Cole surveyed the jungle below them through his night-vision glasses, searching the terrain for any sign that they might have company. He wasn’t completely satisfied when he saw nothing. His gut was telling him that it had been way too easy and that was always a bad sign.
Particularly when he knew from their first fly over that there was an encampment of guerrillas less than ten clicks from the site where the spy sat had gone down. It had to have sounded like a 747 coming down considering the amount of jungle the damned thing had cleared. It bothered the shit out of him that they hadn’t seen any sign that the racket had stirred up the guerrillas.
Shaking his uneasiness, he patted the pilot on the back and signaled for him to drop the stealth chopper lower. They had a hell of a job ahead of them. The quicker they could clean up and hump it to the coast with the debris, the better.
Signaling his best men— Corporal Gabriel ‘Hawk’ Hawkins, Lance Corporal Maurice ‘Beau’ Beauregard, and PFC Remy Cavanaugh to take point—he killed the light and checked his harness one last time as they bailed from the chopper and repelled to the ground. The minute they passed the halfway mark, the next wave bailed from the chopper.
Staff Sergeant Cole MacIntyre, Mac to his men, surveyed the perimeter one last time before he hooked up and leapt from the chopper, noting that the other chopper had already dropped its load on the other side of the clearing and begun to peel away.
“See ya when ya get back to base,” the co-pilot said.
Nodding, Mac gave him a thumbs up and leapt out.
As many times as he’d repelled from a chopper, it still gave him a rush. He welcomed it, scanning the jungle with his heightened senses as he dropped. The men had already begun laying out a grid when he hit the ground. Issuing a low, warbling whistle, he signaled to the men designated to keep watch to take their positions and then moved to the other men, urging them to form small groups and begin scouring the broken brush for pieces.
It wasn’t his job to question his orders, but he sure as shit couldn’t figure out why the hell it made any difference if they left a little debris as long as they made sure they got everything important. That was the order, though, and he had the men search each grid in pairs for the tiniest scraps of what was left of the spy satellite that had mysteriously dropped from orbit and crashed in the jungle. They started at all four sides of the grid, worked their way to the center and then crossed, working outward again.
Mac checked his watch when they reached the halfway point, cursed under his breath, and surveyed the jungle around them, listening intently.
He doubted there was a fucking piece of the son-of-a-bitch more than an inch square. It had still been smoldering when it hit the ground and churned up the jungle floor and he knew most of it had to have burned on re-entry. Orders were orders, though.
Not a centimeter was to be left that might be identified. The bigwigs didn’t want to have
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to apologize for dropping roughly a half-ton of spy equipment in their neighbors’
backyard when they weren’t on the best of terms with them to start with.
Twenty minutes passed. The men finally reached the outer edge across from where they’d begun. He strode to check their discoveries. Garbage! Shit! He couldn’t tell from looking at it whether it looked like it might’ve once been an entire satellite or not. Just to be on the safe side, he had the men fan out and walk a line on either side of the grid that had been laid out.
A half dozen of the men returned carrying bits of the satellite that had been thrown from the main impact site into the jungle. It didn’t make him feel any better, but they’d already spent nearly an hour searching. If the guerrillas weren’t dead or stone deaf and blind besides, they could be breathing down their necks any minute.
He uttered another warble, the signal to recall the men, and checked his map and compass heading as they formed up. Disgust settled in his gut when he saw the awkward bundles that had been gathered up.
Trust command to overlook the fact that they were going to be slogging through heavy jungle! He hesitated, but they were going to have problems lugging such awkward bundles at best. At worst, they were going to be sitting ducks if they got into a firefight.
Striding to the two squads that had formed up, he told the men to remove anything non-essential from their packs and divide the debris between them. The men gaped at him, no surprise since they hadn’t actually brought anything non-essential with them, but they fell to emptying their packs when he set his own down, tossed out his emergency supplies—everything but his weapons and ammunition—and began stuffing as much of the debris as he could into his pack.
His pack was heavy as a son-of-bitch when he slung on his back again, but he still felt better for having divided the load. He signaled for the men to move out, designating Rider, Mullins, and Mercer to take point and ordering Beau, Hawk, and Cavanaugh to guard their rear.
They hadn’t been humping it to the coast more than ten or fifteen minutes where their pick up awaited them, he hoped, when the men guarding the rear passed the word up that they had company moving in from the east. He didn’t have to encourage the men to move faster. Nobody wanted to tangle with guerrillas in such an indefensible position.
