BRAINRUSH 02 - The Enemy of My Enemy (19 page)

Chapter 33

Beneath the Sonoran Desert, Mexico

T
he image of Sarafina’s pleading eyes burned into Tony’s mind. He wanted to jump after her. He
needed
to jump.

But strong arms from above held him fast.

“It’s too late, Sarge!” Becker shouted over the rumble. The rushing water was too much for the drain to handle and the cavern was filling up. “You’ve got to climb.”

Tony resisted.

“We need you,” Becker yelled. “Your family needs you.”

Mel. The kids.

Tony buried his despair. The next wave was nearly upon him. He pushed to the next ledge and kept climbing, ignoring Becker’s eyes and the empty hole in his gut. The two men were at the top of the cavern in less than sixty seconds.

**

Becker opened his eyes to a stream of early morning sunlight slicing through the vent hole above him. Josh still slept, his head resting on Becker’s lap and his small arm draped over Max’s neck. Bradley lay beside them, gently snoring.

The air had warmed considerably. Becker’s clothes were nearly dry. He heard the flow of the river beneath them. It spun like a whirlpool just beneath their perch. Much of the bat guano had been washed away, clearing the air of ammonia. It now smelled faintly of creosote.

Marshall lay curled in a ball on the adjoining shelf. He used the backpack as a pillow. Becker was glad to see that he’d finally drifted off. He’d cried hard last night, and Becker couldn’t blame him. It was a damn shame and a tragic loss. Only a miracle could have saved Lacey and Sarafina.

Tony stood beside Marshall. He squinted against the sunlight. He used his hunting knife to chop away at the opening. His face and shoulders were covered with a thin layer of powdered limestone. Beads of sweat carved tracks through the stubble on his cheeks. A small pile of shale spread around his feet. He’d been at it all night without a rest and refused to speak.

Becker removed his plaid shirt and wadded it up under Josh’s head. Easing his leg out from under him, he stood, arching his back to stretch his aching muscles. He moved alongside Tony.

“There was nothing you could do,” he said softly, placing a hand on the man’s shoulder.

Tony ignored him. He continued to strike the ruined blade into the rock.

Becker hesitated. His friend was hurting. That’s why he’d given Tony his space throughout the night. But it was time to return to the present. When the others woke, they needed to see that Tony was still capable of leading them out of here.

He tightened his grip on Tony’s shoulder.

“Sarge,” he said. “I think I’ve figured a way out of here.”

The rhythmic scrape of blade against rock skipped a beat, but then Becker felt the tension increase in Tony’s muscles and the attacks on the stone returned with renewed force.

Becker held his ground, waiting.

Finally, with an angry grunt, Tony let go a powerful stroke that impaled the blade in the limestone. He released the quivering handle and turned to face the Aussie.

“Talk.” He wiped his forearm across his brow. It left streaks of powder in its wake.

“First off,” Becker said, kicking through the meager pile of shavings at Tony’s feet. “Judging by the progress you made in the last few hours, I need to revise my estimate of how long it would take us to cut our way out of here. Instead of five or six days, it’s likely to take five or six weeks.”

Tony’s eyes narrowed.

“Anyway,” Becker continued, “what we need is help from the outside. After that, a few squeezes of strategically placed C-4 and we’d be outta here in a skip.” He pointed his finger up the shaft. “All we have to do is signal for help.”

“Yeah, I already thought of that,” Tony said. “But we don’t have the sat-phone.” His jaw tightened. His voice was somber when he added, “And the emergency life-vest transponders were swept away.” 

“I know,” Becker said, “but with a little aboriginal creativity, I’m pretty sure I can get a signal up through that vent that will be visible for ten miles in every direction.”

Tony’s glum expression didn’t change in any obvious way, but Becker was certain he saw a flash of hope in his eyes.

**

 “That’s all of it,” Marshall said. He dropped the small bag of metal shavings into Becker’s palm.

“Well done,” Becker said, examining the magnesium shavings from the small brick of fire starter he’d found in the emergency pack. He’d given Marshall the task of scraping it into fine particles with his knife. The assignment provided a temporary distraction from the pain of his loss.

None of them had spoken much since awakening. Thankfully, most of the combustible ammonia gas had dissipated from the air. So Becker had lit the Sterno and boiled a pot of water for coffee and hot chocolate. It was followed by a hearty breakfast of freeze-dried spaghetti and meatballs. Under the circumstances it was a feast, though the glum mood of the group had been little better than that of condemned criminals eating their final meal.

Marshall retreated to a corner of the shelf to sit beside Josh and Bradley. The boy held his knees to his chest, rocking back and forth. Max paced in front of him, his tail down. Every once in a while he nudged at Josh’s hands with his nose. The boy didn’t seem to notice. Bradley kept to himself, seemingly resigned to his fate.

Becker sprinkled a dash of the magnesium into the boiling mixture in front of him and stirred it. The concoction smelled of ammonia.

“Don’t waste that stuff,” Tony said. “I need it for the Bronx candle.”

“Go easy, mate,” Becker said, handing the bag to Tony. He was glad to see Tony focused on something productive. The reference to his New York roots was the first sign that he’d compartmentalized his grief. “I only used a splash. It’ll add a dandy sparkle when it’s ignited.”

Becker had loved making smoke bombs as a kid. What young boy didn’t? Six parts potassium nitrate—in this case bat guano—plus four parts sugar, mixed in boiling water until it thickens. After that you can form it into any shape that strikes your fancy. Light it with a match and it will produce a thick white smoke that’ll fill an entire house in less than a couple of minutes. He’d learned that lesson the hard way.

