Thanks to their training, Payne and Jones reacted a full second before anyone else. Payne fired his gun towards the sound of Krueger’s blast, hoping to hit the gunman with a lucky shot, while Jones sprinted forward and jumped onto the driver’s seat. Wasting no time, Jones cranked the accelerator on the ATV. With a cloud of dirt and stone, the vehicle rocketed forward into two unlucky Frenchmen, who got bowled over like drunken matadors. Thrown off balance by the abrupt movement of the trailer, the surgeon fell on top of Kaiser but managed to hold on to one of the straps or else he would have been trampled by his countrymen, who scattered at the intersection. One moment they were thankful for their freedom; the next they were shitting their pants and running for their lives.
Armed with assault rifles, Huber and Lange filled the woods with suppressive fire. The goal was to make the enemy scramble for cover while Jones escaped with the ATV. Their plan worked for nearly ten seconds until Krueger’s goons started firing from their hiding spot on the other side of the intersection. In a cruel twist of fate, one of them used the assault rifle they had taken from Schneider shortly after his throat had been slashed. Still stained with his blood, the Heckler amp; Koch G36 unleashed a hailstorm of automatic fire towards Schneider’s friends. One shot caught Lange in the throat and another grazed his hip, while Huber remained unscathed. Risking his life, Huber grabbed Lange by the back of his shirt and pulled him into the nearby bushes as more shots whizzed overhead. Huber worked on him feverishly, trying to stop the geyser in Lange’s neck, but it was all for nothing. He died a short time later.
Realizing no one was guarding Kaiser except Jones, Huber darted through the trees and bushes until he found a narrow gap that allowed him to slip back onto the path towards Eckbauer. The ATV and trailer were still in sight, and the gun fire was now behind him. As far as he was concerned, he had made the right choice – even if that meant running from a fight.
With Collins and Lange dead, Jones driving and Huber gone, Payne and Richter were left to deal with Krueger and his two goons. Based on shot patterns and geography, Payne figured out how many men they were facing and where they were located. Payne relayed this information to Richter, who was crouching behind a boulder about fifteen feet away, by using military hand signals. Despite the look of confusion that still plagued Richter’s face, he nodded his head in understanding. Payne hoped that was the case, but since he was dealing with a man who had been barking at him less than ten minutes before, he wasn’t overly confident.
Still, he reasoned, two guns were better than one.
Guns. The word triggered a thought in Payne’s mind.
Until that moment, he had been using a Sig Sauer P228 to defend himself. It was the weapon of choice of many military agencies in the United States, but it had the stopping power of a slingshot when compared to the G36 assault rifle that Richter and one of Krueger’s goons were firing. If he had a weapon like that in his hands, he could do some serious damage. Instead of hiding in the trees and playing charades, he could go on the offensive and end this bullshit once and for all, which was what MANIACs were trained to do.
But first, Payne had to acquire a rifle.
39
Jones stopped the ATV about 150 yards from the intersection, just past a thicket of trees that would temporarily shield the trailer. Glancing back, he saw the surgeon clinging to the cords that secured the crates in place, his fingers pale from clenching so tight.
‘Are you okay?’ Jones asked as he hustled towards him.
The surgeon nodded and sat upright. ‘What was that?’
‘That was an ambush. Obviously someone was trying to kill you.’
‘Me? Why would anyone want to kill me?’
‘I don’t know. What did you do?’
The surgeon blinked a few times and tried to come up with an answer, which Jones found comical despite the situation. Normally, Jones would have messed with him even further, but he realized time was too valuable to waste.
‘It’s not important,’ Jones assured him. ‘What is important is your patient. The reason I saved your life was so you could save his. Don’t worry. You can thank me later. For now, you need to focus on him and nothing else. Okay?’
The surgeon nodded, then turned his attention to Kaiser.
With a gun in his hand and an eye on the path, Jones pulled out his radio as the sound of automatic fire continued to roar in the distance. Although he felt guilty about abandoning Payne at the intersection, he knew he had made the right decision. He had rescued Kaiser and had protected the cargo by driving the ATV out of harm’s way. In the heat of battle, he had kept his composure and had done what he needed to do. It was a skill he had learned with Payne. During their time in the MANIACs, they had been taught to improvise behind enemy lines since their missions rarely went as planned. Sometimes that meant using salami to slide down a rope, other times it meant taking over the duties of a fallen colleague. Ultimately, as long as they completed their missions, the Pentagon rarely questioned their methods or asked who did what. They only cared about success.
Of course, now that Kaiser and the cargo were temporarily safe, Jones’s focus shifted back to everyone he had left behind. Success was important, but so was his best friend’s survival. ‘Black Knight to White King. Can you hear me? Over.’
There was fifteen seconds of silence before Jones heard a reply.
‘I’m kind of busy,’ Payne said from his hiding spot in the bushes. ‘What’s your status?’
‘Hanging out. Chillin’. Working on my tan.’
‘How’s our patient?’
‘Safe. How’s Collins?’
‘Dead.’
Jones had figured as much. ‘Do you need an extra gun?’
‘Funny you should mention that. I’m working on that right now.’
‘Meaning?’
‘I’ll tell you later. For now, you’re in charge of our patient. Get him to the chopper asap. I’ll take care of everything else.’
‘Hold up,’ Jones said, tensely. He spotted a man in camouflage running up the path towards the ATV. Once he realized it was Huber, he slowly relaxed. ‘A pawn is heading my way. Do you want me to send him back?’
‘That’s a negative. I’m stuck with one already. I can’t supervise two.’
‘Are you sure? Because-’
‘Go!’ Payne ordered. ‘Make sure you aren’t followed. Take precautions.’
Jones nodded in understanding. Take precautions was a coded message from Payne. It let him know he could disable the cableway when he reached the bottom of the mountain because Payne was going to take another way down. Knowing his friend as well as he did, Jones was fairly confident that Payne’s route would take him through the gorge.
It was the type of environment where he could work his magic.
Payne stared at the G36 assault rifle from his hiding spot in the trees. In some ways, he felt like a hungry fox eyeing a hen house. He knew the risk was great, but so was the reward.
Even though the weapon was less than ten feet from his grasp, it would be tough to recover since it was strapped to Collins, who was lying dead near the intersection where they had been ambushed. It was an area surrounded by enemy troops. Making matters worse, Collins had fallen on top of the rifle when he had slumped out of the ATV. To recover it, Payne would have to grab more than the weapon. He would have to grab the corpse as well.