Passenger 19

FORTY-FOUR

The signal flares, commandeered from the Comanche’s emergency survival kit, were of the pen-gun variety — old, simple, and exquisitely reliable. McBain had circled west of the compound, keeping roughly one hundred yards from the perimeter, and was firing at random intervals. He loaded another flare in the handheld launcher, straightened his arm at a new angle and thumbed back the firing pin. The fourth flare sizzled high to the west, penetrating the canopy and blossoming a red phosphorous star in the sky.

McBain ran like hell in the other direction.

Their tactical problem had been a vexing one. From the highest ground, Davis and McBain initially had a good visual on the compound. Yet they had no idea where the girls were. They saw a handful of soldiers come and go from the surrounding forest, and noted a luckless soul, who could only be the courier, sitting secured to the bumper of one of the jeeps. The operation to retrieve Martin Stuyvesant’s daughter — certainly what they were witnessing — was not going smoothly.

Waiting things out was not an option because soon they would lose their biggest advantage — the Predator and its God’s-eye view of the battlefield. The situation was complex and fluid, and time was working against them. There was a chance one of the girls might still be in the compound, and at the moment the bulk of the opposing force was distracted and distant. After a brief conference with Jorgensen, Davis made the call. They would make a play for the courier, reasoning that he might know where the girls were. At the very least, he would increase their troop strength by half.

With their objective set, the first step was to level the odds. According to Jorgensen, the soldiers were still in the bush, in search mode, the bulk of the force clustered to the south. McBain’s job was to pull them west, deeper into the forest. He and Davis had actually blueprinted their plan using a stick in the dirt, like two kids playing sandlot football. Since the paras were searching for one or both girls, they reasoned that’s who would be held responsible for firing the flares. At least, if one discarded the questions of how they could acquire such pyrotechnics and learn to use them.

It wasn’t a perfect plan, McBain knew, but it was the best they had. So he ran deeper into the jungle.

Some distance away, Davis moved in the other direction.

He took the strategy of a fighter pilot heading into a close-quarters dogfight: stealth no longer matters, speed is life. Davis charged through brush like a bull elephant, the plastic MP5 held at arm’s length to blade through branches and vines. Having waited ten minutes for McBain to launch his barrage, he was now circling clockwise to approach the compound from the southeast. According to the drone’s imagery it was the best angle of attack, a place where thick jungle nearly abutted the largest building. Visibility was nearly nil, the foliage like liquid. Davis shoved one branch aside, and three took its place. He was moving fast, pushing and stumbling, when he ran into something solid. At first he thought it was a tree.

Only the tree had a face.

Not two feet in front of him was a soldier, a rifle hanging loosely from his shoulder — a cavalier way to carry a firearm in a low visibility environment. Davis was the first to react using his only weapon — the hard plastic stock of his knock-off MP5. The butt caught the soldier on the bridge of the nose, and his head snapped back like a waylaid bobblehead doll. When the head came back forward its mouth was open, prepping for a scream. Davis targeted his second blow there, the result an instant dental catastrophe. When his adversary fell to his knees, Davis dropped his faux submachine gun, reared up, and lunged to put a knee in the man’s temple. The guy dropped like his joints had disconnected and went completely still.

Davis went to ground with him.

He rolled away, completing two revolutions before pausing to listen. There was nothing at first, only the distant shouts of men responding to McBain’s barrage of signal flares. There had been eight flares in the survival kit, along with the handheld launcher. By Davis’ count, seven had been used. He lay stock still, listening and watching. Having come across one soldier, there was a good chance another was near. He guessed McBain was keeping the last flare in reserve — that’s what he would have done. The far-off shouts subsided, and for a full two minutes he heard nothing more than the wind rustling through trees and the buzz of insects.

Then, finally, a sound that didn’t belong.

It was very near, probably to his left, although it was hard to say in a jungle that muffled and reflected sound. He kept perfectly still and heard it again, a footfall on the soft, humus-laden forest floor. Then a clipped, baritone whisper, “Umberto! Dónde estás?”

With one cheek on the ground, Davis felt ever-so-slight tremors. The soldier he’d flattened was two steps away, probably unconscious. Possibly dead. Was the rifle still looped around his chest? Most likely, but Davis had no way of reaching it without creating a severe noise signature.

Another tremor, slow and cautious. Like a carnivorous dinosaur sensing a meal.

Davis realized he had a decent line of sight from where he lay. The ferns and waxen-leaved plants, all battling for scant sunlight, reached upward and out. At dead ground level he saw a wilderness of stems and roots, but between them he could make out fragmented details thirty feet away. It was like being at ground level in a parking lot and looking under the chassis of cars — better visibility beneath the clutter.

Davis turned his head slowly and spotted it right away. Moving branches twenty feet ahead. A worn combat boot stepping into view.

A black boot.

With a crescent scar on the heel.