Page 120 of Clive Cussler Ghost Soldier

All Juan and Linc could do was duck low as they heard the shouts of men coming from all directions and the roar of automatic weapons racing closer toward them.

Deafened by the wall of noise, the two men exchanged a knowing glance.

This was it. No way out.

Might as well go out fighting.

And die like men on their feet.

The two friends nodded to each other. On a silent count of three, they leaped to their feet, their backs pressed together, guns up.

Juan’s narrowing vision saw the screaming faces racing toward him and the sparks of flame leaping from their rifles. He wasn’t afraid. It was all in slow motion, and oddly quiet. Even the geysers of dirt kicking up around them rose and fell as if suspended in water. Cabrillo knew it was the adrenaline dulling his senses and slowing time. He barely felt the rifle slug that hammered into his body armor, and hardly noted the blistering heat of bullets whizzing just inches past his face.

It would only be seconds until he and Linc would meet their fates.

Cabrillo’s body jolted as Linc fired the Barrett. He raised his own rifle to his cheek and pulled the trigger. He heard Linc shout something, but couldn’t make it out.

Cabrillo watched the line of soldiers racing toward him tumble like dominoes into the dirt, torn apart by a stream of lead.

Cabrillo suddenly realized what Linc was saying.

?

“Pour it on, Wepps!” Gomez shouted over the comms.

Mark Murphy wore a pair of goggles and worked a video game controller in his hands. That gave him control of a remotely operated six-barreled “Vulcan” Gatling gun slung beneath the AW tilt-rotor. The Vulcan spat out six thousand rounds of 7.62 NATO per minute. Murph, a world-class gamer and theOregon’s weapons expert, was in his zone.

And he was just getting started.

The AW had come in low over the water to avoid radar, then popped up at the last second to avoid the tree line. Originally targeting Juan’s and Linc’s tracker locations in the oceanside cave several hours earlier, Gomez was now zeroed in on Plata’s radio chatter. By directing his men at Juan and Linc, Plata had inadvertently brought the wrath of the tilt-rotor down on his own head.

Literally.

Murph put enough lead into Plata’s brainpan that everything above his Adam’s apple evaporated in a purplish mist of gore and bone.

The plume of an RPG roared out from beneath the trees. Gomez deftly sidestepped the unguided weapon as Murphy turned the remote machine gun onto the end of the smoky trail. The RPG launcher fell harmlessly into the grass.

The few surviving guards and mercs all dashed back into the trees.

“Clear!” Murph shouted as he scanned the area with his goggle-controlled video camera.

Gomez dropped altitude and sped over to the bone pit as Murph kicked out a couple of fast ropes.

?

As soon as Juan saw the AW roar overhead, he dropped to one knee and powered up his radio, switching to a clear channel and keying his mic. It took the AW’s automated radio scanner a few moments to find Cabrillo. He called out for Gomez as Murph opened fire again. Spent rounds poured down from the belly of the tilt-rotor like brass raindrops.

Linc swapped out his mag and resumed taking potshots at the fleeing soldiers, dropping two. He counted eight bodies in his field of vision.

By that time the big, thundering bird was hovering overhead. Two fast ropes flapped and dangled over the side, battered by the hurricane-force winds of the big turboprops. Murph’s big head leaned out the cabin door. He called through the comms.

“You guys called an Uber?”

“I prefer Lyft, but whatever,” Linc said as he grabbed the first rope, slipping the toe of his boot into one loop and his hand through another.

Juan did the same on the second.

The last few men in the trees regained some of their courage, seeing the tilt-rotor’s Gatling gun had stopped firing. They opened up again. Bullets whizzed like angry hornets past Juan’s torso.