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Molokai Forest Reserve
Sunday, 9 May
1530 Local Time
Eight hours of heavy jungle hiking without sighting an identifiable landmark led Osterchuk to conclude they were lost as shit. He planted his butt against a tree, braced both hands on his knees, leaned over, and retched up a little bile then spat the taste out of his mouth. Dizziness swished through him, and blackness tickled the edges of his vision. He shook his head to clear it.
Gomer took a knee not far away, sucking down great gulps of air and drizzling a rainfall of sweat. The smaller man looked as worn-out and red-faced as Osterchuk felt. They had paused near a clearing filled with head-high grass, the stalks sharp as razors. Osterchuk already knew they were sharp because he and Gomer had flayed their way through a similar field earlier in the day, and he still carried the red stripes on his hands and face as evidence. This time, they would go around, by damn.
Osterchuk swiveled his head to get his bearings. The shooters at the overlook were somewhere way, way, way back there, he decided, and the main trail into the forest was somewhere way, way, way over that way, to their right. Maybe. Probably.
Ever since avoiding pursuit—or to put it more accurately, running away from the terrorists in a blind panic—he and Gomer had maintained the goal of returning to the rendezvous point where Yeager had said to meet back up. At some point, they’d made a wrong turn at Albuquerque and ended up into big goddamn middle of jack all. You bet.
The gunmen had not followed them. Maybe they had orders to hold their positions and turn back anyone trying to reach civilization. Osterchuk forced a weak chuckle. More likely, they’d seen two Mutt and Jeff geezers hightailing it for the woods and laughed themselves into convulsions. Anyroad, he and Gomer were as alone as two guys in the middle of a jillion acres of forest could be—Hansel and Gretel without a bread trail to follow.
Aw, by damn. Why’d I have to think of food?
Tok-tok-tok. At the sound, Osterchuk’s head snapped up. Gunfire. Close. He checked Gomer, nearly asking him if he’d heard that, but the deaf man stared into space, oblivious.
Tok-tok-tok-tok-tok-tok. The tempo of firing increased. There were at least two weapons, maybe more.
“Somebody’s havin’ themselves a little do-si-do, you betcha.”
Pinpointing distance and direction was tough, the way sounds bounced around the jungle. If he had to guess, he’d say the shooters were less than a mile away and somewhere ahead and to the right, at or near the ridgeline—about their ten o’clock position.
Osterchuk waved to get Gomer’s attention and motioned him closer. “At least two shooters,” he said into the man’s ear. He pointed with a bladed hand. “Over there. Automatic weapons. Sounds like AKs. Should we head that way, see what’s up?”
Pyle frowned and shook his head like a dog worrying a stick.
“Any idea which way to go?”
Pyle shrugged.
“What, you stop talking as well as hearing?” Osterchuk asked.
“Too tired to talk.”
“Roger that.” Osterchuk listened as gunfire sporadically rattled through the jungle. “Okay, then. Here’s my thinking. This is a goddamn island, right? We stay on any single bearing, we bound to hit water, hey?”
Gomer nodded.
Osterchuk undertook another survey of the surrounding mountains. There was the tall ridge to the right, which was probably—maybe—the ridge they’d paralleled when they’d been with Adventure Tours. To the left was nothing but goddamn jungle. Behind them was eight hours of uphill travel that he had no desire to retrace, ending with more gunmen lying in wait at the overlook.
“So I say we go due east. Path of least resistance. Take a bearing on the mountaintop over that way. See it?”
Another nod.
“Okay, then.” Osterchuk grunted and pushed off the tree. “Let’s go.”
Pyle shot him a thumbs-up and led off, walking point as he’d done most of the day. He skirted the razor-grass field and picked an easterly bearing on the far side, sliding through hip-deep ferns and ducking under floppy-leafed trees. Osterchuk was content to follow along as Gomer blazed the trail. The man was good at finding the easiest path and avoiding dead-end pockets of heavy, impassable brush.
