While three of the Spanish rocketmen stayed with the wounded pilot, Hunter and Sir Neil took the three others and slowly worked their way down to the roadside. A number of empty wine bottles lay about their camp, a clue to why the crew was sleeping so soundly.
“Looks like they had a bit of a party last night,” Sir Neil whispered to Hunter as they closed in on the truck. “Perhaps they’re eunuchs too and can only get what they are looking for in the old grape, what?”
Hunter had to laugh at the Englishman. Swaggering, swashbuckling — that was Sir Neil. Christ, they’d been lost out in the Sardinian wilderness for a day and a half, and Sir Neil looked as if he had just done nothing more strenuous than giving his polo pony a morning workout. His uniform was still neatly pressed, his beret adjusted on his head at the correct angle. His boots were even spit-shined. The ever-present cigarette and holder completed the scene. Hunter shook his head. He had come to greatly admire Sir Neil. The Brit reminded him very much of both Seth and Dave Jones — the Air Force officers who were Hunter’s mentors. Yes, the Jones boys would have liked Sir Neil. Brave, professional, great sense of humor, as well as a great sense of purpose.
Yes, Hunter told himself once again, only an Englishman could have talked him into this adventure.
Hunter turned to the Spanish rocketeers and gave a hand signal which indicated that they would simply knock out the sleeping soldiers. Killing them wouldn’t be necessary. Then Hunter gave the signal to move out.
They crept up on the side of the road and quietly broke into two groups. Hunter and two Spaniards moved towards the Sardinians’ encampment; Sir Neil and the other rocketeer would check out the truck itself.
Hunter and his partners improvised a system for knocking out the sleeping soldiers. One Spaniard would shake the man awake, while Hunter held his hand over the victim’s mouth. The third rocketeer would hit the man square on the head with a satchel he’d filled with rocks. Because the soldiers were sleeping off a drunk, none of them woke up unexpectedly as Hunter and his companions moved through the camp. Within a minute, they had put seven soldiers out of action.
Meanwhile, Sir Neil and the other Spaniard had crept up to the truck. While the Britisher was peeking in the cab, his partner checked underneath it. Finding nothing, Sir Neil and the Spaniard walked around to the rear of the truck.
With a flick of his hand, Sir Neil pulled open the back flap of the truck.
Behind it were two men, wide awake, manning a small-caliber machine gun. Sir Neil just caught a glimpse of the gunner’s finger pulling the trigger …
Three bullets caught the Englishman square in the shoulder and the chest. Another sliced through his scalp carrying off the beret in a burst of cloth, hair, and blood. Sir Neil dropped immediately. The stunned Spanish mercenary raised his gun, but too late, as he caught a full burst square in the face. His head nearly obliterated, the Spaniard stood upright for two long, spooky seconds before falling over onto Sir Neil’s crumpled form.
Hunter had seen the whole thing happen. Even now, as he and the two other rocketeers sprayed the back of the truck with gunfire, he felt a lump come up in his throat. Sir Neil was down, lifeless, covered in his own blood and that of the headless Spaniard.
He was up and running towards the truck immediately, at the same time yelling for the other rocketeers to bring the wounded pilot down from the hill. The gunfire would bring company. He knew they would have to make good their escape now.
Hunter reached the back of the truck and dragged the Spaniard’s body off Sir Neil. He turned the Englishman over and felt for a heartbeat or any signs of breathing. There were none. He stuck his hand down the man’s throat and cleared his passageway. Then he began giving him mouth to mouth resuscitation. He stopped and beat on the man’s heart.
“Come on, you Limey bastard,” Hunter said as he furiously pumped on the man’s chest. “We need you!”
By this time the other rocketeers had reached the truck and were loading on the wounded pilot. One Spaniard got behind the wheel and started the truck. Another helped Hunter load Sir Neil in the back.
“Go North!” Hunter yelled to the driver, who immediately pulled a five-point U-turn and gunned the truck’s accelerator. Within seconds they were roaring down the dusty road.
Somehow, bouncing along the road, Hunter had managed to raise a heartbeat in the seriously wounded Sir Neil. His breathing was irregular and he was losing a lot of blood, yet the Englishman was still alive.
They dressed his wounds as best they could, yet the plucky Brit was losing a lot of blood and getting whiter by the minute.
“The sea … ” Hunter said suddenly. “We’ve got to get him to the sea.”
Less than thirty minutes later they came upon a seaside villa. Its name was Casillino and, by the looks of it, it had once been a fancy, high-priced resort area.
But it wasn’t the expensive-looking hotels or the fancy yachts abandoned in the harbor that caught Hunter’s attention. It was the medium-sized freighter that was tied up to its pier.
“That’s our ticket home, boys,” he said.
But it wouldn’t be easy. As they approached the town, Hunter could clearly see that the entrance to the harbor area was guarded by Sardinians. He could also see several soldiers on the freighter itself.
“Okay,” he yelled up to the driver through the cab’s access window. “Just pretend like we are the guys who were supposed to be driving this truck.”
The driver nodded and headed straight through the abandoned town and right up to the main gate. Two soldiers were sitting in a guardhouse, and as soon as they saw the Spanish driver’s uniform, they knew something was amiss.
It didn’t matter. Hunter ripped a hole in the truck’s canvas siding and was spraying the guard hut with M-16 fire. The Spanish driver then hit the accelerator and the truck bolted into the harbor area.
“Head right for the ship!” Hunter yelled to the driver, while he reloaded his M-16. The driver spun the truck around and they were soon roaring down the dock going toward the freighter. They were beginning to take some return fire now but, judging by its intensity, Hunter determined there were only a dozen or so soldiers guarding the otherwise deserted resort docks.
They reached the ship and quickly piled out of the truck, taking pains not to unduly upset Sir Neil or the wounded pilot.
Hunter and the Spaniards shot their way up the gangplank, causing the soldiers who were guarding the ship to jump overboard instead of shooting it out with the wildmen from the truck.
But then Hunter saw that the force of Sardinians that had been tracking them for two days had just appeared at the far end of town.
“We need a diversion,” Hunter said to one of the rocketeers as soon as they were all aboard. Just as soon as he said it, he saw exactly what he needed. It was a fuel tank, not very large, but conveniently placed between the ship and the entrance to the docking area.
Using his M-16 on single-shot, he started peppering the fuel tank’s top ringer valve. After about a dozen shots, he had managed to start a small fire. That was all he needed.
With the rocketeers returning the guards’ fire and the two wounded members of the party safely put aboard, Hunter went about the task of trying to get the freighter underway. He knew some — but not much — about how to get a ship of this size moving. Luckily, the vessel was fairly modern and had a number of automatic start-up controls. It was also equipped with electronic start motors that revved the ship’s main screws and jump-started its main engines at the same time. What the hell, Hunter thought, he would simply drive the ship out of the harbor on these electric motors — no doubt burning them out in the process, but at least they’d be underway. He yelled to the Spaniards to cast off the lines. Then he pushed some buttons, turned some dials, and — to his surprise — the ship actually started to move.