Don Pendleton - Whipsaw

Tugging a length of the ammo belt free to make sure there were no snags, he started hammering. The big 7.62 mm bucked in his hands. He could feel its chatter in his bones from his knees on the floorboard right up through the top of his head. The door gunner, caught by surprise by a burst from behind as the chopper hovered to regroup, pitched forward and out the open door.

Bolan watched the ungainly swan dive with grim satisfaction, then hacked away at the tail. The pilot suddenly realized what was happening and started to climb. Plumes of smoke, probably a ruptured oil line, spewed out a ragged line of holes in the fuselage. The antitorque rotor suddenly stuttered, one shattered blade arcing off like a shiny comet. The imbalance tore its companion to pieces with stability gone, the chopper began to spin. The pilot tried to adjust, but he was helpless.

The smoke suddenly spouted flame, and Bolan banged away at it, trying to widen the fissures in the fuselage. A moment more, and it was all gone.

A huge bright flower bloomed and died in seconds, leaving a black smudge on the blue sky and shattered pieces arcing away in every direction. The shiny metal flashed again and again as it tumbled down.

The orange light was gone. The junk had all landed.

Only a round black ball rolled away toward the ocean. Bolan was conscious of his breath scratching at his throat, and the pounding of his heart, like a huge drum, echoed in his ears.

One down.

Then the second bird swooped down, its engine masked by the rumble of the burning ship. Bolan braced for a second assault, but the new bird just roared off, following the highway. For one instant, in the open door, he glimpsed an uninterested onlooker. It was Charles Harding. And he was smiling.

Bolan called out to Carlos. His voice disappeared into the jungle. A few squawking parrots answered him, and then silence descended.

Bolan snatched the M-16 from the hood of the jeep and moved into the trees. He repeated the summons, and again his voice was swallowed by the trees.

Finally the response came. The call was distant, and Bolan turned to the left. Making a megaphone of his hands, he called a third time.

Carlos answered again, sounding a little closer.

Bolan waited impatiently until the young man's slender figure parted a stand of tall grass. Slipping through sideways, kicking up a swarm of black flies, the driver tugged Marisa after him. She stumbled, digging her heels in and trying to hold him back.

Bolan ran to them and gently got hold of her by the shoulders. As she crumpled like a baby, he noticed the blood on her arm.

Carlos nodded. "A stray bullet, senor, right away."

"Put me down," Marisa screamed. "I don't want to go."

"Stop acting like a child," Bolan snapped.

He let Carlos push the brush away and half carried the wounded woman to the jeep, where he set her in the passenger seat.

"First-aid kit?" he asked.

Carlos reached under the front seat for a small, blue plastic box. He fumbled with the latch, then spilled half its contents on the ground as the lid popped unexpectedly. Bolan turned back to Marisa while Carlos gathered the dropped supplies.

Tearing the sleeve up from the cuff, Bolan exposed the wound. It still oozed blood but didn't appear to be serious. "You're lucky," he said reassuringly. "It didn't hit an artery."

She started to pull her arm away, but Bolan held on while he rummaged in the box on the dash.

He poured an antiseptic liquid on the wound, and she inhaled sharply.

"Give me one those green packets, Carlos," Bolan said, spotting some plastic bags of sulfa powder. "Tear it open..." Carlos handed him the small packet, and Bolan dusted the wound, emptying the bag and handing it back.

Applying a pad of gauze, he held it in place with a thumb. Carlos gave him a roll of gauze ribbon, and he wound it around the arm several times.

He tore the end with his teeth, tucked it in and let go. Taking a roll of adhesive tape, he tore three long strips, wrapped them over the gauze and patted the ends tight.

Marisa gritted her teeth as Bolan worked, but she no longer struggled to pull her arm free. He looked in the box again, found a plastic bottle of ampicillin and tilted two capsules into his palm.

"Can you swallow pills without water?" he asked.

She nodded, and he gave her the capsules.

"One at a time," he warned. When she'd swallowed the antibiotic, Bolan closed the box and handed it back to Carlos. "Let's get going."

"Where, senor?"

"The same place we were going before." The young man looked unconvinced, and Bolan gave him a commanding look. "We have to find Dr. Colgan and help him if we can."

Carlos shook his head. "Leyte Brigade, senor. There is nothing we can do."

"We have to try." Carlos stared at him. His lips quivered, then he pointed to Marisa, shaking his head. Bolan understood, but pointed up the road. "Drive," he said.

Carlos shrugged. "Whatever you say."

The jeep was battered but still serviceable. It turned over immediately, and Carlos backed toward the road, the transmission snarling as the jeep lurched over the log then sank into the ditch. It stuttered back onto the road. The smooth surface was now pocked and pitted from the M-60, small craters in ragged strips running from side to side. Clots of damp clay lay scattered everywhere.

Carlos let the engine idle for a moment in neutral. "They have jeeps too, senor," he said, stabbing a finger into the air.

"Carlos, we don't have a choice."

The driver sighed as he reached for the gearshift. He looked over his shoulder silently, as if to give this crazy man one more chance to come to his senses. Bolan just nodded a forceful directive, and Carlos muscled the jeep into first and let the clutch out slowly. The jeep started to roll as Bolan popped the second box of M-60 ammo open.

Carlos was right, of course. The Leyte Brigade probably did have jeeps, and they might very well have attacked on the ground as well as from the air. It was a chance they'd have to take. There was no percentage sitting where they were, and going back to Colgan's compound would serve no purpose.

Carlos had warned them by radio, and they would have to take their chances. What else could they do, Bolan thought, but plunge straight ahead.

Bolan sat on the tail, the M-60 swiveled forward. With a foot he pulled the second ammo crate closer. Chewing his lower lip, he watched the road ahead. If they were going to get any warning, it would be visual. It was difficult to hear anything over the sound of their own engine. They had gone just two hundred yards when Carlos pointed.

Dead ahead, another hundred yards down the road, a bundle of rags lay across the center of the road. Even from this distance, Bolan caught the glint of sunlight on the bright red smear at the front edge of the bundle. Bolan swung the M-60 around, all ready for whatever happened.

But they had nothing to worry about. As they narrowed the distance, Bolan realized the bundle was neither a threat nor a trap. The door gunner, his body smashed and broken from the fall, could do them no harm.

Carlos edged around the corpse, glancing at it with an expressionless face. It was no more to him than a fallen tree, a stone in the road. Then the jeep slowed, and Carlos leaned over. Bolan thought for a moment it was just to get a closer look. But Carlos bent way out over the running board and spat.

They were close now. Bolan scanned the left side of the road. He knew the white flag would no longer be there, but he hoped he could spot the camouflage netting. It couldn't be more than a half mile more. But the tree line was featureless and deceptive, teasing him with a familiar clump of trees, a dead trunk at an angle, then repeating the tease thirty yards beyond. The wall of the jungle started to look like a repeating pattern, as if it were no more than a flat wall artfully disguised with overlapping strips of patterned paper.