Текст книги "Dark Watch"

Автор книги: Clive Cussler

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Текущая страница: 22 (всего у книги 24 страниц)

24

CABRILLO stopped at his cabin on the way to meet the assault team. He changed out of his clothes, donning black fatigues, a Kevlar vest, and a combat harness. While most of the Corporation’s small arms were kept in a weapons locker, Juan kept his in an antique safe in the corner of his office, a relic from a long-defunct railroad’s Santa Fe depot. He fitted a pair of his FN Five-seveN pistols into kidney holsters, sacrificing a small amount of weight for the seconds he’d save not having to reload. Because he was leading a large force of seven operatives, they’d already decided to standardize their assault rifles. He grabbed up an M-4A1 and slid six spare magazines into the appropriate pouches. He didn’t bother carrying a second knife, just the four-inch Gerber hanging inverted from his shoulder strap.

He strapped on a pair of knee pads, flexing a couple of times to settle them properly, and slid his hands into fingerless gloves with thick leather patches to protect his palms. He caught his reflection in the bathroom mirror. The determination and drive that had sustained him through the CIA and led to the creation of the Corporation was in his eyes, hewn flint-hard and focused. Game face, they’d called it, that single-minded convergence of training, experience, and will.

Once again Juan was going to step beyond himself, sacrifice for others by maybe sacrificing himself. He looked hard into his eyes, saw an unforgiving gleam, and abruptly laughed aloud.

Game face or no, Juan also knew he thrived on the danger. Why else would he be in this business? Adrenaline and endorphins were starting their siren song, humming at the base of his skull, giving him that high that only those who’d been there understand. Facing an enemy meant facing yourself. Conquering that enemy gave affirmation of what you always believed about who you are.

The boat garage was cold and clammy, crowded with men and women making final preparations. Rather than use a Zodiac, most of the garage was taken up with a SEAL assault boat, a rubber-rimmed polycarbonatehulled craft with a modestly protected central wheelhouse and twin outboard engines. The boat could handle any sea thrown at it and could reach speeds approaching fifty knots.

The lights in the garage had been dialed down to match the outside overcast, so everyone’s face looked drawn and pale. Their eyes, however, were bright and their motions swift and sure as they checked over each other’s equipment. The sound of magazines being slapped home and actions being cocked was a reassuring symphony to Cabrillo’s ears.

He caught Tory Ballinger’s eye across the room. She had agreed, reluctantly, to stay with the assault boat when the team hit the beach. The Corporation mercenaries had trained together more times than any of them could count and been under fire more than any wanted to remember. In combat they moved and thought as one by seeming to read each other’s minds. He made her realize that her presence among them would jeopardize that hard-won unit cohesion.

He couldn’t dissuade her from coming on the raid, and he hadn’t really tried that hard. He saw that she needed to be part of this because of her survivor’s guilt over the attack on the Avalon. Until she’d exacted some measure of revenge, that incident would haunt her for the rest of her life. And he planned to help by making sure she’d see a little action as everything unfolded.

Tory gave him a thumbs-up and a silent nod. He shot her a cocky grin that made her smile.

Cabrillo’s headset crackled. “Juan, it’s Max.”

“Go ahead.”

“Murph says the video is about to come online. I’m piping it down to you.”

“Roger.”

Juan vaulted the assault boat’s gunwale and flipped on the cockpit flat-panel display. Autostabilizers built into the camera mounts compensated for the constant pitching and rolling, and Murph was doing a good job zooming in on what was unfolding as the Oregonsteamed into the bay.

The feeds flipped at a steady pace, first showing Juan an intense firefight near a large metal building built on a barge, then men who were clones of the pirates they’d taken out weeks ago attacking a tugboat that was in place to tow the barge; next he saw hundreds of Chinese workers running across the sloping moonscape of mud and boulders to get away from the expanding gun battles. He saw that the ships they’d picked up on radar were old cruise liners. All but one had settled deep into the beach, driven almost to their load lines by waves and tidal action. The lone exception might be a new arrival. Although the breakers that slammed her hull couldn’t make the vessel rock, she had yet to settle into the rocky beach. Finally Murph showed him a quick shot of the volcano in the distance. Its peak was wreathed in steam and smoke.