Waiting until most of the two squads had passed, he tapped the last three on the shoulder. They dropped back, joining him, Beau, Hawk, and Cavanaugh.
“Want me to get around them and get a head count, Sarg?” Hawk volunteered.
Mac considered it and dismissed it. “The orders are to get this shit out of here—
no matter what—and that means every scrap of it. We stick together. No shooting unless they get too close. We’re still a good ten clicks from the pickup.”
Nodding, the men paced themselves, trailing the rest of the two squads.
Sweat, from the humidity, the rough terrain, and nerves began to trickle between Mac’s shoulder blades, from his brow and into his eyes, and down his belly and into his crotch, adding to the misery of biting insects. The itch and sting was maddening. He felt as if fire ants were crawling over him, but he was so tense with expectation of a barrage of bullets that it wasn’t nearly as hard keeping his focus, despite the irritants, as it would have been otherwise. By his reckoning, they were still five clicks from the pickup when a shot cracked through the jungle like thunder.
He hit the dirt and scrambled on his belly across the ground and over a fallen tree.
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The other men with him rolled over it in a tide, searching the jungle around them.
“Anybody catch the direction that came from?”
Beau pointed. “I caught a flash just to the left of that palm.”
There was another flash and bark splintered from the tree beside the group. They raised their rifles, peppering the site and directly to either side of it. A cry pinpointed at least one hit even as a barrage of bullets zinged back in their direction. It was no part of Mac’s plan to get surrounded or pinned down and left.
They traded gunfire with the guerrillas for a few more minutes and then he signaled half the men to fall back and take a new position. They rotated. When the first group found positions and began returning fire, he and the remaining men fell back, passing the first group and finding positions to their rear.
Mac lost track of the time and that worried him. Their pickup could wait just so long without endangering the entire mission. As valuable as what they carrying was, they were still liable to arrive at the beach and discover their ride was gone and they were trapped.
They began moving a little faster, picking off as many of the enemy as they could before dropping back each time but with the best will in the world Mac couldn’t convince himself that the numbers were dwindling as fast as reinforcements were coming from the rear.
He finally ordered a full retreat when he thought they must be within a click of their pickup point. He could hear the crash of the surf on the shoreline. Reloading, they switched from sporadic fire to fully automatic, cutting a swath through the jungle growth and then ducking and running at a half crouch before the guerrillas had a chance to return fire.
They burst from the jungle and onto the beach, whipped a quick look around for the boat and charged toward it. Bullets kicked up sand all over them before they’d covered half the distance and he, Beau, Hawk, and Cavanaugh hit the beach while the others made a run for it, laying down a heavy fire to hold the guerrillas back.
Mac felt as if he’d taken cover in an ant bed. Something was sure as fuck crawling all over him and stinging the shit out of him! The moment he heard friendly fire behind him, he rolled and began crawling frantically for the boat, which had already been shoved from the beach.
The gunfire from both directions was nearly deafening when he and the other men scrambled into the water to swim for it and the night air was filled with unholy screams of pain and fear—and roars of fury that had lost any semblance of humanity. Rage surged through him. The weariness that had been dragging at him vanished. He had to fight the urge to turn and attack.
Struggling against it, he plowed through the water toward the boat, almost surprised when he actually managed to catch up with it and grab a handhold on the side.
Instead of the helping hand he’d expected, a hand clamped onto his arm, nearly wrenching it out of the socket as he was jerked from the water like a ragdoll. The breath was punched from him as he hit the deck. Before he could recover, something slammed into him bodily.
The rage that had gripped him before exploded. He heaved the man off of him, tearing at him with teeth and nails. In some distant corner of his mind, he was aware of horror at his own actions, but he had no control. It was as if someone else, or some
thing
,
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had invaded his body and taken control.
The pickup craft had become a seething mass of heaving, struggling bodies.
Animalistic growls, grunts, and roars filled the air in a cacophony of deafening sound that made his blood surge in his veins.
“Mayday! Mayday! We’re under attack! The men! Oh my god! Things!
Things! Mayday!”
The voice of the man screaming for help over the radio cut off abruptly. Mac flared his nostrils as the smell of fresh blood filled his lungs. Sucking in a deep breath, he launched a final blow at his opponent and looked around for another.
