Authors: Robert Cain
The monster! It had returned . . . for
him!
Stark terror propelled him from the jeep as it spun off the road and lurched nose-first into the sunken shoulder. Thrashing, he landed in a mass of tropical ferns a short distance away.
The chatter of Juan’s M-16 was chopped off by a piercing shriek. He heard Paco’s despairing wail of
"Ai! No! No!”
and then that, too, was abruptly cut off.
He heard a voice behind him, though he didn’t understand the English words.
"One escaped into the jungle. He could warn Salazar and Delgado.”
"We’ll get there first,” another voice replied. "Hey, nice wheels, guy!”
Carlos Suarez spoke not one word of English, but he recognized the names Salazar and Delgado. If that black monster was going after his former employers, he would put just as much distance between him and the Salazar compound as he could.
Crashing through the underbrush, he started running through the jungle toward Santa Marta as fast as his legs could carry him.
"Where did you learn to drive?” Drake asked. He sat in the passenger seat of the jeep, checking his assault shotgun. His Uzi, fully loaded, was on the floor by his feet.
"By PARET at Camp Peary,” the
robot replied,
shifting the jeep into high gear. His Uzi was slung across his back. "Dr. McDaniels was the source.” "God, I hope she knew how to drive.” The main gate to the Salazar compound was just ahead.
"Of greater concern are my current power reserves,” Rod said. "My batteries are currently charged at forty- three percent. If I am forced to engage in unusually strenuous activity, I may not be able to complete the mission.”
"Well, now’s a hell of a fine time to think of that!” "It is not something to think of, Lieutenant Drake.” The robot turned expressionless eyes on him. "Tell me, would an analogous limitation of your facilities at this time prevent you from at least attempting to complete this operation?”
Drake thought about that for a moment. "No. No, I guess it wouldn’t.”
"Then we are agreed,” Rod said.
"Yeah.” The SEAL nodded. "And if anything happens to either of us, the other gets the package back to the LZ. No matter what, we get Delgado.”
"Correct.” The robot accelerated. "I suggest you drop below the dashboard of the vehicle and protect your head. The next part of the ride may be a little rough.”
Drake scrunched down in front of the seat as the jeep made a sharp left turn, still accelerating. He could hear shouts above the roar of the motor, and the chatter of automatic weapons fire.
Then the jeep hit the compound’s main gate with a crash like metallic thunder.
©
Chapter Fifteen
BOUNCING AS IT CRASHED THROUGH
the gate, the jeep teetered perilously until Rod could bring it back under control once more. Guards scattered in several directions as several men, shouting warning, opened fire with automatic weapons. Bullets slammed into the jeep. One slug shrieked off Rod’s shoulder, leaving a ragged scar.
The robot held the steering wheel with one hand, his Uzi in the other. Accelerating, the jeep raced past the garage, past the wreckage of the turretless Roland, past the swimming pool, aiming for the hacienda’s front door.
A lone guard stood in front of the broad, double doors, firing an AK-47 assault rifle from the hip. Rod shifted to targeting mode, raised his Uzi, and loosed a three-round burst that tore away most of the soldier’s face, toppling him out of the way.
"Are we there yet?” Drake called from his cramped hiding place on the floor.
"Stay down,” the robot bellowed in reply. "And hold on. . . .”
At sixty miles an hour, the jeep hit the single low
step below the hacienda’s porch and went airborne. It struck the doors in an explosion of glass and spinning wooden splinters, skewed sideways, and slammed to a halt against the front-hall staircase.
Luis Delgado was awakened by the gunfire, followed by a rending, clattering crash. It sounded like an explosion, felt as if the whole house had shaken. He sat up in the bed, disturbing the curvaceous, smooth-skinned forms on either side of him.
One of the girls sat up, brushing a cascade of black hair from her face.
"Luis? Que esta?”
"Nada, querida.
Go back to sleep.” But he was worried. Rising from the bed, he padded naked across the parquet floor toward the front window, drew aside the curtains, and looked out.
The front yard was a scene of chaos, Salazar’s men running back and forth, some firing, some simply running. The main gate had been torn from its hinges.
Now, what the devil . . . ?
There’d been no peace since the firefight in the night. Throughout the early morning hours, there’d been arguing below the hacienda’s windows as small groups of the Salazar private army loudly demanded money, vehicles ... or simply announced that they were going home. They were not facing
it
again.