Cabrillo quickly sized up the tactical and strategic situation and began relaying instructions. His orders sent every member of the crew scrambling. Their shouts and calls echoed down the ship’s long passageways as they made their preparations. The Chairman had called for a desperation Hail Mary–type play, and for it to work he needed everyone at their sharpest.

A few minutes later the ship was close enough to the fighting to attract attention. The troops dressed in identical black uniforms, all of whom were Caucasians, ignored the Oregon,while the ragged-looking Indonesians fired hasty pot shots at the ship.

As soon as a pair of deckhands manhandled a large beam with lengths of chain on each end onto the assault boat, Juan ordered Eric Stone to turn the freighter away from the shoreline. While this presented a larger target to the gunmen, it allowed Cabrillo and the shore team to open the boat garage without being seen.

As the door rose smoothly upward, the shore team leapt into the assault boat, locking their arms through purpose-made restraining loops. Each team member called out as soon as they were secured. The driver, Mike Trono, fired the engine, and Juan nodded to the garage boat master. Like a giant slingshot, a series of hydraulic pulleys launched the boat down the ramp and out of the garage. The acceleration was brutal and got worse as Trono lowered the props into the water. The massive outboards bit deep, throwing a rooster tail of water back into the Oregonas the nimble craft came up to plane.

Cold air ripped at any exposed skin like sandpaper, and the sting of drops of water that hit them were cold enough to burn. The assault boat rocketed around the rust-streaked freighter, carving a fat wedge into the black sea. By the time anyone on the beach noticed the boat, they were moving at fifty knots, much too fast to accurately engage.

Trono constantly juked the boat across the sea as he made for the spot where Juan had indicated he wanted to land. It was in the shadow of one of the beached cruise ships, one that was so heavily grounded that workers had built a stone ramp up to the main deck. The area around the ship was strewn with trash too heavy for the surf to take away.

The boat arrowed through the breaking surf and had such a shallow draft that the team had only a couple of yards to wade to find cover on the boulder-strewn beach. Juan and Link dropped behind a house-sized chunk of stone that had been blown from the volcano during some prehistoric eruption. The assault boat had already worked its way back off the beach. Juan looked to make sure Tory had followed his orders to stay aboard, and his estimation of her rose another few notches as he saw her standing in the open pilothouse between Mike Trono and an ex-marine named Pulaski.

“What do you think, boss?” Linc asked.

“Looks to me we dropped in the middle of a little war here. I bet Singh is paying the Indonesians while Anton Savich’s guys are the ones in black.”

“So the enemy of my enemy ain’t necessarily my friend, eh?”

“That’s the attitude I’m taking.”

The team worked their way up the hillside, keeping the cruise ship between them and the main area of combat. Dozens of wide-eyed Chinese workers lay on the ground, cowering. They didn’t know what to make of the armed patrol. Juan tried to urge them to find cover, but they were all paralyzed with fear, and he gave up.

If he hoped to rescue any of the Chinese, he knew they’d have to put an end to the fighting.

“Chairman, we’re ready,” Max called over the tactical net.

The Oregonhad shifted position. The doors covering her Gatling gun were still closed, although the ship had maneuvered to give it a clear line on the two fishing trawlers lashed to the tug.

“We’re about set, too. Any luck finding Eddie?”

“Negative. Hali’s taken over the cameras from Murph so he can concentrate on weapons control. He’s getting good shots, but there are so damned many people on the beach that it takes a few seconds for the computer’s facial recognition software to sort through them all.”

“Check the area closest to the fighting. If Eddie’s in any kind of shape, that’s where he’ll be.”

“Good thinking. Hali?”

“I heard,” the Corporation’s comm officer said. “Shifting focus now.”

Cabrillo and his people reached a level strip of land several hundred yards above the beach. Further toward the center of the site was an area that had been heavily dug up. Water cannons for blasting the tough soil lay abandoned, their nozzles pointed skyward. The ground was littered with shovels and buckets. All the workers had fled, and their guards had gone down to join the fight.

They approached the workings cautiously, weapons held at the ready, eyes never settling on one spot for more than a second.

An explosion echoed up from below, a grenade blast behind the barge that momentarily drew their attention. The black-clad body of one of Savich’s men pinwheeled in a lazy arc before falling to the beach in a broken-limbed heap. At the same second came the chatter of an AK-47 firing at point-blank range.

Cabrillo dropped flat as clods of mud were thrown up all around him. He stitched the area around one of the water cannons in a reflex shot that emptied half a magazine. It was poor fire discipline but it forced the attacker to dodge for cover, and his gun fell silent.

