BRAINRUSH 02 - The Enemy of My Enemy (42 page)

Everything was in place. His mind traced each facet of the device, double-checking the wiring and assembly against the schematics from his memory. Confident with the results, he flipped open the panel to reveal the timing mechanism. His hand hesitated over the ten-key pad.

Jake was ready to die. He’d been ready for months. But the woman he loved? His unborn child? His friends? They weren’t prepared. One moment, here; the next, nothing.

If only he’d remained hidden following his escape from Battista’s mountain. But no, he’d been weak. He used the alien threat as an excuse to justify seeking help from his friends. Now they would die because of it.

Damn
. Was he really going to do it? Wasn’t there something, anything, he could do to help them escape? He’d been through it over and over again. It wasn’t that the solution eluded him; there simply
wasn’t
a solution.

He glanced at the obelisk at the other end of the warehouse. Earlier he’d hoped that linking with it might help. He’d tried one combination after another with the symbols, hoping to find the sequence that would gain him access to the device. It was no use. Nothing had worked. He knew how to launch it, but that was the
last
thing he wanted to do.

No, he was out of options. They would all die here, one way or another. Better that it be swift and painless.

Jake set the timer for ninety minutes and left the building.

**

He was ten paces from the prison structure when distant gunfire erupted from one of the patrolling jeeps. Tracer rounds arced into the trees. Sirens sounded over the loudspeakers. Lights came on, doors flew open, and armed men stormed out of nearby barracks. They sprinted toward the gunfire. Jake ducked into the shadows behind the cell blocks. Any hopes of slipping back into his cell unnoticed had vanished. And when he got caught, Becker would pay the price.

There was a barked order and one of the soldiers split from the main force and ran in Jake’s direction. He flattened himself against the wall and willed the
jihadist
to look the other way. Instead, Jake’s rushed entry into the man’s thoughts drew startled eyes in his direction. The muzzle of the soldier’s assault rifle swiveled. A short warning burst peppered the dirt at Jake’s side. Bits of gravel bit into his shins. A door swung open and the two prison guards rushed out, weapons raised. Jake tensed. With the mini in his pocket, he thought he could take all three of them, but he wasn’t certain. He didn’t want to die out here. Alone. He needed to see Francesca and Sarafina one final time. He dropped to his knees, threw both hands over his head, and begged for mercy.

“Don’t shoot!” He shouted as loudly as he could so that Becker would hear him inside the cell block. “Please!”  

The soldiers rushed forward. One trained his weapon at Jake’s head. The other searched him. He pulled the mini from Jake’s pocket and it felt as if the oxygen had been sucked from the air. The man tucked the device into a compartment on his utility belt. Jake’s body gave in to the stress of the accelerated pace he’d forced upon it over the past day. He sagged to the dirt, his heart pounding against his rib cage. His gasps for air seemed in vain. The other guard kicked his legs.

“Up!” he ordered.

 Jake pressed his palms to the dirt and pushed. But before he was halfway up, his strength gave out. His cheek hit the earth with a dull thud.

The guards grabbed him under both arms and dragged him to his cell. The third soldier stood guard outside the building.

Jake was dazed, but still conscious. He exhaled a sigh of relief when he saw that Becker was back in his cell with Marshall and Lacey. The door to Jake’s cell was wide open.

“How did he get out?” one of the guards whispered in Dari. There was fear in his voice.

“By Allah, I do not know!” the other guard said. They dumped Jake into the cell. “I thought he was sleeping.”

The first guard hefted the padlock as if to examine it. Jake sat up. “Next time, lock the door, dumb shit,” he mumbled, hoping to prevent an inspection that might reveal the lock had been picked.

The man turned on him and kicked him in the stomach. Jake rolled away. The guard struck again. His steel-toed boot dug into Jake’s kidney. White-hot flame radiated from his lower back. A wave of nausea brought him close to puking. A shout from the guard stationed at the door interrupted the beating.

“They’re bringing in another prisoner!” the guard reported.

The two guards standing over Jake exchanged worried glances. “The
sheikh
will surely follow,” one of them said. “He need not know that this one almost escaped.”

“Agreed!” 

They rushed to relock the cell gate. A moment later a group of soldiers entered with a bedraggled Hispanic in tow. He was filthy and unshaven. Even from ten paces away, the aroma of sewage emanated from the man. The group neared Jake’s cell and what he saw jolted him like a live electric current. Papa Martinez offered Jake a sly wink as he was dragged past the cell. He puckered his lips and whistled the first bars of a song that any red-blooded American patriot would know. Jake started whispering the lyrics to the tune before he even realized he was doing it.

From the halls of Montezuuuuma…

The butt of a rifle stifled Papa’s whistle, but not Jake’s excitement. The looks of shock from his friends across the corridor told him that they got the message as well.
The cavalry had arrived
. Jake sensed the swell of hope that radiated from the group. They believed the end of their ordeal was close at hand.

They had no idea how right they were.

Chapter 75

Venezuelan rainforest

T
wenty minutes later, the sun was up. The call to prayers had passed. Sounds of activity outside. Vehicular movement. An officer issuing orders. The footfall of trotting soldiers. The normal sounds of a military encampment coming awake. Jake’s internal clock told him he had less than thirty minutes to disable the bomb. He was still dog tired, running on adrenaline. But he wasn’t dead yet.

Papa had used tactical hand signals with Becker to fill them in about the plan. The rest of them had coordinated with sign language. Everyone was ready. Jake gave the nod.