It was ready. Using a spoon, he scooped the brown, clay-like clump onto one of the empty foil packets from breakfast. It was roughly the size of a baseball. Becker guessed it would burn for three or four minutes, producing a rising trail of dense smoke that would stretch a hundred feet into the dry desert sky. Smoke signals.

“The American Indians got nothing on me,” Becker said, admiring his work.

Of course, Becker thought, this entire plan hinged on the hope that Cal and Kenny had received Jake’s distress calls. They must be on their way by now. And when they discovered that the safe house had been destroyed, they’d do a grid search for survivors. Cal knew about the underground river, so he’d follow that track first. When Becker heard their plane or truck overhead, he’d ignite the clay, they’d see the smoke, and Beck and his boys would get rescued. No worries, right? About as simple as controlling the ’roos in the rangelands…  

He motioned to Tony. “The pot’s all yours, Sarge.”

He watched as Tony poured the remainder of the magnesium shavings into a pile on a flat rock. There were two similarly sized piles beside it—one of matchstick heads and the other of gunpowder. They’d removed the powder from their pistol slugs. Tony placed two wax candles from the emergency kit into the empty pot and placed it over the Sterno flame.

When the candles were fully melted, Tony extinguished the canned flame and scooped the remaining Sterno jelly into the wax, stirring it into a gooey paste. Becker watched with interest as Tony carefully added the magnesium, match heads, and most of the gunpowder into the mixture. He stuffed the concoction into an empty twelve-ounce water bottle, tamping it down with a spoon handle. When the bottle was nearly full, he added a layer of gunpowder to top it off. Through a hole in the cap, he inserted a twelve-inch fuse fashioned from a shoelace coated with a mixture of crushed gunpowder, wax, and superglue.

“Inner-city napalm,” Tony said. He tightened the cap on the bottle and hefted the makeshift bomb. “We can use it as a nighttime signal. Light it, toss it up the shaft to the desert floor, and it’ll blow with a spread of white-hot fire that’ll stick to anything it touches. Should be visible for twenty miles.” He fingered the shoelace that dangled from the cap. “The fuse oughtta take about three seconds.”

“Peaches,” Becker said, staring up the narrow vent. “As long as we can throw it at an angle that will keep it from dropping straight down on top of us.”

Tony held the bottle over his shoulder and cocked his arm back as if he were going to throw a Hail Mary pass.“That’s why
I’m
gonna do it.”

Chapter 34

Above the Sonoran Desert, Mexico

“T
he ranch is gone,” Kenny said over the radio. “Obliterated. No one could’ve survived that.”

Cal studied the video image on the cockpit’s display. Kenny was right—it didn’t look good. There were bodies strewn outside the blast radius of the ranch, some in uniform and even more that looked like locals. From the close-up images transmitted from the drones, he could see that each of them had weapons.

“Hell of a firefight,” Cal said.

When the camera panned the last of the bodies, Kenny said, “They’re all tangos. None from our team.”

Cal heaved a sigh of relief. He knew from experience that Jake, Tony, and Becker weren’t the easiest people to kill. They would’ve done whatever it took to protect the others. He hoped they’d all made it out of there safely.

 “In his last message, Jake said that Tony and the others were making their way into the underground tunnels,” he said. Though he’d never visited the safe house, Jake had provided him with a vivid description of the ranch when they’d shared a few beers at Sam’s a month ago. The river running beneath the property ran all the way to the Gulf of California. “Expand the search grid.” 

“Already done.”

**

Max lifted his nose from his paws, eyes alert. His head canted to one side. Beside him, Josh stilled his rocking for the first time since Sarafina and Lacey disappeared. He aimed an ear toward the ceiling.

“I hear a motor,” he said.

Tony rose and stared at the slit of pale blue sky eight feet above. He heard it—the indistinct echo of an engine. He kicked Becker’s curled form. The Aussie woke with a start. His hand reached for the hunting knife strapped to his shin.

“Light the smoke,” Tony said, straining to identify the faint sound. He couldn’t tell if it was a plane or vehicle. In either case, the sound wasn’t getting any louder, which meant it wasn’t heading toward their position. “Hurry,” he added.

Earlier, after the volatile clay mixture had cooled, Becker had fashioned the smoke bomb into the shape of an elongated pear. It had a flattened bottom and a pencil-thick point at its crown. It rested on the rock ledge beneath the vent. Becker struck one of the remaining matches against the rock.

“Stand clear,” he said.

Tony backed away.

Becker touched the flame to the tip of the molded clay. It ignited like a butane torch.

“Whoa!” Tony said. The intense six-inch flame sparkled and hissed. It emitted a dense white smoke that reminded Tony of the exhaust from a space shuttle launch. He and Becker jumped to the next ledge to escape the billowing smoke.

“That’s just the pre-show, mate,” Becker said with a grin. “Wait ’til you see what happens next.”

The hungry flame ate through the slender finger at the top of the device and quickly spread to the thicker, lower part of the pear. The torch’s intensity grew tenfold, blasting the thickening plume of smoke up through the vent like the exploding ash from a miniature volcano. It must be a sight to behold from above, Tony thought. The funnel of smoke had to stretch several hundred feet up into the air. Impossible to miss.

“Nice one, Beck,” he said, patting the Aussie on the shoulder as they crouched against the cold rock. “Way…to…go.”

Though the majority of the smoke drafted up the vent, the excess spread across the roof of the cavern like fast-moving fog. Tony, Becker, and Marshall covered their mouths with their sleeves to avoid the worst of the fumes. Bradley pulled his shirt partway over his head, leaning over to cover him and Josh. Max joined them and burrowed his head under the makeshift tent.

Chapter 35