Ripper (20 page)

“Goodbye señor,” he said just as the flooring beneath their feet erupted in a loud splintering sound. Wood chips flew in all directions as six rounds penetrated the floor beneath them. The light only a few feet away exploded as the heavy rounds found their mark at just the same moment the light farther down the corridor was
hit from below.

As the man’s eyes widened, he saw Sarah out of the corner of his peripheral vision dive on top of Farbeaux, shielding him with her own body. The man quickly took aim as the third and middle light blew up as more than fifteen high-velocity rounds smashed through the wood. The cell area went completely black with the exception of the weak lighting farther down the long corridor.

As Guzman’s brother aimed his weapon just as the lights were extinguished, Sarah just knew she was about to feel several of the animal’s bullets slam into her back as she covered the Frenchman. Instead, she felt and heard a whizzing sound and at the same moment a loud clacking noise. She felt the wetness strike her body from above and she heard the girl her would-be killer was holding scream again.
There was a loud thump and as Sarah’s eyes adjusted to the dim lighting emanating from down the hallway, she saw the body of Guzman’s brother fall in front of her and Farbeaux. He still had the girl’s hair gripped in his right hand. Sarah saw the top of the man’s head was now gone.

She heard a noise not far from the cell and then the hastily whispered words. “Clear!” Sarah felt like yelling when
she saw the dark shape take form as the man advanced toward the cell. She could see the outline of the shape and a reflection of light on glass and then she knew who it was.

“Will,” she said as she unceremoniously pushed Henri aside and ran to the cell door.

“Hey, what’s up?” Mendenhall said as she started working the key that was still dangling from the lock. “Uh, would you mind telling your
young friend there she can stop screaming for the moment? There’s still plenty to do tonight, so she’ll probably have chances to scream all she wants,” Mendenhall said as the cell door creaked open.

“God,” she said as she took Will into her arms and hugged him tightly. “It’s good to see you. How in the hell did you find me, and how did you get in?”

Mendenhall pushed her back a step and raised
the ambient-light goggles. “Well, the colonel was so pissed that you stood him and his mother up, he came personally to kick your ass.”

That was when Sarah saw the two figures standing twenty feet away from the cell. Everett raised his goggles up and then started brushing wood chips from his shoulders. The man standing to her direct front also removed his night vision equipment.

“Strange company
you’re keeping these days,” Collins said as his eyes moved from Sarah to the man trying to pick himself up off the floor.

Sarah ran through the cell door and hugged Jack as if she had never hugged anyone before.

“Hey, hey, there’s not a lot of time here; gather these girls up.”

Sarah pushed back from Collins and looked into his eyes. “Don’t tell me you guys are alone?”

“Yes, please don’t tell
us that, Colonel.”

Jack looked from Sarah to the man using the bars as a brace to stand.

“He came here specifically to get me out, Jack,” Sarah said, taking his arm before he could enter the cell.

“I bet he did,” he answered as he shook Sarah’s hand from his, stepped inside the cell, and assisted the Frenchman to his feet.

On his way past McIntire, Everett shoved a white handkerchief into
her hand. “In case you didn’t notice, your nose is broken.” Sarah took it and swiped at her painful break. Everett and Mendenhall stepped in behind Jack and hurriedly gestured for the young girls to be quiet and get the hell out of there. They were young, but they also knew it was time to go. Sixteen girls ran for the cell door all at once, pushing Jack and Farbeaux out of the way as they scrambled
into the corridor.

“Jack, you didn’t answer me. Are you guys the cavalry?”

“Honey, I’m afraid the only cavalry here tonight has been dead for close to a hundred years.”

Everett walked past her and a stunned Farbeaux who had his arm around Jack’s shoulder as he too was removed from the cell.

“We are what you would call shorthanded, and probably out of work.”

Sarah sighed as she followed the
men and young girls.

“Again, Jack?”

*   *   *

The girls were lowered one at a time through the missing floorboards. It was painstakingly slow. Farbeaux came to as he was held upright by Collins and looked around quizzically. He tried to focus on Jack’s face and then saw Mendenhall as he lowered Sarah through the small space.

