Typhoon Fury

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 Đoòng 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.”

Locsin understood and dropped the assault rifle to the ground below. He subtly looked down and gestured for two of his men to go to the other side of the building. Then he held up one hand, then the other, as he climbed up onto the roof.

“I just want to talk,” he said.

“No, you want to kill me,” Cabrillo said. “I have to say, the feeling’s mutual.”

Locsin began to slowly walk toward him. “I don’t want to kill you, Mr. Cabrillo. You’re already dead, but you just don’t realize it. You’re a multo, which in my culture is a spirit that has come back from the dead to finish unfinished business. Except I know how to banish you back to the underworld.”

“Please,” Cabrillo scoffed, “you’re a communist. You believe religion and individualism are plagues to be wiped out.”

Locsin smiled. “Well, at least one individual.”

Cabrillo must have heard the men below who had circled around because he turned and ducked just before bullets raked the roof’s edge.

Locsin used the distraction to sprint toward Cabrillo. Locsin hit him in the gut with his shoulder, and Cabrillo went down with a woof of air. The tube went skittering across the roof, teetering on the edge.

Cabrillo was fast, backhanding Locsin in the jaw. Pain or no pain, the blow was strong enough to knock Locsin over.

He shrugged it off and jumped to his feet. Cabrillo was already up in a defensive stance used by practitioners of the Israeli combat discipline Krav Maga. Locsin, however, was skilled in the Philippine national sport of Arnis, particularly the mano a mano, empty-handed component, which considers the hands and feet as weapons to be wielded.

They exchanged blows while they searched each other for weaknesses, though Locsin was feeling stronger by the minute even without food to refuel himself. Cabrillo would be an interesting sparring partner but not a real match.

Then Cabrillo jabbed with one hand while launching a haymaker with the other, which caught Locsin by surprise. The strike to the side of his head made his ears ring, but he didn’t go down. Instead, he spun in a roundhouse kick and smacked Cabrillo in the back.

He staggered to the side but came back almost immediately, and they traded punches. Locsin was enjoying this, and he was amazed at what a beating Cabrillo could take.

Juan wasn’t going to last much longer, but he wasn’t going to give Locsin the satisfaction of seeing him falter. He just had to distract him long enough for Gomez to arrive.

Then he heard it, the throbbing pulse of helicopter rotors coming from the roof of the cavern.

He and Locsin took a moment to watch the MD 520N descend carefully through the hole. When it was clear, the chopper flew into the ebony depths of the cavern to pick up the Corporation team.

Locsin grinned wickedly at Juan. “Enough of this, Cabrillo. You’ve been a tough opponent, but—”

Juan didn’t wait for Locsin to finish his monologue. He sprinted for the tube with the Picasso and snatched it up. He could feel Locsin directly behind him, trying to chase him down.

Juan whipped around, and Locsin grabbed for the tube.

They began a tug-of-war for it.

“What’s so important about this painting?” Juan asked as his fingers struggled to maintain their grip.

“It’s the key to everything,” Locsin answered cryptically. “I had to hide it from him. Now, give it to me.”

Juan maneuvered himself around so that he was facing the fires, which were beginning to die out. Then he pulled even harder on the tube. When he felt Locsin pull back with all his strength, Juan suddenly pushed instead.

The effect was similar to a master playing tug with his dog and abruptly releasing the toy. Locsin immediately lost his footing now that his center of gravity was pitching him backward. His feet stumbled, and since Juan had angled him right to the roof edge without him realizing it, one of Locsin’s feet hit nothing but air before he understood what was happening.

Naturally, his instinct was to grab for something more solid than a plastic tube, so he let go. But Juan kept pushing, and Locsin fell back, flailing as he fell.

At first, the men below were stunned to see their leader slam into the ground from three stories up. But they had momentarily forgotten about the extraordinary powers of Typhoon.

Locsin was dazed from the impact but recovered remarkably quickly. He pointed at Juan, staring down at them. Juan stepped back before more shots rang out.

As Juan watched the Oregon’s chopper lift off in the distance, he hoped he’d timed this right. Because he was all out of weapons, and Locsin would now be sending every man he had up to the roof.

Locsin was irate at getting tossed off the roof and not only losing the Picasso but failing to kill Cabrillo.

He saw the chopper approaching and ordered several men to go after Cabrillo and the others to retrieve the cache of RPGs. As soon as they had them in hand, they were to keep firing until the rogue helicopter was lying on the cavern floor in pieces.

Locsin was going to take out that helicopter one way or the other, so he raced to his own chopper. The rotors were already spooling up.

“Get this piece of junk in the air now!” he screamed at the pilot as he jumped in the back.

This helicopter already had the minigun mounted on the floor. He flicked the switch to on and was ready to cut the other chopper to ribbons.

“There’s gunfire coming from the base of that building,” Gomez said as he cranked the MD 520N to full speed.

Linc sat in the front passenger seat while Eddie and Raven took the outer seats in the back with Beth squeezed in the middle with the pile of painting tubes. The doors of the chopper had been removed prior to the flight just in case they needed to fire weapons in flight. As soon as Eddie saw that Juan was under attack, he knew they’d made the right decision. His assault rifle was now fully rearmed with one of Linc’s magazines.

Juan was pointing to the opposite side of the building and said over the radio, “There are unwanted guests coming up the ladder.”

Gomez circled around the building, and Eddie and Linc each took out two men scrabbling up the ladder. They fell to the ground, and no more tried to go up, though they did take potshots at the helicopter as it came in to land on the roof.

Gomez touched down, and Juan handed the Picasso tube to Beth as he heaved himself into the helicopter on Raven’s side. Beth gleefully added it to her collection, which she cradled like they were her newborn children.

Since there wasn’t another seat, Raven slid up and let Juan take hers. With nowhere else to go, she sat on his lap. Eddie noticed that Juan didn’t seem to mind the discomfort of the close quarters. Juan leaned his head back for a moment as he put on a headset.

“You okay?” Eddie asked as they lifted off. “You look like you had the snot beat out of you.”

“And a bunch of other stuff,” Juan replied.

“Hey, guys,” Gomez said, “we’re not out of the woods yet.” Then he banked wildly, and Juan had to grab Raven around the waist to keep her from falling out.

Punctuating Gomez’s words was the streak of a rocket-propelled grenade as it flashed by and exploded against the cavern roof.

“There’s more where that came from,” Gomez said. “Not only that, we have company.”

Eddie looked back and saw a chopper in hot pursuit. Jutting from its left door was the nose of a minigun.