The firing had died off, leaving behind sounds of a pristine forest. Twice since their run from death, Osterchuk had spotted deer, prime specimens he would have been proud to bring down on a hunt. He’d also caught a flash of a brown pig scuttling away into the forest. Squawky birds and buzzing insects infested the place, providing a natural soundtrack of background music.
He was marveling at a brilliantly colored butterfly when Gomer threw up a fist and froze. Osterchuk had to tap dance to keep from plowing into the smaller man’s back.
“What?” he hissed when he regained his balance.
Gomer pointed. A pair of boots, solid black, protruded from under the canopy of a low bush. Osterchuk touched Gomer on the shoulder and eased past him. Crouching low, he lifted the fronds.
Sprawled in a dead heap lay an Asian soldier dressed in black trousers, black uniform blouse, and black beret, exactly like the terrorists-slash-soldiers they had seen on the trail the day before. His automatic rifle lay near his hand. A lake of scarlet soaked the ground, watering the bush with the dead man’s blood. The toe of one boot had dug into the ground, carving a trough in the soil as if he’d spasmed in death. His throat had been cut from ear to ear.
Osterchuk touched the back of his hand to the dead man’s calf. “Still warm.”
Gomer lifted his chin in acknowledgment and pointed to a bare patch of red soil between the low bushes. Osterchuk duckwalked around the corpse to get a closer look. Footprints were impressed in the soil. They pointed almost due north, the same direction as the gunfire, and were small and rounded, with a zigzag pattern of the kind that he associated with cheap tennis shoes. Keds, maybe, or PF Flyers—though come to think on it, neither of those brands was cheap anymore. The only guy he knew who wore shoes like that was...
Osterchuk squinted at Gomer, who was haloed by the sun. “Winston. Does that look like Winston’s footprint?”
“Yup,” Gomer said in his overloud voice. “I’d say that’s Winston.”
Osterchuk groaned and rubbed the gritty overnight growth of beard on his cheeks.
He retrieved the AK-74, which, on closer inspection, he decided was some knockoff variant like the North Korean Type 88-1. Except for the sand sticking to it from having been dropped, the rifle showed the signs of meticulous care. The bolt slipped back in glassy-smooth perfection, and every moving part visible to the naked eye carried a faint glimmer of oil. Oiling a weapon required Goldilocks precision—not too much, not too little. Whoever the dead guy had been, he knew how to care for his weapon.
Osterchuk liked a well-tended weapon. He dropped the magazine and cleared the breech then checked the bore for obstructions and found none. He reloaded and chambered a fresh round. Meanwhile, Gomer stripped the corpse of its spare ammo harness, which he handed to Osterchuk. He had also found a pistol in a hip holster when he rolled the man over. At first glance, it looked like a Czech CZ 75, but a closer inspection revealed it to be a North Korean copy called the Baek-Du San.
Osterchuk handed the sidearm back to Gomer after the man had buckled the holster and ammo pouches around his waist. Gomer checked the chamber, thumbed the decocker, and holstered the pistol. The expression on his face mirrored Osterchuk’s own feelings.
“We going after Winston?” Osterchuk asked.
Gomer nodded once, a quick jerk of his head.
“Well, let’s go, then.”
#
MOLOKAI FOREST RESERVE
Sunday, 9 May
1540 Local
And then there were three.
Yeager studied the man he’d just shot at a distance of over one hundred yards. The body remained motionless. Considering he’d used iron sights on a rifle he didn’t know—shooting on a downhill slope while panting like a marathoner carrying a bus—Yeager allowed as how that was a hell of a shot.
He hunkered behind a natural breastwork of stubby palms and jutting stones halfway up a damn steep hill. Aside from his hiding spot, the hill sported almost no cover. Sometime around noon, while Yeager had led the pursuit farther north, the terrain changed from deep tropics to tall hills covered in a carpet of knee-high brush and dotted with the rare outcropping of trees.
