JUNGLE FEVER, page 26
“So you work for ruthless assholes.”
“Ruthless assholes pay well. They have to because no one wants to work for a ruthless asshole.”
The sharp pop of gunfire echoed throughout the cavern. Van Sant’s back arched, his eyes wide with disbelief, as the bullet pierced his abdomen. Lincoln ducked behind the crates as bullets whizzed overhead. Van Sant passed the card to Lincoln and collapsed over the bomb.
“Yes, that’s right. I might be an asshole, but I’m a rich asshole now.” Merrick’s voice sounded from the open doorway. One hand clutched a bloody shoulder, the other held a pistol. He staggered into the cavern, his expression one of merciless desperation mixed with hatred, his mind set on one goal. Merrick sighed at the sight of Van Sant slumped over the bomb and shook his head. “I trusted you, Van Sant. I trusted you with my business and my wife. You were part of my family.” He winced and coughed up blood. “And this is how you repay me?”
Van Sant moaned. His eyes heavy, he sensed the cold of death descending over his body. “Money… only pays… for so much.”
“True,” Merrick said with an air of defeat. He fired again at Van Sant’s hapless body. “So much for loyalty.”
Van Sant groaned as the bullet tore into his chest. He managed a feeble grin at Lincoln huddled beside the crate. Lincoln followed Van Sant’s line of vision to the LED display. Van Sant had managed to enter the disarmament code. With the codes locked in place, the bomb was now useless.
Cold blackness enveloped Van Sant. As his eyes closed for the last time, he felt the emotional turmoil of his actions for the last six months wash away. Relief flooded his body. The sensation of what awaited on the other side brought happiness to his conflicted convictions.
Lincoln returned fire as another volley tore above his head. Merrick dragged himself behind a crate and fell, the pain from his wounds coursing throughout his body. Lincoln fired again, shattering the rock wall above Merrick’s head. Merrick roared in agony as sharp stones shredded his tanned face, disfiguring his once handsome appearance.
“It’s over Merrick,” Lincoln called. “The codes have been entered. The bomb’s useless. Give it up.”
Merrick pulled a small device from his pocket and tapped the keypad. “My wife is dead, and my business no longer exists. All because of you. Do you really think I’m just going to give it up?” He wiped the blood to keep it from seeping into his eyes.
Lincoln crawled around the stacked crates until he had Merrick’s form in his line of sight. Merrick failed to see Lincoln until it was too late. With the cold steel of Lincoln’s rifle pressed hard against his forehead, Merrick managed a laugh and slipped the device unseen into his pocket. “Do you wanna know what’s really funny, Blue?”
Lincoln stood over the injured Merrick and kept the barrel against his head. Unflinching, he focused on the man who had caused him and his crew so much suffering. He ignored Merrick’s question and contemplated pulling the trigger. To kill this man right here, right now would be so easy. No one would know. No one would care. Lincoln’s finger tightened on the trigger as Merrick stared up at him, a smile across his bloodied face. Lincoln hesitated.
He couldn’t kill a man in cold blood.
A deep boom reverberated throughout the cavern. Streams of dust and dirt trickled from the ceiling. Distracted for a moment, Lincoln looked toward the entrance where an avalanche of rocks fell beyond the open doorway.
Merrick sensed the hesitancy in Lincoln’s resolve and took advantage of the distraction. “It’s never over,” he announced. With the last of his strength, Merrick grabbed the rifle and pulled Lincoln toward him. Taken by surprise, Lincoln stumbled forward. Merrick reached out and slammed him to the ground. Lincoln’s head swirled with pain as Merrick’s swift uppercut connected with his jaw. Lincoln seized Merrick by the collar and thrust him to the ground. Merrick scrambled for the rifle. As he grasped the weapon, his head snapped back from a punch to the face that sent him reeling backwards. Merrick staggered but regained his balance.
With the rifle in hand and a smug grin, Merrick leveled the barrel at Lincoln’s chest. “I’m a busy man. Let’s get this over with,” he announced. “You’ve been a pain in the ass from the beginning. I’m looking forward to killing you, Blue.” Merrick’s cold stare locked on Lincoln’s tired and weary eyes.
