Don Pendleton - Pressure Point

“Right.”

“Think about it,” Bolan said. “They can’t see the road from here, so how did they know we were coming? And even if they did see us, we were in that bus. It would’ve looked like we were just another bunch of tourists headed for the textile center.”

“Which brings us back to them being tipped off,” Bahn said. “They knew the raid was going down even before they jumped the surveillance team here, which is why they knew enough to get on the radio with that story about the smoke so you’d think the truck was still at the compound.”

“Exactly,” Bolan said.

“The big question is, who squealed to them?” Bahn asked.

“Hard to say,” Bolan replied. “You’ve got a lot of people in the loop on this. Besides KOPASSUS, you’ve got the CIA, Indonesia Military Intelligence, the FAO—”

“And you guys,” Bahn said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Bolan countered.

“Easy, big fella,” she told him. “I’m just calling ’em as I see ’em. Why should we assume your guys are all clean?”

“I trust them a hell of a lot more than I do you,” Bolan said.

“Somehow I don’t think that’s saying a lot,” Bahn said. “Let’s try to be objective, okay? Have you guys taken on any new people recently? Anybody who might have some kind of ulterior motive?”

“No, of course not.”

But even as the words were coming out, Bolan realized there had, indeed, been a recent addition to the crew.

Raki Mochtar.

But could he be a spy? It didn’t seem possible. True, Mochtar had an Indonesian background, but he’d passed all the necessary security checks before being taken on as a blacksuit, and before being approached for this assignment he’d undergone even more scrutiny. Each time he’d checked out clean. But, then, Bolan also recalled a few other times when Stony Man Farm had suffered security breaches from within; in nearly every instance the culprit had been someone supposedly beyond reproach. Could this be another one of those cases?

“Well?” she prompted.

Bolan didn’t answer her. Instead, he grabbed his two-way and started to signal Kissinger. Before he could raise Cowboy, however, he and Bahn heard another rustling in the brush, this time twenty yards to their right.

“Chimps ahoy,” Bahn murmured, glancing over her shoulder.

A gunshot suddenly ripped through the foliage, just missing Bahn and ricocheting off the rock formation behind her. Instinctively she dived to the ground and scrambled along with Bolan to the far side of the rock. A second shot rang out, rousing the dirt to their right.

“Okay, maybe it’s not the monkeys after all,” she said.

As quickly as it had begun, the shooting stopped. An unnerving silence lingered in its wake. Rifles raised, Bolan and the woman crouched at opposite ends of the rock formation, covering themselves from as many angles as possible. Peering out into the brush, they waited, listening for advancing footsteps, the sound of a weapon being reloaded. Something. Anything.

“Come on!” Bahn whispered hotly. “Show yourselves, dammit!”

She was answered by more silence. Then, finally, several seconds later, there was renewed commotion in the brush. Footsteps and a snapping of twigs. The sounds were receding, however, not drawing closer. Whoever had fired at them was in retreat.

“Sounds like a loner,” Bolan murmured.

Bahn nodded. “He runs off after a couple warning shots? What’s up with that?”

“Could be he’s out of ammo,” Bolan said. “Or maybe he’s going to try to circle around and have another go at us.”

“Let him try,” Bahn said, clenching her rifle.

The sounds in the brush continued to fade. Whoever shot at them was headed back toward the far valley, away from the access road and storage facility. Bolan was deliberating their next move when his two-way radio crackled to life. It was Kissinger.

“What’s going on there? Over.”

Bolan grabbed the radio and quickly explained what had happened, then asked Kissinger, “Where are you? Over.”

“Sergeant Latek found a path up the mountain while we were scouting around,” Kissinger explained. “We’re up on the ridgeline, about a quarter mile from you. I got a glimpse of you up on the rock formation, but the shooting started before I could patch in. Over.”

“Whoever it is, they’re bound for the rain forest,” Bolan told him. “We’re going after them. Why don’t you head over and give us a little backup? Once you reach the rock formation, it should be easy to pick up our trail. Over.”

“We’re on our way. Out.”

Bolan clicked off, then rose to his feet. “Let’s go.”

He and Bahn split up and ventured into the brush. Bolan used the barrel of his rifle to clear his way through the bramble, but the thorns still managed to nick him constantly, sometimes piercing the material of his HAZMAT suit. Bahn, navigating the brush twenty yards to his right, was under similar attack, and without the protection of a suit the pricking took a harder toll, prompting a near-constant stream of epithets.

Finally Bolan reached a small clearing where a set of footprints came to a stop and then doubled back on themselves.

“Over here,” he called out softly.

When Bahn caught up with him, Bolan was holding a pair of bullet casings he’d found in the dirt. They were still warm and reeking of cordite.

“It’s a .22,” he said, holding out the shells for Bahn to see. “Revolver, probably.”

“Explains why he was so stingy with his shots,” Bahn guessed. She plucked a thorn from her forearm and rubbed at the faint smear of blood it had produced. “How about we skip the trailblazing and just stick to the path he made?”

Bolan nodded and led the way. They had followed the footprints another twenty yards, when Bahn suddenly reached past Bolan into the bramble, removing a few strands of black, curly hair glistening with blood.

“Methinks it’s the hair of his chinny chin chin,” she mused.

“Then we’re on the right track,” Bolan said. He started to move on, but she put a hand on his shoulder, motioning for him to stop.

“How about if I lead for a change?” Bahn proposed. “Nothing against that nice ass of yours, but I’d kinda like to see where we’re going. You’ll have an easier time looking over my shoulder than the other way around.”

“If you’re walking in front, what makes you think I’ll be looking at your shoulder?” Bolan replied, doing his best to keep a straight face.

“Ooh, naughty boy.” As she stepped past Bolan to take the lead, Bahn smiled up at him. “Try to be a gentleman, would you? At least until we can find a nice hotel room?”

They continued through the underbrush, doing their best to track their fleeing attacker. It was slow going. The grass and bramble grew thicker as they made their way along the slope, and several times they lost sight of the shooter’s footprints and had to scout for other signs as to which way he’d fled: snapped branches, bent wildflower stalks, more stray hairs or a scrap of cloth claimed by the thornbushes. At one point they thought they’d spotted someone up in the trees, but it turned out to be another of the orangutans, using strangler vines for support as it moved from limb to limb with deceptive ease.

“Maybe we should try that,” Bahn suggested, prying loose yet another thorn from her forearm. “You know, ‘Me Jayne, you Tarzan.’”

“I don’t think so,” Bolan said.

After a few more minutes of navigating through the unforgiving foliage, the two finally emerged into a clearing and found themselves on a broad, flat promontory, not unlike the one Grimaldi had blasted to create the landslide on the other side of the mountain. Before them lay the north valley. Bolan quickly dropped to his stomach and motioned for Bahn to do the same.