“They’re heading for the road,” Lam said.
“What good will that do them?” Murdock asked.
The roar of a diesel engine came suddenly from somewhere directly ahead.
“The damn armored personnel carrier,” Murdock said.
“Shit. Our twenties ain’t gonna put a dent in that baby. What is it, one of ours they stole?”
“Probably one we sold to the Philippine Army and the rebels snatched it. What kind of main gun does it have?”
“Jaybird would know,” Lam said.
“Wrong,” their earpieces reported. “Jaybird doesn’t know. Not enough input. The U.S. has two or three types. Could have anything on it up to a forty-millimeter front gun. We’ve seen them before.”
“Yeah, the tracks,” Murdock said grinning. “And Lam and I both have two quarter-pound chunks of TNAZ.”
“Let’s go get it,” Lam said.
They plowed through, past, and over the jungle growth. They sensed that the machine was moving away from them, but not quickly. It couldn’t knock down the big trees. Evidently it had been driven in as close as they could get it to the old ranch house and parked.
“So, they must have a track back out of the heavy stuff,” Murdock said. “We find the track we can run it down. In this stuff they can’t make more than maybe ten miles an hour.”
It took them five minutes to catch up to the APC enough to find the wagon-wide track through the less-dense jungle. It had bulled its way in past some good-sized trees, and around them, flattening many smaller ones. Now going out was easy.
“Tracks,” Lam said, and took off on a sprint toward the sound of the diesel engine and the clanking of the tracks. They could see ahead fifty yards, and the rig wasn’t in sight.
At the end of the fifty, they slowed and looked around a bend in the trail. The vehicle, resembling a mini-tank, sat thirty yards down the trail, stopped for the moment. The heavy gun was aimed away from them, and they couldn’t estimate how large it was.
“Don’t want to know the size of that shooter,” Lam said. “Want him to keep it pointed the other way.”
“Any rear portholes or firing slots on these things?” Murdock asked.
“Don’t know, but we’ll find out.” Lam took off down the smashed-flat trail directly at the APC. He took out a quarter-pound of TNAZ and popped a timer/detonator in the soft puttylike explosive that was fifteen percent stronger than C-4 plastic.
Murdock did the same as they jogged forward. The big machine started to move ahead again, and they could see no firing slots in the rear. The APC could hold up to eight combat troops. Murdock hoped there weren’t that many inside this one.
The armored vehicle stopped suddenly, and a side door slid back and four armed rebels charged out of it. Murdock and Lam fired from the hip as they charged, one on each side of the cleared path, and dove into the jungle growth. The troops ahead fired on the run.
Murdock hit the ground, rolled, came up with the Bull Pup on the 20mm barrel, and fired one shot. He didn’t have time to laser it. The contact round hit a tree beside the APC and shattered the area with shrapnel. Lam got off a pair of three-round bursts and one rebel, not quite to cover, lifted higher, threw his weapon away, and staggered backward, then crumpled to the ground.
Murdock took more time, lasered a round on the side of the APC, and had an airburst right over it. He heard some screams, and the rig jolted forward. Murdock fired two contact rounds with the twenty, but both rounds exploded on the hard shell of the armored rig and did little damage. He wondered if the side door was still open. He lasered a round on the trunk of a tree just at the side of the vehicle, and watched it explode as the APC ground past.
Murdock took some return fire from at least one of the rebels still alive where they had run into the brush and vines. He sent another contact round into a tree at about where he had seen the rebels last, and watched it explode and shatter the area with deadly shards of metal.
“Can’t see him,” Lam said on the radio.
“He’s on my side,” Murdock said. “You’re free over there. Charge through the cover and try to catch that APC. I’ll move up and clear this area one way or the other and catch you.”
“Need any help out there?” Jaybird asked on the radio.
“Lots of it, but you’re too slow and too far away,” Lam said. He carried the ready-made bomb as he ran, making sure he hadn’t activated the detonator/timer when he rolled in the carpet of green growth.
Lam’s shout came over the radio a moment later.
“Look out, Murdock. He’s turned around and has his big gun pointing back our way, at you. Find a big tree to get behind it.”
Just as he finished talking, the long gun on the APC fired.
“That’s bigger than a damned forty,” Lam said, and he kept on charging through the heavy growth in cover as he moved to cut off the APC.
27
Murdock heard Lam’s shout on the radio, looked up, saw the big gun swinging around on the APC, and dove into the woods and scrambled for the largest tree he could see. He had just straightened up behind a mid-sized mahogany tree when the blast of the cannon went off. The round slammed into the tops of trees in front of his protection and detonated. Shrapnel blasted down into the greenery like jet-propelled hail, shredding shrubs and vines, stripping all the leaves off others, some of the steel fragments jolting into the trunk of the tree he stood behind.
“Got to be a forty at least,” Murdock told his radio.
“I’m moving up beside him in the cover,” Lam said. “Got to find a blind spot and get this joy-putty on his tracks. If we can get him dead in the water, we’ve got him.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Murdock said just before the APC gunner got off a second round that blasted into the trees again, this time detonating thirty yards behind Murdock, all of the shrapnel cascaded away from the SEAL.
“No fun getting shot at with one of those bastards,” Murdock said. “I can’t move ahead any, no trees big enough.”
“Almost there,” Lam said, panting now. “Give me another two minutes. He’s still stopped. Growth is thick here almost to the tracks. I’m on my belly working forward. Yeah, another minute.”
Murdock leaned around the tree, but he couldn’t see the APC. Too much jungle growth. For the first time he saw some coconut palms. They must grow in certain areas and not others. He knew they had to be in the lowlands. Probably because of somewhat warmer days.
Another round slammed overhead and exploded in the trees behind Murdock. Now he had some idea what the troops must feel like when they came under fire from the SEALs’ twenties.
Ahead, Lam squirmed another six feet and paused. Tougher going on your belly in this jungle. He just hoped he didn’t come cheek-to-jowl-to-fang with any of the poisonous snakes they said were local residents. He could see the vehicle ahead. Slightly to the left. He had to get there before it moved. He worked forward, and then he was there. The tracks were over his head. He pushed the chunk of powerful plastic explosive into the roller just where it picked up the track, and set the timer for fifteen seconds. Then he activated it and wormed back, lifted up, and ran through the jungle for fifty feet before he dove to the ground.
The explosion came moments later. A cracking, roaring that, even through the shield of jungle, jolted Lam where he lay. He turned and worked slowly back toward the APC, his Colt Carbine in his hands and ready to fire.
“Remember that thing has doors on both sides,” Murdock said on the Motorola. “If anyone inside goes out the far door, you won’t see him and neither will I.”