I interrupted him with a stern look, "If I were you, I'd stop talking right now."
Bardales sneered at me and continued, "I am going to enjoy torturing you, and I will make you watch as I rape your woman over and over!" he growled., his brutish eyes glimmering with rage and anticipation.
A deafening pop and a flash of light exploded from the pistol in Jaye's hand and Bardales collapsed to the ground, crying out in pain. His hands clutched the inside of his upper thigh and I could see blood seeping between his fingers.
"I warned you to stop," I stated as I grabbed Jaye by the elbow and rushed us both out of the tent.
I feared the gunshot would alert all the troops in the camp, but as soon as we burst from the tent I could see that something else had gotten their attention first. The communications tent, a scant thirty feet away, was completely engulfed in roaring orange flames that hissed and licked at the falling rain.
I could hear the shouts and commotion as the men stationed in the barracks section of the camp retrieved their weapons and hustled out of their darkened tents towards the raging fire at the communications tent.
"Holy shit," I said, gaping at the fire. Jaye tugged at my hand, physically pulling me out of my trance. Ignoring the inferno, we ran straight for the vehicles parked nearby. Several soldiers passed us as we ran, but none of them seemed to notice our presence. They were all focused on the inferno.
Miles Blatt urged us on from the back of the lead truck. "Thank God you made it. When I heard the gunshot, I feared for the worst," he said as we arrived at the truck.
"The troops seemed too distracted by the fire to even notice. How did the fire happen, anyway?" I asked.
"All part of the plan," Blatt said, beaming with pride. "It's amazing this whole place hasn't gone up in flames. They've stored flammable solvents and fuels all over the place here. All I needed was a little electrical fire and an accelerant, and presto! A huge fire. We won't have to worry about their long-range communications for a while."
"Fantastic work!" I said, giving him an enthusiastic pat on the shoulder. "What about this hunk of junk? Can we steal it?"
Blatt's pride deflated at my mention of the truck. "I don't know. I ran and hid back here after overloading the generator. The actual escape was your part of the plan," he said.
"Shit," I spat. I hadn't thought this far ahead. Leaving Jaye and Miles at the back of the truck, I ran up to the driver's side door and yanked it open and stuck my head inside. There were no keys hanging from the ignition. There wasn't even an ignition for a key to hang from. Where the switch should have been was a hole. What the hell?
I looked for some sort of ignition. The vehicle had to have one. But there was nothing. No switch, no push button, nothing that looked like it could be used to start the truck. Frustrated, I slammed the door shut and ran to Bardales' odd Jeep-like vehicle, opened the door and hopped inside.
This vehicle at least had a standard ignition switch, but again the keys were of course not in it. I rooted through the seats and finally spotted a pair of keys on a plain metal split-ring laying on the dash. I snatched them up and tried the first key. The vehicle rumbled to life immediately. I let out a triumphant whoop.
I jumped back out of the Jeep and hustled back to Jaye and Miles, motioning them to follow me. "C'mon, I got Bardales' Jeep working."
"Hell, yeah," Jaye said, "Let's get out of here."
Miles Blatt vaulted over the rear fender as if it were nothing more than a street curb and landed in the back seat. His athleticism and agility were at complete odds with his bookish and frail, scholarly look. Jaye jumped into the passenger seat, holding her pistol in her lap, hidden but ready for use.
I was halfway in the driver's seat when sparks and a loud "Ping" exploded on the front fender, immediately followed by a single shouted word.
"Hawkins!" Bardales bellowed. Immediately my eyes searched the camp, but it only took half of a second to find the enraged man. He was standing between the command tents pointing a pistol at us, his body silhouetted by the colossal fire behind him. He staggered on his one good leg, heavily favoring his bad one, a ragged strip of cloth tied around his injured thigh.
"Damn! I hoped that bullet you put in him would have slowed him down more."
"I was aiming for his dick," she said bluntly. "I guess I need to get to the range and work on my aim."
"What are you waiting for? I, for one, would very much like to get the hell out of here. You can talk about this later," Miles said from the back seat. "Vamamos!"
"Right with you, Doc!" I said as I shifted the Jeep into first gear, stabbed my foot down on the gas, and simultaneously let out the clutch. The Jeep leapt forward, its tires slipping in the loose mud as we gained speed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
A tent flashed by, and I had to spin the wheel sharply to avoid hitting another that materialized out of the gloom. If not for the flickering light cast by the huge fire in the center of the camp, I would have wrecked us within seconds.
"What the hell are you doing, Chase?" Jaye yelled, gripping the door with white knuckles as I again cut the wheel hard over, this time to avoid hitting a soldier.
"I can't see!" I said exasperated. "Where is the switch for the headlights?"
"Seriously?" Jaye replied. She reached over and
