Russell Blake - Betrayal

Jet emptied her magazine in a sweeping arc at the attackers and then jettisoned the clip, slapping a new one home and firing again.

“I’m hit,” Rob hissed through clenched teeth. “I could use some help with a new magazine.”

“How bad is it?” she asked, not taking her eyes off the scene outside, then taking careful aim and squeezing off another burst. She heard a crash in the bushes. A body falling.

“I’m still here. Can you change me out?” he asked, thumbing the clip release.

She edged towards him and pulled one of the three remaining magazines from his cargo pants pocket and slipped it into his rifle with a snick, then returned her attention to the attackers.

“How many do you make?” she whispered.

“My guess? No more than ten. Problem is they’re on both sides. Were on both sides. I think we may have gotten at least four of them, so the odds are looking better. Shit. I wish we had a field first aid kit in here. I’m losing blood.”

“We have one in my saddlebag. Let’s just mop these clowns up, and I’ll get you taken care of.” Jet shot at an area where the vegetation was moving as a gunman tried to edge closer. Her volley hit him, and he reflexively gripped the trigger on his rifle as he fell, sending rounds whizzing overhead into the trees.

A shower of wood shards fell into the temple from where slugs pounded the window opening she’d just vacated, the shots revealing another shooter sixty yards away. Rob let loose two bursts in the attacker’s direction and heard a cry.

“If they’re smart, they’ll try to circle around and get us from behind. You got this side?” she asked, squinting outside in the rapidly dwindling light.

“Sure. Pull one more magazine out and put it by my side. I can manage it one-handed once it’s out.”

She slid over and did as he asked, then pulled his pistol free of his belt holster. “If you run low on ammo, let them get into range and give them a taste of this.”

He nodded and tried a grin, then coughed, blood streaming down his arm. “Go get ’em,” he said, squeezing off another few rounds with the M4.

Jet crawled to the back of the temple and peered through the slits in the walls, patiently waiting for a tell from the jungle beyond. She didn’t have to wait long. A rustling of bodies moving through the brush drew six more rounds from her weapon, and then more inbound fire assailed her from a dozen yards farther away. She emptied the rest of her clip at the area and then drew her pistol, carefully unscrewing the silencer to get maximum accuracy at the limits of its range. The remainder of her P90 clips were in the saddlebags. But with only two or three gunmen left, it wouldn’t matter.

Rob’s assault rifle chattered as he sighted another hostile, and then there was a pause, the attackers’ guns having fallen silent.

“What do you think?” Rob called to her in a stage whisper.

“Shhh.”

It was hard to make out anything over the hissing of the rain, but she sensed that there was more danger lurking in the brush. She crawled over to where a piece of broken pottery lay near a corner of the room and picked it up, then moved to the far window and tossed it into the encroaching jungle.

A hail of bullets found it two seconds later, from off to the left. She sighted carefully down her Beretta and squeezed off three shots, spacing them a foot apart to allow for some decay over the sixty yards of distance. The Beretta’s maximum effective range was fifty yards, but she’d worked wonders with one at up to eighty. Not stellar, but still effective enough to be deadly.

“You see anything on your side?” she whispered to Rob.

“Negative.”

“Want to switch weapons for a few minutes? I want to try to get up onto the roof.”

“Sure. I feel like I’m outgunning the poor slobs at this point with an M4 against some Chinese pop guns, anyway.”

She sidled next to him and ejected the magazine from the M4, replacing Rob’s half-full one with the last full clip.

“There can’t be too many left,” she reasoned. “They seem to have lost their stomach for a fight.”

“Let’s hope so. Go do your worst,” Rob said, then returned to scrutinizing the periphery. “It’ll be dark within another fifteen minutes. At that point, if we can reach the saddlebags, we’ll have night vision, and then we can go rabbit hunting.”

“Good point. But by then they’ll be dead.”

“Big talker.”

She eyed the area of the roof near the far wall; a section of it had caved in long ago, bird droppings and decay surrounded the base, with rainwater streaming in from above. If the lateral supports on the walls were still good, she might be able to make it…

Jet slung the M4 strap over her shoulder and started climbing, using the same techniques she did when rock climbing. Her fingers reached and found a hold, then she pulled herself higher, the other hand and her feet probing for a new cranny.

She poked her head above the roof and then pulled herself up and out, praying that the structure wouldn’t collapse beneath her. Tree branches weaved across most of the gap, and she used their cover to camouflage her position.

The M4’s flash suppressor and silencer were good, but not magic, and the little rifle still made considerable noise, so once she started shooting, she could expect to draw fire to her position. She looked at the entangled branches, calculating whether they appeared to be able to hold her weight, and thought that they would.

Rob was right. It would be dark in no time. She could use that to her advantage.

Sounds of motion caught her attention from the game trail at the farthest reach of the temple’s grounds, and she squinted, barely able to make out two men trotting away, rifles held to their chests like newborn babies.

She held her breath, waiting for signs of any more gunmen, but that was it.

Reaching out, she gripped the branches and pulled herself towards the tree’s trunk, the roof dropping away beneath her in jumbled fragments as it disintegrated. She found herself suspended in mid-air, the branches now her sole support in the gloom, and she steadily inched to the trunk before lowering her feet to the next tier of branches.

The two surviving men’s eyes were adjusting to the darkness when the first groaned and stumbled forward, tumbling into his companion before hitting the ground, a knife handle jutting from between his shoulder blades. His partner froze and then spun, to be confronted by a black-faced ghost pointing a wicked-looking barrel at him from twenty feet away.

Jet could see the second of hesitation in his eyes before he brought his weapon up, and had already pulled the trigger and loosed three rounds by the time the impulse to shoot her had travelled from his brain to his hands. His chest exploded, and he dropped his rifle as he flew backwards. She was already lowering herself to one knee, anticipating further attacks, but the night was still.

She crawled to the first dead man and retrieved her throwing knife, wiping it clean on his filthy shirt before rolling him out of the way and scooping up his AK-47. She moved to the other man and quickly searched him and found another full clip, which she slid into her back pocket before edging back into the brush.

A gunshot echoed through the trees, and she pirouetted to face the temple just in time to see another tribesman collapse twenty yards from the front entrance.

She waited, listening, but the jungle had fallen silent except for the soft sibilance of rainfall.

~ ~ ~

“Do you think we got them all?” Rob’s voice was weak and cracked at the end of the question.

“I’m pretty sure of it,” she replied, swabbing Rob’s wound before applying the pressure dressing. There was a lot of blood pooled around him. An awful lot of blood, and his shirt was soaked. She bound the dressing in place with gauze, then stood, inspecting him.