The last four days have been hell, and this is how it’s all going to end? “If this is it, then a dying man gets one last request, doesn’t he?”
“You really are something, you know that?”
“Wouldn’t by chance have a cigarette, would you?”
Merrick managed a short chuckle between the pain surges. “I don’t smoke. Those things will kill you.”
“I know,” Lincoln said, glancing at the barrel aimed at his chest. “So they keep telling me.”
Merrick considered the man standing before him—tough, resilient, a fast thinker. If only the situation were different. He could have used a man like Blue. “I’d ask you to join me in my venture, but I guess I know what the answer will be.”
“You got that right,” Lincoln answered with dead certainty.
Merrick took aim at Lincoln. “So be it.”
“Tom Merrick,” came a soft voice hidden in the shadows.
Startled, Merrick spun around to face the familiar voice. As the shot reverberated in the cavern, his chest exploded in a shower of blood, and he fell backward across the open crates. Gray emerged from the darkness beside the doorway. He joined Lincoln and sneered at Merrick, lying at his feet. “That’s for my good friend Lockwood,” he whispered.
Lincoln scooped up Merrick’s gun and turned to Gray. “Are you ever a sight for sore eyes.” Sighing, he gave the man an affectionate hug of gratitude. “Didn’t expect to see you.”
“As they say—one good turn deserves another.” Lucius twirled the gun like a gunslinger from the Old West. “Honing my new-found skills.”
CHAPTER 53
Tom Merrick lay among the rubble and broken pine crates. He laughed despite coughing up blood and feeling the life within him drifting away. Blood oozed between his fingers as he moved his hand over the multiple gunshot wounds. Soon he would be in a better place, comforted by his wife at his side. But not before playing his final hand.
Lincoln and Gray towered over Merrick, watching the man who had caused so much death and destruction slowly die. “It’s over, Merrick. You and your evil plans are destroyed, and by the looks of those islanders, they’ll make sure this doesn’t happen again.”
Merrick grimaced from the pain but managed a faint smile. “Always one up,” he whispered before his head fell to the side. His dead eyes stared vacantly toward the darkened ceiling as the remote trigger dropped from his hand.
“What’s this?” Gray picked up the small device.
A cold chill ran down Lincoln’s spine. “Oh, no.”
“That doesn’t sound good.”
“It’s not. That’s a remote trigger.”
Gray dreaded the answer but asked, “For what?”
Lincoln didn’t need to search the crates. He knew the type of man Merrick’s was, flamboyant and arrogant, and which armament a man with nothing to lose would choose to destroy his own empire. He scrambled to the deadly device below Van Sant’s body. The descending countdown displayed on the LED: 9.59—9.58—9.57…
Lincoln quickly re-entered Van Sant’s codes and pressed enter. He sighed in the knowledge that the bomb was now disarmed. “That was close,” he grinned at Gray, wiping the sweat from his face. He paused at Gray’s uneasy stare and followed his gaze to the LED timer. The countdown continued.
“Give me a bloody break,” Lincoln groaned.
“What?”
“Merrick’s overridden the codes. The bomb’s non-nuclear, but, without a bottle of sunblock fifteen million plus, we’re gonna have a really bad day. Gotta go—fast!” Lincoln grabbed Gray’s arm and led him to the doorway as another boom shook the cavern. This time the ground beneath their feet shuddered. The two men stumbled as a larger explosion rocked the ceiling and an avalanche of rock crashed onto the concrete ramp beyond the doors, filling the cavern with a cloud of choking dust. They watched in horror as more boulders tumbled into view, blocking the doorway with an impenetrable wall of rock and rubble.
“Sounds like the hotel’s tearing itself apart.” Lincoln clawed at the rubble only to have more loose rocks take its place. “Damn it,” he groaned. “This is hopeless.”
Gray assisted with the clean-up but to no avail. He barely managed to avoid the rocks as more boulders tumbled from the ceiling.
Dog-tired from the last four days, Lincoln stared at the obstructed escape route that sealed their fate. He rested, using the rifle as support, as the energy drained from his fatigued body. “Give me a break,” he whispered to himself, wiping the sweat from his face.
