Chapter 60

60

Cabrillo’s muscular frame was weighted down with armor plates and gear. Falling four feet from a running jump gave him the force of a battering ram when he hit the bottom of the pit. His boots cracked a set of bleached-white rib bones poking up out of the dry ground.

He glanced around. The thirty-yard-wide crater was a mass grave, its soil eroded away. A sea of bones.

A dozen skeletal hands clawed at the sky as if trying to dig themselves out of the ground.

Perhaps they had—if they’d been buried alive.

Seconds later, Linc landed next to him, his larger frame crushing a pair of skulls beneath his boot heels. It sounded like dried twigs snapping.

Both men exchanged a shocked glance. Neither had ever seen anything so bizarre or macabre. Plata had mentioned there were at least two mass graves on the island. The map didn’t indicate their location.

“Never thought I’d be fighting for my life from the bottom of a grave,” Linc said.

“The ironies of life never cease to amaze.”

Suddenly they heard Plata’s familiar voice shouting behind them.

“Over there!”

The two Oregon operators moved without a word. Their years of training and serving together created a near-telepathic ability to communicate with each other. Commands weren’t necessary. Juan instantly took up the four o’clock position on the rim and Linc the eight o’clock. They were spread out enough to cover a two-hundred-seventy-degree field of fire.

The roar of one of the RHIB outboards suddenly cut off.

“First boat just landed,” Linc said. “More company coming.”

“I hate it when they don’t RSVP.”

Juan scanned the open field. The graveyard was a pit in the middle of a wide-open field. They had clear shots at whoever crossed it. But they were sitting ducks waiting there. It was only a matter of time before they were overwhelmed.

“How are you on ammo?” Linc asked.

Juan smiled to himself. Linc must have been reading his mind.

“Not great. You?”

“Same.”

“Make every shot count.”

“Always do.”

“You remember Zulu?” Juan asked, his eye fixed on the red dot on his rifle.

“My favorite movie growing up. Why?”

“Who did you root for?”

“You have to ask?”

“I thought maybe we could sing like the Welshmen on the eve of battle.”

“I thought the Zulus sounded better.”

“They had a great bass section for sure, but no top tenors.”

Juan squeezed the trigger and ripped a short burst of rounds downrange at Osipenko as he raced through the trees trying to get around behind their position.

“Missed.”

Linc’s Barrett barked as he put a heavy round into the foliage, his sights resting on Plata ducking behind a tree.

“Missed.”

Suddenly, a line of bullets stitched across the lip of the crater.

“The guests have arrived,” Juan said, ducking low.

“I hope they brought dessert.”

---

★Plata had ordered the second RHIB to land and begin its assault despite the Japanese lieutenant’s complaints. The Vendor had put them all on a two-hour time clock and it was running out fast.

He had correctly guessed Mendoza’s movement toward the armory, but hadn’t counted on him taking his sweet time coming down the trail.

In order to surprise the two Americans, he had changed the radio channels to communicate with the bodyguards, but kept on the regular channel to fool Mendoza with false chatter in case he was listening in.

Despite the late hour, everything was going according to plan until el francés betrayed them. Plata quite enjoyed killing the sentimental traitor.

The two Americans were skilled operators, but their defensive position wasn’t tenable. They were completely surrounded.

But so long as the Americans stayed there, they were winning. If he didn’t capture Mendoza soon, he’d lose the money. Worse, their American backup would be arriving shortly, which the Vendor assured him would be a death sentence. If he wanted to capture Mendoza, he had to keep up the pressure without killing him, but it would cost Plata many casualties.

So far, Mendoza had proven too smart—or too lucky—to capture. He hated that bicho.

The more he thought about Mendoza’s arrogance, the angrier Plata got. Watching his men get slaughtered by those two Americans made his blood boil, and them killing his friend Drăguș had sent him over the edge. No doubt even more would die so long as he stayed his hand.

And who was this Vendor timador tugging on his neck like he was a monkey on his leash?

Plata seethed. To hell with the money. He was tired of being jerked around by Mendoza—and the Vendor.

This was his war now.

He keyed his mic.

“Plata to all units. We’ve got these American cowboys surrounded. On my signal, we attack—and kill them!”

---

★The mercs and bodyguards opened up a barrage of withering fire.

All Juan and Linc could do was duck low as they heard the shouts of men coming from all directions and the roar of automatic weapons racing closer toward them.

Deafened by the wall of noise, the two men exchanged a knowing glance.

This was it. No way out.

