Scarlet heard the banter but then the gun was knocked from her hand and a hard smack in the face brought her back to the fight. Inwardly she cursed herself for losing her focus at such a time. Getting old, you silly cow, she thought, and spat a wad of blood out on the gravel.
She sidestepped the thug and after hooking her foot around his lower leg she twisted him to the ground and landed a lethal dim mak or death-point strike to the pressure point on his right temple. With the threat neutralized she spun around to see more men streaming out of the guardhouse, this time armed with handguns and one of them even had what looked like a Colt Tactical Carbine.
Reaper grabbed the muzzle of the Colt and wrenched it from the man’s hands with so much force it tore his finger off inside the trigger guard. Before the screams even started the French mercenary spun the carbine around and rammed the stock assembly into his face. The man fell backwards with two split lips and a mouthful of broken teeth, crashing unconscious on the gravel with a heavy smacking sound.
“He’ll need some ice on that if he wakes up.”
“Keep fighting!” Scarlet yelled.
Reaper searched for a way to reach the guardroom — the last hiding place of the slave-drivers who had worked these people almost to death. He saw a short path leading up through a low line of bushes.
“This way!” he screamed, waving his arm for the others to move forward and moments later they finally smashed their way into the guardroom. This was the last line of defense and they had nearly broken through it, but it was too early to celebrate.
Chaos reigned, and now as they moved through the guardhouse, they came under a renewed attack as the final wave of goons rushed them. Guns were fired, bullets flew and a man in a red bandana loosed a savage salvo of punches at Jack Camacho.
Reaper stormed forward to help him when a large man built like a concrete gym smashed open a door, padded into the guardroom and grabbed the French legionnaire by the neck.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Lea’s spirit of adventure disappeared when a poison dart tore through the air and thumped into the trunk of a sapote tree twelve inches from her face. “Don’t you give me that spirit of adventure crap!” she said, somehow managing to resist the urge to slap him. “That thing nearly killed me!”
“Would you have preferred the bull sharks?”
“Well…”
“Into the jungle, now!”
Hawke grabbed her wrist and pulled her into the jungle, almost heaving her from her feet as he went. He pounded through the undergrowth as fast as he could, and her view was reduced to a blur as his broad shoulders powered through the tropical foliage ahead of them. Somewhere behind her she could hear the shouts and screams of Wade’s Jaguar Knights as they climbed off their boat and pushed into the jungle on the trail of their prey.
Lea ran faster to keep up with him, feeling his powerful arm pulling on her wrist, urging her forward. She sensed the terrible danger looming behind her — half a dozen men armed with poison darts and blow pipes. They were hunting them like this as part of Wade’s sick Aztec fantasies — playing with their lives simply to fulfil the monstrous delusions of an insane maniac. Her heart pounded from the thrill of the chase as the adrenalin coursed through her body and drove her ever onwards through the sultry vegetation.
Above her head a macaw cried out, started by their heavy footfall as they fled from the self-styled Jaguar Knights. Then a hollow, ghost-like shriek she didn’t recognize — some unknown creature deep in the jungle… It was followed by more cries and whoops as the men closed in on them. A second later she felt a dart whistle past her head and puncture a sapodilla leaf brushing her cheek.
“Jeaaaaus, that was close!”
Hawke glanced over his shoulder. “Are you all right?”
“Me?” She panted hard with the effort of the chase. “I’m just absolutely… bloody… fantastic, Joe Hawke. Nothing I like better than this sorta thing.”
“Good stuff. Keep it up.”
The look she gave him went unseen. He was ahead of her and had released her hand now in order to clear much thicker vegetation out of their path, but behind them the Jaguars drew ever closer.
“Is that a clearing up ahead I can see?”
“Nope.”
“Joe, they’re almost here.”
Hawke peered over her head along the path they had forged through the undergrowth. “Good.”
“Good?!”
“Sure — look ahead — that clearing you thought you saw is actually a waterfall.”
Lea followed his hand and saw the far bank of a ravine — high, steep rocks, wet and black with water vapor. “This time, please God, let this man be joking.”
“Sorry, but no. Fancy a swim?”
Lea peered over the edge of the waterfall. “Joe, it must be a hundred feet down!”
“No way.”
“You think?”
“I’d say a hundred and fifty.”
She looked at him and bit her tongue. “The guy in the front’s almost here.”
“Stay where you are and I’ll surprise him.”
“Not this again! Why can’t you be the bait for once?”
Then the man who had been leading the hunt reached them. He burst out of the jungle with the blow pipe in his hand and looked almost surprised to see Lea standing right in front of him.
She raised her hands. “Please… I’m unarmed.”
He wiped the sweat from his stubbly face and offered an uncertain grin. “Maybe I have my fun with you first…”
“Ya startin’ on me, ya skanger?”
He looked confused, and then raised the blow pipe to his mouth.
Hawke stepped out of the tree line and rammed the pipe into the back of the man’s mouth. He staggered back coughing and spitting blood, and in his agony he sucked in and swallowed the dart. His eyes widened with terror when he realised what he had done.
Hawke left nothing to chance, and after wrenching the pipe from his mouth he hit him with all the strength he could muster. It was a big, solid jab right in the middle of his face and it exploded his nose as if it were made of modelling clay. The man flew off his feet and smashed down into the jungle floor, catching the roots of a frangipani tree as he landed.
“Layabout,” he said and dusted the blood and dirt from his hands.
Lea rolled her eyes. “So what now?”
“Want to take a shower together?”
She smiled at him. “Don’t mind if I do!”
“Just what I was hoping you’d say.”
Hawke held her hand and they moved to the cliff edge. Behind them they heard the other men thundering closer through the jungle. Everyday with Hawke was a day she felt stronger, and this was no exception. But none of that changed the fact he could be a real mad bastard sometimes.
He looked at her and winked.
This was one of those times.
Lea closed her eyes as they leaped off the edge of the cliff. She felt the warm, humid air rush over her as she tumbled down into the abyss inside the raging waterfall. Now she felt Hawke’s hand slip from hers and she was alone, falling through the void, racing toward the white water turmoil far below.
Reaper reacted in a heartbeat, employing a speedy taekwondo collar-grab defense to knock the man’s arms away and then picked him up by his waistband and collar before piling him through a closed door like a battering ram. The man smashed face-first into a smooth floor of Talavera ceramic tiles and burst open his nose and lips with the force of the landing.
Behind him, Camacho was making good progress against the man with the red bandana around his neck. The former CIA man was a force to be reckoned with, but his bulk slowed him down if a fight went on too long, and Scarlet feared this is what was happening now as Bandana danced around him with a flick-knife in his hand.