For the first time since escaping Neptune Island, Lincoln felt consumed with fatigue. Barely staying alive through four torturous days of non-stop, adrenaline-fueled, life-and-death situations, Lincoln had finally reached his limit. He knew that with only minutes to live and no way out of the cavern, his time on Earth would soon be at an end. He slumped down next to Van Sant’s inert body, reached into the dead man’s jacket, and pulled out a pack of Lucky Strikes. Gray declined the offer, so Lincoln lit up and inhaled deeply, allowing the nicotine to take hold one last time.
“Don’t give up,” Gray pleaded, desperately searching for a way out. “What about the tunnel leading to the sinkhole? Maybe we can climb our way up to the surface.”
“Doc, that ledge is about two stories below the hotel level, and the rock face is slippery as hell. I don’t know about you, but I don’t fancy falling to my death. If I have to die, I can’t think of a better way than sitting on a nuclear bomb, can you?” Gray sighed and conceded that maybe it was time to leave this Earth. Lincoln managed a half smile at the recollection of Slim Pickens in Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove riding the atomic bomb down to his spectacular death.
Gray sat beside Lincoln and looked around the darkened cave at what would become his final resting place. With pine crates strewn across the floor and the faint echo of dripping water reaching their ears, the two men faced each other, resigned. Lincoln took another drag of the cigarette and shot a look around. “Doc, I’m glad you came to rescue me. I wish I could return the favor.”
Gray smile feebly and wrapped his arm around Lincoln’s shoulder. “My boy, I may have to leave this world, but I wish I could go out with a bang rather than a whimper.”
“Oh, we’re definitely going out with a bang. I figure the explosion will take half the plateau with it”—Lincoln glanced at the timer—“in eight minutes and fifteen seconds.”
“Well, if I have only eight minutes to live, then screw it. I think I will have one of those cigarettes.”
Lincoln lit Gray’s cigarette and the doctor promptly coughed on the smoke. Lincoln chuckled. “Maybe you shouldn’t, Doc?”
“I don’t care,” he replied with an air of self-assurance, spluttering from another drag.
Lincoln nodded to the cigarette in his hand. “At least I can say these things didn’t kill me.”
As Gray became accustomed to inhaling and exhaling, the coughing stopped, but he still looked green around the gills. “You’re right, you know.”
“About what?”
“The slippery sinkhole walls. Very dangerous. I should know.”
“What makes you say that?”
“One of Merrick’s men slipped over the sinkhole’s edge. Being the island’s chief medical doctor, I was given the task of retrieving the body from the bottom of the sinkhole.”
“What’s it like down there?” Lincoln asked with genuine curiosity.
“What’s it like to dredge a broken body from ten feet of water while a deafening roar from a waterfall drowns out any contact with another human being? I’d say it was one shitty place to be and a job I’d rather not do again.”
“Waterfall? You mean the one running beside the hotel?”
Gray nodded. “Like I said, caverns and tunnels are all through the plateau. A tunnel at the bottom of the sinkhole must lead directly to the base of the waterfall.”
A nagging memory gnawed at Lincoln’s brain. “That’s it!” He threw the cigarette away and bolted upright with a new lease on life. He scrambled over the crates, lifting lids and tossing them aside.
Gray watched Lincoln’s erratic behavior until he had to indulge his curiosity. “My boy, what are you doing?”
Lincoln’s search was over. He’d found the crate he was looking for and flung open the lid. Relieved at the sight before him, Lincoln’s ear-to-ear grin was the biggest smile Gray had ever seen. “What is it?”
Lincoln pulled the bag from the crate and held it up for Gray to see.
“A backpack?” Gray asked, incredulously.
Lincoln opened the backpack and allowed the pack tray to fall out. “Not just any backpack.”
Gray’s eyes widened at the realization of what Lincoln was attempting.
“We don’t go up to get out of here, Doc. We go down.”
CHAPTER 54
Bullets thudded into the dock’s wood paneling as Mich assisted Christina from the elevator, with Enheim and Katya close behind. Joined by Rousseau, Becca, and Roland, they hastily took shelter against the rock face, out of sight of the sniper above.
