Biowar

57

By the time Karr’s head stopped spinning, he’d managed to crawl out of the helicopter, pulling Foster with him. Gidrey hunched a few yards ahead near the trunk of a tree, pistol out and pointed toward the jungle. The helicopter had pitched itself into a ravine and they were down next to a shallow pond, looking up at a slope that left them at a distinct disadvantage if attacked.

The Thai soldiers were struggling from the helicopter. Karr put his hand to his head as if to help his eyes focus as he tried to puzzle out where Sourin was.

“We gotta get out of here,” said Gidrey.

“Yeah.” Karr stood up, checking himself for wounds like a hiker might look for ticks. When he realized he wasn’t hearing the Art Room he reached to the back of his belt to hit the send unit; he pressed his fingers over the belt loop where the unit could be turned on and off by pressure, but nothing happened.

It was possible the battery, which was integrated into his belt, had drained. He started back for his knapsack in the helicopter, but Gidrey grabbed his shirt.

“I think it’s gonna blow,” he said.

“I need my gun,” Karr said.

“Come on,” insisted the Marine. “It’s on fire.”

An automatic rifle began blasting in the jungle maybe fifty yards away. Karr pushed Gidrey out of the way and went back to the chopper, ignoring the rifle shots. He picked his way past the twisted rotors and bent fuselage, looking for the crease he’d squeezed through. There were a dozen or more bodies inside. As Karr started to punch into the darkness, a mortar or rocket-propelled grenade exploded on the far side of the ravine. The wrecked helicopter shook all around him; he couldn’t see his backpack, or his A-2 for that matter. The spot where he’d been sitting had been pinched tight by the crash landing.

“How the hell did I get out of that?” he said aloud.

Another mortar round answered, this one close enough to throw a small hail of dirt against the wrecked fuselage. Karr grabbed one of the Minimis from the hulk, scooping up two mags of ammo before turning back to find Gidrey. His chest and legs were pounding him, though he hadn’t been shot there; though his head had settled a bit, he still felt as if he were moving inside a long hollow tunnel.

Gidrey had Foster slung over his shoulder. Karr started to trot up the hill to him but quickly ran out of breath.

“We got to get the hell out of here,” said the Marine. “Thais are going that way.”

Karr pulled his handheld out, jogging the map button. He didn’t have a live feed; without his com system working he had only what the small computer itself could store.

The automatic rifle fire stoked up. He pulled up his machine gun and half-walked, half-stumbled up the ravine back to the two Marines. The Thai soldiers had fanned out already — or perhaps just run off — and he couldn’t see any as he hunkered down behind a pair of boulders.

“There,” warned Gidrey.

Burmese guerrillas ducked between the bushes a few yards away. As one of them lowered his rifle, the NSA op blew apart his midsection with a burst from the Minimi, fired from his hip. He twisted left and put a stream of bullets through the head of another guerrilla a foot or two away. His scalp seemed to sheer off, blood exploding upward as the force of the slugs pushed the rest of him into the compost.

“We got to get the hell out of here,” said Gidrey.

“All right.” Karr pulled his glasses out, using them to look for warm bodies. There were two, maybe three men roughly sixty yards straight ahead; they looked like shadows and it was impossible to tell whether they were guerrillas or Thai soldiers who had escaped from the downed helicopter.

Something exploded back by the helicopter.

“They have a mortar,” said Gidrey. “Zeroing in on the chopper.”

The three figures began moving toward them, then disappeared, the view blocked by rocks and vegetation as they worked their way to the left. Karr pulled off the glasses and pointed for Gidrey, who now had a pistol in each hand.

“I can’t tell if they’re on our side or not,” Karr warned.

“Better safe than sorry,” said Gidrey.

Something black moved twenty yards away. Karr fired into it, spraying bullets all around the area. There was no return fire.

Foster started to moan. Gidrey patted him reassuringly, then spun to his right and fired three bullets point-blank into the chest of a guerrilla who had managed to crawl out of the jungle ten yards away.

“Time to move on,” said Karr.

“Past time,” said Gidrey.

“Northeast,” said Karr. “They’re coming from the south and there’s another base a couple of miles west. There’s a field we can get rescue choppers into five miles that way.”

“You think we’re going to be rescued?” said Gidrey.

“Dad’ll come for us.” Karr smiled weakly. “I got the keys to his car.”