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  Cal Jeffers leaped into the front seat, next to Caine.

  Cody told Caine, “We’ll draw fire. Get these folks out of here in one piece!”

  “Consider it done.” The Brit nodded sharply.

  Cody returned to join Murphy in climbing aboard Hawkeye’s Chor-7, and while Murphy positioned his linebacker bulk behind the M-60, Hawkeye popped the clutch and got them the hell out of there as if fired from a slingshot.

  Caine gunned his Chor-7 into gear, picking up speed as he followed the first vehicle but keeping a slight distance.

  The rumbling of explosions had mumbled away to nothing, leaving in their wake the chaos of men hollering, flames eating away at the officers’ hut and the mess tent and finishing off what was left of the motor pool and the twisted unrecognizable hunks of smoldering metal junk that had been the vehicles parked there.

  Hawkeye floored the Chor-7’s go pedal, whizzing his vehicle past the chaos surrounding the remains of the motor pool, the munitions shed, the mess tent, and the officers’ quarters.

  Hanging alongside Hawkeye, Cody spotted Colonel Locsin and the second NPA officer standing in front of their living quarters, watching the huts burn down and of course looking this way and that, each officer gripping a pistol, trying to determine the source of this attack in the misty, smoky, come-and-go madness of the first light of dawn.

  Locsin and some of the others heard the Chor-7s coming. They looked around in surprise.

  Murphy opened up on them with the M-60, Cody firing his assault rifle as the vehicle raced past.

  Communists frantically dived this way and that for cover, some finding none, a hail of projectiles indiscriminately toppling the NPA regulars making a run for it and those who turned to fight, bullets pulping bodies as the vehicle whizzed past.

  Some of the enemy managed to return some fire.

  Hawkins steered an erratic course, and the hastily fired rounds snapped around the careening Chor-7 but scored no hits among the men bracing themselves to keep from tumbling out.

  Cody saw Locsin and his officer dive for the ground and tried to follow them with the CAR-15s spitting slugs that shredded apart the flaming hut behind them, but at that instant Hawkeye leaned both arms into a turn and the Chor-7 bounced and practically tipped and Cody could not be sure if he’d taken out Locsin and the other man, because they became lost from his sight.

  The Chor-7 hurtled along on a high-speed approach directly toward the front gate.

  CHAPTER

  FOUR

  Some of the sentries in front of the gate had already left their post, rushing to where the huts burned.

  Locsin may have had a paramilitary unit, thought Cody, but it was composed of farm kids and thugs from the towns and villages and sorely lacked any kind of real military discipline. During these first moments of this “attack,” less than a minute after the first spurts of rifle fire when Caine and Hawkins had encountered the sentry patrol and had seen no alternative but blasting their way out of that situation, the soldiers of Locsin’s NPA command, and particularly these at the front gate, had no idea where this attack was coming from or the nature of the assault; those explosions could have been mortars, grenades hurled from nearby outside the perimeter, anything.

  Several of half a dozen sentries inside the gate turned at the ruckus of the Chor-7 juggernauting toward them. They started hauling their AK-47s up when they saw what was happening.

  Big Rufe Murphy held onto his M-60 for dear life, wheeling that flame-spraying, hammering sucker with both big fists, his weight-lifter muscles bulging beneath his camou fatigues, his hulking form shaking to the tune of the yammering machine gun snorting up its belt of ammo, ejecting hot spent casings almost faster than the eye could see.

  Cody punched a fresh clip into his CAR-15 and loosed another long burst as the Chor-7 altered its course at the last instant to race past the gate sentries.

  A couple of sentries got smart and bellied the ground, scrabbling for safety, but the others tried being brave and were blown apart—like bursting rag dolls rupturing blood and guts instead of stuffing—before any of the gate guards could trigger a round.

  Hawkins wheeled the Chor-7 into a tight circular turn without slackening speed, causing Cody and Murphy to cease their firing and hold on to keep from pitching out of the racing vehicle. Hawkins again lined up the Chor-7’s nose with the wood-frame, concertina-wire-draped gate and this time the Texan nearly pushed the vehicle’s gas pedal through the floor, sending them rocketing toward the gate.

  At this point, Caine pulled his Chor-7 into action. He had been watching the other vehicle and when it was apparent to him that Hawkeye was about to execute the bustout, the Brit wheeled his vehicle full of hostages to close in to not more than one vehicle length behind the first Chor-7.

  Cody and Murphy holding on with both hands, Hawkins drove over one of the fallen bodies, past fleeing survivors taken by total surprise by the assault from inside their base.

  The lead vehicle kerpowed through the closed gate, splintering it apart with grinding, ripping, wrenching force, tossing the gate aside, piercing straight on through and out of there with the second Chor-7 hot on its tail.

  By now, NPA regulars from back there behind them on the base had opened fire on the two high-speed vehicles whizzing through the gate and off the base. Rounds zinged through the air and Cody felt one slug spang! off the Chor-7’s metal chassis near his foot.

  Hawkins cleared the walled perimeter far enough to tug his steering wheel again to the left, putting the bamboo wall between them and those firing after them from inside the compound.

