Don Pendleton - Whipsaw

The jungle, in its infinite variety, was all of a piece. It looked the same in every direction.

Bolan was getting impatient. He was about to lean forward to ask Carlos something when he spotted the netting, ripped aside and hanging like an old rag from only one end. Carlos saw it a moment later and let the jeep roll to a halt.

"No helicopter did that, senor," he said, pointing.

"Go ahead, Carlos."

The driver reached down to the floor and pulled his own M-16 closer. Bolan saw him shiver, and felt the chill run down his own spine, too. The jeep started up again as Marisa groaned in her seat. She was only semiconscious, and Bolan debated the wisdom of leaving her at the entrance. But he realized she would be no safer there.

They rolled into the approach, Carlos letting the gears pulse a little, giving the engine just enough gas to keep from stalling.

Bolan could smell smoke, and it hung in the air like a fine haze. Nothing was visible over the trees, and it seemed odd, until he remembered the camp had very little to burn. A few tents had been the total shelter. The tang of burnt canvas grew sharper as they approached, but the air stayed relatively clear.

He hadn't seen a sign of life yet. They were fifty yards from the open when Bolan asked Carlos to stop.

"You stay here with Mrs. Colgan," Bolan said, jumping down.

"Shouldn't I come with you?"

"No. Turn the jeep around and get ready to make a run for it if anything happens."

Carlos waited for Bolan to slip into the trees, then struggled in the narrow alley to get the jeep turned. Bolan stayed just inside the first line of trees, where the undergrowth was thin enough for him to move without obstruction. It was hot, and the bugs swirled around him, small shiny flies like fiery jewels burning his skin when they landed, then darting away ahead of his slapping palm. As he drew closer, he ignored the burning sensation.

A thin plume of smoke, almost white and vanishing no more than fifty feet in the air, was the only thing moving in the open space ahead.

Bolan shifted the rifle, spinning it to use the butt to push branches aside. He still couldn't see anything on the ground, and he strained his ears for the slightest sound. Behind him, its pulse nearly inaudible, he heard the jeep engine.

Ten yards from the edge of the trees, he saw the first evidence. The tents were gone, reduced to crumpled heaps, except for the one still burning. A thick black cloud hung almost motionless above it. Too low to be seen over the trees, the cloud spread out as if pressing against an invisible ceiling, trailing off to grey wisps at its edges.

Bolan shinnied up a tree, digging his toes into the rough bark. He could survey the whole camp from twenty feet in the air. Stinging ants scurried over his hands and down into his shirtsleeves, but he ignored them. The campsite, its grass long since trampled net and yellowed, looked like a moonscape. Craters, probably from aerial rockets and grenades, some interlocking into figure as scooped out of the dark soil, pitted the clearing.

The scene was littered with debris, and he could count more than two dozen bodies without even looking carefully. The bodies were in various states of dress, as if whatever had happened had happened early and quickly. From the looks of things, the people had been hit with no warning. They hadn't even had time to grab their weapons. Two tangles of stacked rifles, like broken Tinker-toys, lay in the center of the clearing.

Bolan slipped down the tree and sprinted the last thirty feet to the open ground. Moving cautiously, he scanned the edge of the jungle forty yards across the clearing. He spotted two jeeps that were almost hidden on the far side. One of them had to be Colgan's, but he couldn't explain the other. As he moved toward the center of the camp, he stared in disbelief at the carnage. Men, women and children lay sprawled in the undignified postures of sudden death. Bloodstained clothing, still only half on, trailed away from the bodies, and the buzzing of flies sawed at the air. As he neared a body, the flies would rise up for an instant, then settle back down like a glistening shroud.

He knelt beside the body of a child not more than four.

Naked, it lay facedown, a gaping exit wound almost dead center in its back. Bolan shook his head and reached for a tattered blanket lying halfway between the dead child and a woman, possibly the child's mother. A corner of the blanket was curled in her fist, and her hand and arm moved grotesquely as Bolan pulled it free then spread the blanket over the child's body.

Swallowing hard, he moved from body to body, looking for signs of life. Most of the wounds he saw were clearly fatal. The camp was deathly still and silent. The stench of voided bowels hung in the air, mingling with the sharp smell of burning cloth.

An engine exploded into life, and Bolan turned instantly toward the two jeeps. One lurched drunkenly for a second, then snarled toward him.

Its tires kicked up clots of mud as the jeep raced straight across the clearing. It bounced once over a broken body, and the driver, bent low behind the wheel, bore down on Bolan as if he wanted to run him over. Bolan swung the M-16 up and fired three quick shots. The jeep's windshield disappeared, but the driver's face was still there, just visible above the wheel, his knuckles white on the black plastic.

Bolan dove to the left, and the driver spun the wheel. He reached through the windshield frame, a .45 in one fist, and emptied the clip at Bolan's rolling body.

The jeep thundered past, and Bolan rolled over once more, bringing the M-16 around and cutting loose. He aimed low, just above ground level.

He wanted the bastard alive, if possible.

Somebody had to tell him what the hell had happened there. The left rear tire blew out, then the right, but the jeep churned on, dragged by its four-wheel drive and the good front tires. The clip emptied, and Bolan pulled the AutoMag as the jeep spun into the trees.

Getting to his feet, Bolan started after it when something caught his eyes against the green. Stark white, it hovered like a ghost just beyond the clearing, hovering among the trees. Bolan raced toward it, letting the image sharpen in his vision like a growing crystal. He already knew what it was, but he plunged on.

Bolan drew to within ten feet when he stopped.

He couldn't come any closer. He dropped to his knees. The apparition, all too real now, floated above him.

Five feet off the ground.

A rough board had been fixed to a tree at right angles. And there, on the makeshift cross, hung the body of a man, his hands pinned to the board by a pair of survival knives. His ankles and arms were bound to the wood with thick wire, one foot almost severed. Someone had crucified him, then used him for target practice. A glitter in the bright sun caught Bolan's eye. It took him a moment to realize what had been tugging so anxiously at his attention. It was the knife through the man's heart, its ivory inlay made even whiter by the sun.

There, like all would-be messiahs before him, his clothing scarlet and sagging with the weight of blood, hung Thomas Colgan.

They found the compound a little before sundown. Bolan left Carlos and Marisa in the jeep to take a closer look. After the primitive ruins of the NPA camp, the headquarters of the Leyte Brigade looked like a Pentagon prize-winning design.

From a hundred yards away, Bolan could see the floodlights glinting on the lavish coils of razor wire. As the night chill moved in, a slight breeze fluttered reluctantly and the tight coils trembled. Shimmering under the harsh halogen glare, they looked as if they were spun of light itself by some mysterious spider.

Bolan pushed deep into the trees to make a wide recon circuit. He placed every step as carefully as a choreographer. He knew Harding by type, and the high-tech wizardry of modern warfare brought a thankful tear to every Charles Harding's eye. What a joy it was to see science, for once, in the service of something useful. That was the mentality, and the Charles Hardings of the world were all the same in their childlike fascination.