The sharp pull of the rope sent them arcing through space before the line came tight again, a brutal repeat of the initial jerk. Their motion set the line spinning. When he could look back at the falls, Mercer saw the boatload of Chinese soldiers follow the skiff. They had misjudged their speed, the distance, and the relentless pull of the water. Two men managed to hold on to the inflatable until it bounced off the rocks. One of them even maintained his grip after that first impact before he was smeared against a boulder. The red stain that had been his life’s blood was washed away in an instant. Two of the guards were like limp dolls as they fell from pool to pool. The fourth had landed atop a pinnacle of rock so that his spine had folded backward on itself and his arms trailed in the water.
“Snap yourself in,” Mercer shouted to Foch over the rotor beat and the wind of their forty-knot speed. The first drops of rain pelted him like gravel. He slitted his eyes against the sting.
The soldier struggled for just a moment before he clipped his harness into one of the closed hooks. Mercer relaxed his grip. “Thank you,” Foch said simply as he sagged against the line, drained.
“Don’t thank me yet. Liu’s chopper’s going to be after us in a minute.” Mercer caught Lauren’s eye and smiled up at her. Her hair whipped around her head like electric discharges as she dangled below the chopper. She gave him a thumbs-up. Bruneseau was on his own line, high enough above Mercer and Foch that they wouldn’t slam into each other as the helo turned toward Panama City.
“We can’t stay here,” Foch shouted the obvious. “If we’re chased, the pilot can’t maneuver with us dangling like this.”
Mercer and he began to climb together, a difficult trick because both were tired and the wind was a constant buffet. Lauren saw them coming closer, understood what they were doing and began to haul herself hand over hand. Bruneseau too started up. It took a few minutes to scramble into the rear of the chopper, and in that time all of them saw the dark speck lift away from the volcanic peak. The chase was on again.
Above the Darien Province, Panama
Sergeant Huai watched the four commandos climb into their helicopter through a pair of binoculars he held steady against the door frame of the company chopper. He was impressed. Most people couldn’t maintain enough balance to keep from spinning on a rappel line and these four managed to climb against the wind. Not an easy feat.
On a purely professional level, he had to give them credit for the entire operation, even if they had lost two people. He had no idea how many were still out in the jungle, but it seemed that even if there were only the six he could account for, they’d done a good job. This time there were no Panamanian troops that could be blamed for the security breach. These six had gone up against some of the best in the Chinese military and had not only made it in, but two-thirds of their force had made it out again.
He wasn’t worried that they would actually evade him. Two choppers armed with heavy machine guns would be taking off from the Hatcherly facility within a few minutes. The JetRanger would be trapped between them, allowing him to respect what they’d accomplished without worrying about long-term damage if they did escape to tell their tale.
At the warehouse a few nights earlier, Captain Chen had suggested that the force who’d infiltrated the port was a local gang of thieves or gunrunners. Watching as the JetRanger was pulled deeper into the storm, Huai knew that he was facing something else entirely. These people fought like trained commandos. His first instinct was American Special Forces, SEALs, or maybe Marine Recon—a chilling thought because it meant their security was blown. Liu Yousheng had kept Operation Red Island well compartmentalized and yet Huai knew that if the Americans were onto even this part of it, the entire mission might be finished. Destroying the chopper and its occupants was of primary concern, but equally important to Huai was identifying the commandos. While he knew they wouldn’t be carrying any identification, he was familiar with other, subtler signs that would give away their nationality. Types of uniforms, equipment and weaponry could be false flags, while a corpse couldn’t hide its skin color, tattoos or dentistry.
With his helo closing the gap to the fleeing JetRanger, Huai thought about his report to Captain Chen. Chen had turned into a real bastard since his screwup at the warehouse. He was looking to shed some of the blame onto his men and he’d like nothing more than tearing Huai apart for this latest lapse if only to regain Liu Yousheng’s favor. Not that Huai believed the Hatcherly executive would be impressed that Chen could yell at one of his own men. Huai thought he understood Liu. The official wanted results and didn’t care how he got them. So long as the JetRanger was destroyed, he wouldn’t be bothered with the details.
And taking down the enemy chopper was only a matter of time.
Gasping to regain his breath, Mercer finally rolled out from under the others in the cramped hold of the JetRanger. His uniform was soaked after only a few minutes in the deluge and more rain continued to whip through the open door frames. An occasional burst of lightning seared his vision. His first concern was Lauren.
“Are you all right?” he yelled over the engine noise and the steady pounding of rain. He helped her into a sitting position.
She looked miserable with her hair plastered against her head yet threw him a saucy smile. “Never better. How about you?”
“I owe you one for the boat. If not for your fancy driving, I would have gone overboard.”
Lauren disregarded the praise. “Your head okay?”
Mercer fingered the knot at the back of his skull. His hands came away bloody but he knew the wound wasn’t bad. “It will be after a stitch or three.” He looked to where Bruneseau sat with his back against the rear bulkhead. A burst of anger made him forget the minor cut in his scalp. “You gonna tell me what the hell you were playing at back there?”
The French agent began to slide over to where he could climb into the cockpit. “Later,” he said brusquely. “We’re not clear yet.”
“Hold it.” Lauren shifted her position to block the spy. “Do you know how to fly a chopper?”
“No.”
“Let me up front. These missing doors are killing our aerodynamics and speed. The Chinese helo’s gonna be on us soon. Your pilot will need the extra set of hands.”
“You fly?” Mercer asked.
She nodded, pleased that this skill seemed to impress him. “My rotary ticket hasn’t been punched in a few years, but ...”
“Okay,” Rene said after a moment’s thought. While Lauren crawled into the cockpit, Bruneseau pulled two pairs of headphones from a rack and handed one to Mercer. With his face a blank mask, Foch worked on the weapons, filling magazines from those that were half depleted. Mercer wasn’t surprised by how hard he was taking the deaths of his two men. The Legion prided itself on its esprit de corps and its unwavering dedication to its own. The loss was devastating.
Once on the comm loop Bruneseau asked the pilot, an Aussie named Carlson, about their situation.
“We have maybe five minutes on the other chopper, sir,” he replied in French with an Australian twang. “Looked like a Gazelle to me. She’s faster than us and we can’t hide in this storm forever.”
“Options.”
The JetRanger shuddered and lost fifty feet in a sudden downdraft. The winds whipped predominantly from their left but gusts came from every direction. The storm had turned the leaden sky into a riot. Lauren sat in the right seat with her hands hovering over the controls, ready to assist Carlson at any moment. She asked that they speak in English.