The Jungle

They had just gotten clear when the loader replaced his comrade behind the butterfly grips of the machine gun and opened up. With nearly twice the powder charge of a standard AK-47’s, the bullets from the PKB came at them like armor-piercing rounds. The rear of the old school bus was riddled with two dozen sizzling holes, and the bullets had the power to blow through a couple rows of seat before finally losing momentum. A few passed all the way through the bus. Had Eddie not been driving like some old geezer in Florida, with only his hands remaining in view, he would have taken two to the back of the skull.

“Is everyone okay?” Juan shouted, his hearing compromised by the deafening roar of gunfire.

Even as his people acknowledged they were unhurt, Cabrillo was checking on young Setiawan Bahar. The teen remained oblivious in his drug-induced dreamworld. A few chips of glass had fallen on him, but other than that he looked like he could be asleep in his own bed back in Jakarta.

“Are they chasing us?” Eddie asked. “All my mirrors are shot to hell.”

Cabrillo looked back. The checkpoint was just a short distance behind them, but he could see figures cutting in and out of the pickup’s headlights. The men were doubtlessly organizing themselves to track down the fleeing bus and finish what they’d started. Their truck had more speed, maneuverability, and firepower than the bus.

They’d been lucky to get past the checkpoint. Juan knew too well that luck was fickle at best and downright capricious most of the time.

“Oh, they’re coming, all right.”

“Hold on,” Eddie suddenly said.

It felt like the bus had driven onto an express elevator heading straight down. They had reached the spot where the road fell away in a series of punishing switchbacks. Any thought of abandoning the bus before reaching the potential target area was moot in Juan’s mind. They were too late, with a Taliban technical racing up behind them like the guy was gu

Tracer fire arced out from the trailing pickup, pulsing trails of burning phosphorescence that reached for the hurtling bus. They had the range but not the accuracy. The gu

At the front of the bus Eddie was fighting the wheel like a madman, not daring to look at what lay beyond the right-side tires. The road clung to the side of the canyon, weaving along its face like something out of an old Road Ru

Inches from the left-hand windows the rock wall rushed by in a blur. Out the right was a vista under the sliver of moon that seemed to drop away forever. Juan couldn’t imagine the view from the top of Mount Everest being much broader than this. If he craned his neck, he could see the road below where it had doubled back on itself. MacD Lawless joined him at the mangled rear door. He had Eddie’s REC7, and the thigh pockets of his camo pants bulged with spare magazines.

“Figured your man up there can’t drive and shoot at the same time.” He handed Juan his pistol. “That’s a fine piece, but Ah think the Barrett here is more apropos to this particular situation.”

He had an accent Juan couldn’t place.

When asked, Lawless said, “New Orleans,” pronouncing it N’Orlens.

“The Big Easy.”

“Coincidentally, that also describes my sister.” Lawless flashed that handsome grin of his. “Actually, I don’t have a sister, but I love that joke.”

The respite lasted another second until the pickup rounded a corner behind them, and the gu

Undaunted, Lawless shot back. His rate of fire was slow and deliberate, and when Linc and Linda joined them, all four were pouring a lot of lead down the dusty road—enough, it seemed, to deter the driver, because he slowed until the bus pulled one gentle bend away.

Without warning, Eddie slammed on the brakes and kicked the steering wheel hard over. The bus seemed to corkscrew into the earth as it rounded the first dipping hairpin turn. The outside tire of the dual rear axle dangled in space momentarily before Eddie could center all the tires on the road again. The four warriors in back were tossed like rag dolls. Linc slammed his head against a metal pole and lay inert. Linda had blood gushing from her nose from where she’d banged it, and Juan had inadvertently head-butted MacD Lawless so that his breath exploded in a whoosh.

Their gunfire hadn’t slowed the other driver. He’d known there was a hairpin coming and that’s why he’d applied the brakes.

Bullets rained through the bus’s paper-thin roof. The technical had stopped on the precipice above so that the gu

Juan immediately checked on Setiawan, who continued to sleep peacefully.

A moment later the pickup’s headlights swept around the switchback, and the race was on once again.

“Are you a betting man, Mr. Chairman?” Lawless asked while gasping to refill his lungs. “Ah know Ah am, and Ah think these odds are starting to suck.”

Juan had to agree. Something was going to have to give soon. At the next hairpin, they weren’t going to be so lucky.

“Look around,” he called out. “See if there’s anything on this heap we can use.”

They scoured under the seats. Juan wrestled an old trunk from under one of the benches. It was sealed with an iron lock that looked as if it had been forged when his ancestor and namesake was discovering California. He drew his pistol, angled it away, and fired. The bullet shattered the wrought-iron lock and ricocheted harmlessly away.

Inside were several women’s burkas, but judging by the size they were made for men who would use them as disguises. To Cabrillo it was a coward’s trick but an effective one. Under the drab clothing was a suicide belt made up of bricks of plastic explosives, sacks full of metal scrap for shrapnel, and a timer that went high up on the back of the vest so the would-be martyr couldn’t deactivate it. The belt was worn in such a way that the bomber couldn’t take it off.

Juan wondered if this was being delivered to the village for Seti and concluded it probably was. Rage boiled up in him with an acid burn that tightened his throat and tensed up his shoulders so they were as rigid as steel trusses.

“Whatever you’re going to do,” Eddie shouted over the winds that whipped through the bullet-riddled bus, “make it fast. There’s another turn coming.”

Cabrillo and Lawless locked eyes for just a moment, the same thought ru

“How long, you reckon?” MacD asked.

“Forty-five seconds ought to do it.” Juan manipulated the timer to set it but didn’t activate it until they were almost at the hairpin turn.

Cabrillo hit the button to set the clock in motion and tossed the bomb out a window. Eddie braked hard, fighting the wheel with all his strength since the bus lacked power steering. As before, the road fell away in a sharp S-turn and twisted back on itself.

Gravel spit from under the tires when the bus slewed around the corner, becoming light on its inside wheels from the centripetal force of Seng’s reckless driving. It settled back on its suspension, and he gu

Just like at the first switchback, the Taliban pickup had slid to a halt so its machine gun could open fire on the bus’s exposed roof. The gu