Trial By Fire (70 page)

While he was in the process of slipping the radio off his back and studying the pickup, Fast Eddie nodded. “Sure. But wouldn’t it be a good idea to wait for everyone else?”

The short mercenary was also preparing his weapon, looking at the two hostages standing against the garage wall, when Cerro looked back. They weren’t moving the hostages, they were going to shoot them.”No time.

Besides, once she hears the shooting, I’m sure Lieutenant Kozak will come.” At least, Cerro thought, that’s what he hoped. That she might still be climbing down the mountain and be too far off to get there in time didn’t really matter. What mattered was that he and Fast Eddie had to stop the mercenaries from shooting the hostages.

The sudden blaze of lights from the center of the compound startled Kozak. Without a thought, holding her rifle by the hand guard in her left hand, Kozak threw out her right hand with the palm open toward the platoon. Without a word, everyone, including Kozak, dropped down on one knee as they waited to see what was going on. Though they were less than fifty meters from the jumpoff point, Kozak knew that things were in the process of changing. The lights meant that some of the mercenaries were up and moving about. That, in turn, meant that the platoon’s ability to meet Cerro, get briefed on what he had seen, and use that information to conduct a slow, quiet approach, was out.

Looking back over her shoulder, Kozak studied her platoon for a moment. The men, kneeling or squatting where they had been when she had signaled them to halt, grasped their weapons as they waited. Though it was dark, and their eyes were hidden by the deep shadows of their helmets’ brims, Kozak could feel every man’s eyes riveted to her, waiting for her to make a decision that would throw them into battle again. There would be no need for dramatics, no long or stirring speech. Once she had made her decision, a few words, one quick command, was all that would be needed. She knew that they were ready to follow, but more important, Kozak knew she was ready to lead.

Taking a deep breath, she took one more look at her people before turning back to watch and listen. At least, she thought, they were in an assault formation that would lend itself to just about anything.

Lifting his rifle, Cerro flipped the safety off with his thumb and took aim at the mercenary in the green shirt. He ignored the appearance of the third mercenary in the door of the garage, pushing the last of the male hostages in front of him. “Okay, Eddie, throw it.” To his rear, Cerro could hear the grenade’s spoon and safety level flip up and the striker hit the primer.

He even heard Fast Eddie count to three before the crunching of dirt and a grunt from Eddie told him the grenade was on the way. Without waiting for the detonation, Cerro squeezed off two quick rounds.

The report of Cerro’s rifle, and the collapse of the mercenary in the green camouflage shirt next to him, surprised the short mercenary. He looked down at his friend as he fell at his feet just as the grenade went off.

Jumping and turning at the same time, he was in the process of looking for his friend’s assailant when Cerro fired on him. Hit once in the chest and once in the left shoulder, the second mercenary went down, falling backward and over the body of his partner.

Jumping up, Cerro ran a few feet into the open, yelling as he brought his rifle up to his shoulder, “Go, Eddie, go.”

The mercenary in the door of the garage, seeing Cerro, pushed the third hostage out of the way and began to bring his rifle up to his shoulder.

Cerro, however, was ready before the mercenary. Taking the best aim possible, he began firing away, one round at a time. Even after he hit the mercenary and saw him go down, Cerro continued to fire into him until Fast Eddie came around in front of him and blocked his view. Only then did he let the muzzle of his rifle down as he spun about to see what reaction their sudden attack had caused.

.The two hostages who had been against the wall were still on the ground. Cerro couldn’t tell if they were hit until Fast Eddie, coming up to them, started yelling for them to get up and back into the garage. Looking to his right, he saw the third hostage struggling to get up from where the mercenary had pushed him. Leaving Eddie to deal with them, Cerro took off for the tool shed, reaching the door in four or five quick bounds.

When she heard Cerro’s rifle fire, followed by the detonation of Eddie’s grenade, Kozak was up in a flash. That was it. Whatever was happening was happening now and happening fast. Without any further thought, Kozak leveled her rifle and took off at a run, yelling over her shoulder as she did so, ‘ ‘At the double, 2nd Platoon. Keep your eyes open and follow me!”

