Miami Run

Chapter Thirteen

Sergeant Ambrose Gehret hustled his men across the cleared strip and into the trees to the south of the compound. He stopped under the willow, the same willow he’d seen the giant and the guy in buckskins dart from when they’d approached the wall. As he expected, the man in black was gone.

“We’re after one man, Sarge?” asked a tanned, experienced soldier to his rear.

Gehret nodded.

“We won’t even work up a sweat,” Stanz remarked.

Gehret turned to his men. “Listen up!” He recalled an episode earlier that night. Shooting the breeze with El Gato near the barn, both of them had been surprised to see the Director running toward them from the house. The Director, displaying an uncharacteristic uneasiness, had told them about Barbish’s abduction, about his belief that the Warriors were involved. Gehret had been secretly amused at the Director’s ill-concealed anxiety. Paolucci had expressed his belief that the Warriors were on their way to Happy Acres, based on the assumption the Warriors would not go to all the trouble to snatch the Dealer alive without a specific purpose.

And what better reason than to compel the Dealer to take them to Barbish’s superior in the Dragons? Gehret had to hand it to Paolucci. The Director had been right on the money. “In case you didn’t hear, we’re after a Warrior.” He said the name scornfully.

“What’s a Warrior?” Stanz asked.

“They’re supposed to be real hotshots,” Gehret replied. “The one we’re after is dressed in black. He must know his pals have been caught. I doubt he’ll go very far. We’ll divide up into three teams. Stanz, take two men with you and sweep to the west, then north. Check under every tree and behind every bush.”

Corporal Stanz nodded. He looked at two of the mercenaries and wagged his right thumb westward. The trio hurried off.

Sergeant Gehret glanced at one of his men. “Weber, take two men with you,” he directed. “Go east, all the way around the compound until you join up with Stanz.”

Private Weber selected a pair of men and off they went.

“Right,” Gehret said, staring at the remaining duo. “The south side is all ours. Let’s go.” He advanced into the undergrowth, his men flanking him.

The mercenaries dispersed in three directions of the compass, and as their stealthy footfalls faded, a lithe, pantherish form dropped from the overspreading limbs of the willow to the ground.

The hunted was now the hunter.

Sergeant Gehret was becoming increasingly annoyed at the minutes elapsed without a sign of the Warrior. No trace at all! Not one of the other search parties had signaled, not so much as a single shot had been fired.

Where the hell was the guy in black?

Gehret paused on a low mound and surveyed the terrain. In front of him was a 15-foot incline covered with weeds, and then a sea of sawgrass.

They were nearly to the southern edge of the estate; beyond was the reptile-infested swamp. Dawn was streaking the eastern horizon, the increasing sunlight lending the murky water a golden hue. He turned to the west, intending to head for the airboat dock.

“Sarge!” one of his men exclaimed, pointing to the north, at a tree 20 yards distant.

Gehret swiveled, doing a double take when he saw the cause of the man’s alarm.

There he was!

The son of a bitch was standing next to the tree, just watching them, an M-16 slung over his left shoulder, his hands empty!

Gehret recovered from his amazement and raised his Uzi, his finger on the trigger.

With startling swiftness, the man in black stepped behind the trunk and was screened from view.

“Damn!” declared the first man.

“He must be crazy!” said the second.

Gehret motioned with his left arm. “Take him from both sides,” he commanded.

Moving with practiced precision, the three mercenaries closed on the tree, their weapons at the ready.

Gehret fixed his gaze on that tree. The nearest brush was five yards from the trunk! The guy had trapped himself! There was no way the man in black could reach the brush without being cut down. Gehret smiled in expectation.

One of the other mercenaries was moving cautiously to the right, the second to the left.

Sergeant Gehret halted a yard from the three-foot-wide trunk and crouched. He glanced at his men and nodded, and all three hurled themselves forward. Gehret rounded the trunk on the left and swiveled, prepared to blast away.

But there was no one to blast.

The Warrior was gone.

“Where’d he go?” asked the private on the right.

“I don’t know!” Gehret snapped. “Fan out. Find the bastard!” He watched them enter the undergrowth, his brow knit in puzzlement. No one could up and vanish. No one ordinary, that is. But Gehret had lived as a professional mercenary for two decades. Before being hired by the Dragons, he’d worked for seven years in the Far East. In Japan he’d encountered certain men capable of astounding feats, men known as Ninja. Oddly enough, the Oriental in black reminded him of those Ninja.

In the brief glimpse he’d had, he’d recognized the same aura of supreme confidence in the man in black as he recollected observing in the Ninja.

Was it possible? he started to think, when a strangled gurgle sounded from the vegetation to his left.

“Anders?” Gehret said softly but urgently.

There was no response.

“Anders?”

Still no answer.

Gehret took a stride toward the undergrowth, looking to the right as he did so. “Wilson!” he hissed.

“Yeah, Sarge?” came a reply from the other side of a dense thicket.

“Get back here! On the double!”

“On my way.”

Gehret heard the muffled footfalls as Wilson started to obey, and an instant later there was a loud crash. Then silence.

“Wilson?”

Wilson did not reply.

Discarding prudence, concerned for his men, Gehret plunged into the woods, weaving to minimize the target he posed, skirting the dense thicket. The morning light cast the vegetation in a deep green tint. His combat boots bumped an object in his path and he looked down, a chill washing over him.

Private Wilson was on his back, his mouth open, his tongue protruding out the left corner. His head was almost severed from his shoulders; only a few inches of flesh and the spinal column had not been sliced clean through.

Sergeant Gehret licked his lips. He’d seen this kind of handiwork before, and a word flashed into his mind unbidden, a word with supremely lethal connotations: katana.

The Oriental had a katana.

Gehret scanned the vegetation. He vaguely remembered seeing something long and thin slanted under the Warrior’s belt. The katana? He wanted to kick himself for underestimating the man in black. Now his men were dead, and El Gato would have his hide! He decided to head to the west and locate Corporate Stanz, and he took several steps. As he did, the short hairs on the nape of his neck tingled.

No!

Sergeant Gehret whirled, his Uzi tucked against his right side.

The Warrior was a foot away in the Kokutsu-tachi, the back stance. His M-16 was still over his left shoulder, and his katana was angled over his left hip. As the mercenary turned, the Warrior slid in close, his left hand in the Nukite, the piercing hand, position, his right in the Shotei. A slash to his left hand deflected the Uzi barrel aside. He uttered a sharp kiai and drove his right hand in a palm heel thrust into the mercenary’s side, hemorrhaging the spleen underneath. Another Shotei blow to the sergeant’s chin snapped the soldier’s head back.

Gehret saw pinwheeling lights explode before his eyes. Dazed, he tried to stagger backwards, to clear his head. But the Warrior wouldn’t let him.

The man in black rammed his right elbow into the mercenary’s jaw.

Gehret felt his teeth crunch together. His world spun and danced and he sagged forward.

The Warrior yanked the Uzi free and tossed it aside. He stood above the mercenary as Gehret landed on his knees, struggling to focus.

This couldn’t be happening!

Gehret felt steely fingers lock on his throat. He gasped and grabbed the arm holding him.

“You have captured my friends,” the man in black stated harshly. “Now you are going to tell me everything there is to know about Happy Acres.”

To emphasize his point, he raised his right arm aloft, his fingers taut, ready to use a Crane strike to the eyes.

Gehret blinked and gulped.