Catherine Coulter – FBI 4 The Edge

“Not on your life. You’re a patient. You’re not to move. Just think about that shoulder opening. It wouldn’t be good, Laura. We’ve got to survive. Now, just lie still and-”

“I don’t want Sherlock or me to die because I’m helpless, Mac. Sherlock’s out of it. I’m all she’s got. Give me the Bren Ten.”

I gave it to her without another word.

“They’re close, Mac,” said Savich. “Let’s go.”

I slung the other AK-47 over my shoulder, slid the machete through my belt, checked the other magazine in my waistband, and fell in behind Savich. If something happened to us, Laura had the Bren Ten. No, I wouldn’t think about that, but I still took one backward look. Laura’s fingers were curled around the pistol. I gave her a thumbs-up.

We were nearly on their heels fifty steps later. They weren’t trying to be quiet. They were speaking loudly in Spanish, cursing, from what I could make out.

We waited, crouched down beneath some broad green leaves larger than my chest. The heat was rising. The air was becoming so heavy, so filled with water that moving through it was like carrying weights. It was tough to breathe. Thank God for that water I’d found in the Apache. The men kept complaining, coming within a dozen feet of where we were crouched on the floor of the forest.

“Let’s get behind them,” Savich said.

They were walking single file only about eight yards ahead of us. Their heavy steps covered any noise we might have made. I saw Savich’s profile. He looked carved out of stone. Mean, dangerous stone. There was death in his eyes, and utter concentration.

He took the last man down so quickly I heard only a hoarse gurgle. The men ahead didn’t hear a thing. Savich sliced his throat with a small scalpel he’d taken from the first-aid kit, then quickly dragged him out of sight. There were two others, who could turn around any minute. We didn’t want to be standing there just staring at them. He looked up as he laid the guy on his back.

“Let’s get the other two.”

We heard the two men talking just ahead of us in rapid Spanish. I paused a moment, listening carefully. I said behind my hand to Savich, “They think Leon stopped to piss.”

“We’ll take them both together,” Savich said.

It happened fast.

Savich took one of them cleanly with the scalpel, just like the first man. I quickly sidestepped them when the other one turned, alarm firing his face. He yelled and lunged at me, bringing up his AK-47. I brought up my hand and smashed it into his throat. His head snapped back. He dropped to his knees, gagging and choking. I finished it with a blow with my rifle butt.

I raised my head to see a big cat staring at me calmly. He was stretched out along a low-lying branch, watching the two of us, unmoved. He looked down at us with, at best, mild interest. Was he waiting to eat the guys who lost?

Savich said, “It’s just a jaguar, Mac. He won’t risk tangling with you. But he might take your prey. Hey, you okay?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Don’t worry about him. Now, let’s see what we can salvage here.”

“Look,” I said. “There’s a couple of Baby Ruth candy bars here. Hot damn, we need those. We should check the other guy too. You know, Savich, these wrappers aren’t written in Spanish. Neither is anything in the first-aid kit I got out of the helicopter, which was also American. Everything’s American except for Molinas’s men. Who the hell are these guys? What do they do around here?”

Savich answered me with a shrug. He was right. At the moment, who these goons were wasn’t important.

I felt strangely detached from the three dead men, poor bastards. “We got it done. Let’s get back to Laura and Sherlock.”

When we came through the trees to Sherlock and Laura, I nearly lost it. A man was standing over the women, his AK-47 pointed down at Laura’s chest. Laura’s eyes were closed. I didn’t see the Bren Ten.

He didn’t seem to know what to do. He saw us and said, “You will not move, senor, or I will shoot the women. That’s right, lay down the weapons and step away.”

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