El monstruo negro,
they called the thing. The black monster.
Delgado had heard Jose Salazar trying to restore order, shouting that there was no monster, that the shattered helmet found on the grounds was simply a piece of sophisticated gringo military gear dropped by one of their panicked commandos, that the Roland had been struck by a U.S. LAW rocket or grenade, not destroyed by a superhuman armored
thing.
Delgado had his own ideas about the black thing seen tearing the turret from an armored car.
Cybernarc.
He’d read the news story in
El Espectador,
reprinted from an article in
The Washington Post
the day after he’d arrived in Colombia. It was
fantastico.
This secret weapon, this robot, had reversed the ambush he and Braden had mounted against the caravan on the Key Bridge. And now it was here, in Colombia.
After
him.
Delgado was not a happy man. As soon as he’d heard the outcome of the Key Bridge battle, he’d known that he and Braden would have to get out of the United States, out of Diamond’s reach.
Both of them knew Diamond, knew who he was, and that made for an extremely simple equation. Now that the Washington network had been exposed, Diamond would have to eliminate both Braden and Delgado to be safe. If the CIA and FBI were tracking them, it meant that they had reached the same conclusion.
Now Braden was dead. Delgado had heard about the mere’s death just before he caught the plane for Bogota.
And the Americans had tracked him here. If the Americans could find him, so could Diamond.
The outlook was unpleasant.
"El monstruo!”
Someone was screaming in the yard below, gesturing toward the house.
"El monstruo est
a
en la casa!”
Delgado’s hands shook as he released the curtain.
"Luis?” One of the girls touched him lightly on the shoulder and he jumped. "What is the matter?” "Nothing!” He shoved the naked woman aside. "Out of my way,
puta!
”
Picking up his trousers off the floor, he stepped into them, then went to the bedside dresser and pulled a Vz61 Skorpion from the drawer. The wicked-looking Czech machine pistol had been given to him by a Cuban friend, a man who once had worked with the Russian KGB. He checked the twenty-round magazine, then pocketed two spares.
Then he began looking for a way out.
Drake uncoiled from the floor of the jeep. Splinters of wood and broken glass crunched beneath his back. His head hurt, and his ears were ringing. The crash had momentarily stunned him as the vehicle smashed through the doors and came to a destructive halt in the building’s entry hall.
He heard a crash of gunfire and looked up in time to see a narcoterrorist pitch forward from the top of the stairs. Rod released an empty magazine and slapped in a new one.
Holding his head with one hand, Drake climbed from the jeep. "Christ, Rod,” he said. "You say you got your driving skills from Dr. McDaniels?”
"I felt the sudden entry would provide us with the advantage of surprise.”
"Uh. Surprised the hell out of me.” He stood, leaning on the jeep, which had come to rest against the bottom of the stairway. Water was dripping onto the floor, and steam boiled from the radiator. "Just try to keep
in mind that humans aren’t built as sturdily as you
are.”
"Are you injured?” the robot asked.
"I’ll live.” Drake retrieved both the auto shotgun and his Uzi. "Which way?”
The entrance hall was built around a large stairway,
w
ith a second-floor balcony extending around all four
w
alls. The interior was richly decorated in wood paneling and white plaster. Paintings hung on each wall, and there were mirrors everywhere, scattering light and rejections in a dazzling, perspective-wrenching display of opulence.
Doors opened to left and right, and on either side of the stairs. Other doors were visible at the top of the staircase. "I hear movement on the second floor,” Rod replied. "That seems our best bet.”
Drake heard the shouts and calls of men outside. There was a shot, and a round slammed into the top of the splintered doorframe.
"Let’s move.”
"Down!"
At the robot’s warning, Drake dropped into a crouch behind the jeep. Three men broke from cover through one of the doors upstairs, full-auto fire stabbing from their assault rifles. Bullets slammed into the hood of the wrecked jeep and screamed off the robot. Rod stood unmoving, death still except for the rapid, tracking movements of his arm and head, holding the Uzi one- handed like a pistol. He fired a three-round burst . . . a second ... a third. . . .
The three attackers went down, one slammed against the wall at the top of the stairs, a second tumbling down
the stairs head over heels, the third pitching forward over a banister that snapped beneath his weight and tumbled with him to the polished floor of the entry hall.
