley in Peru in the middle of a shootout. Where was she, anyway? She’d better be back on that hill. Of course, she hadn’t stayed put the last time he told her to. What were the odds she’d done as he ordered this time? Crap. He took off running back across the camp. He cleared all around him as he went, keeping an eye out for laggards or cowards in Huayar’s ranks, hiding from the fight. After all, a rat’s bullet killed just as well as a hero’s.

What was that over there? Someone was hiding in the meth lab. A straggler back here could easily spot him and Melina in the woods behind the camp and take one or both of them out. He’d have to clear the building. He sprinted for the lab and its volatile contents.

Melina ducked under a worktable as a black shape hurtled into the lab. Now what? That cauldron wasn’t hot enough to blow quite yet. It needed another minute or two. Huayar’s man couldn’t find it! She intentionally dodged behind a stack of crates of pseudoephedrine tablets, hoping the guy would see her movement and come investigate.

Sure enough, the intruder spun around the end of the pile, the bore of his rifle leading the way. Prepared to stand up and berate the guy for scaring her, she stared at the big black-clad figure wearing elaborate goggles over his eyes. Not Huayar’s man! She barely had time to register that before the figure’s rifle swung up and away from her. He stepped forward and swept her into his dark grasp.

Only as his head buried itself in her hair did it dawn on her. “John!” she cried. “Thank God, you’re alive! My family?”

“They’re still alive in there. Huayar’s men haven’t penetrated the place.”

She sagged in relief, her legs all but collapsing out from under her.

Supporting her easily, John continued, “Our guys have enough firepower to hold off Huayar indefinitely in that hole. Assuming there’s not a back door.”

“A back door?” she repeated, confused.

“Bad guys have a tendency to put secret escape tunnels in any place they think they might get trapped someday. I’m worried that Huayar’s got men crawling down some secret tunnel as we speak to breach the place.”

She gasped, alarmed afresh. “We have to do something!”

He nodded. “We’re hamstrung out here because our rules of engagement prohibit us from launching a major firefight with Huayar.”

“What in the heck do you call that?” she gestured outside at the barrage of gunfire.

“That’s Huayar firing at our guys, and our guys not returning fire. That’s not a gunfight. Trust me. You’ll know if we start shooting back.”

“To heck with your rules of engagement! Let’s assault those guys before they get into the bunker!”

He grinned down at her, a slash of white in the darkness of his face. “You and me? Like Bonnie and Clyde?”

“Why not? I’ve got a diversion cooking over there.” She glanced over at the cauldron where a few sparks were starting to jump. Any second that thing would blow.

“What have you done?” he asked, startled.

“I’ve cooked up an explosion. Should go any second.”

“What’s in that pot?”

“A bunch of propane tanks, red phosphorus and sodium shavings. And the ether bottles are open over