Pressure Point

“How about another chopper?” Bolan asked.

“He’s trying to roust one from the military over in Balikpapan,” Kissinger said, “but that’ll take time, too.”

“How’s the major holding up?”

“He’s under the knife at the city hospital,” Kissinger said. “They say it’s going to be a long surgery, and they don’t like his chances. That prisoner we took in is in the OR too, but his prognosis isn’t much better. The others got by with quick patch-ups. They’ve probably already been released.”

Bolan took Kissinger aside and whispered, “If they haven’t been, I think we should have Jack and Rock try to keep an eye on them.”

“Why’s that?”

Before Bolan could pass along his theory about a spy having tipped off the Lashkar about the raid, Latek returned from the promontory and called out, “I see some smoke.”

“That’s not exactly ‘Stop the presses,’” Bahn told him. “There’s smoke everywhere you look.”

“Close by,” Latek said. “Just down the hill.”

Bolan told the others to stay put, then motioned for Kissinger to come with him. When they reached the escarpment, Bolan dropped once again to the ground and inched forward to a point from which he could see back down into the valley. Kissinger did the same.

A hundred yards away, a thin, serpentine finger of white smoke rose through the trees.

“Too small for a slash-and-burn,” Kissinger murmured.

“It’s in the direction the shooter was headed,” Bolan said. “I’m thinking campsite.”

“If that’s the case, we’re in business,” Kissinger said.

They crawled back into the brush. Bolan told Bahn and Latek, “If we’re going to try to hit them, this is the time, before they head any deeper into the forest.”

“I’m with you,” Bahn said.

Latek nodded. “What is the plan?”

Bolan thought it over, then laid out a basic strategy. When he was finished, Latek spoke briefly to the other commandos. As they steeled themselves for what lay ahead, one of the men clenched his assault rifle tightly and murmured something in Javanese.

“What’d he say?” Bolan asked Bahn as they prepared to enter the forest.

“Roughly translated,” she said, “It’s show time.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

“Who turned off the lights?” Kissinger whispered.

He’d taken less than a dozen steps into the rain forest, but it was as if he’d crossed time zones to a place where the sun had already set. Engulfed in a bleak twilight, he and the others found themselves surrounded by a preternatural world of looming, shifting shadows.

“Let’s take it slow till our eyes adjust,” Bolan advised.

“No argument there,” Cowboy replied.

The group had split up before entering the forest. Jayne Bahn had paired up with one of the commandos while, somewhere off to Bolan and Kissinger’s right, Sergeant Latek and the other commando had already forged ahead and disappeared from sight.

The ground beneath Bolan’s and Kissinger’s feet was a soft, peatlike layer of decomposed vegetation that padded each step they took. Not that anyone could have heard them above the cacophony. The noise surrounding the men was almost deafening. Up in the treetops, orangutans and smaller monkeys howled to one another, competing with the caterwaul of unseen birds and buzzing of insects, and the unsettling moan of the wind filtering through the upper branches.

And then there was the river, lapping and gurgling its way through the forest. Adding to the sensory overload was a cloying scent of exotic, overripe fruit. The smell was every bit as strong as that of the damp peat and, for the first time since stepping off the plane in Samarinda, Bolan realized he was unable to detect the smell of smoke. So much for sniffing their way to the enemy campfire, he thought to himself.

“Let’s stay close to the river,” he suggested. “Odds are they pitched camp near it.”

Kissinger followed Bolan. Their eyes continued to become accustomed to the darkness, and once they reached the river they were able to make out scores of boot prints along the banks. The tracks led in both directions.

“Seems like we want to keep heading north,” Kissinger whispered. “The other way’s going to take us back out of the forest.”

“You’re right,” Bolan agreed. “North it is.”

As they continued along the river, the men spotted pigs milling near the water’s edge. As Bolan and Kissinger drew closer, they quickly scattered, squealing their way into the undergrowth. The commotion spread as a flock of small dark-feathered birds burst out of the brush with a flurry of beating wings. The men froze momentarily, rifles at the ready, wary that their position had been given away.

“I don’t know about you,” Kissinger muttered, “but this place gives me the creeps.”

Bolan nodded. He was looking out at the river.

“Look at the water,” he said.

Kissinger took another step closer and peered into the current. The water had a reddish coloring to it.

“It’s not blood, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Kissinger said. “I remember reading about tannic acid or something like that in the peat. It gets leeched into the water and turns it—”

“I’m not talking about the color, Cowboy,” Bolan interrupted, pointing farther upstream. “I meant that slick over there.”

Kissinger shifted his gaze and spotted a wide, luminescent clot suspended on the water. Even in the relative darkness, the shape gleamed, rainbowlike, as it drifted toward them.

“Gotta be some kind of fuel spill,” Kissinger surmised. “Outboard motor, most likely. I’ll bet you anything these guys use some kind of boat to haul in supplies and any other—”

Kissinger’s voice was drowned out by a faint, sudden boom. Seconds later, a vibrant flash illuminated the jungle, momentarily blinding both men with its fiery brilliance.

“Take cover!” Bolan yelled.

Even as he was shouting the warning, Bolan was lunging away from the river and rolling into the nearby foliage. His instincts were once again on target. As he and Kissinger scrambled for cover, the forest around them thundered with the incessant rattle of automatic gunfire. The fusillade was so loud and persistent it quickly drowned out all other sounds save for the muffled thud of bullets plowing into the peat banks where the two men had been standing a moment before.

“You all right?” Kissinger whispered to Bolan.

“Yeah. So far at least.”

The flare tumbled through the upper branches of the nearby trees, then dropped straight down to the forest floor, even as another was taking its place, bathing the forest with another blast of harsh light. Bolan blinked his eyes several times, then peered out through the foliage and saw enemy gunmen up in the trees, firing down at the intruders.

Soon there was yet another burst of light, this one down near the river’s edge eighty yards from where Bolan and Kissinger had taken cover.

“Flamethrower,” Bolan said.

“Oh, man,” Kissinger groaned. “Something tells me that fuel spill was no accident.”

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