Linc had a better bead. He fired a three-round burst that sent the Indonesian pitching backward into a coffee-colored retention pond. His body vanished under the surface while his blood stained the water. The team found cover behind an earthen berm as more Indonesians appeared out of nowhere. The sheer volume of gunfire made the air ripple.

“We don’t have time for this,” Linda Ross shouted over the din, changing out her magazine.

Juan looked down the hill. The assault boat was getting into position, and they would need the cover fire from the Oregon’s Gatling gun, but he couldn’t afford to remain pinned down. The oldest adage of warfare, that no plan survives first contact with the enemy, had never felt more true.

He called the boat over his throat microphone. “Mike, can you hear me?” When there was no reply, he called again. The boat was still moving at fifty knots, enveloped in a cocoon of engine noise that made communications impossible.

He cursed and called up Mark Murphy. “Murph, we need you. There’s about fifty bandits above us. We’re pinned.”

“Mike’s about to hit the tug,” Murphy pointed out.

“And the longer you question me, the closer he’s getting.”

“Roger that,” he replied, then muttered under his breath, “Sorry, Mike.”

As soon as the last of the assault team jumped over the gunwales, Mike Trono reversed engines and drew the boat off the beach, maneuvering backward until he had the sea room to spin around.

He pulled down his headset to talk to Tory as the boat built speed. “Can I ask you something, ma’am?”

“Only if you promise to never call me ma’am again.”

“Sorry.” Trono grinned. “Force of habit.”

“What’s your question?”

“Do you know how to operate a boat?”

“I work for Lloyd’s of London. My entire life revolves around boats. I’m a licensed captain on anything up to twenty thousand tons, which includes your Oregonbefore you turned it into something out of Star Wars.”

“So this assault craft?” He stamped the deck.

“Seems to handle as well as the Riva speedboat I rented on my last holiday in Spain. Why the inquiry?”

“Because we have a little job to do, and I need you to man the helm while Pulaski and I take care of it.”

“I assume it has to do with that piece of steel that was loaded before we left your ship?”

“Captain’s orders. He thinks we can salvage a bit more than a bunch of immigrants from this nightmare.”

A smile lit Tory’s eyes, and her cheeks blushed more than what the wind caused. “Why am I not surprised?”

They had shot across the bay, circling behind the Oregonagain for cover, and now were headed for the tugboat. One of the trawlers was drifting away from the tug’s flank, while the other remained tightly lashed. There were men scrambling all over the decks. Most were pirates, but a few were crewmen desperately trying to defend their ship. Some of the pirates had added another level to their butchery by switching to machetes to dispatch the last of the crew.

The timing was critical, but with Murph watching their back over the Gatling’s sights, the assault boat charged into the battle. They were twenty yards out when Mike remembered he’d taken off his headset. As soon as he settled it over his ears, he heard the shrieking scream of the six-barreled Gatling gun, and he goosed the throttles a little more.

The expected destruction as the 20mm shells ripped apart the pirates’ boats and cleared the tug’s deck never came. Instead, pirates began shooting at the lightly protected assault boat from over the tug’s railing. The boat ran into a steam of gunfire. Rounds from their AK-47s punctured the inflatable curtain ringing the craft, raked the deck, and ricocheted off the outboards, miraculously missing everyone. Trono tried to wrench the wheel to get away from the tug as fast as possible, screaming to Mark Murphy to find out what went wrong.

The ground between Cabrillo and the Indonesians exploded, churned up by five hundred depleted uranium bullets. A four-foot-thick layer of earth was stripped away by the onslaught, exposing the gunmen where they’d been hiding behind the rim of the pond. Those that weren’t hit directly were torn apart by flying rocks. The entire group was blown into an oblivion of bloody mist and debris.

Linc took point to check for survivors, and while his search was thorough, he also knew it was unnecessary. Nothing could have survived that.

“We’re clear.”

Juan drew his people together. “From here on out our element of surprise is blown, but we’ll stick to the plan, flank the fighting down below, and try to find Eddie. I only hope he’s built a level of trust with some of the other Chinese because if we’re going to save any of them, we’re going to need him.”

They started off down the slope.