At the door, Cerro saw a bolt and lock securing it. He put the muzzle of his rifle under the lock and prepared to shoot it off, but decided against that. There was no way of telling where all the shit from the shattered bolt and bullet would fly once he fired. Stepping back slightly, he lifted his right foot and kicked in the door near the bolt with the sole of his boot.

The dry wood gave way, letting the door fly open and throwing Cerro off balance. Once he had both feet on the ground, Cerro stepped forward into the doorway and looked inside.

“Miss Fields, we’re Americans. You in here?” From the corner of the room, Cerro saw something move. Turning, he trained his rifle on it.

Seeing the black figure in the door, outlined by the light of the burning truck, and hearing the words “We’re Americans” overwhelmed Jan. It took her a second before her dry throat could choke out, “Yes, yes. I’m okay. I’m okay.” She was just beginning to cry for joy when the soldier in the door suddenly jerked, as if hit from behind, fell to his knees, and then flopped onto his face, his rifle landing on the ground just in front of Jan.

The shock of being shot took a moment to sink in. At first, as he had stood in the doorway, exposed, all Cerro had felt was a burning sensation in his calves of his legs and back. It was as if someone was jabbing hot needles into him. Only when he began to go down did it dawn upon him that he had been shot.

When he came to, everything seemed to have changed. There was a woman screaming in his ear. His face, in the dirt, was lying in something wet and sticky. His body felt weird, numb, sort of, and his mind seemed to be floating. Pulling his hands to his sides, he tried to push himself up.

This effort, however, was greeted with a spasm of pain that caused him to scream, falling back into the dirt after only lifting himself a few inches.

Cerro’s second attempt to do something was more modest. He merely rolled himself over onto his back. As he lay there, he could hear gunfire out in the compound. The burning pickup lit the inside of the tool shed with a strange, flickering light. Moving his head about, he saw Jan for the first time. “You okay, Miss Fields?”

The captain’s question caught Jan off guard. Jesus, she thought, what kind of a question was that? After all, here was this man, lying in his own blood, shot God knew where, and the first thing that came to his mind was her safety. It was the kind of thing that she expected from Scott. He would say something like that. He was always doing that to her, trying to play the he-man and overprotective male. When he did, it angered her. It was as if he considered her incapable of taking care of herself, treating her like a child.

But instead of anger, instead of being insulted that Cerro was acting like a typical male, Jan was touched. Gently taking his head in her hands, she bent over and kissed his forehead. “I’m okay.”

He had no idea why she had kissed him. Everything was so weird. Cerro could hear shooting, but he couldn’t decide what to do. People were shouting, too, but he couldn’t understand what they were saying. He knew he had to do something, but he wasn’t sure what to do first. At least, he thought, he wasn’t in pain anymore. The sharp, burning pain was gone. Instead, he felt warm. Not hot. Just warm. It was a nice, comfortable feeling, like you get when you’re wrapped in a comfortable blanket. Whatever it was that he needed to do could wait.

From the building next to the shed she was in, Jan could hear a nervous, anxious voice calling out, “Captain Cerro. Hey! Captain Cerro. You okay?”

Jan looked down at Cerro. He was out of it. “Captain Cerro’s been wounded.”

There was a pause, followed by a volley of rifle fire, before the voice outside came back. “You okay, lady?”

“Yes, I’m fine. But your captain needs help. Right away.”

There was another pause. “Sorry, lady, but I’m hit too. They got my arm. Can you get over here, into the garage?”

Jan looked at Cerro. Though he was breathing and awake, he wasn’t with it. She knew she couldn’t lift him. And she knew she wasn’t going to leave him. “No. I can’t.”

The next voice she heard was Joe Bob’s. “Jan, stay where you are. I’m on my way.”

After handing Ed Lewis the assault rifle he had taken from the dead mercenary in the doorway, Joe Bob looked over from the window at the soldier. “When you hear me yell, open up and see if you can keep those bastards busy. Got it?”

Fast Eddie thought the big cowboy was crazy, but he didn’t say anything to stop him. Instead, he just nodded. “Yeah, I’ll do what I can.”

Turning away from the crazy cowboy, Eddie eased himself into the most comfortable firing position he could. When he was set, he peered out across the compound toward the storage building where most of the enemy fire seemed to be coming from. Ready, he lifted his rifle, took aim as best he could, and began to squeeze off three-round bursts.