His ears pricked at the sound of a chopper overhead, swooping low, and he tipped his head back, uttering a bellowed challenge at the men he could smell on it, the fear he could smell.
Crouching low, maddened by the smells, he sprang upward, launching himself into the air. He managed to catch a hold on a runner and lifted his head to glare at the white-faced man staring down at him. Even as he heaved his body up to launch himself inside, however, the man shook his paralysis and fired. He grunted as the slugs slammed into his chest and shoulder, trying to ignore the fire running through him and grasp the runner with his other hand.
The man fired again. The bullet slamming into him broke Mac’s hold and he felt himself falling. He blacked out when he hit the water below him.
* * * *
Sylvie’s stomach was cramping with nerves and she had to focus to keep from hyperventilating. She’d told herself that she could play it cool. She thought she’d done well considering she’d never done anything illegal in her life and certainly nothing of this magnitude—which
might
be construed as treason. Although why the government might view it that way was beyond her! So
they
had a longstanding grudge against Cuba! She didn’t see why that had to apply to everybody, especially when the Cuban government had offered medical treatment to the people her friends had brought down. She completely agreed with the views of the group she’d joined. It had actually sounded like a very noble cause, potentially exciting and daring, especially to someone like her who’d never taken any kind of risks before in her life. Talk was cheap. It was the people who took a stand and took action that made a difference and she’d wanted to be one of those people.
She’d been flattered when they’d approached her about borrowing her stepfather’s boat and making the pickup—gung ho to do her part. It wasn’t as if she had to take any real risks like the others were doing. All she had to do was anchor the boat outside Cuban waters and wait.
She’d waited all day. She’d slathered enough suntan lotion on her skin to float the boat to keep from turning into crispy critters Sylvie while she pretended to sunbathe
… and waited, and waited some more until the sun had dipped toward the horizon and she’d realized she was going to be moon bathing before much longer.
She could still play it cool. She was just going to have to think of another reason for her prolonged stay at anchor so close to Cuba. She’d almost convinced herself she was going to carry this off … until she heard the blare of the klaxons.
Cold terror swept over her like a rogue wave the moment the damned thing cut loose and she nearly jumped out of her skin.
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She settled back on the towel she’d spread on the forward deck of her stepfather’s tiny yacht, squeezing her eyes closed and willing herself to relax. “Keep your head, Sylvie! And keep your cool! You aren’t doing anything wrong. You’re just down in the Caribbean with some friends who are down below scuba diving!
“And why the
fuck
they aren’t back yet when the damned sun is already setting is a mystery to me!”
The music she’d been playing, partly as a ‘prop’ and partly in the hope that it would help her focus on anything except what she was actually doing anchored less than a mile beyond Cuban waters wasn’t loud enough to completely drown out the sounds of mad activity that accompanied the alarm, unfortunately. After lying for several moments with her ears pricked to pick up the escalating sounds around her, she finally decided to try for a casual roll onto her belly.
She nearly swallowed her tongue when she saw what was coming toward her.
Military boats, bristling with guns and soldiers from Guantanamo!
“Oh shit! Oh fuck! Ohmigod! Breathe, Sylvie! Deep breath in, slowly release.”
She was so paralyzed with sheer terror that her brain was sluggish but eventually it occurred to her that there was nothing ‘natural’ about continuing to sunbathe when it looked like half the base was coming straight toward her. She sat up then and glanced around her at the sea, hoping against hope that she’d see another ship or ships that was the focus of the military vessels steaming toward her.
She didn’t see a ship but as she completed the circuit of her search, she saw what looked like dozens of men plowing through the water—
swimming
and trying to outrun the boats!
She leapt to her feet in a blind panic when her shocked brain finally connected three little words—Claxton—Escapees—Military. She forgot all about trying to play the cool, unconcerned vacationer minding her own business. Leaping from the deck, she charged toward the pilot deck, slammed her hand down on the anchor retractor button, and started the engine.
The wet smack of bodies tumbling on the deck made her hair stand on end. She threw a panicked glance behind her and saw that she hadn’t imagined it, men, mostly naked and with the setting sun gleaming on their water slickened skin, were pouring over her bows. She slapped a hand over her mouth to muffle the scream that rose in her throat. Despite her efforts, though, the men who’d bounded onto her deck swiveled their heads in her direction instantly like pointers.