“I thought you had more friends than this Colonel,” Henri said as
he winced at the attempt at humor.

“Yeah, but with the three I have here, it still makes three more than you have, Henri.”

“Touché, Colonel,” Henri said and then hung his head again as his arm relaxed around Jack’s shoulder.

Everett, who was watching the cell area, poked his head around the corner. “We have company coming down the stairs, and it sounds like whoever it is has more than just
three friends with him, Jack.”

“The gentleman who is coming … is not a particularly nice person, Colonel,” Farbeaux said as he again tried to clear his head.

Collins adjusted the Frenchman’s weight and then looked back and nodded at Everett.

“Is that your expert opinion?”

“Indeed. Perhaps you better give me one of those weapons you’re … so fond of … carrying.”

“Give it a rest Henri. Right
now you couldn’t see what it was I handed you. In case you didn’t know it, you’ve got one hell of a concussion.”

Farbeaux finally managed to get his head up and then looked at Collins. “And that is … your expert … medical opinion?”

Jack shook his head. “When one bleeds out of his ears, Colonel, the diagnosis is pretty damn plain,” Collins answered as he placed Henri behind one of the large barrels
lining the wall. He removed his nine millimeter and handed it to the Frenchman. “What the hell, when Mr. Everett opens up, at least add some noise with that thing and make people duck … make them duck.”

Farbeaux squinted and then half smiled. “Your confidence in my military prowess is … overwhelming, Jack.”

Farbeaux watched as Jack left to join Everett, charging a round into the suppressed M-14
carbine.

The lights being out gave them a small tactical advantage. But Collins suspected that Guzman wasn’t the type of leader who favored saving the lives of his men, so he knew they couldn’t make it so expensive that the Anaconda would back off.

As Jack took aim slightly above Everett, who was on one knee with his ambient-light goggles already down, he looked at his friend.

“We hit ’em hard
with no warning. We pile up their bodies until they can’t come through.”

“Good plan … I guess,” Everett said as he removed the safety on his carbine. “Okay, they’re on the last set of stairs.”

The pounding of feet was louder and then they heard before they saw the first man as he gained the bottom floor. Collins placed his hand on Everett, staying him from firing at the first one.

Through the
greenish light of their goggles they saw the man stop and stare into the darkness of the now empty cell. He turned just as the Anaconda himself entered the subbasement. Jack recognized him immediately and aimed for his head. Just at that moment the lead man saw the danger and jumped in front of Guzman. The first silenced round, which in the closed space of the subbasement wasn’t silent at all,
struck the man in the back of his head just as Everett fired.

“Damn it,” Jack hissed as he saw Guzman go down with his dead guard draped over him.

They all heard rapid-fire Spanish coming from the darkness ahead and more men flooded through the large open staircase.

That was when Collins and Everett opened up in earnest. They took the first four with no problem and then saw the next two men
start to drag the dazed Guzman out from under the dead man covering him. Jack aimed and dropped one, but the other stayed up even as Everett’s next three rounds struck him in the torso. His weight falling backward was enough to get the Anaconda near the stairway door where more hands lifted him and pulled him to safety.

“There goes the quick solution,” Everett said as he fired another three-round
burst at the men streaming through the door. They were now taking cover on the far side of the old cell. Rounds were pinging off the steel and chipping large chunks of old concrete and adobe from the walls as Jack and Carl laid down a withering fire on the attackers.

Just as Collins’s first magazine emptied, Guzman’s men started to return fire at a far more rapid rate than either career soldier
would have given them credit for. Bullets started shattering the corner of the wall that was covering them as Everett stopped to reload.

“Damn fine shooting in the dark,” Everett said as he slammed home another thirty-round magazine.

“Remember, Captain, these … men have been … fighting a real war down here for … nearly five … years.”

Carl chanced a look behind him and saw that Farbeaux had
managed to crawl forward and was actually trying to aim the Beretta in the direction of the attack. As he shook his head and turned to fire, Henri’s aim proved to be as good as either Jack’s or his own as three men fell inside of the cell.