Eddie Seng had remained hidden, watching to see how the fighters would react to the Oregonsteaming into the bay. As he’d expected, the Russians ignored the distraction and continued to fight with skill and discipline. They had made a sizable dent in the number of Indonesians, but the sheer numbers were becoming overwhelming. Of the dozen who’d been caught in the initial ambush, four were dead and three were wounded, although they could still defend their position. The tide of Indonesians continued to hammer at the hillock the Russians had taken as a crude fort. The outcome of the gun battle was inevitable, and the Russians knew it. They weren’t fighting for their lives anymore. This was now all about dying with honor.

Something caught Eddie’s attention on the far side of the processing building. The range was extreme, but he thought he saw Jan Paulus emerge from the dormitory ship. It was Paulus, and he was starting to climb up to the helipad where Anton Savich’s helicopter sat idle. He was with another man, and by the way they walked it appeared that Paulus was holding a pistol to his head. It was most likely he had taken the contract pilot hostage to fly him out. There was no sign of Anton Savich, and Eddie wondered if the South African had already killed him.

Pursuing the mine overseer was a tactical mistake, but the flame of rage that ignited in Eddie’s chest blocked out any chance of rationality. The weeks of pain, starvation, and deprivation had exacted a toll on his soul that would take a long time to heal. Killing the sadistic miner would at least start him on the journey. He’d already told Tang to gather as many of the other workers as he could and head for the newly grounded cruise ship. Of any of the vessels littering the forlorn beach, it had the best chance of surviving the eruption if Juan didn’t think of a way out of this mess.

His body was in no condition to chase Paulus, and yet when he started after the man, Eddie’s legs felt as powerful as coiled springs and his lungs pumped air like a blacksmith’s bellows. He felt alive for the first time since turning over his life to the snakeheads back in Lantan village. If any of the fighters noticed him as he dashed around rusted shipping containers and other equipment left lying about, they quickly dismissed him as just an anonymous worker trying to save himself. He’d hidden the AK-47 under the loose shirt he’d scavenged from a dead guard.

Once he was beyond the worst of the fighting he stumbled across the motor launch that had been used to transfer the gold out to the tug. It was in a secluded bay well sheltered from the rest of the beach by massive boulders, and as he stepped into the open, eight pirates who had been making ready to launch the craft looked up in unison. They should have ignored him like the others, but one went for his gun. Eddie dashed to his left as a stream of bullets chiseled at the boulder near his shoulder. He unlimbered his AK, waited for the firing to stop, and stepped back around the corner.

The gunman had turned to laugh with his comrades at the sport of it all. The first three-round burst sent his lifeless corpse sprawling into the startled arms of his friend. The second blew that man to the ground. Eddie killed one more before they got organized and made to fire back. He ducked out of the way again, quickly slinging his rifle, and began to climb the slick side of the boulder.

It was only eight feet tall, but Eddie barely had the strength to make it. His arms quivered at the strain of lifting his own diminished body weight, and the AK-47 felt like a hundred-pound rucksack. The boat’s motor roared to life just as he reached the summit. He slithered over the rounded top of the boulder, trying to bring his weapon to bear. The engine’s beat changed as the prop dug into the surf.

One of the pirates must have guessed his intentions, because chips of rock were suddenly blown from the boulder as at least four guns opened up from below. Eddie clamped his hands over his head as stinging chips of stone struck his skin like he’d fallen into a wasps’ nest. They maintained their fire until the boat was so far away that they couldn’t keep the boulder steady in their sights.

Eddie chanced looking up. The pirates were headed for the tug where a SEAL assault boat from the Oregonwas coming under heavy fire from gunmen aboard the large vessel. Whatever plan Juan had devised had seriously come part. There were only a couple of people on the assault boat. They needed cover fire from the Oregonif they were going to attack the tug, and yet the Gatling remained silent.

Then the multibarreled machine gun opened up. A ten-foot tongue of flame jetted from the weapons bay, and a section of hill where there were a bunch of retention ponds high above the beach vanished in a hammering volley that sent dirt flying thirty feet or more into the air.

Unable to warn the assault boat about the approaching tender, Eddie slithered down the boulder and took off again after Jan Paulus.

Firing with one hand while the other worked the wheel, Mike Trono added to the gunfire pouring off the assault boat as they countered the pirates’ initial barrage. Tory was hunkered low on the floorboards, firing precisely aimed shots at the pirates lining the tug’s rail. She had the accuracy of an Olympic marksman and the patience of a sniper.

