Dane raised his weapon, ready to fire. His eyes scoured the jungle for the least bit of movement. He had to wait until he saw who or what was out there. It could be Ben or one of his men. Or it could be a German. The group was frozen; waiting. A few seconds later there was a familiar sound.
“Mr. Dane… ”
Dane’s ears picked up a voice in the subtle tones of the jungle. He lowered his weapon a bit as one of Tecal’s men slipped from under a bush and was facing the group. There were smiles all around.
“We are very glad to see you,” said Dane in a whisper. “Is it safe? Are there any Germans around?”
“Yes, safe here. No German. All back there or dead,” the small native said in broken English, pointing behind the group. “I watch here. No German.”
Dane smiled and patted the native on the shoulder. “That’s great news. Thank you.” He turned to Dana and Randall and saw all smiles. “Guess you heard the news.”
“Even at a whisper, it sounded like a cry from the mountain tops,” said Randall. “I am so damned relieved, thanks to you, Dane.” Randall reached over and gave Dana a huge hug. “I think we have finally made it, babe.”
“Okay, okay, that’s enough of that until we can find you guys a room,” Dane joked with a smile. “We need to move along to our rendezvous.” Inside Dane felt a huge load release from his shoulders. They had gotten Dana and Randall out relatively unscathed. This was a day he would never forget.
With Tecal’s man leading, the group trudged through the jungle for nearly an hour until they came to the rendezvous point. As they burst through the jungle bushes into the clearing they saw Ben, Tim and Tecal sitting under a large Kapok tree.
“Ben!” cried Dana as she recognized their base camp manager. She ran into his arms as he was standing up.
“Damn glad to see you, Dana, and you too, Randall,” said Ben, smiling from ear to ear. “Lee will be ecstatic when she sees you two.” Ben shook hands with Randall as Dana hung around Ben’s neck. Dana began to sob, tears flowing down her face.
“Oh, Ben, it was awful. Manolo is dead. They killed him for no reason. Plain shot him in the head,” she explained. Ben’s face went from happiness to doom. He had loved Manolo like a son. Now he was gone. He fought to maintain his strength even with tears welling up in his eyes.
“That’s okay, Dana. That’s okay. We’ll talk about that later,” he croaked.
Dane looked around. “Any sign of Hugo?” he asked, realizing his best friend was not present.
“No, we haven’t heard anything. I feel no news is good news in his case,” said Ben, releasing Dana. Tim walked over with Tecal.
“Damn, that is you, Tim,” remarked Randall, grabbing Tim’s hand and giving it a good shake. Then they hugged each other. “I couldn’t recognize you in that getup.”
Dana gave Tim a big hug as well. “How the hell did you get here?”
“I heard you had a party going on,” smiled Tim. “You know me, never one to miss a good party.”
“You are hurt,” said Dana, seeing all of the blood on Tim’s face and temporary bandage.
“It’s just a nick that bled a good bit. We couldn’t leave you two out there without trying to find you,” Tim said with a huge smile. “Wait until we get back to the base camp. There are more folks there.”
“And Tecal,” said Dana quietly, reaching out and stroking Tecal’s head. “Thank you, Tecal. Thank you very much for coming to help us.”
Tecal smiled widely, baring his blackened teeth. “Missy Dana, we very happy you okay.” She gave him a big hug as well.
Dane’s thoughts turned toward Hugo. With no word, he must still be in the fray. When he last saw him he was still deep within the complex. He knew Hugo could take care of himself; he had proven that many times before. But this was different. He had absolutely no contact with his best friend. He looked at his watch. It was 11:30 a.m. He instinctively looked up to find the sun to validate the time. The sun was hard to see through the jungle canopy, but he could tell it was directly overhead. At least he knew his Omega watch was nonetheless keeping time.
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
The long hall was empty as he peered out of the door. Hugo looked over his shoulder and checked for anyone behind him. There was no one. The alarms were still blaring and he could hear people yelling at each other in German. They had really stirred up a hornet’s nest in the complex.
He raced down the hall in a full run, figuring with all of the noise around him his footsteps would either not be heard or would be ignored. As he turned the corner on the way to an elevator, he ran directly into a female technician coming down the hall. He hit her like a huge linebacker hits a fleet wide receiver. She went flying across the hall and hit her head on the concrete block wall. At least he didn’t have to contend with her, he thought. She was out like a light, never knowing what hit her. He continued farther until he came to an elevator. He pushed the button. He felt naked standing there in an open hall armed with no one there. Hugo checked his watch.
He wasn’t alone for long. He looked up as the elevator door opened to find two young female technicians and an armed German guard. The technicians looked like they were going to pass out. The guard fumbled with his weapon trying to bring it up to firing position. But Hugo beat him to the punch by a mile. Hugo had his silenced MP-5 at ready and fired one single shot, killing the guard before he could raise his weapon. The guard fell forward. Hugo grabbed the guard and pulled him forward so that he fell outside of the elevator. The two technicians stood there frozen in fear.
“Ladies,” Hugo said nicely as he motioned them off of the elevator and into the hall. As the two stepped out of the elevator, Hugo screamed, “Run!” The technicians took off running down the hall, fearing for their lives. The two sounded like a small herd of horses, their shoes clopping on the hard floor.
Hugo stepped into the elevator and pressed the hangar deck button, praying the damn elevator would go up and not down. The door closed and Hugo’s heart stopped as the car seemed to go down at first but then began to rise. Next stop… the hangar deck, if he was lucky.
As the elevator rose, Hugo could hear rumblings that sounded like explosions and began to smell smoke. He wondered what he was going to step into when he got to the hangar level. The elevator car vibrated and then stopped. Damn, thought Hugo. What a time to get stuck in an elevator! Smoke began to seep into the elevator. He placed his hand on the elevator door. It felt warm. That was not good either. There must be some kind of fire.
Through the closed door he could hear screaming. Some sounded like orders. Some sounded like screams of terror. He pressed the elevator button again. Nothing happened. He let his weapon fall across his chest and reached up with both hands and pulled the two elevator doors open about six inches. Acrid black smoke poured into the car. But he could see the exterior door was still closed. There was little time to lose.
Hugo drove his shoulder into the six-inch opening and heaved the interior elevator doors open. Now he was faced with a closed exterior door whose bottom was about waist high. He bent down a bit trying to see under the door. Hugo could see flashing lights, orange and red flickers in the crack under the door. It appeared the entire hangar deck was on fire! He wondered if he would be forced to find another way out.