At almost the same instant, two more men burst into the entryway from the door to the right, ten feet from Drake and the robot. Drake snapped the H&K shotgun around and pulled the trigger, not bothering to aim but letting the deadly shotgun loads make precise aiming unnecessary. The CAW fired with a thunderous
blam- blam-blam
of raw sound and fury, and the face and chest and right arm of one of the gunmen disintegrated in a spray of blood and stringy shreds of meat. The second man caught enough of the blast to spin wildly, clutching an M-16, not quite falling as he regained his feet and raised his weapon.
Rod turned at that moment and fired another burst with unerring accuracy, three 9mm rounds lopping off the top of the narcoterrorist’s skull in a one-two-three explosion of blood, bone, and tissue.
"Thank you,” the robot said.
"Thank
you .
. .”
"Stay here. I will check upstairs. I will need you to cover my retreat.”
"Don’t be long, big fella,” Drake said. He found a spot in the corner of the hall, where his back was against the wall and he had a clear view of stairs, lower- level doorways, and the gaping hole where the jeep had come through. "I’ll keep ’em off your back. Stay in touch!”
"Affirmative.”
The robot took the steps three at a time, the stairs creaking ominously under his weight.
Delgado found what he was looking for.
Roberto Salazar had recently purchased a shipment of explosives and munitions from Cuba. Theoretically intended for Colombia’s M19 guerrillas, the arms had wound up at the Salazar fortress, which maintained close relations with the communist rebels. Rather than storing them all in one spot and risking an explosion when some campesino struck a match to light his
basuco,
he had secreted the weapons in several caches throughout the building. One such cache was here, on the second floor of the east wing, in a room that in less troubled times had been reserved for servants; the room now contained several wooden crates marked
Partes Maquina.
Machine parts.
Delgado prised open one of the crates with a crowbar. Four of Salazar’s troops were already in the room, nervously watching the closed door leading to the hallway outside.
"Ayudame, ”
he said. A burst of gunfire, muffled by intervening walls, sounded from the direction of the main building. "Help me!”
One of the soldiers helped him with the crate. Inside, packed in plastic wrappings and straw, was a brand- new RPG-7. A meter long, gleaming with oil, the weapon had two handholds, set well forward on the launcher’s body, which was designed to rest over the firer’s shoulder. Another crate held three rocket grenades, large spindles mounted on thin, trailing booms.
The RPG had been used by guerrilla insurgencies all over the world for years, a cheap weapon exported by the Soviet Union by the tens of thousands. The rocket-propelled HEAT grenade had a range of half a kilometer and could penetrate 320 millimeters of armor, enough to stop a tank.
It packed more than enough wallop to stop this walking monstrosity they called Cybernarc!
There was another burst of firing, closer this time. "It comes!” one of the soldiers said, trembling. "Mother of God, it comes!”
"
Silencio, huevon!”
Delgado had recovered his nerve now that he had a weapon with which he could fight back.
He looked around the room. It was too enclosed to fire the grenade launcher in here. The backblast might kill him, would at least start a fire.
One window looked out onto a wooden deck that extended from the east wing close to the pool. Steps led down to the patio. If the robot was following, he would come through that door ... emerge through the window and onto the open deck . . .
. . . and Luis Delgado would be waiting outside, the RPG on his shoulder and ready to fire.
He gave his orders, and one of the soldiers used a chair to smash open the window.
From the sounds of battle in the house, it wouldn’t be long now.
Rod could not help but notice the similarities to Kiddie Land. A man with an AK-47 leaped from a bedroom door into the hall in front of him, weapon blazing. The robot fired, cutting the attacker down. A second man broke from cover and Rod shot him, too. The 9mm rounds slammed him against a doorway, which he left streaked with blood as he slid to the carpet.
Rod hit the door at a run, smashing the thin plywood with a crash as he stepped across the bodies. Inside, his sensors detected movement. He raised the Uzi, tracking . . .
. . . and held his fire. Two women were huddling together behind the big, double bed. "
Venga ac
a
!”
he ordered. "Come here!”
He took a step toward them. One of the women stood slowly, screaming, her back to the corner of the room as she hugged the bed sheets protectively in front of her.
Rod could see his own reflection in the mirrors that decorated every wall of the richly furnished room and the ceiling as well, his human face strange against the black bulk of his armor. Blood smeared his armor like paint, and it dripped from his hands. He’d killed several men at close quarters in the last few seconds.
