John Gilstrap - Damage Control

“Just get out and stay with me,” Jonathan said. “Big Guy, slide me my ruck when we get out, and keep the ransom bag with you.”

“What’s happening?”

“We’re taking cover.” Jonathan shouldered his door open and opened Tristan’s door from the outside. “Walk or be carried,” he said. “Decide.”

Tristan’s first effort to hurry out of the backseat was thwarted by his still-buckled seat belt. His second effort did the trick.

In Jonathan’s ear, Venice said, “Scorpion, the picture just refreshed. They’re on top of you. Thirty seconds, max.”

Boxers slid Jonathan’s rucksack across the hood of the car to Jonathan, and then headed south to the steep side of the roadway. Jonathan led Tristan north, past the front of the vehicle.

Venice said, “The picture hasn’t recycled yet.” The most annoying quirk of the SkysEye Network was its four-minute refresh rate.

Jonathan heard the sound of an approaching vehicle. They all heard it.

Tristan’s breathing changed to a huffing sound that Jonathan recognized as a precursor to panic.

“Move,” Jonathan commanded, “but don’t panic. We have some time.” It was a lie, but sometimes you just have to stay smooth to keep hysteria from taking root. He tossed a look over his shoulder to see Boxers disappearing into the weeds. If things went to shit, they’d be set to kill the bad guys in a cross fire.

He and Tristan were barely ten feet off the road. “Down,” Jonathan commanded at a whisper.

Tristan dropped as if his legs had disappeared.

Jonathan eased himself down more slowly, keeping his eyes on the road. To his left, Boxers had made himself completely invisible.

Jonathan stooped to his haunches, where his knees hovered above Tristan’s shoulders.

“No matter what happens, I want you to stay flat,” he said. “Understand?”

“Who are they?” Tristan whined. His face was hidden in the crook of his elbow.

“Trouble,” Jonathan said. “Let’s hope that’s all it is. I’m moving away from you. If there’s shooting, I don’t want you to be in the way. Don’t go anywhere, and try not to move.”

That brought a panicked look from the boy.

“I’ll stay close,” Jonathan promised. He didn’t wait for an answer.

Jonathan let his carbine fall against its sling and drew his MP7 from its holster on his left thigh and extended the collapsible butt stock. The M27 was a great weapon at longer ranges, but its sixteen-inch barrel could get unwieldy in close quarters. With a barrel length of only seven inches, the MP7 was a cross between an assault rifle and a bad-ass pistol. It fired its wicked little 4.6-millimeter bullets at a rate of 950 rounds per minute with a muzzle velocity of over two thousand three hundred feet per second, and the bullets themselves were essentially steel penetrators that rendered even advanced body armor useless. For CQB-close-quarters battle-the MP7 had all but replaced the Mossberg twelve-gauge that had long been Jonathan’s good friend.

He moved at a crouch through the tangled undergrowth, putting more distance between him and both Tristan and Boxers. That was the plan, anyway. Ten paces and as many seconds later, the jungle revealed a Mexican Army Sandcat winding its way down the hill, its engine screaming in too low a gear. Jonathan had never seen one of these vehicles up close, but he’d read about them. It looked like a cross between a Humvee and a Jeep, but with an outer skin that jutted at odd angles, giving it a stealthy appearance. He remembered reading that the Sandcat might or might not be armored. It looked to be designed for eight people, but probably could hold up to twelve in a pinch.

Jonathan craned his neck to check on Tristan, and was pleased to see no trace of him.

Out on the road, the Sandcat slowed as it approached Jonathan’s parked Pathfinder. When they were still thirty feet away, it stopped and held its position. For a good twenty seconds, no one moved. A bug in the back of Jonathan’s brain calculated what would be left of him if this turned out to be some kind of rolling car bomb. It wasn’t pretty.

It also wasn’t logical, so he pushed it aside. Even if it turned out to be true, he’d never know it.

When the doors opened simultaneously, and the vehicle disgorged six soldiers, Jonathan pressed the MP7’s butt stock more tightly into his shoulder.

They wore green jungle camouflage uniforms, and carried assault rifles that Jonathan recognized by their bizarre shape as FX05s, the standard-issue rifle for the Mexican military. Ugly as sin, the weapons were more or less unique to Mexico, and fired a 5.56-millimeter NATO round that was identical to those fired by Jonathan’s slung M27.

“The Pathfinder’s blocking my view,” Boxers whispered into Jonathan’s earpiece. “Are we in trouble?”

“Too soon to tell,” Jonathan whispered back, though these guys were evidently expecting trouble. Flashes of green on the epaulettes told him that they were members of La Justicia — the Mexican military police. He also noted that none of them bore the markings of a commissioned officer. He wasn’t sure what that meant, exactly, but he found it interesting that a truckload of noncoms happened to be on this stretch of road.

The soldiers took defensive positions on their respective sides of the Sandcat, their weapons trained on the woods, waiting to shoot. Jonathan offered up a silent prayer that Tristan wouldn’t choose this moment to sneeze.

“Are you sure this is the right vehicle?” one of the soldier asked his comrades in Spanish.

“One hundred percent sure,” another one answered. “It belongs to the church. This is the fugitives’ vehicle.”

Jonathan’s heart skipped. Father Peron had gotten that one right, though the betrayal had come faster than Jonathan had anticipated.

So, were these guys real cops on a real manhunt, or were they more terrorists on a murder mission? Jonathan figured he’d know soon enough.

One of the soldiers approached the Pathfinder while the rest of his team covered him. Jonathan kept the red dot of his sight on a spot just in front of the point man’s left ear as the man reached out and touched the hood. “The engine is warm. They must have heard us coming.”

“That means they’re still here,” said the soldier who’d been riding shotgun. Jonathan figured him to be the leader. The words made them all shrink by two inches as they crouched a little deeper and pressed their weapons more tightly into their shoulders. The posture spoke of fear.

“They could be watching us,” one of the other soldiers said. He started sweeping the woods with his rifle, desperate for something to shoot at.

“Raul!” the commander barked. “Settle down. If you see them, shoot them.”

Something flipped in Jonathan’s stomach. “Did I just hear what I think I heard?” Boxers whispered in his earbud.

Jonathan tapped his chest. Just once, which meant yes. There was in fact a kill-on-sight order out for them. Not “arrest on sight,” or “detain on sight.” Shoot on sight meant that a death warrant had been written on them.

“I still can’t see anything,” Boxers whispered, “but say the word, and I can step out into position. I’ll take whatever’s on the left.”

The bad guys were too close for Jonathan to risk answering. Was the shoot-on-sight thing just bold talk, or was it truly the order that had been issued? He needed to be sure before he took action. Once he opened fire on military personnel, he’d set events in motion from which there’d be no recovery. He decided to wait them out a little longer.

While the rest of the soldiers covered him, the point man approached the Pathfinder, his weapon at the ready and trained at the windows. Each step took him closer to Tristan’s hiding place.