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Then a truck barreled through the smoke. It seemed like an ordinary cargo vehicle, but the flash of machine gun fire unexpectedly erupted from the front bumper.
Rounds tore into the guards’ Humvee and the guards themselves. This time, Ocampo voluntarily threw himself to the ground as high-velocity rounds whistled through the air.
The two guards who were still standing returned fire, but their bullets just seemed to bounce off the truck. Oily smoke belched from the hood of the shot-up Humvee.
Ocampo lost sight of the truck’s cab when it stopped behind the guards’ Humvee. A few more shots rang out and then the air fell silent.
He heard the crunch of footsteps in the dirt as someone rounded the front of the Humvee. A blond man holding a compact submachine gun emerged from the smoke like an apparition.
He strode over to Ocampo and knelt down beside the scientist, a slight smile playing across his face.
“Hi, I’m Juan. Did someone call for a taxi?”
20
For a moment, the injured man in the lab coat looked at Juan slack-jawed. Juan wondered if it was because the man didn’t speak English or that he didn’t like the joke.
“I’m Mel Ocampo,” he finally said. “Where did you come from?”
“Good question. Let me answer it in our truck.”
Juan reached out a hand to help Ocampo up, while Beth and Raven ushered the rest of the shaken passengers to the PIG. Eddie sat in the driver’s seat, ready to take off as soon as they were all inside. The two Humvees that had circled around to cut them off would be there any second.
The moment Ocampo was on his feet, a weight like a cement mixer slammed into Juan from behind, hammering his MP5 submachine gun from his hand and pounding him into the dirt.
The force of the impact nearly knocked the wind out of him, but Juan was able to use the momentum to roll forward and crouch on his knees so he could see the attacker who had come out of nowhere. The sight that greeted him made him blink in confusion.
It was the guard Juan had shot just moments ago. He thought the guard could have survived because he was wearing body armor, except Juan could see the torn flesh under the guard’s shirt. Only a small amount blood oozed from the two bullet holes in his torso, wounds that should have killed him. The heavily muscled guard looked at Juan with a crazed expression as if he were energized by what should have been agonizing and fatal wounds.
Both Juan and the guard lunged for the gun. Juan reached it first and raised it to fire, but the guard dived behind the hood of the burning Humvee and out of Juan’s line of sight.
Juan left Ocampo frozen in place and raced around the Humvee’s front end, ready to take down the seemingly indestructible guard, but by the time he got there, the guard had already found a hostage.
He held a wicked-looking serrated knife at Beth’s throat. A dead guard lay by his feet, the likely source of the weapon.
Beth looked at Juan with pleading, terrified eyes. The guard crouched behind her, preventing Juan from taking a clean shot. It was clear he was just biding his time until his comrades in the other Humvees caught up with them.
The sound of their revving engines was growing stronger, joined now by the throbbing rotors of the returning helicopter. If Beth wasn’t freed soon, they’d be sitting ducks.
Juan kept his eye on the MP5’s red-dot-targeting scope, ready for any slight opening the guard might give him for a headshot. But the guard was too smart to expose himself.
Movement noticeable through the windows of the burning Humvee caugh
t Juan’s eye. It was Raven, holding a SIG Sauer pistol. She motioned to Juan that she didn’t have a shot, either.
Juan had to take a chance that the guard wanted to keep Beth alive as a hostage. He changed his grip on the submachine gun so that he was holding it by its stock, the barrel pointed straight down at the ground. Then he slowly circled left, his eyes locking with the guard’s one visible eye. The guard turned Beth to keep her between him and Juan.
Juan had moved five feet when a single shot rang out. A bullet went through the guard’s head. His suddenly lifeless corpse collapsed to the ground, the knife slashing Beth’s shirt, just missing flesh.
Juan rushed to Beth and grabbed her trembling arm. “You’re okay. Come on.” He guided her toward the PIG. “We need to leave now.”
They got to the truck at the same time Raven reached it with Ocampo in tow.
“Nice shot,” Juan said to her as they got in.
She shrugged like it was no big deal. “I’m just glad you realized that he was dumb enough to keep his eye on you.”
As soon as he got in the PIG, Juan intended to find out from Ocampo just what kind of supermen they were up against. With such a severe injury, that guard shouldn’t have been on his feet, let alone strong enough to take Juan down.
