Show No Fear - By Marliss Melton Page 0,79
The ruggedness of the terrain and the thin mountain air left them straining and out of breath. It came as a great relief when they consulted the laptop and realized the microchip, and therefore Lucy, had ceased to move.
At last the SEALs were closing in on a fixed location—a remote crag standing twelve thousand feet above sea level.
Rather than feel relieved, Gus eyed the still, shadowy undergrowth with foreboding.
The jungle was too quiet. He had spent enough time in the rainforest to know that monkeys were the first to expose Special Forces trying to sneak unseen through the jungle. Perhaps it was the muggy humidity keeping them listless this morning. Rumbles of thunder portended an afternoon rain shower. High above the clouds, the fixed-wing Predator tracked their movements with the FLIR patches on their shoulders that distinguished them from the enemy. If worse came to worse, they could call upon the Predator to drop a missile or relay a request for reinforcements, even extraction.
Gus could not stop thinking that the enemy had questioned Lucy extensively by now. They would have had substantial time to beat her, rape her…
Another possibility made the hairs on his nape rise to stiff attention. He thumbed his mic. “Sir.”
“Go ahead,” panted the OIC, who tackled the rise several paces behind him.
“What if the hostiles don’t have her?”
“Come again?”
“I don’t know. I just have this feeling Lucy isn’t here.”
“Why wouldn’t she be here?” countered the lieutenant. “We’ve been following tracks for hours now.”
“No, sir. We’ve been following her microchip,” Gus corrected him. “What if they took it from her body in order to lure us here?”
The sudden, thundering report of a dozen assault rifles cut his question short.
Startled, Gus dove behind an earthen wall carved by rain-water and fired back, three rounds at a time, knowing he had thirty in his magazine.
Except he couldn’t see what the hell he was shooting at. There was nothing but leaves and trees and bushes looming over him. But the hidden shooters were marksmen, no question. Bullets pelted the ground right behind him, pinning him in his tenuous location.
Haiku, who’d been on point, was in a similar quandary. Crouched behind a fallen tree, he sought to return fire while keeping himself covered.
“Shit!” Gus raged, cursing his instincts for warning him too late.
A flash of movement caught his eye. Two figures slipped through the undergrowth flanking their left side. He fired at them and missed.
“Sir, they’re flanking left,” he warned. At least they couldn’t flank them on the right, where the earth dropped away into a steep ravine.
“Harley, head them off. Haiku, Atwater, can you fall back?”
“Negative, sir. They have us pinned,” Gus shouted, ducking as a rock, knocked out of the dirt, whistled past his ear.
“Use your grenades,” advised Luther. “Vinny, contact the Predator. Tell them ‘Danger close.’ We need support fire now, only don’t hit us!”
“Yes, sir!” Vinny called.
“Hold them on the ridge!” the OIC commanded, shooting his weapon over Gus’s head.
Easier said than done, Gus thought, using his teeth to tear the clip from the grenade he tossed. It was just a matter of time before he or Haiku got hit.
No sooner did that grim thought occur to him than a bullet flung Haiku onto his back, in plain sight of the shooters. They would have made mincemeat of him, if Gus hadn’t laid out a wall of fire, giving the point man time to drag himself to safety.
“Haiku took a hit, sir!” Gus informed his OIC.
“How bad is he?”
“I’ll live,” Haiku grated. Slamming a new magazine into his rifle, he glared uphill with the ferocity of a ninja and went back to firing.
“We can’t hold ’em off much longer, sir,” Gus warned.
“Predator estimates two minutes to strike,” Vinny cut in. “Haiku, you need me, man?”
“Sorry, can’t have company right now,” Haiku gritted. “Forgot to clean house.”
“I got some friends who’ll clean your house,” muttered Harley. In the next instant, cries of agony let them know he’d eliminated the left flank.
But then the Elite Guard retaliated, throwing grenades that made the ridge tremble and rained gobs of dirt on Gus’s helmet. Artillery from the ridge escalated, cutting swaths through the vegetation. The SEALs had nowhere to go but down into the ravine.
“Sir, avoid the ravine!” Gus warned as the memory of Buitre’s mine-laying flashed through his mind. “Mines. Mines!”
“Roger that, Gus. Missile incoming, ten seconds to impact. Fall back down the trail.”
No sooner had Luther spat out those directives than a high-pitched whistle announced the imminent arrival of