LITMIR.BIZ

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      Mersano sprang to his feet. “Through the hole.”

      He leaped through the cavity, landing in the mud outside. He crouched, eyes and gun barrel questing for targets. No one shot at him. Over his shoulder, he said quietly, “The captain’s men are circling around behind us. No one is paying much attention to the front.”

      “Define ‘much attention,’” Kane demanded.

      Mersano’s men jumped through the hole in the wall, joining their chief outside. Kane and Grant exchanged glances of weary resignation and then followed the men. They swept the perimeter with watchful gazes. The rain slackened as the heart of the storm moved farther inland.

      Their eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, and Mersano gestured for everyone to follow him. “Move! Bergerak! Move!”

      As the group of men sprinted across an open expanse of ground, a barrage of gunfire blazed from the interior of the hut. Voices rose in cries of outrage. Geysers of mud spewed up around them as bullets plowed into the ground.

      Kane half turned to return the fire. Then he glimpsed a small projectile lancing overhead, seemingly propelled by a ribbon of spark-shot smoke. It arrowed through the gap in the wall of the hut. The interior instantly lit up with an orange nova of flame, surrounded by a dark mushroom of muck. The explosion slammed against his eardrums. The roof lifted up and one wall collapsed outward.

      Kane returned his focus to running through the rain over uncertain ground.

      “Don’t shoot! It’s me!” Mersano shouted.

      The group ran into a narrow alley formed by several stacks of shipping crates. A tall figure in a hooded rain cape cradling a short-barreled, big-bored LAW rocket launcher stepped out of the shadows to meet them.

      “Clarise!” Mersano shouted, showing his discolored teeth in a grin. “I was getting worried about you.”

      “I was delayed,” said a soft female voice touched by a French accent. “A thousand pardons.”

      Clarise pulled back the hood, revealing a face of surprisingly exotic beauty. She was a tall woman with skin the color of ivory, deep blue eyes and an athletic body with full, proud breasts and strong hips. Her long blond hair glittered with a patina of raindrops.

      Clarise cast her suspicious gaze toward Kane and Grant. They met it with neutral expressions. “I don’t believe we’ve met,” she said.

      Mersano nodded toward the two men. “Grant and Kane. From Montana.”

      Clarise’s eyebrows rose. “Ah. The Americans from Cerberus who’ve been trying to unite Roamer, robber, Farer and freebooter against a common foe.”

      “Yeah, that sounds like us,” Grant said blandly. “How did you know that?”

      “I have my sources,” Clarise replied. “How’s that job working out for you?”

      “Not so bad in some places, terrible in others,” Kane answered. “Like Pandakar, for example.”

      Clarise laughed, but it sounded forced. “If you’d only delayed your arrival by a day or two, your reception would have been quite different. As it is, your timing for a diplomatic effort could not have been worse if you had planned it that way.”

      Grant scowled. “Yeah, we figured that out after it was too late.”

      Kane gestured in the direction of the huge treasure ship. “One of our party is aboard the Juabal Hadiah.”

      The humor in Clarise’s eyes faded. “Yes, I know. A woman named Baptiste.”

      Suspicion raised Kane’s nape hairs and his hand tightened around the grip of his pistol. “How do you know her name?”

      “I was introduced to her,” Clarise said curtly. “Until a couple of hours ago, I was Captain Saragayn’s executive officer…and his wife.”

      “His wife?” Grant echoed incredulously.

      “One of five,” Clarise explained smoothly. “I would not be the slightest bit surprised to learn the captain has intentions of trying your friend Baptiste out for the sixth.”

      Kane’s shoulders stiffened. “What the hell do you mean?”

      “Perhaps we should get out of the rain,” Mersano suggested. “This is only good weather for sitting ducks.”

      He laughed shortly at his own joke although no else did.

      “Follow me.” Clarise led the men farther down the passageway between the wooden crates. It was extremely dark in the narrow aisle, almost pitch-black.

      Far too late, Kane sensed the rush of bodies. He tried to acquire a target for his Bren Ten, but a hard foot whipped out of the gloom and slammed into the pit of his stomach, just above his groin. The air exploded from his lungs, and he folded in the direction of the sickening pain. He staggered, trying to force himself erect, only to feel his shoulders gripped by hands that should have belonged to a great ape.

      Kane shook himself violently to break free of the agonizing grasp. In the murk, he heard Grant’s voice blurt a curse, then Clarise shouting in French. A series of smacking, thudding impacts filled the damp, the sound of savage struggle at close quarters.

      A man cried out in pain and a white shaft of gunfire blazed in the darkness. A body fell heavily almost at Kane’s feet. His assailant shifted his grip from his upper arms to a bear hug, catching him up in a crushing embrace, pinning his arms against his sides. He thought he heard a rib break, but then realized it was the sound of a bladed weapon chopping into a wooden crate.

      Sagging forward, Kane shifted his center of gravity into a dead, unresisting mass. His attacker loosened his grip ever so slightly, trying to pull him upright. Planting his feet firmly on the ground, Kane kicked himself backward, smashing the rear of his skull into the nose and mouth of the man standing behind him. He stumbled backward and crashed into a crate. Kane broke free and turned, gasping for air. He glimpsed a shadowy shape rushing toward him, arms outspread, and he squeezed off two shots. He heard a ghastly gurgle and a heavy body toppled nearly at his feet.

      Kane leaned against a crate, breathing hard, heart trip-hammering. He heard Grant’s voice, “Kane! Where the hell are you?”

      He coughed and replied, “Here. Where the hell are you?”

      “Getting the hell out of here. Follow my voice.”

      Kane did so, tripping over two bodies before he found his companions clustered at the far end of the aisle formed by the shipping crates. They emerged at the edge of the jungle. The green wall of foliage looked thick enough to be nearly impenetrable, but Clarise found a small path. Everyone fell into step behind her, walking single file. Kane’s mind toyed with images of poisonous snakes coiled to strike, of scorpions clinging to low-hanging branches and worse forms of wildlife. He knew from prior experience that all jungles held nasty surprises.

      Clarise led the way with quick confidence despite the dark. The wind died down to no more than an intermittent breeze. The rain ebbed to a drizzle, then only a spritzing. Lightning still arced across the sky, but the heart of the storm was a couple of miles away. Humidity rose, and streamers of mist curled up from the ground. The world was a primeval, menacing green with night-blooming epiphytes and flowering creepers stretching down from the branches overhead.

      They roused a family of langurs, monkeys with white eye rings. There was a brief, outraged chittering as they jumped in great arcs between the trees. No one spoke as they marched. There was the constant pelt and drip of water from the canopy of leaves above them. Kane kept checking his bare arms for the giant gray leeches that dropped from the branches and attached themselves to the flesh.

      In the darkness, the danger of straying off the path, and becoming lost was a greater hazard than leeches. Even in daylight, enveloped within the suffocating heat and humidity and thick foliage it would have been difficult to find the trail.

      Then the overgrowth opened

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