Don Pendleton - Survival Reflex

So much for high technology.

When wet work was required, it still came down to men who weren’t afraid of dirtying their hands.

Behind their leader and the point man, moving through the rain forest in single file, two dozen soldiers focused single-mindedly upon their goal. It helped distract them from the swarms of biting insects, mud that tried to pull their boots off, lukewarm rain that fell just long enough to soak them to the skin then waited for their camouflage fatigues to nearly dry before it started up again.

The nagging irritations made them anxious for a fight.

Eager to kill.

They were the best at what they did, these men. Team Panther had a reputation to defend, which had been sullied by their failed attempts to burn the target in October and December. Now they had another chance, and every member of the team had sworn a blood oath to succeed this time.

The leader checked his compact GPS unit. Assuming that their information was correct, they had another half mile left to go, dense jungle all the way.

WEISS’S FIFTH PATIENT had once been fairly handsome, if his eyes and brow were any indication, but the bullets that had ripped into his cheek and jaw had spoiled his face forever. It was something of a miracle they hadn’t killed him on the spot, in fact, but there was grim determination in those eyes, before the morphine blessed him with oblivion.

Why do you bother? asked the small voice in his head. Why heal them, so that they can maim and kill?

Because somebody had to do it.

And Weiss wasn’t altogether sure that they were wrong.

Shouting outside the operating tent distracted him, but he recovered so quickly his aides never noticed. Split-second hesitation on the scalpel stroke, but when he made the cut it was deep, clean and sure.

A runner burst into the tent and stopped short on the threshold, gaping at the deconstructed form in front of him.

Shifting to half-baked Portuguese, Weiss told the newcomer, “You’re risking this man’s life by coming in here. Turn around and leave.”

The interloper stood his ground, though he was trembling as he said, “They’re coming, Doctor.”

“Who is they? More casualties?”

“The enemy.”

That made the surgeon pause. He glanced up at his two assistants, found them staring back at him, and swiveled toward the messenger. “How long?”

“Perhaps a quarter of an hour.”

“That’s too soon. I still have work to do.”

He knew the words were nonsense, even as he spoke. The surgeon’s enemies wouldn’t withdraw until he finished with his patients. They had come to stop him, after all. If they could finish off the job they’d started with the wounded, it would just be icing on the cake.

“What should we do?” the messenger inquired.

“Get ready to evacuate. And buy some time.”

“We’ll try,” he said, and fled the tent. Weiss wondered whether he had sent the messenger to meet his death.

Too late to think about that now.

He had a short while left to finish with the patient on his operating table. Enough time, anyway, to close the last incision, though he couldn’t manage any of the fine work needed to reduce scarring.

All wasted effort if the patient couldn’t be evacuated safely in the time that still remained to him. There’d be no mercy from the enemy when they arrived. They’d come in killing and be quick about it this time, trying to make sure no one escaped.

Weiss glanced back toward the corner of his makeshift operating room that served as sleeping quarters when he wasn’t carving flesh. Jungle fatigues lay folded there, and resting on the bundle of his hiking clothes, an Uru submachine gun.

Kill or cure.

This day, perhaps, he’d do a bit of both.

TEAM PANTHER’S leader listened to the terse report from his point man. The target lay five hundred yards ahead, though still invisible from where they stood, surrounded on all sides by looming trees and dangling vines like ropes in a gymnasium.

“How many did you see?” the leader asked.

His scout considered it, a moment dragging as he did the mental census. “Six or seven men with weapons, sir,” the point man said at last. “They carry others in and out of tents.”

“And did you count the tents?”

“One big, three small, sir. Also, they have an open space covered by tarp on poles, with men laid out on stretchers. And a generator near the big tent.”

“Is that everything? No vehicles?”

The point man stared at him as if he’d lost his mind. “There is no road, sir.”

“None on this side that we know about. Answer the question.”

Sulking, the soldier said, “No, sir. No vehicles.”

Team Panther’s leader did the calculations swiftly. Six or seven armed and able-bodied men against his twenty-five. The wounded would present no difficulty. They were enemies, presumed guilty of crimes against the state, condemned by their own treasonous behavior. He would leave them where he found them, after making sure they didn’t live to fight another day.

And he would have the one who’d managed to elude him for so long, making a mockery of each attempt to capture him.

This time, the leader told himself, I will succeed.

He’d be a hero back at headquarters, or at the very least erase the black marks placed beside his name the last two times he’d led teams through the jungle, searching for the man his enemies referred to simply as O Médico.

The Doctor.

One who gave them hope when they should have none, who restored the broken bones and ravaged flesh of terrorists, enabling them to spread more carnage and imperil everything Team Panther’s men were dedicated to defend.

This day it would end.

They would eliminate O Médico once and for all. If he surrendered, they would take him back for trial and the inevitable prison cell. If he resisted…well, Team Panther would be forced to remedy the state’s misguided abolition of capital punishment.

Either way, the doctor was finished. He’d already seen his last patient.

He simply didn’t know it yet.

Team Panther’s leader fired a rifle shot into the air above the smoking tent and shouted to his hidden troops, “Attack! Attack!”

THE SPOOK SAT at his desk, chain-smoking while he studied maps and photographs, sitreps and transcripts of interrogations. He was looking for a bright spot, but it stubbornly eluded him.

The telephone beside his elbow was an enemy, a traitor. For the past six months it had refused to transmit anything except bad news from sources in the field and criticism from his boss. Each time it rang, these days—as it was ringing now—the spook experienced the urge to rip its cord out of the wall and drop the damned thing in his wastebasket.

Instead he lifted the receiver to his ear.

“Downey.”

“It’s me.”

He recognized the caller’s voice. It was a gift that served him well, despite accents. The caller was a valued asset, though he hadn’t been performing well of late. In fact, he’d left a fair amount to be desired.

“I need good news,” the spook advised. And from the silence on the far end of the line, he knew there would be none forthcoming. “All right, then. How bad?”

“We missed again.”

“When you say missed…”

“My people found the place, all right. Just where you promised it would be. A scout saw people in the camp, guerrillas, some of them on stretchers.”

“So?”

“We still aren’t sure what happened. By the time he came back with the main force and they had the camp surrounded, there was no one there.”

The spook reached for another cancer stick. “You tipped them off somehow,” he said accusingly.

“We’re looking into it.”