Zane slowly stood. “Back away!” The pistol was held rock steady on them.
Beyond the tense room, explosions continued to boom. Grenades.
Nate pulled Kelly away from Zane’s threatening gun.
Behind them, the shaman suddenly bolted toward the opening, frightened by the explosions, oblivious to the closer threat. A sound of alarm rose on his lips.
“Stop!” Zane screamed at the tribesman.
The shaman was too panicked to listen or to comprehend the stranger’s tongue. He continued to run.
Zane twitched his gun and fired. In the enclosed space, the blast was deafening. But not so deafening as to drown out the cry of surprise from the shaman.
Nate glanced over his shoulder. The shaman fell on his side, clutching his belly, gasping. Blood flowed from around his fingers.
Red with anger, Nate turned on Zane. “You bastard. He couldn’t understand you.”
The gun again pointed at them. Zane slowly circled around, keeping his weapon aimed. He even kept a safe distance from Frank’s hammock, not taking any chances. “You were always the gullible fool,” the Tellux man said. “Just like your father. Neither of you understood anything about money and power.”
“Who are you working for?” Nate spat.
Zane now had his back to the exit. The shaman had rolled into a moaning ball off to the side. Zane stopped and motioned with his pistol. “Toss your weapons out the window slits. One at a time.”
Nate refused to budge, shaking with rage. Zane fired, blasting wood chips from between Nate’s toes.
“Do as he says,” Frank ordered from the hammock.
Scowling, Kelly obeyed. She freed her pistol from its holster and flung it out one of the windows.
Nate still hesitated.
Zane smiled coldly. “The next bullet goes through your girlfriend’s heart.”
“Nate…” Frank warned from the bed.
Teeth clenched, Nate edged to the wall, weighing his chances of firing at Zane. But the odds weren’t good, not with Kelly’s life at risk. He unslung his gun and heaved it through one of the slits.
Zane nodded, satisfied, and backed toward the exit. “You’ll have to excuse me, but I have a rendezvous to make. I suggest you three remain here. It’s the safest spot in the valley at the moment.”
With those snide words, Zane slipped out of the chamber and disappeared down the throat of the tunnel.
8:12 A.M.
Deep in the jungle, Manny ran alongside Private Carrera. Tor-tor raced beside them, ears flattened to his skull. Explosions ripped through the morning, smoke wafted through the trees.
Kostos ran ahead of them, screaming into his radio. “Everyone back to home base! Rally at the dwelling!”
“Could they be our people?” Manny asked. “Responding to the GPS?”
Carrera glanced back at him and frowned. “Not this quick. We’ve been ambushed.”
As if confirming this, a trio of men, dressed in camouflage gear and armed with AK-47s and grenade launchers, trotted into view.
Kostos hissed and waved them all down.
They dropped to their bellies.
An Indian ran at the group with a raised spear. He was nearly cut in half by automatic fire.
Tor-tor, spooked by the chattering gunfire, bolted forward.
“Tor-tor!” Manny hissed, rising to one knee, reaching for the cat.
The jaguar dashed into the open, across the path of the gunmen.
One of them barked something in Spanish and pointed. Another grinned and lifted his weapon, eyeing down the barrel.
Manny raised his pistol. But before he could fire, Kostos rose up ahead of him, the M-16 at his shoulder, and popped off three shots, three squeezes of the trigger. Blam, blam, blam.
The trio fell backward, heads exploding like melons.
Manny froze, stunned.
“C’mon. We need to get back to the tree.” Kostos scowled at the jungle. “Why the hell aren’t the others responding?”
8:22 A.M.
Kouwe kept Anna behind him as he hid behind a bushy fern. Dakii, the tribal guide, crouched beside him. The four mercenaries stood only six yards away, unaware of the eyes watching them. Though Kouwe had heard the sergeant’s order to regroup at the nightcap oak, with the marauders so near, he dared not signal his acknowledgment. They were pinned down. The group of mercenaries stood between them and the home tree. There was no way to get past them unseen.
Behind him, Dakii crouched as still as a stone, but the tension emanating from him was fierce. While hidden, he had watched more than a dozen of his tribesmen—men, women, children—mowed down by this group.
Further in the wood, explosions continued to boom. They heard screams and the crash of dwellings from the treetops. The marauders were tearing through the village. The only hope for Kouwe’s party was to flee to some sheltered corner of the jungled plateau, hope to be overlooked.
One of the soldiers barked into a radio in Spanish. “Tango Team in position. Killzone fourteen secure.”
Kouwe felt something brush his knee. He glanced over. Dakii motioned for him to remain in place. Kouwe nodded.
Dakii rolled from his side, moving swiftly and silently. Not a single twig was disturbed. Dakii was teshari-rin, one of the tribe’s ghost scouts. Even without his paint, the tribesman blended into the deeper shadows. He raced from shelter to shelter, a dark blur. Kouwe knew he was witnessing a demonstration of the Yagga’s enhancement of its wards. Dakii circled around the band, then even Kouwe lost track of him.
Anna grabbed his hand and squeezed. Have we just been abandoned? she seemed to silently ask.
Kouwe wondered, too, until he spotted Dakii. The tribesman crouched across the way. He was in direct sight of Kouwe and Anna, but still hidden from the four guards.
Dakii rolled to his back in the loam, aiming the small bow he had found high into the air. Kouwe followed where his arrow pointed. Then back down to the mercenaries.
He understood and motioned for Anna to be ready with her own weapon. She nodded, staring up, then back down, understanding.
Kouwe signaled Dakii.
The tribesman pulled taut his bowstring and let fly an arrow. A tiny twang was heard, as was the louder rip of arrow through leaf. The mercenaries all turned in Dakii’s direction, weapons raised.
Kouwe ignored them, his gaze focused above. High in the branches was the ruin of a dwelling, but left intact among the branches was one of the little ingenious inventions of the Ban-ali, one of their makeshift elevators. Dakii’s arrow sliced the support rope that held aloft a cradled counterweight, a large chunk of granite.
The boulder came crashing down, straight at the group of mercenaries.