“Yes.”
“Akil, you and Suárez help everyone aboard, close the door, and tell the pilot to leave. Manny, come with me.”
“Where’re you guys going?” Akil asked.
“Don’t worry about us.”
“We’ll wait.”
Crocker: “There’s no time.”
“No.”
“You go. We’ll fight our way out.”
“Boss-”
“Don’t argue. Just do it! Now!”
He and Mancini ran, crouched at the far corner of the shack, and readied their weapons. The pickup was out of view for a moment, in a gully at the near end of the stables. He saw the Gulfstream come to a full stop, saw the side door open and the stairway deploy.
Hurry!
Gomez ran toward it first, then Akil and Suárez, who was helping Mrs. Clark. She tripped and fell on her way up the stairs. Akil and Suárez supported her.
Fucking hurry!
The Federale pickup came up the berm and immediately opened fire. A big machine gun, either a.30 or.50 cal, clanged on its bed. Bullets whizzed past them in the direction of the plane, which stood completely vulnerable, like a delicate white bird.
Crocker heard the jet engine whine higher and, turning to Mancini, screamed, “Now!”
The two SEALs jumped out from behind the building and fired everything they had in a ferocious salvo of bullets that shredded the truck’s front tires and shattered its windshield. Mancini groaned, grabbed his right knee, and fell to the ground. The pickup swerved left, looking for a second like it was about to turn over, then righted itself on the concrete runway. It seemed to gain speed as it chased the jet.
Crocker was trying to take out the soldier firing the.50 cal when his weapon went dry. Instead of searching his vest for another mag, he tossed the MP7 aside and picked up the M870, which was preloaded with an M1030 cartridge.
The pickup raced past, forty feet away, machine gun rounds careening off the runway. The jet started to lift off the ground.
Crocker, utilizing some Kentucky windage skills he’d picked up, fired at the truck as the jet roared into the sky. The cartridge slammed into the truck’s side. A second later the gas tank exploded and the machine gun stopped firing. The pickup veered off the concrete strip, hit the ground in front of it, and turned over onto its back.
“Good shot,” Mancini groaned from the ground.
“You okay?”
In muted light Crocker saw that Mancini was in the process of ripping his pants leg, which exposed a bloody area under his knee.
“I got nicked. Must’ve hit a nerve, because my leg went numb,” Manny said.
“You need me to carry you?”
“No. Leave me here.”
“Fuck that.”
Chapter Sixteen
Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change.
– Stephen Hawking
They were on their own with little ammunition, Mancini’s bum knee, and several truckloads of angry Federales closing in on them. Crocker made a beeline for the hangar, where he found the Ford Explorer. Thankfully, Gomez had left the keys in the ignition.
Sweating from every pore in his body and breathing hard, he fired up the ignition, spun the vehicle around, drove to where Mancini was waiting, helped him aboard, and exited through the side gate in a cloud of dust.
Bullets ripped into the back of the SUV, shattering the rear window. Crocker operated completely on instinct, driving hard with the headlights off and turning right, down a dirt path that led in the direction of the river.
“I don’t think this is a road,” Mancini said as he wrapped the wound under his knee and covered it with a white bandage.
“It is now. How’s the leg?”
“I’ll manage.”
In the rearview mirror he saw the headlights of the Federales’ vehicles less than ten yards behind them. A helicopter banked overhead, its searchlight sweeping the canopy of trees.
The vehicle bounced hard down the pitted path. Branches scraped the sides, producing a horrible screeching sound. After several hundred yards, the narrow path ended with concrete steps and a broken concrete embankment that angled down sharply to the wide gravel bed and then the river.
“I got half a mag left,” Mancini said, holding his MP7 and turning to look behind.
“Hold on.”
Crocker braked first, then eased the Explorer down the steps to the embankment at a forty-five-degree angle. The vehicle jolted violently from side to side, scraping bottom over sections of concrete that had risen due to changes in the topography of the river. Several times it was in danger of flipping onto its hood or turning over sideways.
“How’s your knee now?” Crocker asked.
“Hurts like a motherfucker.”
A Vietnam-era UH-1 Iroquois helicopter swooped low in front of them and unleashed a stream of bullets that tore into the hood. A hot piece of metal grazed Crocker’s cheek, but he kept pushing the SUV forward and found gravel. Engine growling, the Explorer lurched forward and entered the river with a splash.
“Get ready to swim.”
Water rose past the wheels to the hood. Crocker gunned the accelerator, and the tires spun over wet gravel and rock.
“The engine’s gonna flood,” Mancini warned.
The tires spun and gradually gained traction, causing the vehicle to plow through the ten-foot-wide ribbon of water to the other side.
“Frisky mofo.”
“We’re in Guatemala now,” Crocker announced, steering the smoking Explorer up a sandy embankment into some low trees.
“Is that good or bad?” Mancini asked.
The helicopter swooped in low over the river again.
“Watch out!”
They ducked behind the dash together, but the helo didn’t fire. In the rearview mirror Crocker saw the two Federale pickups stop on the other side of the river. Armed men jumped out with automatic weapons ready. But instead of taking aim, they spat on the ground.
“Looks like they’re gonna respect Guat sovereignty,” Mancini announced.
“They’re probably notifying their counterparts in the Guatemala police right now.”
Their next challenge was getting past the Guatemalan border guards, who Crocker didn’t feel like wrangling with. He took what he hoped was a detour through back dirt roads that wound up into low hills dotted with little coffee and marijuana farms. As he tooled down a narrow country road, windows open, the engine coughed and the SUV lurched and sputtered to a stop.
“What happened?” groaned Mancini.
“I think we ran out of gas.”
“Fuck.”
Crocker had three hundred dollars in cash in the heel of his boot in case of emergency. This certainly qualified, so he got out and walked ahead toward some dim yellow lights. He made out an old man sitting on the front porch of a dilapidated house smoking a pipe.
“Buenas noches, Señor,” Crocker said.
The old man pointed at the moon and said, “La luna se lloro esta noche.” (“The moon cries tonight.”)
Crocker nodded but didn’t understand. “Tengo…mi auto, ahi,” he said, trying to recall his meager Spanish. “Muy grande problema. No más gasolina.”
“¿Necesita gasolina?” the old man asked, rising slowly and looking deeply into Crocker’s eyes. He didn’t seem to mind the fact that Crocker’s face, neck, and arms were covered with cuts and abrasions. Instead, he nodded and pointed to a twenty-year-old faded-red Datsun 510 sedan parked under some banana trees by the side of the shack next door.
“¿Este tiene gasolina?” Crocker asked.
“Viene aqui.” The man escorted Crocker to the shack next door, talking in Spanish the whole way. He knocked on the door and entered. A chubby young woman sat in a T-shirt and shorts embroidering a blouse as incense burned on a table covered with statues of saints in the corner.