Throwing her hands out, she screamed in earnest, looking wildly around for a weapon or some place to run. There
was
no place and the urge to hide, she realized dimly, was probably useless. Just as it finally dawned on her that her only option was to bail out of the boat and let them have it, the men, who’d seemed almost as frozen with indecision as she was, charged toward her.
There was only one way on or off the pilot deck. She had to charge straight toward the men coming at her. The hope that she could outrun them, reach the side of the boat, and leap off was dashed when the man in the lead, a wild-eyed black haired devil built like a tank, slammed into her, manacling his hands around her arms like titanium cuffs. Gunfire exploded around them in almost the same instant. Splinters of wood flew from the deck in every direction. The man who’d grabbed her hit the deck in response, on top of her.
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Shock prevented her from feeling any pain at all for several seconds but nothing shielded her from the collapse of her lungs beneath his weight. A grunt was forced from her.
“Get us the fuck out of here, Hawk!” the man on top of her bellowed, deafening her.
They rolled over as the boat shot forward in a wide arc. The man who’d tackled her leapt to his feet anyway, scanned the deck in an all encompassing glance, and scooped her up, running at a half crouch across the deck and leaping through the open hatch.
Dangling from one of his arms like a ragdoll, Sylvie grunted again when they landed, still too stunned to focus on anything but trying to catch her breath. After quickly scanning the tiny main cabin, he released her. She promptly landed with a thump on the floor. “You hurt?”
Sylvie looked up at his face owl-eyed.
“Are you hurt?” he demanded impatiently.
She was beginning to feel like every bone in her body had been crushed or mangled. Before she could summon speech, though, he ran his hands over her.
Apparently satisfied when he didn’t see any blood or find any holes, he surged upright.
“Stay put if you don’t want your head blown off.”
Sylvie managed a shaky nod, but he didn’t even wait to see it. He threw the warning at her as turned away and bounded up the ladder to the deck. Sylvie managed a squeak of terror as another barrage of bullets cut through the side of the boat. A shiver skated through her. Within a few moments, she was shaking so badly her teeth were chattering. She drew up into a tight ball, trying to conserve what little warmth she had, but it wasn’t nearly enough when she wasn’t wearing anything but a bikini that wasn’t much more than a couple of postage stamps joined together with strings.
She’d figured it might be a good distraction if anyone happened to get nosey enough to investigate what she was doing.
There were at least two dozen hard faced, mostly naked men—soldiers—prison escapees—on the boat with her at the moment, though, and drawing their attention was the last thing she wanted. Easing up cautiously, she glanced around to get her bearings in the darkening cabin. Spare bedding was stored beneath the benches that formed a dining booth during the day and made up into a queen-sized bed at night. She slithered across the floor on her belly, her ears pricked for any sound that might indicate they could hear her. When she reached the bench, she eased the seat up and levered herself up high enough to peer inside. It was too dark by now to really see anything, but she remembered that the bedding only took up a little over half the space.
After darting a quick glance toward the stairs, she climbed in, burrowed as deeply under the folded covers and linens as she could and slowly lowered the seat again. It was a snug fit with her body mass added to the contents, but it wouldn’t make much of a hiding place if she dumped the covers on the floor. In any case, she was freezing.
Thankfully, she began to warm up by degrees until the shivering finally stopped.
Her mind seemed completely detached from everything, however. Disconnected thoughts drifted through her mind between a mental inventory that catalogued everything on her that hurt. All things considered, though, the pain was minimal. She felt bruised all over, ached from being body slammed on the deck, but nothing hurt enough to suggest
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she was actually injured—as in, in need of medical attention.
The gunfire continued sporadically for a while and finally died altogether. Since the boat was still moving through the water at its top speed, bucking like a wild bronco, she decided that didn’t mean everybody up top was dead. In any case, she could hear them moving around, could hear snatches of conversation.
They were speaking English—with American accents.
That didn’t make any sense to her at all, but she couldn’t decide whether it really didn’t or if the terror she’d experienced had totally screwed her mind up. It didn’t seem to matter much. As frightened as she still was, as unreliable as her thought processes were, there were facts about her situation that were unavoidable and indisputable.
The men
had
to be escaped prisoners from Guantanamo.
The alarm had sounded and not only had boats been dispatched to recapture them, but they’d wanted the men back dead or alive and clearly hadn’t cared which.