  Caine kept the nose of his Chor-7 practically kissing the rear of the first as they bumped and bounced across the clearing that was washed with the first probing rays of sunlight, the mist beginning to dissipate at ground level but clinging heavily to the jungle treetops.

  The lead Chor-7 led the withdrawal away from the gate on a shortcut to where the trail narrowed for its one-vehicle-width course into the bush.

  Figures with rifles appeared in the destroyed gateway just as the Chor-7s gained the treeline on the far side of the clearing.

  Hawkeye braked sharply and pulled over.

  With a beep beep, Caine steered on through, carrying the Jeffers family farther down the trail.

  The men near the gate opened fire, the automatic reports of their weapons sounding like dull, insignificant popping after the string of explosions, but the bullets whistling into the foliage around the vehicles were real and close enough.

  As Caine’s Chor-7 sped past, Hawkeye pulled off after them, giving Cody and Murphy a clear line of fire along their backtrack which they took immediate advantage of, the mighty M-60 and the CAR-15 returning fire that sent some riflemen tumbling back there, others diving back out of sight.

  Behind the Chor-7s, in the clearing below, the first light of dawn showed devastation, sprawled bodies everywhere from below this point where the trail climbed to reenter the jungle.

  Cody saw burning huts, tents burning to the ground, and the unrecognizable rubble of what had been the motor pool; then the scene of what was left of the NPA base receded as the opening into the jungle became a tunnel, to the jungle’s muggy, fetid, embrace, the Chor-7s bumping and bouncing along the trail.

  Cody reached for the dash radio to call in the chopper that would be hovering nearby, waiting for the pickup call.

  With Locsin’s wheels canceled out, it looked like the team and the Jefferses just might make it. But they weren’t there yet.

  Locsin waited an extra minute, feigning a return to consciousness.

  He had remained wide awake in the minute or so since the Chor-7 had thundered past loaded with commandos firing on him. He considered himself not cowardly, but prudent. He told himself he must keep himself alive so he could command here.

  As the weapons fire tapered off around over by the gate, he went into his act, sitting up, touching his head; then, as if satisfied that he had not sustained any serious woun
ds, he got to his feet and dusted himself off.

  He looked at the devastation around him.

  Dead men lay sprawled in twisted heaps.

  The hut behind him raged out of control, leaping flames matching the rising sun that stained the eastern sky a brilliant red.

  Escaler approached at a trot from the direction of the headquarters hut.

  Locsin read his man’s expression.

  “Gone,” Locsin hissed. “You are going to tell me the Jeffers family is gone.”

  “Not only that,” Escaler worked to catch his breath, “but they have slaughtered nearly half our men.”

  Locsin waved a hand irritably.

  “Bah, those who died here this day deserved it. We were caught unawares, and by professionals, at that!”

  “As you say, comrade Colonel.”

  Locsin gazed out through the gate or through what remained of the gate, in the direction the Chor-7s had taken. He realized he was more shaken than he cared to admit. He paused for a moment, gathering his thoughts.

  “Did you get a look at them, Colonel?” Escaler asked.

  “I was too busy… returning fire,” Locsin replied. “But they were professionals, yes, and…” his eyes took in the horror of bloodshed and devastation around them, “… they knew what they were doing.”

  “They surely could not have been Javier’s men.”

  “Surely not. I do not trust Javier, but at this point in time he has no reason to double-cross us. Later, yes, we must be careful later, but not now.”

  “The Americans? Our government in Manila has temporarily suspended operations against us, or so they say.”

  “So they say,” Locsin repeated. “They may have been saying that to set us at ease, for this.”

  “In which case, they succeeded,” Escaler pointed out. “General Chung will not be happy.”

  Chung was Locsin’s advisor from UNG II, the North Koreans’ counterintelligence group that in fact supervised the NPA’s activities, monitoring them for the KGB.

  “I will handle General Chung,” Locsin growled. “You will get on the radio to Javier at once. Tell him what has happened here. Tell him the direction they have taken. Tell him those people must be stopped. They are no doubt on their way to a rendezvous point with a helicopter. Once they lift off, we have lost them! Tell Javier to throw his best unit after them. I will send a force on foot. Go now, quickly! We lose a fortune if those swine get away from us!”

  Escaler whirled to dart back across the base toward the hut with the shortwave radio.

  Locsin then occupied himself with dealing with the reports of his ranking officers who reported losses. He ordered a group formed immediately to give chase after the Chor-7s on foot, but even as he watched his men hurry off to carry out his directives, he knew that if that commando unit and the Jefferses were to be stopped, if those suddenly very valuable hostages were brought back, it was now up to Arturo Javier. The Chor-7s had already outdistanced anything Locsin could send after them.

  He dismissed the last of his men with their instructions for cleanup and tightening security.

  It was out of his hands, for now.

  There would be Javier’s curiosity to deal with as to why he had remained silent concerning the presence of the Jeffers family at this base. The missing Americans had been well-publicized by the world media and the Filipino press since their kidnapping. He told himself that just because he and Javier were associates was no reason to expect either of them to confide in the other every manner of business not connected directly with their association.