Roland ducked his head out of the shadows and peered skyward. “Vhere is Lincoln and the Doctor?”
“Linc said he would meet us here,” Enheim said, his arm firmly around Katya’s shoulder, “but the old man disappeared.”
Positioned high above at the cliff’s edge, one of Merrick’s men had a clear line of sight to the jetty. Before Roland could enquire further into Gray’s whereabouts, Merrick’s man fired again. Wood splinters shot across the quay as Roland hid from the gunman’s view.
Enheim cocked his head toward the tramp steamer sitting idle beside the dock. “Why aren’t we on the ship yet?”
“The captain won’t allow us to board,” Mich answered.
“We’ve got guns. Why didn’t you convince him?”
“He has more guns.”
Enheim slapped the nearest docking post with anger. “Just our luck!”
Another round of bullets thudded into the wooden slats at their feet. Roland turned to the others. “Ideas, anyone?”
Mich calculated the distance from the dock to the cliff’s precipice—too far for an accurate shot. He raised the M4 he’d taken from a dead guard. “I could try, but…”
Doubled over from a cracked rib, Christina gasped from pain as she withdrew an arrow from the quiver strapped to her back. She was slipping the arrow into the flight slot in the barrel when Katya lowered her hand onto the weapon and gently edged it back to Christina’s side, indicating that she would take care of the current danger.
The time for Katya to make a stand, to show the world she could have been a gold medal winner, was now. All those long hours of training for the Olympic biathlon, which should have accumulated to the pinnacle of her sporting career, would not be for naught. She stepped forward and swapped her pistol for Roland’s M4 assault rifle saying, “I can do this.” She checked that the magazine was still loaded, crept out of the crawlspace, and sidled up to one of the jetty’s support posts, her frame hidden from the gunman but still commanding a clear line of sight. She knelt, took deliberate aim so as not to rush the shot, lined up the sights on the barrel, and gently squeezed the trigger.
The single crack of a gunshot echoed across the lagoon. The gunman’s head snapped back while he dropped to his knees and fell from the plateau’s edge. His body somersaulted down the cliff face and crashed with a sickening thud through the jetty’s rotted wood and into the lagoon. The group greeted her with big smiles and patted her on the back. “Good shot, Sis,” Roland said, kissing her on the cheek.
“That’s my girl.” Enheim beamed with pride while giving her a big hug. “I don’t give a shit what those friggin’ Olympic assholes say. You’re better than a gold medal winner in our eyes.”
Napoleon contributed to the celebration with a congratulatory woof.
The hotel’s fuel tank ignited, obliterating the elevator’s top level. A thunderclap echoed through the air followed by a deep rumbling that shook the plateau. The water beneath the jetty surged from the booming vibration. A flock of birds scattered over the jungle canopy as a billowing ball of flame erupted from the plateau’s edge and rocketed upward.
The crew peered skyward.
Roland and Mich glanced at one another as the still air enveloped them in silence. “We are safe, you know,” Roland said with a half grin to instill a sense of calm in the others while hiding the fear rising within himself.
Mich squinted at the cliff’s rock face beside the explosion. A small avalanche of rock and dust was rolling down the cliff. He wasn’t certain, but he could have sworn he saw the elevator sway. Could it have been a trick of the afternoon sun? The anxiety of the unknown washed over him. “Did anybody see that?” he asked quietly, not wanting to trigger another avalanche with his voice.
Becca’s eyes widened in disbelief, and Rousseau stepped back, a sense of dread washing over his hulking frame. Roland wiped the sweat from his face and paused, still unsure of what he thought he’d seen.
The steel mounts and support girders locking the elevator in place against the cliff face groaned under the outside forces of stressed steel and burning metal.
“This is not good,” Mich whispered.
The elevator broke away from the cliff face and arced across the sky in a downward fall. In a cacophony of screeching metal, the lift smashed through the jetty and across the supply ship’s top deck. Sparks from the elevator’s framework struck the ship igniting used oil drums that littered the forward section, and causing spot fires to flare across the battered deck.
Nervously licking his lips from their narrow escape, Rousseau closed his eyes and made the sign of the cross.