And the hills were a stone bitch to climb. Yeager had given up seconds ahead of what felt like his heart exploding, and he’d tumbled into the one spot of cover he could find. And it was a close thing, too, because the point man had appeared at the bottom of the hill and peppered the surrounding palms with controlled bursts of automatic-rifle fire. The guy had charged up the hill without waiting for his buddies to provide covering fire. He must have either been tired of the chase and trying to end it or gotten too excited.
“Now look at you, son,” Yeager told the distant body with sadness, though not regret. “There ain’t no do-over for stupid out here.”
Where were the other three? That was the question. Of the six, Yeager had dropped one at the ravine, and another had fallen to his second ambush—which had nearly been his last, as the others had flanked him and damn near pinned him with covering fire before he vacated the kill zone. And this one made number three. He was no math major, but he figured there were three left.
“Come on, boys,” he muttered. “I’m tired of running. Now’s the time.”
Yeager settled into a prone position and struggled to get his breathing under control. The elevation challenged his Texas-acclimatized lungs, and a headache threatened to clamp down on his forehead from lack of oxygen. His heart pounded as well, sending miniature tremors through his hands. These transmitted to the rifle, affecting his aim. It was a wonder he’d hit the man coming up the hill.
The day had turned into everything a visitor to paradise could wish for. High sixties, low seventies. Cloudless, crisp blue sky. A mild breeze flitted with through the greenery and carried a scent of tropical flowers along with a faint tinge of salty sea.
A great day to die. Yeager banished the thought with a grunt. Aloud, he said, “A great day for them to die.”
At the base of the hill, shadows moved just past the edge of the jungle growth. Ferns stirred in ways not moved by the wind. Company had finally arrived. Yeager sighted on the moving brush but held his fire. No reason to give away his position unless he had a decent shot. Plus, throwing bullets into an unseen target went against the grain. Winston Pettigrew was out there somewhere, and Yeager would never forgive himself if he shot the old man by mistake.
Poor guy. The man was seventy-something years old and having to endure sleeping rough, no food, limited water, and being chased by armed terrorists. That would be tough on anybody, but for an old man, it would be pure hell.
A black-clad commando stepped into view at the edge of the jungle. He stood motionless, looking up the hill. Trying to draw fire to pinpoint my location?
“You’re either very stupid or very brave.” Yeager settled his sight picture, adjusted down for the slope, and squeezed off a shot. Dirt exploded three feet in front of the man, and he dived back into cover. Yeager winced. He should have waited and let them come closer.
“Dumbass,” Yeager berated himself. “Hurry carefully.”
And now it was time to play Alamo. They had Yeager pinned. There was no escape uphill until nightfall. One guy could keep him ducking with covering fire while the other two flanked him and came at him from different directions.
Movement flickered, first left, then right. Too fast to react to. The commandos blurred from the forest and dived into the tall foliage coating the hillside. Yeager had no shot, and the enemy had disappeared. Instead of alternating between fire and movement, it appeared that they planned to advance under cover of the tall grass.
Where is the third guy?
Yeager risked a pair of single shots into the moving brush where he thought the left-hand flanker was located, firing out of frustration, hoping for a lucky hit. It would be nice if he could draw some return fire from the third man and spot his position. Nothing happened other than him chopping down some leafy greenery. Fronds stirred in the breeze, making it difficult to follow the movement of the commandos, who remained belly down and under cover. They advanced sporadically, keeping their movements random, leaving no straight line for Yeager to track.
He squirmed into a new position, sliding around a shaggy palm-like tree and using its bulk to protect his right flank. The ground cooled his stomach. Yeager braced his legs against the earth, solidifying his shooting stance, molding himself into the ground. Misalignment would lead to discomfort, which would lead to awkwardness, which would translate to missed shots.
With no bipod, Yeager supported the rifle’s foregrip with his left hand, his elbow in the dirt, anchored bone to ground the way a Marine sniper had once showed him. When he achieved that state of zen with the earth, as the sniper had described it, he breathed in... and out... slowing his heart rate, controlling his twitches, and shutting down his doubts and fears and worries.
Then he waited. Sooner or later, the enemy soldiers would have to pop up. Sooner or later, he would get a shot. Sooner or later, someone would die.