  He decided that Javier’s reaction to learning about the hostages that had been held here was the least of his concerns.

  Getting those hostages back was Top Priority, and he told himself that is what would happen now.

  Arturo Javier had the money and connections to enlist the very best. There would be a full squad of them closing in on that group from every direction within moments after Escaler sent the radio message.

  Americans.

  Locsin gave the destruction and death everywhere around him another look.

  As the full extent of the damage and loss began to sink in—flames still tonguing the dawn, the dead not yet moved, the wounded screaming—as all of this sank in, Locsin wondered again what manner of strike force had assaulted his base this morning.

  He hated to admit it, and would admit it to no other, but he was impressed. Depressingly so.

  He had been trained by the Marcos military as an infantryman and he knew he would be there today had he not considered other, more profitable means of making money, such as joining with and working his way up through the ranks of the New People’s Army.

  The NPA lived in the mountains like animals for the time being, true, but he had his own bank accounts in Switzerland which he fattened regularly with spoils of the occasional raid against a settlement, or the looting of an Army outpost (under the guise of “military actions” of the NPA.)

  He was satisfied with this arrangement for the time being and made sure that those he commanded, including Escaler, knew nothing of the secret bank accounts.

  Most of those who served with him were disposessed farmers as well as many from the country’s shrinking middle class who had joined the lower class because they had done something to cross the ruling class; people with legitimate gripes, being used by forces outside the Philippines who knew they could not command such a force unless they had men like Locsin, who were cynical and smart enough not to do it unless they were paid well.

  Locsin commanded with the understanding that, when the day came, he would share in the new power.

  As a military man who retained everything the government’s military training schools could teach him, he was, yes, most impressed with whatever small force had struck and left such awful, near total ruin as that which smoldered and screamed around him at this moment.

  He would forever be forced to bear the humiliation of what had happened here this day. It would forever taint his reputation, his name.

  He owed something to the men who had done this and it was a debt he would repay if he ever got the chance—in kind.

  In blood.

  But what mattered more than that, more than anything, was that the strike at the heart of the fragile new government was less than twenty-four hours away!

  This was no time for an elite commando unit, American or of any other nationality, striking against the unprecedented unification poised to overthrow the present government.

  It could not fail.

  It must not fail, Locsin told himself.

  Everything had been taken into account at this vital point in time, yes.

  Everything, that is, save a wholly unexpected disaster such as this.

  He tugged himself from his reverie and stalked off across the body-and-rubble-strewn compound to check on Escaler’s radio alert to Javier. He would summon transportation to come and pick them up.

  Javier’s force would stop those commandos, whomever they were, and return the Jefferses, and Locsin wanted very much to be in on the kill.

  Whoever is responsible for this, he told himself, will die very soon.

  It could be no other way.

  Javier had just started doing things to the naked, unconscious woman tied to the bed when a strong pounding at the door interrupted him.

  He grunted, set down the pliers and turned from the spread-eagled figure of the young woman. He was already in an ill temper. He did not like it when they passed out too soon, as this one had, from fright, before he could begin.

  He swung open the door, glaring at the camou fatigue-clad man who stood there at crisp attention.

  “I left strict orders not to be disturbed.”

  The man in the doorway kept his eyes diligently averted from the unconscious figure on the bed, visible inside the base commandant’s private quarters.

  “Uh, trouble, sir, Colonel Locsin—”

  “You are finished, fool, for interrupting me like this.”<
br />
  “The colonel’s base was attacked!”

  The subordinate hurried to spew it out.

  That caught Javier’s attention, cooling the crazy fires inside him.

  “Attacked?”

  “A commando force. A radio message just came in. They’re heading on our direction! They withdrew from Locsin’s base only minutes ago. The colonel believes they intend to rendezvous with air pickup somewhere between his base and ours.”

  “Order up four helicopters,” Javier snapped without lapsing a beat. “I want each gunship loaded with as many men as it will carry. I will accompany, to command.”

  The man in the doorway executed a curt salute.

  “I will see to it.”

  The “soldier” withdrew, double-timing away.

  Javier slammed the door. He crossed to the shelf near the bed. He pulled down and strapped on a holstered Tokarev machine-gun pistol.

  He ignored the unconscious peasant girl, whose hands and wrists were tied to opposite ends of the bed with leather thongs. There would be time enough for pleasure later.

  His heart had not been in it tonight anyway, he realized, just as he had realized such “pleasures” had become more and more of a compulsion of late.

  But he had hoped this one, here, would take his mind off, even for a little while, what had consumed him for so long.

  The moment of truth was almost at hand; all he had worked and sacrificed and risked for.

  In losing himself in passions of the flesh he had hoped to find some respite from the tension that had made his gut a tight knot for too long. It had almost worked.

  And now, this.

  He reached the door on his way out, opened the door, paused there with one hand on the knob, and turned to see the peasant girl’s eyes flicker open, returning foggily to consciousness.

  It had become more and more difficult of late for him to find women for even normal sex, despite his position of power.