Cliff Ryder - The Powers That Be

Jonas sighted in on the building and aimed at the upper-right quadrant of the wall. From how the man’s voice carried away from him, Jonas pegged him as standing to the left of the doorway, with her kneeling in the middle of the room so he could cover her and yell out into the clearing.

He took one more deep breath, and as he let it out, Jonas’s pain and exhaustion fell away, replaced by calm certainty.

If he failed now, at least he had tried to save Marisa, and that was the best he could do. His only hope was that she would be able to seize the opportunity he hoped to give her.

At the bottom of his exhalation, he held his breath, and for a moment, his entire body stilled. Jonas lined up his sights, imagining the head and chest of his target inside. He squeezed the trigger. He moved the rifle to the left a fraction and squeezed again, then repeated the action one more time before taking cover by the expedient method of falling backward, pulling his rifle out of the tree as he did so. From the ground he saw a small form lunge out of the mill door as AK-47 fire exploded from every window and door on the building’s left side.

Jonas crawled farther into the jungle, pausing every couple of yards to send covering fire high into the mill, trying to keep the soldiers’heads down. He had no idea whether Marisa had made it out alive or was lying somewhere, riddled by bullets.

Slinging his rifle, he made his way back to the trail road, heading as quickly as possible to the hollow where they had first found the truck. He heard shouts and scattered rifle fire behind him as the Cubans tried to flush him out of hiding.

He didn’t know if it had been a few or ten minutes, but at last Jonas arrived back at the clearing. Nothing appeared disturbed—if she was hiding, she was doing a good job.

“Marisa?” he called out. “It’s Karl. Where are you? We have to get out of here—they’ll be coming soon.”

The bushes parted, and she stepped out, walking un- steadily toward him. Even in the dim moonlight he saw her bruised and rapidly swelling lip and cheek. “Are you all right?” he asked.

“Better now that you’re here.” She swayed, and he reached out to catch her. “No—I’m fine—we have to get moving.”

She slipped her head under his shoulder, and this time he didn’t protest, but allowed her to lead him into the jungle on the other side of the path, each of them supporting the other as they went. Flashes of light bobbed along the trail as the soldiers searched for them, but Jonas and Marisa were deep into the thicker jungle, leaving the ambush site farther behind with every labored step.

They walked until both were ready to drop from exhaustion. Jonas’s ankle was a mass of white-hot pain from the recent abuse. Even trying to put as much distance as they could between themselves and the Cubans, he had insisted on doubling back and going in circles, laying false trails just in case the soldiers were better at tracking than he thought.

When he had mentioned his concern to Marisa, she had laughed softly. “Didn’t you know? Only crazy people go into the jungle at night.”

As tired as he was, the joke still made him smile. “You’ll get no argument from me on that.” When he was sure they were safe, he got his map out and figured out their rough location. “We’re about a mile from the pickup point, and we need to get the raft and move it to the secondary drop zone.

Are you up to getting there tonight?”

“The farther we get away from those bastards, the better I’ll feel.” She rose and helped him up. They set out, Jonas cutting a path only after they had traveled about twenty yards, so they wouldn’t leave such an obvious trail. Fortune favored them and the jungle thinned out as they got closer to the coast. The tang of the salt air began to overpower the fetid smell of wet, rotting vegetation, and Jonas was glad to breathe it in.

They pushed through one more cluster of dense brush and found themselves back where they had started, seemingly a lifetime ago. Jonas limped to the raft hidden in the underbrush and pulled the fronds and cut bushes away. With only two people, and one of them injured, the launch was slow and painful, but at last they got the raft in the water. Jonas broke a low-hanging palm frond in half, making sure the stem attached to the tree pointed west, then helped Marisa aboard, before starting the nearly silent electric motor.

Slowly they put away from the shore.

“What now?” Marisa asked.

“We travel to the secondary drop point, drop anchor and wait for a signal from my team.” Jonas guided the rubber raft through the calm water about two miles from their original landing site, and found a small island off the main coast where they could hide, yet still see the far shore with ease.

He tossed out the small anchor, then settled back against the raft’s outer tube, relaxing for the first time since he had come ashore. “If you want to rest, go ahead, I’ll keep watch,”

he said.

In the moonlight, Marisa looked as if she was shivering.

“I’m cold,” she said.

Jonas hesitated for a moment. “You might be going into shock.” He rummaged through the small case in the raft.

“I’ve got a blanket. Here, take it.”

He wrapped it around her, feeling her shake beneath his hands. “Come here.” He pulled her next to him, feeling her snuggle up to his dirty, sweaty body. Not having anywhere else to put his arm, he wrapped it around her shoulders, sharing his warmth.

“Karl?” her voice sounded drowsy. “You weren’t going to leave me back there, were you?”

“Of course not.” The truth in his statement assuaged some of the guilt he still felt at not being able to tell her his real name. He shifted his weight to a more comfortable position, trying not to notice her warm breath on his neck. He glanced down at her, only to find Marisa staring up at him, her blue eyes shining in the moonlight, her lips slightly parted. Almost before he knew what he was doing, Jonas bent his head down and kissed her, lightly at first, but more passionately as she responded to him.

JONAS’S CELL PHONE SHOOK, and he answered it, setting aside the memories. “Go.”

Kate’s voice sounded in his ear. “Target hasn’t stopped yet, but has bypassed Santa Clara, and appears to be heading toward the coast. The good news is that we have a very likely destination. We picked up communications regarding a tour of the Heriberto Duquesne sugar-processing company, which was converted to processing sugarcane juice into alcohol in 2006.”

Jonas checked the phone’s screen, which showed a blown-up map of the area, with a little red dot marking Damason’s position in real time as he came closer to his final destination.

“The road he’s on heads right to Remidios, near the plant.” Another dot marked the town, along with the plant’s location and, more importantly, the distance it was from the coast. “You two have your work cut out for you,” Kate said.

“What, that little walk? It’s not even fifteen miles from the coast.” Jonas showed Marcus the location, and he nodded. “We’ll be in and out before anyone even knows we’re there.”

“For your sake, I hope so. We’ll be sending you updated location maps of your target every minute. Good luck.”

“Thanks. Alpha and Beta out.” Jonas cranked the boat to the southeast and skirted the coast, throttling forward until they were almost flying across the water, his mind totally focusing on the mission that lay ahead.

Damason strained his eyes in the early-morning darkness, trying to make out their destination as soon as it was visible.

“Relax, we’ll have plenty of time to scout the area before preparing for his arrival.” Even as he spoke, Lopez coaxed a bit more acceleration out of the truck.