A moment later Lacey let out an Oscar-winning, bloodcurdling scream. She collapsed to the floor of her cell, writhing and shaking in a violent seizure. The guards rushed to the cell, uncertain what to do. Marshall and Becker crouched to calm her. A flailing hand smacked Becker in the nose and he staggered backward. Lacey rolled to one side. Her blouse was unclasped and a tanned breast spilled out. Marshall reached to cover her up when she abruptly rose to her knees, doubled over, and wretched. Marshall’s surprise was genuine and Jake knew what was coming next from his weak-stomached buddy. He vomited beside her.

The scene riveted the guards. Neither noticed the flurry of activity in Papa’s cell at the end of the building. He’d removed the worn length of rope he’d worn to hold up his tattered pants. A twist of his wrists and the cord split into four lengths. He affixed three to the hinges of the cell gate and twisted the fourth around the padlock. A whisper to the other men in his cell and they moved to the back wall. Then he pressed a finger to one ear and muttered something to whoever was listening at the other end of his inner-ear com unit. When he got the response he was waiting for, he shouted at the guards.

“
Oye, pendejos!
What’s up over there?”

His use of English had an immediate impact. The guards spun and made their way toward Papa’s cell. By the time they were halfway there, Becker was already crouched by the padlock of his cell.

“I asked you a question,
hijos de la gran putísima,
” Papa sneered. His finger was still pressed to his ear.

The guards drew closer. Jake tensed for the final countdown. The first guard drew abreast of the gate. Papa uttered an order over the com-net. A rash of distant gunfire sounded outside. The guards froze. The first one noticed the cord, and shouted,
“
Moazeb bash!
”  

Too late. Papa had already turned his back and transmitted the signal to the miniature detonators embedded in each length of det-cord. The muffled explosion ripped the bamboo gate from its hinges. The blast lifted the first guard off his feet in a spray of skin-shredding bamboo slivers. The second guard stumbled backward but maintained his footing. Jake watched in horror as the
jihadist
raised his assault rifle. The scene slowed in his mind. The muzzle rising. Flashes of fire from the barrel. Papa moving to shield the cowering prisoners behind him. Bullets stitching a line in the floor. Becker launched in the air, leading with the heel of his boot… 

The full force of Becker’s one-hundred-ninety-pound charge struck the guard at the base of the head, snapping his neck and propelling him forward. The rifle went flying. The man was dead before he hit the ground. For a moment, the echo of gunfire was the only sound. It was replaced an instant later by Francesca’s scream.

Papa lay still on the floor. Smoke drifted upward from a line of holes running up his back. The former gang leader was dead.

**

The rattle of gunfire woke Battista. He sprang to his feet.

The door to his private room flew open and Abbas rushed in. “We are being attacked!”

“Of course we are, you fool!” Battista growled as he pulled on his camouflage trousers. “Get out there and do something about it!” Abbas raced out the door shouting orders. Battista cinched the laces on his boots, threw on his shirt, and pushed out the door.

A jeep and two Humvees kicked up clouds of dust as they sped east toward the attack. Abbas led the charge in the jeep. Two others were with him. One of them manned the .50-cal machine gun mounted in the rear. Three dozen soldiers raced after them on foot. More of them poured out of nearby barracks and followed.

The scene startled him. It was a disconcerting feeling for the master strategist. This was a move he had not anticipated. Rather than rushing into the fray, however, he analyzed the situation. His forces were under attack. The camp operated under the full authority of the government. Their only enemies were local tribes, and they didn’t carry automatic weapons. Rage rose from his core as the inevitable truth hit him.
Americans!
They were the only ones with the technology and gall to launch an operation deep in the heart of a sovereign nation. They must have arrived by air.

He pulled the com unit from his belt and issued an order to one of his commanders. “Deploy your SAM teams. They will have air support.”

Battista’s eyes narrowed on the dust trail left by the vehicles and the mass of soldiers running toward the threat at the eastern perimeter…

By Allah!
he thought with a start. He switched frequencies. “Abbas!” he shouted into the mouthpiece. “It is a feint. The prisoners!”

Chapter 76

Venezuelan rainforest

B
ecker peeked out the door of the prison structure. “All clear,” he whispered to the stack of people behind him. He pointed the AK-47 at a point in the distant tree line. “That’s our exit. Don’t stop running until you’re well into the jungle. Someone should be there to lead us to the planes.”

 Jake was at the back of the group, gripping an AK. He and Becker had taken the weapons from the two dead guards—Beck because he knew how to use it, and Jake because he was too weak to carry either of the smaller children. Tony was near the front of the line, Papa’s body slung over his shoulder.

No man left behind
.

Melissa, Andrea, and Tyler were beside him. Andrea seemed close to hyperventilating. Tyler had a gleam of excitement in his eyes. Marshall held Josh. Max pranced in place at his side. His tail beat rapidly against Marshall’s pant leg. Sarafina had latched onto Lacey’s chest. Francesca stood beside her. She turned and leaned to one side to look past the heads of the six locals who stood in front of Jake. Their eyes met and a world of emotions passed between them. He saw the muscles of her jaw pulse. She was determined to make it out with their baby. It was his job to cover their back.

If only I had the mini, Jake thought. The third guard had left with it after his capture. There was no telling where it was now. He’d pulled Tony and Becker aside earlier and told them about the nuke. Their initial shock had been quickly replaced with steely determination. They had twenty-five minutes before the bomb went off. They needed to get in the air ASAP.

“Now!” Becker ordered. He brought the assault rifle to shoulder-ready position and pushed through the door. The rest of the group followed on his heels. By the time Jake exited, Becker and Tony were already twenty paces ahead and moving fast. Jake struggled to keep pace. Adrenaline was his friend, but it wouldn’t last long. His heart rate doubled. He ignored it and swiveled the rifle from side to side and behind, looking for threats.