Ethan hurled himself behind another tree and then peeked around to see the flames from the small fire growing rapidly in the turbulent downdraught of the helicopter’s blades as it blustered through the trees. The flames were already three feet high and spreading quickly to both the left and the right as they began marching toward the diesel generators. Ethan knew damned well that diesel was not flammable, but it did have a flashpoint and was combustible above a certain temperature. The flames were already crackling through the undergrowth and growing like some fearsome beast fed by the very power of the helicopter sent to kill them. The heat from the flames would also disguise his infrared signature and that of the fleeing civilians, rendering the soldier’s night vision goggles and infra — red sensors useless at the same time.
Ethan heard further shouts of alarm, this time male voices, deeper than the shrieks of panic and terror from the inhabitants of the commune. More gunshots crackled out, but this time they were not directed at Ethan and he heard returning fire from his left. Jesse’s shotgun.
Lopez.
Ethan moved without conscious thought, his back now covered by the advancing wall of flames that would be driving the troops away from him and forcing them to circle around in order to reach the centre of the compound. With the flames in his rear Ethan hurried forward and caught a glimpse or two of Lopez firing, the shotgun’s report differing from the distinctive rattle of the M–16s.
The forest was glowing now in the light of the ferociously growing fire, and Ethan suddenly saw the helicopters pull up and away from the forest as they sought to avoid fanning the flames any further, the pilots recognizing the danger to the troops on the ground. Ethan crouched lower and checked over his shoulder. The fire was now raging, driven this way and that by the turbulent downdraught from the helicopters, a twisting inferno that would be almost impossible to stop.
‘Get down, hands on your head!’
Ethan froze, staring ahead, and in the light of the fire he saw troops advancing toward him, their weapons trained on a figure huddling on its knees with hands in the air.
As Ethan watched, he recognized from his silhouette the shape of Stanley Meyer as the troops surrounded him, and then they were placing manacles around his wrists and dragging him away from the commune. Ethan searched for any sign of Lopez, suddenly fearful that she had been shot and killed and that the troops had advanced to find Meyer alone in the forest.
The soldiers dragged the old man away, hurrying in retreat from the growing flames behind Ethan, and then suddenly Ethan sensed motion behind him and he whirled to see four heavily armed troops looming behind him, two of them holding Lopez and Amber in savage grips.
‘On your feet!’ one of them growled, his black fatigues smouldering where burning foliage had become lodged in the folds.
Ethan got to his feet, his hands in the air as he confronted the soldiers.
‘Move!’ one of them snapped as he rammed the barrel of an M–16 under Lopez’s jaw, ‘or I’ll ventilate her skull right here and now!’
Ethan was about to turn when he saw a brief flare of light burst like a new — born star amid the flames behind the soldiers, and he ducked down as suddenly all noise and light vanished as a terrific blast ignited in the forest.
Ethan felt the shockwave from the blast hit him as the diesel generators exploded, the fearsome flames snarling through the forest igniting the fuel within them as the temperature reached its flashpoint.
Even as he ducked down he saw the blast hit the soldiers from behind, lifting them from their feet and hurling them to one side. He saw both Lopez and Amber still in the grasp of the soldiers and partially shielded from the impact of the blast as an immense fireball ripped through the trees and billowed up into the sky.
Ethan managed to get his hands over his ears to protect them from the raw fury of the detonation, but even so as he scrambled to his feet his head was dizzy and his legs felt weak as he struggled across to the nearest of the fallen soldiers before they were able to bring their weapons to bear upon him once more.
He saw the soldier look up at him and try to lift his M–16. Ethan brought one boot crashing down on the weapon to pin it against the forest floor as he lifted the other boot and smashed it down across the soldier’s face. The soldier’s head snapped to one side as he was plunged into unconsciousness, and Ethan grabbed the M–16 from his hands and turned it on the other fallen soldiers.
Cold fury gripped Ethan’s heart as he took aim and fired three controlled shots, each round puncturing the soldier’s skulls. These were not servants of the US government, these were mercenaries, killers for hire, probably former Special Forces and the kind of people who clearly had no problem killing civilians for their pay.
Lopez hauled herself to her feet and without prompting stumbled over to Amber and tried to help her up. Ethan turned and saw the entire forest filled with churning flames, felt the heat washing across him from the inferno as it grew. Somewhere beyond the darkened forest he could hear the helicopters waiting, holding clear of the blast zone as they prepared to land in the nearest clearing to allow the soldiers to regroup and climb aboard.
‘We need to move, fast!’ Ethan said as Amber struggled to her feet.
‘Where’s my father?’ Amber asked, clearly shaken by the blast and the speed and ferocity of the attack.
‘He’s gone, Amber,’ Ethan replied. ‘They got him. There’s nothing we can do, except get out of here before they come for us too.’
Ethan did not wait for a response, knowing that they didn’t have time to debate the situation, stranded in the middle of nowhere and with a hostile force within a short distance of where they stood. Clutching the M–16 rifle, Ethan turned and led the way through the darkened forest in the hopes that the raging inferno behind them would conceal their presence for long enough to make good their escape.
XXX
Stanley Meyer sat in silence as he watched the dawn break across distant hills, the sky above a wonderful eggshell blue and a light mist hovering in the air across the nearby forests. It looked so much like the hills near Clearwater.
So much had changed, in so little time, that he felt as though he were in some kind of dream, that he would wake up eventually in his own bed with his wife beside him, Amber asleep in her room, and their lives back to normal. He realized, with some melancholy, that he almost wished it were true and that he had never gotten himself into this mess.
The hotel in which he had been forced to spend the night was far more luxurious than anything he had ever believed possible. From the cold, hard, dark confines of a military helicopter he had been transferred into a luxury limousine and from there to the hotel. The bathroom had marble floors and a voice activated pad on the wall allowed him to open the curtains, turn on the lights, alter the air conditioning and do pretty much anything he wanted without ever having to lift a finger. On one wall was mounted a television larger than the dining table in his home, the screen concave to prevent any reflections from marring the perfect image it produced.
Stanley knew that there were soldiers outside his door, dressed in smart suits and with their weapons concealed. His door was locked from the outside and the entire top floor of the hotel booked out to conceal him from observation. Stanley reckoned that the proprietors of the hotel probably assumed that a rock star was staying incognito upstairs, or perhaps a movie idol or something, not a retired scientist considered a lunatic by most of his peers.