He took another step, and the woman with the bed sheet fainted. The second panicked and bolted for the open door behind him.
With a quick economy of motion, Rod whirled, reached out, and snagged the girl by her streaming black hair. She yelped as he pulled her up short, then yanked her back to face him.
She screamed then, squeezing her eyes shut and babbling pleas and promises in Spanish so quickly Rod was hard pressed to follow them. She was wearing no clothing, and Rod knew he might injure her if he lifted her by the hair. Instead, he shifted his grip to under her arms, raising her until her face was even with his. She screamed again and kicked, her flailing bare feet striking his armored thighs.
"Delgado!” he boomed.
"Donde esta Delgado?”
The girl opened her eyes, blinking back tears. "
A
-
all
a!”
she stammered, nodding toward a still-closed door. "There! That way! Please don’t hurt me!”
Gently, Rod lowered her to the bed. The image he had seen in Drake’s memories—of bloodied, naked bodies tied to a bed—was part of him now, linked to overpowering feelings of loss, loathing, horror, and raw fear.
He would kill the soldiers without hesitation. He would not harm a defenseless civilian, not if he could avoid it.
"Thank you,” he told the astonished woman, still speaking Spanish. "I advise you and your friend to leave this building as quickly as possible. It is not safe here.”
He turned and hit the door with his shoulder, smashing it open.
Cautiously, Drake edged his way toward the open front door. In one hand, he held the rearview mirror from the jeep. The enemy might have a sniper scope trained on the entrance, and he didn’t want to give anyone a clear shot at his head.
Using the mirror, he surveyed the front grounds. Was the Salazar army actually fleeing? He could make out movement by the main gate, but the rest of the compound looked clear.
It was clear that the locals weren’t exactly pleased with the idea of tackling Rod. There’d been one brief, abortive rush at the front of the house. Drake had opened up with the combat shotgun, and the mob had broken and fled, leaving several dead and wounded behind.
They’d stopped trying to get at him through the inside of the house, too. Several bodies lay in various doorways, and the neat, civilized paneling of the entryway had been reduced to pellet-riddled, bullet-pocked, blast-blackened sections of splintered wood.
Turning the mirror, he angled it for a view toward the east. He could make out the hedges that bordered the swimming pool. Someone could be sneaking up that way for another rush through the house, possibly. . . .
Movement!
He steadied the mirror, trying for a better view. Someone was bounding down the steps from the second-story deck near the pool, then sprinting across the yard in the direction of the garage. Four soldiers accompanied him, close on his heels. He was carrying something, like a length of pipe. . . .
Drake felt his blood run cold. An RPG!
Hit Rod with that tank killer and Combat Mod or no Combat Mod, there wouldn’t be enough of the robot left to tinker together a wristwatch!
"Rod!” he called over the radio. "Rod! This is Drake! Come in!”
He heard only static for reply. The headset communicators did not have much range, and intervening walls could easily be blocking the signal. If he couldn’t get through to the robot fast . . .
"Rod! Damn it, yo
u walking refrigerator! Come in!
”
The robot had wanted him to stay here and watch his back, but the main threat had just shifted across the compound. The range was too great for a shotgun.
He would have to take them down, though ... or find a way to warn Rod before he stepped into that RPG gunner’s sights.
Taking a deep breath, Drake stepped through the splintered front door and began running toward the garage.
He’d covered three-quarters’ of the distance to the garage when someone opened fire at him from the house. He heard the crack of the bullet as it passed above his head but kept running. So far, the Salazar defenders had shown an appalling lack of marksmanship.
The five men who were his objective—one of them with an RPG—were out of sight now, blocked from his view by the long, low building that served as the estate’s garage.
He rounded the south side of the building, expecting to come up on the men from behind as they clustered by the northeast corner of the building, watching the house.
If he could catch all of them looking the other way, several rapid-fire shotgun bursts might bring them all down before they could launch the rocket grenade.
The similarity to the tactical situation in his own house the week before was so strong he stumbled, coming to a halt with his back against the south wall of the garage, gulping each lungful of air. If they weren’t looking away, if even one was covering the group’s rear, Drake was a dead man, and Rod would be junk a second later. "Rod!” he hissed into his microphone. "Rod, come in!”