Might as well go out fighting.

And die like men on their feet.

The two friends nodded to each other. On a silent count of three, they leaped to their feet, their backs pressed together, guns up.

Juan’s narrowing vision saw the screaming faces racing toward him and the sparks of flame leaping from their rifles. He wasn’t afraid. It was all in slow motion, and oddly quiet. Even the geysers of dirt kicking up around them rose and fell as if suspended in water. Cabrillo knew it was the adrenaline dulling his senses and slowing time. He barely felt the rifle slug that hammered into his body armor, and hardly noted the blistering heat of bullets whizzing just inches past his face.

It would only be seconds until he and Linc would meet their fates.

Cabrillo’s body jolted as Linc fired the Barrett. He raised his own rifle to his cheek and pulled the trigger. He heard Linc shout something, but couldn’t make it out.

Cabrillo watched the line of soldiers racing toward him tumble like dominoes into the dirt, torn apart by a stream of lead.

Cabrillo suddenly realized what Linc was saying.

---

★“Pour it on, Wepps!” Gomez shouted over the comms.

Mark Murphy wore a pair of goggles and worked a video game controller in his hands. That gave him control of a remotely operated six-barreled “Vulcan” Gatling gun slung beneath the AW tilt-rotor. The Vulcan spat out six thousand rounds of 7.62 NATO per minute. Murph, a world-class gamer and the Oregon’s weapons expert, was in his zone.

And he was just getting started.

The AW had come in low over the water to avoid radar, then popped up at the last second to avoid the tree line. Originally targeting Juan’s and Linc’s tracker locations in the oceanside cave several hours earlier, Gomez was now zeroed in on Plata’s radio chatter. By directing his men at Juan and Linc, Plata had inadvertently brought the wrath of the tilt-rotor down on his own head.

Literally.

Murph put enough lead into Plata’s brainpan that everything above his Adam’s apple evaporated in a purplish mist of gore and bone.

The plume of an RPG roared out from beneath the trees. Gomez deftly sidestepped the unguided weapon as Murphy turned the remote machine gun onto the end of the smoky trail. The RPG launcher fell harmlessly into the grass.

The few surviving guards and mercs all dashed back into the trees.

“Clear!” Murph shouted as he scanned the area with his goggle-controlled video camera.

Gomez dropped altitude and sped over to the bone pit as Murph kicked out a couple of fast ropes.

---

★As soon as Juan saw the AW roar overhead, he dropped to one knee and powered up his radio, switching to a clear channel and keying his mic. It took the AW’s automated radio scanner a few moments to find Cabrillo. He called out for Gomez as Murph opened fire again. Spent rounds poured down from the belly of the tilt-rotor like brass raindrops.

Linc swapped out his mag and resumed taking potshots at the fleeing soldiers, dropping two. He counted eight bodies in his field of vision.

By that time the big, thundering bird was hovering overhead. Two fast ropes flapped and dangled over the side, battered by the hurricane-force winds of the big turboprops. Murph’s big head leaned out the cabin door. He called through the comms.

“You guys called an Uber?”

“I prefer Lyft, but whatever,” Linc said as he grabbed the first rope, slipping the toe of his boot into one loop and his hand through another.

Juan did the same on the second.

The last few men in the trees regained some of their courage, seeing the tilt-rotor’s Gatling gun had stopped firing. They opened up again. Bullets whizzed like angry hornets past Juan’s torso.

“Let’s vamoose!” Cabrillo shouted.

The twin Pratt & Whitney engines roared like demons as Gomez shoved the throttles to the stops.

Juan and Linc held on for dear life as the tilt-rotor lifted into the sky, the wind spinning them like tops as the hydraulic lifts pulled them up.

Murph pulled each man forward into the cabin, then jumped back into his seat, threw on his goggles, and picked up his controller, ready to resume the flight.

Juan dashed into the cockpit and fell into the copilot’s chair.

“We owe you big-time on this one,” Juan said.

“First round’s on you back at the barn,” Gomez said as he steered the aircraft over the water. “Second one’s on me.”

Tracers suddenly licked past the windscreen. Gomez yanked his stick and stomped his pedals to dive away from the stream of gunfire.

“It’s one of the RHIBs,” Murph shouted over the comms. The AW’s Gatling gun roared for a short burst just as several bullets hit the plane’s starboard engine.

“Got ’em,” Murph said.

But Gomez was focused on the smoke pouring out of the big Pratt & Whitney.

Not good.

They were still a long way from the Oregon.