They needed to keep pressing to the extraction site.

The ineffective machine gun fire stopped, and Dave took advantage of the lull to rise to a knee and empty his magazine into the trees. When his bolt locked to the rear, he dropped the empty magazine and indexed a fresh one just as he heard the distinctive chopping sound of an AK-47 on full automatic in the jungle opposite the villa. The staccato of the Chinese rifle was followed quickly by the booming report of Graham’s shotgun.

Todd had heard the same thing. “Mariner One Two, status.”

When the query was met with silence, Dave felt a chill down his spine. But before he could worry about the others, he had to deal with the threat directly in front of him. He slapped the bolt catch along the side of his rifle to chamber a round and rose from his knee to charge the reloading machine gunner.

31

Lisa felt good. Whatever the man injected into her hadn’t eliminated the pain but masked it to where she no longer winced every time she moved. And she was moving a lot in the litter they had made for her, wrapped in a soft and warm cocoon that made her feel as if she were floating through the air and swaying gently from side to side.

She kept her one good eye open, although it focused on nothing and seemed to take in everything without recognition. She saw a thick canopy overhead and twinkling stars in the gaps, but she couldn’t remember where she was or how she had gotten there. Had she just woken up? Had she always felt so warm? Had she ever been in pain? She couldn’t remember, but she thought so.

She heard the heavy breathing and occasional grunt of the two men who labored to carry her cocoon through the jungle, but she didn’t know who they were. She only had the vaguest sense that they were there for a good reason and that she was happy they came. But to where? Where was she?

A thundering crack like splintered wood shattered the silence of her cocoon and sparked a dim feel of worry deep in her mind. But she didn’t flinch. She blinked her one good eye slowly in the only reaction she could make and explored that worry.

What was she worried about? Yes, there had been a loud noise, but the world was full of loud noises. Why had that one been any different? Because she knew it, and she felt… annoyed? Frustrated? She recognized the sound and couldn’t connect it to where her brain retained the memory of it. But the men carrying her reacted with urgency and dropped her cocoon to the ground.

One of them climbed on top of her, and she felt even more comforted. She closed her good eye and enjoyed the feeling of being wrapped inside a protective ball where nothing could hurt her. She could no longer feel her body, just a suggestion of pressure weighing down on her and making it difficult to breathe. But even that didn’t bother her or pin down her fleeting mind, despite the man’s musky smell giving her a singular thing to focus her attention on.

She heard a loud boom and saw a flash through her closed eyelids that triggered an emotion she recognized as fear. Only, she wasn’t afraid. She knew she should be, but she wasn’t. Whatever drug they had given her had removed that part of her brain. Or hidden it.

“Tango down,” another voice said. She’d heard the voice before but again had a hard time following her thoughts to resemble anything close to a name or a face. It was a feeling more than anything else.

“Watch our flank,” musky man said.

“Drag her down the hill. I’m hit.”

“You okay?” He shifted his weight and pushed her deeper into the protective ball.

“Took out my radio, but the plate stopped it.” He sounded different.

They were speaking quietly, little more than whispers, and she could sense the fear in their voices. But she didn’t feel afraid at all. The only thing she felt was the protective warmth of her cocoon and the reassuring pressure of a man who had come to take her…

Home.

Suddenly the pressure abated, and she opened her eye when she felt herself floating again. The stars above her winked out, and the trees shifted. Another loud boom and a flash lit up the canopy overhead for a moment, showering her with an assault of color that was muted, as if she was seeing the world through a dirty window.

Somebody should clean that.

She closed her eye. Her cocoon bumped against something hard, and the musky man who had injected her with confusion suddenly let go. Her eye opened and twitched in his direction, then quickly closed as a series of flashes turned darkness into light. Again, something told her to flinch at the din of metallic scraping noises and loud coughing that accompanied each flash of light. But she remained still.

“Contact front!” musky man shouted.

What was his name?

Seven… eight… nine.

A tinny voice in her head counted the number of flashes, but she didn’t understand why. She heard the other man yelling in response but couldn’t make out his words over the coughing.

Fourteen… fifteen… sixteen.