Nothing. Bruce silently cursed. The cartridge was empty.
He rolled over and fumbled in his vest, pulling out a cartridge. He tried to slip the extra bullets into the automatic rifle without being heard; when the mechanism clicked he stopped, holding his breath, but the person continued to creep forward.
Bruce brought the rifle around. When he had the person back in his sights, he slowly squeezed.…
Cervante stopped. Moments before he had spotted the remnants of a bright yellow tarpaulin lying at the edge of the clearing. Were all the Americans on the helicopter? Had they all been killed in the crash, or were more hiding? And if they were hiding, then why weren’t they helping at the crash site?
It didn’t make sense to remain, to stay in the clearing — not with a rescue vehicle ready to whisk them away. Cervante convinced himself that there were no others.
He walked toward the helicopter.
“Fox One, Fox One — are you there? Come in Fox One.”
Catman tried to stretch out his body in the F-15 cockpit, tried to relive the stiffness. The moon lit up the clouds below them.
Skipper had failed to raise the helicopter. Contact had been abruptly broken when the Black Hawk landed for the pickup.
Vice President Adleman was still down there, and Assassin had to be with him.
“Maddog, check coordinates loaded into the LANTIRN. Come in from the south, and GIBs,” Skipper was referring to the “Guys-in-the-Back” seat, “Sing out those checkpoints. It’ll be tricky, but if you stay on the coordinates, you’ll do fine. I don’t want us splashed out on some mountaintop. I’ll try to take out the HPM weapons on the first pass. Check in.”
“Two,” said Revlon.
Catman clicked his mike. “Three.”
“All right. One’s in hot. Off to the right.”
Catman looked out the cockpit canopy. A mile in front of him, Skipper’s F-15E banked to the right and disappeared into the clouds. Another minute and Catman would be doing the same — screaming in from thirty-seven thousand feet, popping out of the cloud layer at three hundred feet, and taking out a target he had never seen.
And the whole time, relying on Robin to keep him from pranging it into the ground.
All for the team.
Man, he felt stoked.
Now he realized why he could never quit the Air Force and fly for the airlines, even at twice the pay.
Cervante moved slowly through the jungle. Soon … soon!
Bruce slowly squeezed the trigger. Was it Cervante, that madman about whom Pompano had spoken so bitterly?
The shrieks of pain coming from the burning helicopter turned to sobs. There was only one voice. And whoever was moving toward the helicopter had to be going to finish off the survivor. As the person got closer to the helicopter, Bruce noticed the figure walking with a limp. Stocky, squat features … it reminded Bruce of … Pompano!
Bruce struggled to a sitting position. “Pompano— Pompano! It’s me — Bruce!”
Pompano swung around, bringing his rifle barrel around with him.
“Bruce?” A faint voice came from behind him. Bruce turned — Yolanda stepped uncertainly from the jungle. “Bruce — you were not on the helicopter?”
“Yolanda — no!” Pompano waved her back into the foliage.
“Bruce!”
“Yolanda!” Pompano crouched and started toward the jungle; he looked around. “It is too dangerous!”
“Father …” She spoke to Pompano, but looked at Bruce.
Pompano hissed, “Yolanda!”
A shot rang out. Pompano whirled and dropped his rifle. He clutched at his arm. “Yolanda, get down!” He fell to his knees. Another shot …
Bruce swung his M-16 up and fired into the jungle. Yolanda threw herself onto the ground. Bruce fired over her.
Bullets peppered the area around Bruce.
Bruce shot off a few more rounds, fanning the jungle. Popping another cartridge into the M-16, he waited. The sniper was still out there.
Another moan came from the helicopter. Bruce wasn’t more than twenty yards away, but the sniper would surely try to stop him. He wet his lips. “Yolanda.” His voice was hoarse. “Yolanda, don’t answer. Stay where you are — I’m going to help your father.”
Bruce crawled backward. He aimed the M-16 at the jungle, keeping cover on the sniper.
He gritted his teeth from the pain. Sweat trickled into his eyes, mixing with the grime and mud, causing him to blink. He wiped a hand across his face.
As he approached Pompano, the sobbing from the helicopter grew louder.
Bruce had to hurry. The sniper could take potshots at Bruce all day long unless Bruce drew him out of the jungle. That was the only way he would have a chance of stopping him.
Sweat ran down Barguyo’s face. Moments earlier, bullets, hurled from unseen gargoyles in the clouds, had peppered the area around him. The bullets had spat up globs of mud as they struck the ground. He heard screams from his fellow Huks as they were hit from the burning metal raining from the sky.
But now the clearing was still from bullets, quiet. Except for a growing whine of jet noise, descending from the clouds.
Barguyo pressed his thumb against the HPM firing button. He pushed his head against the throbbing metal capacitor bank and wished that the invisible electromagnetic waves would take out the rest of the American force.
How well it had worked! Bringing down the vice president’s plane, that helicopter in the field … If only the HPM weapon would hold out for this final onslaught of American attackers …
Barguyo drew in a breath and strained to keep the firing button depressed. The sound of an American fighter jet grew louder and louder. It must be making a run toward the plantation. Barguyo pushed up from the control panel and tried to look through the clouds. Nothing. The sound increased. He wet his lips.
Cervante was nowhere to be seen. No other Huks were in sight. Had they deserted him? Had the remainder of the New People’s Army left the plantation to escape through the jungle? The thought sent a surge of fear though his body. Was he all alone, left here with the injured?
The memory of Cervante befriending him as a youngster raced through his mind. He had been all alone then, and Cervante had taken him in. Could he now stay here to repay the debt he owed him? Certainly Cervante was still around…?
A high-pitched whine caused Barguyo to jerk his head up. He tried to cry out, but his larynx couldn’t react fast enough to what he saw: A long, tubular missile was breaking through the clouds and racing straight for the HPM antenna. He couldn’t make out any of the missile’s features in the scant milliseconds left in his life. His final thoughts exploded in a mishmash of white light as the HPM weapon died with him.
Skipper watched the heads-up display, paying no attention to the swirling clouds outside the cockpit. As they drew closer, a popping sound grew in his earphones. The LANTIRN projected a rectangular target onto the display. The rectangle blinked furiously. Panther yammered in the backseat, “Pull up, pull up! We’re being jammed!”
Skipper kept on, oblivious of the warning. He focused on taking out the HPM weapon. He jabbed the bomb switch. “Maddog One, bombs away. Off to the right!”
A voice came instantly over the radio. “Maddog Two, in hot.”
Pop pop pop pop! As Skipper pulled back on the stick, the high-definition TV in the middle of the console exploded, sending glass flying into the heads-up display.
“Mayday, mayday!” Skipper still had hydraulics, but he couldn’t tell where he was going. Keep it cool, don’t panic! “Panther — what do you read?” She didn’t answer. “Panther? Panther?!” He flipped to the Guard frequency and fought to keep the fighter level, although without any instruments he couldn’t tell up from down. “Mayday, Mayday! Maddog One …”