Without another word, Joe Bob looked out the window over to the tool shed where Jan was, then hoisted himself up and out of it as soon as Fast Eddie began to open fire. As soon as he hit the ground, Joe Bob flattened himself out against the wall of the garage, looking about to see if he had attracted any attention. When he was sure he had not been observed, he got to his feet and prepared to cover the few feet between the garage and the door of the tool shed. That part, he knew, was going to be tricky.

When he was ready, he moved out.

With the mercenaries’ attention centered on Fast Eddie and Lewis, Joe Bob jumped out of the shadows, taking great strides as he made for the door of the shed. Though he drew fire, it was wild and late, but not by too much. Joe Bob had barely cleared the door and thrown himself on the floor next to Jan and Cerro when a hail of gunfire from the storage building sent splinters and chips of metal flying about the tiny tool shed.

When there was a pause in the firing, Joe Bob pushed himself up off the floor and looked around the room, before he turned to Jan. Seeing that she was safe, he smiled.”Thought you could use a little company.”

With Guajardo hovering over him like the angel of death, Delapos watched the firefight unfold. From where he sat, on the side of a small mound just south of the eastern camp, Delapos could see his men scurrying about as they came out of the rear of the storage building and ran to take up positions in the machine shop and to reinforce the people in the admin building. A few, running over to the cantina, he knew, would not make it. For out of the darkness, coming from the east, he could see the forms of more soldiers emerging from the darkness. It would be over as soon as those soldiers hit the camp.

What happened there, however, no longer mattered to him. That Guajardo wanted something from him was obvious. Otherwise, Delapos knew, he would have been dead already. Though he suspected he knew the reason he was being kept alive, he wanted to confirm it. He didn’t take his eyes off of the unfolding battle three hundred meters away when he began to question Guajardo. “What do you intend to do with me?”

Standing behind Delapos, his feet spread at shoulder width and his submachine gun at the ready, Guajardo heard Delapos’s question but did not answer him immediately. He, too, was watching Kozak’s platoon, rifles held at the ready, bayonets fixed, as it rushed to join the fight already in progress. Although he had no idea why the young American captain had started the firefight on his own, Guajardo didn’t care. He had been right to leave the American cowboys to their games and take what he had come for. Even if every one of the American hostages died in the next few minutes, Guajardo knew they had achieved a great victory.

Looking down at Delapos, Guajardo smiled. “Whether you live or die, my friend, makes no difference to me. Your life, in the scheme of things, is not important. What you can do for me, in exchange for that life, is.

The choice will be yours. I trust that when the time comes, you will choose wisely.” Looking back at the compound, Guajardo watched Kozak’s platoon join the fight. Though he couldn’t tell which of the running figures was Kozak, he could hear the female’s high-pitched voice over the rifle fire as she issued her final orders. “Until then, my friend, sit back and enjoy the show.”

While they were still approaching the compound, Kozak turned and issued her orders, trotting backward as she did so. “Sergeant Strange, take your squad to the right and secure the tool shed and garage. Watch for the hostages. Sergeant Kaszynski, you clear the cantina. Sergeant Zeigler, set your machine gun up to sweep the open area in the compound while your squad clears the storage building. Sergeant Maupin, go with 3rd Squad, I’ll stay with 1st.”

For a few seconds, Kozak watched as the 2nd and 3rd squads split off and headed for the buildings she had indicated to them. Satisfied, she turned around. “Okay, Kaszynski, let’s go.” Picking up the pace, Kozak closed the last few meters of open ground.

Just as she was passing between the cantina and the storage building, a figure jumped out from the front of the cantina and began running toward the storage building. Though he was silhouetted against the burning pickup, Kozak couldn’t tell, at first, if he was friend or enemy. Only after the figure heard the tramping of Kozak’s people coming up behind him did he turn away from the firefight in the compound and toward her. When he did, Kozak saw that his weapon and clothing weren’t American.

Bringing her rifle down, Kozak attempted to fire from the hip, but got no response. Desperately she tried a second time, but the trigger wouldn’t budge. There was no time to find out what was wrong. In another second she would either be on top of the figure or he would recognize the threat she presented and fire on her. Leveling her rifle, she thrust it out in front of her, locked her elbows and arms stiff, aimed for the figure’s midsection, and charged.