The weapon felt perfectly balanced in her hands as she squeezed the trigger for a fifth time. Her target had ducked behind the railing’s metal plating, but the shot would keep his head down for a few critical seconds. Another gore-spattered gunman raised himself suddenly, hosing the sea with his AK-47 before homing in on the fleeing boat. Tory aimed carefully, her body anticipating the wave action, and she pulled the trigger. The light bullet sparked off the railing just in front of the Indonesian and ricocheted into his chest just below the sternum, lifting him high off his feet.

“Hold on!” Trono shouted. “We’re going back in. Cease fire.”

He twisted the wheel once again and set the boat on a collision course with the squat tugboat. Because they weren’t being fired on, many of the pirates stood up to draw a bead on the craft.

“Showtime,” Murph said over Trono’s radio.

The Oregon’s weapons officer shifted the Gatling from the hill and sent a few seconds’ burst into the drifting trawler. The boat was ripped to pieces in a hail of wood splinters and shredded netting. The pilothouse disintegrated. Seabirds gorging themselves on offal left to slop on the deck took flight as their world came apart. Then the stream of bullets penetrated the engine room, tearing the big diesel from its mount before puncturing the fuel tank. The resulting explosion sent a greasy fireball climbing into the sky, and the seas were raked with shrapnel.

What little remained of the trawler sank instantly, snuffing out the flames in a gout of steam.

The destruction on the tug was less dramatic when Murph pivoted the Gatling gun and gave the trigger another squirt. As though caught by a broadside of grape shot, the pirates were scythed down by the fusillade. A hundred ragged holes appeared in the big shipping containers lashed to the deck, and glass from the aft-facing secondary bridge, used by the crew to check their charges under tow, fell in a glittering cascade that further mutilated the corpses. Murph hosed the deck with autofire, making certain that no one was left alive.

“That should hold ’em,” Murph whooped.

Mike Trono danced the assault boat up to the lowest section of railing and turned the controls over to Tory. “Just hold it here. We won’t be a minute.”

“Why are you doing this, anyway?” she asked, standing aside while Pulaski and Trono manhandled the heavy steel girder onto the tug’s low deck.

He handed her his tactical radio and gave her a wolfish smile. “Chairman thinks there’s booty aboard, and not the kind a Hollywood hottie’s packing.”

The men levered themselves onto the deck. Hard years of training forced them to visually check to make sure no one had survived. It was a gruesome task, something out of a horror movie, because the Gatling had minced the bodies into what Trono could only describe as a sort of chunky paste. Leaving the assault boat burbling along the tug’s flank, they hoisted the beam onto their shoulders and waded through the carnage toward one of the containers.

Trono pulled his Glock and shot the lock off one of them while Pulaski maneuvered the beam so they could drag it up to the top. The hinges screamed as Trono swung open one of the doors and just as quickly closed it again. Pulaski shot him a questioning look.

“Chairman’s right again.”

“Gold?”

“Gold.”

He hoisted himself up the container with a boost from his partner, and together they levered the two-hundred-pound beam to the top. Trono looked up as they began to thread the lengths of chain through the lifting hardpoints. A small runabout was racing out from shore, hidden from Murph’s vantage by the bulk of the tugboat. He counted a half dozen armed men bobbing in the craft as it crashed through the surf line and into smoother water.

“We got trouble.”

Pulaski looked over his shoulder. “Damn!”

The boat would reach them in seconds, not the minutes they needed to secure the beam to the container, but they weren’t about to abandon their prize. Mike shouted down to Tory, “We’ve got company. Bunch of goons in an open tender. Get the hell out of here.”

“I’m not leaving you behind.”

“We’re not being heroic. We need you to draw them out so Murph can hose ’em with the Gatling.”

Tory understood and slammed the throttles to their stops. The assault boat shot away from the tug, turning sharply so she passed behind the ship. She’d forgotten about the thick tow cables still securing the tug to the barge on shore. With no time to maneuver she shot under the first cable, ducking as the thick steel tore the standing cockpit from its mounts. Had her reactions been an instant slower, the hawser would have decapitated her.

The boat flashed under the second cable, angling to cut off the approaching tender. She was going so fast that the men on the boat could only stare as she bashed her boat into theirs. One of the men tumbled over the tender’s side, and by the time any of them thought to reach for their guns, Tory was twenty yards away and accelerating like a greyhound.