With the flare of the enemy weapons, Jack raised his goggles and then tossed them away, as did Everett. The bright flashes were overwhelming the ambient-light
devices and they were firing blind.

Suddenly they heard footsteps directly over their heads and without thinking it through, Collins pulled Everett backward by the body armor covering his back. As they fell back, Henri saw what was happening and fired the remaining rounds in the nine millimeter and then rolled to join his two allies.

Just as they cleared the area, a loud explosion rocked the
subbasement, sending wood and concrete downward in a killing arc of shrapnel.

“Damn cheaters,” Everett said as he rose and emptied another magazine up and into the smoldering hole that had just been opened up above them.

As Jack added fire to the new opening, they heard another, far louder weapon open up next to them. Will Mendenhall had joined the fight with his MP-5. He sprayed the first fifteen
rounds at the men trying to advance through the corridor and then raised the hot and smoking weapon at the same spot Everett and Collins were firing at. As he stopped to change magazines he slapped Everett on the shoulder.

“Time to go! Sarah has the girls heading down the tunnel!”

“Right,” Everett said as he stopped firing and then unceremoniously grabbed the wounded Farbeaux by the collar and
started dragging him toward the missing floorboards.

There was another explosion and a hole magically appeared just in front of the cell where Guzman’s men had taken cover. Collins heard something fall through the opening as the gunfire let up and the Anaconda’s men saw what had been thrown into the lower floor. They tried to scramble out, but it was too late. The grenade detonated and men were
thrown in every direction.

“Now that’s a real nice guy,” Mendenhall said as he added bullets to the shrapnel near the darkened cell area.

“I don’t think I want to be here when this asshole gets serious. Go Will, go!”

Mendenhall followed Jack’s orders and rolled halfway to the hole in the wooden flooring. He waited as Everett shoved Farbeaux roughly through the opening and then jumped after
him. Will heard more men pouring into the basement from the stairs and even saw two or three fall through the second hole they had made. He started to lower himself when he saw a shotgun barrel poke through the blast hole directly where they had been a moment before. He started sliding into the hole before he could aim. Jack was about to be shot from above as Will fired blindly upward as he vanished
through the floorboards. One of the rounds hit the man aiming his lethal weapon at the top of his head. Collins never knew how close he had come to having his head blown off as he jumped in after Mendenhall.

Collins missed landing on Mendenhall by a mere foot. He rolled and came up inside the old laboratory. He fired two more times at the spot where he had just jumped, but that didn’t stop one
of Guzman’s men from getting through the missing floorboards. He saw the man struggling with something. Jack aimed and fired, but nothing happened. The man struggled to his knees and then raised his right arm into the air. As Collins froze for the briefest of moments, two aimed rounds struck the man in the neck and chest, dropping him, but not before he managed to do what he came to do. Henri Farbeaux
immediately pulled Jack down.

“Grenade!” the Frenchman shouted.

Everett and Mendenhall immediately dove for cover as the small round object sailed over their heads and landed next to the excavated hole they had entered the old laboratory through. The grenade exploded. Several small pieces of shrapnel struck Everett in the shoulder and Will in the right arm. But they would have considered themselves
lucky if that had been all the damage done. The bulk of the grenade’s power smashed against the dirt opening to the lab, collapsing the ceiling and sending wood reinforcement and dirt cascading down, blocking their escape.

Jack shook himself and then stood, pulling Henri up as he did. “Thanks, Colonel.”

Farbeaux didn’t answer as he took in the mess around him. Through the smoke and dust he saw
Everett and Mendenhall stand and look around—they were both dazed from the concussive effects of the explosion. Then he spied the cave-in.

“I take it that was the way out of here,” he asked as he ejected the now empty clip from the Beretta. He looked at Jack and then swiped blood from his right eye.

“You’re as observant as ever, Henri,” Collins said as he rushed forward, handing the Frenchman
three more clips of ammunition as he did.

“You two alright?” he asked as he saw blood streaming from both of his men.

“A little steel and blood is the least of our problems, Jack,” Everett said as he bent to retrieve his carbine.