BRAINRUSH 02 - The Enemy of My Enemy (24 page)

Tony and Becker edged closer to the opening. There was a distant vibration, beyond the gunfire, growing in volume. Tony held his breath as he strained to make it out. 

Becker recognized it a half-second ahead of him. “Yeah!” he shouted with a fist pump. A wide grin lit up his weathered face and he slapped his friend on the shoulder.

The distinctive throb of the V-22’s heavy props was unmistakable.

“’Bout time,” Tony said. A wave of relief washed over him. He pounded fist to palm. “Go get ’em, Cal.”

There were frantic shouts from above as magazines were replaced. A moment later the staccato cracks of gunfire were renewed in a frenzy of long bursts. Then a smooth zipping sound tore through the air and Tony knew that the V-22’s five-barrel Gatling gun had let loose. The ground shook above them from the impact of 25mm rounds puckering the earth at thirty-six hundred rounds per minute. The rain of lead would shred anything in its path.

Return fire from the ground ceased abruptly. No one could have survived.

“Good riddance,” Becker muttered.

“Damn straight,” Tony said.

The pitch of the props changed and Tony could imagine the bird’s twin nacelles shifting upward as the versatile plane switched from horizontal to vertical flight. Dust and debris washed across the opening of the vent.

The engines shut down.

Marshall, Bradley, and Josh joined Tony and Becker under the opening.

Rushing footsteps. Bits of gravel tumbled down the vent. A tiny head popped into view, framed by a cascade of long hair that drooped down.

“Josh!” Sarafina shouted from above. “Are you okay?”

Max’s joyful barks filled the cavern.

**

For Jake’s plan to succeed, he needed the narcos close.

He posed as if he’d been killed or knocked unconscious when the vehicle flipped. His cheek rested on the dirt road. His contorted body was half in and half out of the overturned jeep. The AK-47 rested in plain view on the road, well out of reach. Francesca was nowhere to be seen.

There was a faint rumble of an engine. Steadying his breathing, Jake focused on a point fifty yards ahead where the road disappeared over the ridgeline. The black SUV bounded onto the plateau. It skidded to a stop in a whirlwind of dust and flying pebbles. The doors flew open.

Three men leapt out brandishing weapons and angry snarls. There was a rush of conversation—too distant to discern—as someone issued orders from the car. Two of the narcos trained their weapons on the jeep. The third opened the rear hatch and retrieved a scoped rifle. Jake cringed as the man jammed home a magazine and steadied the rifle on the SUV’s hood. It was undoubtedly aimed at his head.

Snapping his eyes closed, Jake remained still. The bullet would either come, or it wouldn’t. But if his limp form appeared to offer no threat…  

Seconds passed. He imagined the sniper’s eyes studying him through the high-powered lens, the crosshairs shifting across his face. Jake tensed when he felt something crawl onto his outstretched hand. He fought the urge to twitch or swat it away. Instead, he concentrated on shallow breaths. He prayed that Francesca remained still.

She’d resisted his plan, knowing full well the deadly risk he was taking. But in the end, she’d agreed. She would remain hidden until the Osprey arrived.

No matter what happened to Jake.

He’d restarted the jeep and driven up the steepest part of the incline at an angle that would ensure a rollover. He’d jumped out at the last second and then staged himself in his current position.

The insect skittered onto his forearm.
Tarantula? Scorpion?

The sound of additional vehicles penetrated Jake’s thoughts.
The trailing pickups.

Jake bit off a grimace as his carefully laid plan fell to pieces. He’d expected them to approach his prone form. That would have given him a chance to overcome them—especially if his enhanced reflexes didn’t fail him like they did at the ranch. Then he and Francesca could have fled in their SUV. Instead, the wary narcos had hesitated, waiting for backup.

Truck doors opened. More voices. Even through closed eyes Jake could imagine a dozen men jumping out with weapons in hand. He had no clue how in the hell he was going to escape this predicament. A part of him was tempted to rush for the AK-47 and dive for cover in the deep culvert just behind him. But the sniper would nail him before he took his second step.

Finally, a shout. “
Gringo
!”

Tiny claws hesitated on the tingling skin of his arm. Jake held his breath.

“If you are alive,” the voice said. “I suggest for your sake that you give us a sign.”

The man issued a sharp order. Jake heard the loud retort of the rifle at the same instant he felt the burning splatter of sand and pebbles scorch his torso. The high-powered round ricocheted off the road just inches behind him.

He flinched. His eyes opened in time to see a scorpion scurry away in the sand.

Exclamations from several of the distant men confirmed that they noticed Jake’s movement.

“The next bullet goes into your head,” the man shouted. Jake was certain it was the same man he’d taunted on video. What was it again that he’d said to him? Insults about his family and manhood… 

Oh, crap.

Jake rose slowly and took in the sight before him. Fifteen armed men. They moved forward.

Jake spotted a flicker of movement in the sky behind them.

**

“Uh, we’ve got a problem,” Kenny said as he maneuvered the UAV in for a closer look at the evac site.

He and Tony were seated at the Falcon console in the main cabin of the CV-22. They were enroute to Jake’s position. The rest of the exhausted group rested in the seats behind them. Lacey lay on her back across three seats. She’d suffered a mild concussion. Marshall placed a pillow under her head and stroked her hair. The children sat across from them, their feet pulled up beneath a shared blanket. Bradley and Max sat beside them. The dog perked up at the sound of Kenny’s voice.

“Jake and Francesca have company,” Kenny said. He switched the drone’s sensor from thermal to visual. “A dozen or more tangos closing in.”

“Dammit!” Tony said. He kept his voice low so as not to alert the others. “How long ’fore we’re there?”

“ETA eight minutes,” Kenny said.

