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Juan stood, picked up the Picasso tube, and slung it over his shoulder. His goggles were toast, from hitting the ground, so he began to search for the assault rifle in the deep shadows.
Movement from the warehouse caught his eye, and he saw a figure climbing out of the ashes of the demolished building like a phoenix rising. Locsin’s skin was charred, and his clothes hung in tatters, but he seemed to shrug off the severe wounds and raised a radio to his face.
Instantly, Juan heard the sounds of shouting and footfalls coming his way from Eddie’s direction, far more men than he could take on by himself.
He couldn’t wait to find his weapon, and he couldn’t afford to get stuck inside a building he didn’t know. But Juan remembered the ladder on the outside of the factory building. If he could get up there, Gomez could land on it and pick him up before the charges they set went off and blew up the building underneath him.
Juan drew his pistol and ran.
67
Although Locsin had drawn most of his men away from Eddie, Raven, and Beth to go after Juan, four men still had them cornered at a curtain of limestone that formed a natural barrier at this side of the compound. They were crouched behind some rocks with nowhere to go.
“I’m low on ammo,” Raven said as she took another shot. The battle was maddening because she knew she’d hit at least a couple of them, but they simply wouldn’t go down if they weren’t shot in the head or the heart.
“Me too,” Eddie said. “Last mag for me. Conserve your shots.”
Then they heard the roar of an engine coming their way.
“Don’t shoot,” Linc said over the comm. “It’s me. Get ready to hop in.”
The Humvee screeched to a stop between them and their attackers. While they scrambled into the passenger side, Linc stuck his weapon out the window and fired a grenade at the building shielding Locsin’s men. When it exploded, they heard a single scream. It didn’t kill them all, but it at least bought time for Eddie and the others to climb in.
“Go!” Eddie yelled and fired the last of his rounds as they took off.
Instead of heading toward the factory, Linc took off for the dark nether reaches of the cave, his headlights off. He used his night vision goggles to drive.
“Why aren’t we getting Juan?” Beth asked.
“I just heard from him. He ordered me to take you all as far away from him as possible while we wait for Gomez to get here.”
They reached the edge of the paved part of the compound and bounced onto smooth rock that felt like it had been scoured by an ancient river. Raven didn’t know how far this cave went on, but in the briefing before the mission she’d found out that Vietnam’s Hang So’n Ðoòng cave extended more than five miles.
Soon, the occasional shots that chased them ceased. They were now invisible.
“We have to go back and get him,” Beth protested.
Linc stopped the Humvee. “We’re not leaving the cave without him. But, right now, they have the advantage in numbers. When we have the high ground in the chopper, we’ll have better odds.”
“Well, where is he?”
Linc pointed to the largest building. It was the factory, still lit by the burning warehouse next to it.
“He’s going to be on top of that one.” He checked his watch. The timers on the charges he and Juan had set in the factory continued to count down. “And it’s going to explode in five minutes whether we get him off or not.”
• • •
THE LIGHT FROM the hole in the roof was growing as morning dawned. For a moment, Locsin lost Cabrillo’s trail, but one of his men soon spotted him climbing to the roof of the factory. The former CIA agent was an excellent shot, even with the small-caliber pistol aimed from midway up the ladder, and Locsin lost several men until Cabrillo ran out of ammo. Then he pulled another pistol from what looked like an ankle holster and used that to pick off a few more men before he got to the roof, though by that time the second one was empty as well.
Locsin was famished as his body tried to repair the damage from the explosion. His skin tingled as it grew new dermal layers, and his muscles were tight where shrapnel had ripped through sinew. He would need several days of recovery after this battle, but the emergency supply of Typhoon he kept in his quarters would be more than sufficient to get him through it and he could track down the traitor Tagaan.
He used the durable Chinese radio that had survived the Kuyog blast to call his pilot and tell him to collect the drug supply and ready the helicopter while they still had a chance to fly out through the eye of the storm. The pilot balked at such a risky mission until Locsin threatened to cut off his Typhoon doses.
When Locsin reached the bottom of the ladder, he told the remaining men who’d gathered there to make sure no one else followed him up. He had to show that he was still the leader and could conquer their problems. Besides, he had to get that Picasso back from Cabrillo.
His men kept their weapons trained on the edge of the roof as he climbed up, an assault rifle slung over his shoulder. At the top, he quickly peered over the edge and saw Cabrillo standing on the opposite side, the tube held out at arm’s length.
“You don’t look so good, Locsin,” Cabrillo taunted. “You’ll probably feel even worse if I throw this tube over into the burning warehouse.”
