John Gilstrap - Hostage Zero

“Why are we going back this way?” Navarro asked.

“Because we are,” she said. Sometimes the simplest answers were the best ones.

They both paused and gasped in unison as they passed by the ravaged section of woods that had been ground zero for the grenade attack. The earth had been ripped open, and tree roots avulsed from the dark soil. Hundreds of white gashes showed the tearing force of the fragmentation explosives against the tree trunks. Looking at the damage made her leg hurt even more. It had gone from a searing sting to a dull vibrant ache. Almost without thinking, she dared to touch the fabric of her denim jeans, but regretted it when she saw her wet, red fingertips.

“We’re not there yet,” she said, and she nudged Navarro on with a gentle push on his shoulder.

“Where are we going?”

“I’ll know it when we see it,” she lied. What she meant was, Anywhere but here.

When the distance felt right, she turned to the left and moved to the tree line again. With great effort, she lowered herself to her left knee, and peered out from behind a sheltering oak. At first, it appeared that the chopper hadn’t moved. It just sat there, parked in the air over the distant forest, well out of range. Were they radioing someone for instructions? Awaiting reinforcements, perhaps?

The thought of backup forces made her heart skip, but then she rejected the idea as unlikely. If they’d had more troops, they would have waited for them. No, whatever they decided to do, they would either do it alone, or they would do it another day.

“Okay, I’ll come with you,” Navarro said, a propos of nothing. “I’ll testify.”

Gail had almost forgotten he was there. “Yeah? Why the change of heart?”

He chuckled wryly. “I’d say my cover’s kind of blown, wouldn’t you?”

Gail didn’t respond. There was more, and he’d either share it or he wouldn’t, but that answer was too easy.

“Nobody should have this kind of power,” he said. “Too much violence, all to cover up a murder.”

Gail liked that. She acknowledged his decision with a nod.

“So, do you think they found me by following you?” he asked.

“Must have,” she admitted. “I don’t know how, but I guess that doesn’t matter now.”

He pointed. “I think they’re coming back.”

At first, she didn’t see it, but then she did: the chopper was definitely getting bigger. It was keeping out of range, but it was circling in closer. It seemed to be on a course that would take them to the front side of the house. “What are they doing?” she wondered aloud.

“Maybe they’re just looking for us. You know, cruising around to see if we’re hiding out there.”

Gail didn’t like it. “No, they have to know we’re still in the woods somewhere. If we’d crossed into the open, they’d have seen us.”

“Even from that far away?”

“A clear day like this, you can see amazing detail when you’re on the lookout for it.” So, what could they be up to in the front of the house? When the shooter reappeared in the doorway, she knew exactly what their plan was.

“Oh, hell,” she said. “They’re going to take out my Jeep. Trap us here.”

“But I have a truck of my own,” Navarro said.

“Pray they don’t know that.”

A plan blossomed in Gail’s mind. “Okay, Bruce, listen to me,” she said. She spoke so quickly that her words ran together. In the distance, the Jet Ranger began its run. “When I say, I want you to do exactly what you did before. I want you to point that rifle directly at the chopper and unload it on full automatic. Then I want you to curl up in a ball behind that tree and not even peek out until the shooting is over.”

His jaw dropped. “What-”

The door gunner started shooting at the front of the house.

“When I say,” Gail reminded, and she sprinted ten strides farther to the right. Her leg screamed at her as she slid to a halt on her left hip, and she shouldered her AR-10. On the far side of the house, a column of smoke rolled skyward from the murdered Jeep.

“Now!” she yelled.

Her words had barely evaporated before Navarro unleashed another twenty-round string.

This time, the pilot had been setting a trap, and he was ready for it. Again with amazing speed, it pivoted in the air and raced sixty yards closer, presenting a broadside target. The shooter opened up on Navarro’s hiding spot.

And Gail opened up on the shooter. With the selector on full automatic this time, she fired two three-round bursts. The first nailed the door again, but it startled the shit out of the shooter. He pivoted on his knee and pointed his weapon directly at Gail’s muzzle flashes. Her second burst caught him as he was still moving. She noted the pink mist in the doorway, and was dimly aware of the man falling away from the chopper to the ground, but by then she’d shifted her target.

From this angle, she could no longer see the Jet Ranger’s windscreen, but she could clearly see the bulkhead that separated the cockpit from the cargo section, and she knew that the pilots’ seats were just on the opposite side. Even as the chopper’s nose dipped and attempted to race away, Gail pressed the foregrip tightly against the trunk of the tree, and she squeezed the trigger, unleashing all her remaining ammunition in a single uninterrupted blast.

This time, not a single round was wasted. Fourteen, fifteen, whatever was left in the magazine plowed into the helicopter. The bird hesitated in midair, rocking slightly on its center axis as the pilots struggled to bring stability to the critically wounded bird.

As the receiver locked open, Gail dropped out the spent magazine, slapped in a second, and slid the receiver home. She braced against the tree, instinctively held her breath, and opened up again, pouring more bullets into that bulkhead. Only five or six rounds into the second burst, it was over. The aircraft wobbled, then heeled over to its starboard side.

Gail dove for cover, pressing herself into the dirt and covering her head with her arms. As if mere flesh and bones could protect her from the shrapnel of a disintegrating helicopter. The ground under her jumped at the impact, and an instant later, a searing wall of heat preceded a low-order explosion that was more a whump than a bang.

She pressed deeper into the ground as something whistled through the air over her head and then sheared off the tops of trees, creating a rainstorm of leaves and branches.

The heat bloomed painfully over the next three or four seconds, and then it retracted just as quickly. In Gail’s mind, she could almost see the roiling fireball tumbling over itself as rolled into the sky. When she dared to raise her head, that was exactly what she saw.

That, and a world on fire. It had started with her truck, and then the helicopter; but when the chopper fell out of the sky, it clipped the roof of Navarro’s house, and now fire was consuming the building’s roof, traveling from the far end to the near.

To her distant left, Navarro struggled to his feet, his rifle dangling from his hand. “Well,” he said. “Shit.” He turned to look at her. “Good thing I keep my keys in the truck, huh?”

The rain started to fall the minute Evan Guinn and his escorts arrived at the big camp in the jungle. And when it fell, it fell like a house. No little drip, drip followed by a patter that gradually increased. This rainstorm was born as a gulley-washer. That’s what Father Dom called lots of rain. But even that dramatic description couldn’t touch this deluge. No gulley could contain this rain, so thick and heavy that you couldn’t see more than fifteen feet ahead. The flood of water turned the ground to an ankle-deep river of mud, and again, the boy was grateful not to be burdened with shoes.