“Hell, it’s gonna be over in eight seconds,” Tony whispered. “Use the drone. Blast ’em.”

“I can’t!” Kenny said in a hushed breath. He pointed to a lone figure huddled behind a large outcrop. “Francesca would be safe enough where she is here, but from our current launch angle, Jake’s well inside the missile’s blast radius.” 

“Doesn’t the drone have a Gatling?”

“No ammo. The live-fire exercise we set up for at Miramar was missiles-only.”

“Well, shit, man!” Tony said, more loudly than he intended. “We gotta do something!”

Marshall moved in behind the two men. “What’s going on?”

Kenny’s finger quickly panned the screen. “Bad guys, here. Jake, here. Francesca up in the rocks, here.” He tapped the keyboard and a transparent red oval representing a projected missile-blast radius appeared on the screen. Jake was inside the kill zone. “Can’t use air-to-ground missiles. And without the surgical strike capabilities of the Gatling gun—”

“Hold on,” Marshall interrupted. “What’s Jake doing with his hands?”

Kenny used the thumb knob on the drone’s joystick to zoom in on Jake’s face and raised hands. It appeared as if Jake was staring directly at the drone, his lips mouthing something while his hands repeated a pilot signal—the type used to communicate with a wingman when flying under radio silence.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” Kenny said.  He keyed the mike on his headset and reported to Cal. “Are you seeing this, boss?”

Chapter 44

The Sonoran Desert, Mexico

J
ake lifted his hands above his head. A glimmer of hope swelled within him as the tiny spec resolved itself into the manta-ray shape of one of Kenny’s stealth drones.

On my go
, he mouthed over and over as he watched the drone approach from behind the narcos. One hand repeated the subtle twin-fingers-forward hand signal that he knew Cal and Kenny would recognize.

The narcos approached in a line toward Jake. They were thirty paces away. They’d relaxed their weapons. The men were dressed in an assortment of mix-and-match gear that looked put together from an army surplus store. Most of them wore olive green fatigues but two were dressed in desert camo. They wore webbed belts with spare magazines and holsters…and tucked machetes. The blades looked dirty. Except for their leader, they were an ugly bunch, ideal candidates for a low-budget action flick, Jake thought. But the bullets in their weapons were real enough. And they looked angry.

Their leader walked casually in the center of the line. His men were careful not to outpace him. In contrast, he was dressed as if he were on his way to a business meeting with a group of oil tycoons. His steel-gray suit shimmered under the midday sun. He stopped when he was five paces away and stared at Jake from behind reflective sunglasses. Except for a brief twitch of his pencil-thin mustache, his expression was unreadable.

It’s now or never, Jake thought, fighting down a surge of despair. He kept his eyes on the narcos. His index and middle fingers froze in the downward position of the signal.

The man removed a paisley scarf from his breast pocket and crouched to wipe the silver tips of his snakeskin boots. Satisfied, he rose to his feet. “So much dust,” he said. His English was perfect.

Jake’s lips moved double time.
On my go, on my go!
 

The narco noticed. “Prayers will not help,” he said. He removed his glasses, wrapped them in the scarf, and tucked them inside his suit. His dark eyes never left Jake’s. He nodded and the men on either side of him moved forward.

Jake edged backward, stopping just before he reached the deep culvert that ran along the base of the rocky incline. The two men grabbed his arms and twisted them behind his back—just as the Falcon wagged its wings in acknowledgment.

Jake’s chances for survival just moved from none to slim. He coiled his muscles.

**

“But it’s suicide!” Marshall said from over Kenny’s shoulder. “He’s sacrificing himself for Francesca.”

Kenny ignored the comment. He’d already argued the point over his headset with Cal. They’d both arrived at the same conclusion as Marshall. Still, they had no other choice but to trust their friend. If anyone could pull a rabbit out of a hat in this situation, it was Jake. They’d play their role according to his orders.

Behind Kenny, Tony stood shoulder to shoulder with Marshall, his eyes glued to the screen.

“It ain’t over ’til it’s over,” Tony said, resigned to watch Jake’s plan unfold.

Kenny flexed his fingers like a master pianist about to lay down an intense bit of Mozart. He wrapped one hand around the drone’s custom joystick and the other on the console keyboard.  Though the drone could be controlled from either device independently, he found it faster to use both in concert. He tapped a three-stroke command on the underside panel of the stick.

A computerized voice responded in his headset. “Missile system activated. Confirm weapons pop-out.”

He repeated the command that would open the seamless door on the underside of the drone’s fuselage and rotate the missile pod into firing position. The pod held four miniature missiles—two air-to-ground and two air-to-air.

“Pod in firing position,” the computer voice said.

Kenny adjusted the retical on the screen and locked the targeting computer on a point just behind the group of Mexicans spread out before Jake.

“Target lock. Confirm target lock.”

The need to input the commands twice was a necessary safeguard against accidental release. He repeated the command.

“Target locked.”

Kenny continued entering and confirming commands, both hands making smooth movements over the controls.

“Weapons hot.”

“Mini-Maverick selected.”

“Ready to fire.”

Kenny was in his element. He concentrated on the screen’s image, his finger on the trigger as he waited for Jake’s signal. The mini-Maverick was a “fire-and-forget,” air-to-ground missile that used a TV-imaging seeker for precision targeting. Though it employed a high-explosive, shape-charged warhead designed for use against tanks and other vehicles, in open terrain it would prove deadly for anyone within its blast radius. Jake was only twenty-feet from the targeted impact point.

**

Jake winced as the men on either side of him wrenched his arms further up his back, forcing him to rise to his toes before something snapped. The two drug soldiers seemed to be enjoying themselves. The rest of their gang had formed a semicircle in front of them, hungry to observe what was coming next.