She slalomed the assault boat as the men began firing on her. She was exhilarated by the adrenaline pumping through her veins. “I know, I know, bloody women drivers. Hit you then try to run away. How about you come and catch me, and we’ll exchange license and insurance information.”

She looked back to see if they’d taken the bait but was horrified to see they were intent on reaching the tug. She whipped Trono’s radio set over her head. “This is Tory. I’m with Trono and Pulaski on the assault boat.”

“Tory. It’s Max Hanley. What’s the problem?”

“There are six terrorists in a small boat about to reach the tug. Your guys are trapped on board with only pistols. They haven’t a chance.”

“Where are you?” Max asked in a reassuring tone to calm her down.

“On your SEAL boat. Mike wanted me to draw them away, but they weren’t having any of it.”

“Okay, just you hold on for a second. Pulaski? Trono? You there?”

The reply came in a faint whisper. “Max, it’s Ski. We’re on top of one of the shipping containers. The pirates just came aboard.”

“Do you think they know you’re there?”

“Negative. Mike grabbed a tarp just before they got here. Unless they check the top of the container, we’re hidden. And it doesn’t appear they’re searching the ship.”

“What arethey doing?”

“It looks like they want to release the tow cables and get out of Dodge. What do you want us to do?”

“Help them,” Juan Cabrillo said over the open comm channel.

“What?” Max and Ski said in unison.

“I said help them. Ski, you and Mike hang tight. Max, I want you to cut the tow cables.” Juan’s radio carried the sound of the gunfight raging on the beach – the sharp crack of rifle fire, the staccato bursts from AK-47s, and the agonized screams of the wounded.

“I can do it with the Gatling,” Mark Murphy chimed in. “A direct hit on the big cable drums on the tug’s stern should do it.”

“But why?” Max asked.

“Because there are a thousand or more Chinese workers caught in the crossfire down here, and the longer this battle lasts, the more of them are getting killed. The Russians look like they can hold out for hours still. Right now that tug is the pirates’ only way off the beach, and if they see it’s about ready to make way, you can bet they’re going to forget all about their fight and hightail it over there.”

“Which gets them away from the civilians…”

“Which gives Murph the opportunity to hose ’em down,” Juan finished.

“What about the Russians?”

“We’ll give them a chance to surrender and get off this beach alive. If they don’t take it, you can take them.”

As if to underscore the urgency, a tremendous crack split the air. A fresh explosion of ash spewed from the top of the volcano, billowing ever higher like a nuclear mushroom cloud. Juan had no idea how long they had. Hours or minutes. They still hadn’t located Eddie, and if his plan to end the gunfight quickly didn’t work, he had to seriously consider evacuating his people from the beach and making a run for it.

Hali Kasim’s excited voice cut through Cabrillo’s grim thoughts. “Chairman, I found Eddie! He’s on the far side of the barge. It looks like he’s tracking two people, one of whom appears to be a hostage.”

“Where are they headed?”

“Up away from the beach. The range is pretty extreme, but I think they have a helicopter up there.”

“Take it out,” Cabrillo ordered, and then he and Linc exchanged a look. It was all the communication they needed. Linc was now in charge of the field team while Juan took off in a ground-eating run. He had only covered forty yards when his ankle caught on a loose stone. Had it been his real leg, the ankle would have broken or at least suffered a major sprain. All that happened was the chairman fell hard, but his clumsiness saved his life as the air above him came alive with automatic fire. He combat rolled a dozen times to find cover behind a pile of stones. The gunman was below him, hidden behind a pyramid of fifty-five-gallon drums.

Juan checked the load on the grenade launcher slung under his M-4, steadied the rifle against his shoulder, and fired. The weapon made a comically hollow sound, and a second later the grenade impacted behind the drums. The grenade’s primary explosion detonated the fuel. Three-hundred-pound drums were launched into the air like rockets, some exploding in flight, while others hit the ground and spilled their flaming contents across the beach.

Juan scrambled to his feet as a drum arced high and began to fall straight at him like a meteor. It landed five yards from him and slightly higher on the hill, so when it split, a burning lake of gasoline roared over him. He fought the instinct to run down the hill. He ran at a diagonal instead, flames licking at his knees and the heat enough to sear his lungs, but in just moments he was through the conflagration with nothing more than singed hair.