Don Pendleton - Rolling Thunder

Encizo tensed and readied himself as the ATV passed directly below him.

It was now or never.

He drew a quick breath, then pushed away from the cliff and plunged.

The driver spotted him, but by then it was too late. Encizo dropped onto the crate feet first, bending at the knees to absorb the force of his landing. In the same motion, he shifted his weight forward, flattening himself against the crate’s lid. Reaching past the container, he grabbed at the driver’s neck.

The driver cried out and reached up one hand to claw at Encizo’s fingers. He drew blood, but Encizo refused to release his grip. Encizo shouted in Spanish for the man to stop the vehicle, but the man either didn’t understand him or wasn’t about to comply. Instead, he eased off on the gas and jerked hard to the right. The crate shifted, and Encizo felt himself sliding sharply to one side. His left leg dropped over the side of the crate. As he tried to reposition himself, the driver suddenly slammed on the brakes, taking Encizo by surprise. He was forced to let go of the driver’s neck and grab at the crate to keep from falling off.

Gasping for breath, the driver reached for an Uzi lying in the seat next to him.

“Not a chance,” Encizo growled.

Scrambling forward, he tackled the driver and forced him to release the brakes. The ATV began to drift off the trail, but the men were too busy grappling for the subgun to do anything about it.

As they scuffled, the driver lashed out with his elbow and caught Encizo squarely across the bridge of his nose, almost knocking him out. Blood began to flow through his nostrils and wave of nausea passed over him, but Encizo persevered and countered with a blow of his own, kneeing the driver sharply in the ribs. The man let out a howl. He’d managed to get his hands on the Uzi, however, and rammed the barrel in Encizo’s right thigh.

The moment he felt the gun against his leg, Encizo kicked outward, slamming his ankle against the underside of the dashboard. The Uzi fired harmlessly to the side. Encizo wasn’t about to let the driver get off another shot. Twisting to one side, he freed one arm and lashed out with a karate chop. He caught the other man squarely just below the temple with enough force to knock him out.

By now the ATV had left the trail completely and begun to bound wildly down a steep incline, crashing through several small pines. It glanced off the trunk of a larger tree and swerved sharply to one side. The next thing Encizo knew, he was headed straight for the lip of a deep ravine. The ATV lurched forward, bounding over a sprawl of rocks as large as bowling balls. Behind him, the crate slid forward, as well, striking him between the shoulderblades. Encizo let out a cry of pain. Finally he managed to find the brakes. The ATV brodied sideways and went into a slide before coming to a stop.

One of the front wheels had slipped over the edge of the precipice, however, and as he shut off the engine, Encizo felt the vehicle begin to teeter precariously. He hazarded a glance and saw that the ravine dropped off as sharply as the cliff he’d encountered earlier. The drop-off here, however, was more than twice the distance; it was a good hundred yards straight down to the rock floor.

When Encizo tried to move, the ATV slowly pitched forward. He quickly leaned the other way, stabilizing the vehicle. The driver lay limply beside him, one leg dangling over side. The crate now extended halfway across the driver’s seat, forcing Encizo to lean forward. He was wary of trying to push the container back. One false move and he knew he’d find himself plummeting to certain death.

He was trapped.

“Let’s move it!” McCarter shouted irritably at Manning and Hawkins, who were working to detach the OR pod from the Sikorsky. McCarter stood a few yards from the chopper, holding a flag-sized strip of heavy canvas out before him to block the sun from falling on James and the shepherd boy’s father, who both lay on stretchers on the ground. Sergeant Tatis, the medic Captain Cordero had referred to earlier, was crouched over James, tending to his gunshot wounds. The boy, meanwhile, knelt at his father’s side, wiping his brow with a damp cloth.

“Hold your horses,” Manning told McCarter, “we’re almost there.”

A power generator grumbled to life inside the pod and moments later Cordero emerged. He lent Manning and Hawkins a hand with the last few couplers, then moved back and reached out to take the tarp from McCarter.

“You should be able to take off now,” he said. “Once you’re clear, we’ll get your man into surgery and do what we can for him.”

“Good.” McCarter turned to Manning and Hawkins. “Come with me,” he told the big Canadian. “T.J., stay here and keep an eye on things.”

“Got it,” Hawkins said.

McCarter and Manning quickly boarded the Sikorsky. Cordero tossed aside the canvas, then grabbed hold of one end of James’s stretcher. Hawkins took the other.

“Move him very slowly,” Tatis told him, stepping back to give them room.

The Skycrane’s engines soon drowned out the generator and buffeted the meadow with its rotor wash. The detached OR pod rattled in place slightly as the chopper lifted off. Cordero and Hawkins waited until McCarter had guided the Sikorsky away from the pod before lifting James and hauling him into the portable chamber. The medic was right behind him. Inside, there was an OR table already set up in one corner. Even as Cordero and Hawkins were transferring James from the stretcher, Tatis was probing the wounded man’s arm for a vein to tap into with an IV line.

“What is his blood type?” he asked Hawkins.

Hawkins told him. “Are there any units here?”

Tatis shook his head. “No. And he is going to need at least a couple units.”

“Can’t help,” Hawkins said. “He’s not my type.”

“I’m a match,” Cordero said, rolling up his left sleeve. “You can start with me.”

The unit’s other medic arrived moments later; he and the boy were carrying the stretcher bearing the older shepherd.

“It’s too crowded in here.” Tatis turned to Hawkins. “Take the boy out with you. Try to find one of our men, tall with a scar down his right cheek. His name is Umiel. Tell him we need him.”

“He’s got the right blood?” Hawkins said.

“Yes,” Tatis confirmed. “Now, go…”

“What about my papa?” the boy asked.

“He will be fine,” the medic assured him. “We will give him antibiotics and fluids and he will be fine.”

The boy seem unconvinced, but when Hawkins put a hand on his shoulder, he grudgingly kissed his father on the forehead and then followed T.J. out of the pod.

“He’ll be okay,” Hawkins assured the boy. “Keep the faith.”

The boy frowned and looked up at Hawkins. “What does that mean?”

“It means you have to believe things are going to work out.” Hawkins glanced northward, looking for the Sikorsky. The chopper had cleared the mountains, however, and dropped out of sight. He turned his gaze back at the OR pod a moment, then told the boy, “Sometimes keeping the faith is all you can do.”

After searching the meadow and the area around the chestnut trees, Hawkins spotted Umiel halfway up the mountain-side behind the rock hut. He and another soldier had dragged four bodies from the rocks and lined them face-up, side by side, on a level patch of ground. As Hawkins and the shepherd boy approached, the two soldiers finished photographing the dead men’s faces, then set the camera aside and drew Kolvan fighting knives from sheaths strapped to their thighs. With studied nonchalance, the men began slicing off the ears of the fallen ETA warriors.

“Hey!” Hawkins shouted, rushing forward. Once he caught up with the soldiers, he grabbed Umiel by the collar and jerked him away from the bodies. Umiel staggered, off balance, then fell to the ground, dropping his knife. Hawkins grabbed it, then glared at Umiel and the other soldier, who’d momentarily stopped his grisly handiwork. When the boy caught up with Hawkins, he took one look at the butchered corpses and turned away.