Unconventional Warfare

“Sure,” Manning agreed, feeling slightly flustered. “Use the strainer,” he reminded her.

“This isn’t my first rodeo, cowboy.”

“Whatever you say, boss.”

While Monica put the strainer in place over the nozzle as an extra protection against dirt clogging the fuel line and injectors, Manning popped the hood. Stuck behind the hood as he was he didn’t see the accident—just the results.

Monica lifted the end of the jerrican and the greasy metal slipped in her grip. The jerrican dropped to the ground hard, knocking the strainer cap free and splashing high-octane fuel up in a spray.

Some of the gas splashed onto the still hot exhaust pipe and instantly ignited. The spilled gas lit in a flash with a small explosion, and Monica screamed in agony as she was burned.

Manning came around the side of the SUV in a rush. He saw Monica stumbling backward as flames began racing up the spilled gas on her jumpsuit. He struck her with a shoulder and knocked her to the ground.

Instantly he was on top of her, using his own body to smother the flames. The industrial jumpsuit, not unlike the kind worn by military pilots, was made of flame-retardant material, helping his attempts to put her out.

“Monica, Monica!” Manning demanded, voice on the edge of frantic. “Are you okay?”

“My arms, my hands,” she said, teeth gritted against the pain.

She held her hands up for Manning to inspect and despite how red and puffy they looked, he was amazed the damage was so minimal. Despite this his practiced eye realized that soon, perhaps within minutes, the skin would first blister, then crack.

Such open wounds in the African bush were a guaranteed invitation to infection. On top of this, they had little in the way of pain medication in their medical kit. The chances of her slipping into shock were great, putting her life in danger.

“Hold on,” he said.

Hurriedly he got the med kit from behind the driver’s seat and began applying antiseptic cream to the wounds before wrapping them in loose, dry bandages.

“Gary, I’m so sorry.”

“Shut up.”

“But the race—”

“I said shut up,” Manning repeated. “To hell with the race. I’ll get you back to the checkpoint in the village we passed. We’ll have you airlifted out to Nairobi in no time.” He looked down the road and into the rough African terrain now cloaked in darkness. “Besides,” he continued, “if anyone can finish this race without a chase vehicle, it’s those two jokers.”

CHAPTER THREE

The Nissan pickup driven by David McCarter rattled like dice in a dryer as the Briton hammered the vehicle through the course. He and Hawkins were feeling the effects of so much vibrational trauma sapping their endurance.

Both men were silent for a moment after Manning had relayed his situation and intention to take Monica for medical help, leaving the racers without a chase vehicle. Hawkins looked up from his GPS device.

“Screw it, David,” he said. “We’re past the point of no return anyway. We might as well finish the race because it’s just as short a distance to Nairobi as to turn around.”

McCarter nodded. “Agreed. Tell Gary we’re pushing on.”

Hawkins relayed the information and for the next five minutes carefully calculated how far the fuel they carried with them would let them race.

“We don’t have a choice.” He looked up from his calculations. “We’re going to have to risk the shortcut. Our fuel reserve is just too tight.”

“Who Dares Wins,” McCarter replied, using the motto of his old unit, the British Special Air Service.

Up ahead a lone baobab tree appeared in the Nissan’s bouncing headlights and Hawkins immediately sat up.

“That’s it!” He pointed through the dust-smeared windshield. “That’s the marker for the shortcut.”

“All right, mate,” McCarter replied. “Don’t get your panties in a bunch.”

He slowed, downshifted, took the fork and gunned the vehicle back up to speed. Inside the cab the two Phoenix Force drivers were bounced against their safety harnesses like pinballs.

“Holy crap,” Hawkins swore in his Texas drawl. “I didn’t think a road could get worse than the one we’re on, but this son of a bitch is tearing us up.”

“It’ll save us twenty minutes,” McCarter reminded him.

“If it doesn’t rip apart our axle,” Hawkins shot back.

“You want to go back?”

“Just drive!”

For the next fifteen minutes the Nissan bounced across the open country course, leading them out of the foothills. Once a lone elephant standing calmly in the middle of the road appeared in their headlights.

McCarter swerved up out of the tire ruts and bounced across a rocky berm to avoid the multiton animal, then snapped the pickup back on the road before a pile of rocks almost tore off his front end.

Finally their first river crossing appeared in front of them.

Mexico

“THE AZTECS USED TO sacrifice about two hundred and fifty thousand of their own people every year,” Schwarz said. “They would cut out their hearts while they were still alive.”

“Okay, that provides us with a template on how to deal with this guy Chavez,” Lyons pointed out.

Blancanales nodded from behind the wheel of the black Dodge SUV. Around them a rambling shantytown sprawled outward from the edges of Juárez. The Stony Man crew kept the blacked-out windows on their SUV buttoned up tight against the smell.

The road they rolled along was made of dirt and heavily rutted, dotted with puddles of dubious origins. Bored, apathetic faces stared out at the expensive vehicle from the safety of clapboard and aluminum-siding shacks.

The poverty was appalling and left Carl Lyons uneasy. He was no stranger to Central and South American conditions. Able Team had made the lower half the Western Hemisphere a primary area of operations since the unit’s inception.

Blancanales, already recovering, guided the big vehicle through narrow alleys while hungry dogs barked and chased them. Up ahead a line of railroad tracks divided the sprawling shantytown and massive warehouses began to line its length. Beyond these the silent mausoleum of factories built by American companies that had exported jobs to exploit cheap labor reared up like austere, prefabricated mountains.

Blancanales cut the SUV onto a single-lane dirt road that paralleled the train track. The Dodge’s suspension rattled and hummed but inside the climate-controlled cab the ride was smooth and virtually silent. Up ahead a chipped and cracked asphalt lot opened up just past a broken gate in a dilapidated chain-link fence. A battered and rusted sign warning away trespassers in Spanish hung off to one side like a forgotten letter.

The building across the old parking lot was abandoned, dotted with broken windows and gaping emptiness where doors had stood. A line of crows had taken roost across the top, and Blancanales slowed the vehicle as he pulled into the old parking lot.

“How are we sitting for time?” he asked.

Lyons looked at his watch. “We’re a good hour before the meet, according to the CIA stringer,” he said. “We couldn’t have got here any sooner with flight time anyway.”

Blancanales guided the SUV around the side of the building. A pair of filthy alley cats hissed in surprise at the sudden appearance of the monstrous vehicle and scrambled for the safety of some overflowing garbage bins. Lyons eyed the building with a wary gaze as Blancanales drove around it. He reached under the seat and pulled an M-4 clear.