The shadows of men were emerging from the stairway. “They’re coming,” Mancini warned through the open back window.
“Stay down!” Crocker growled back.
As the truck picked up a little speed on the narrow dirt road, Crocker shifted into second and pressed down on the accelerator. The truck lurched, and the engine coughed and started. Crocker shouted, “Get in!” as guns fired behind them and a bullet shattered the side mirror, spraying shards of glass across the front of his stolen uniform.
In the moonlight he saw they had a chance if they could make it to the bottom of the hill, where the road turned sharply right and was shielded by a stand of tall trees. More bullets slammed into the back of the truck. In spite of the mayhem, Crocker welcomed the sweet, pungent smell of eucalyptus, the fresh night air, and the moments of freedom.
“How’s Cal?” Crocker shouted over his shoulder.
“He’s still out, but his heart rate seems normal.”
Neto opened the glove compartment and found a pack of Marlboros and a BlackBerry.
“Don’t use it,” Crocker warned.
“But we need to call for—”
He reached over with his right hand and slapped it away. “Don’t!”
He spotted headlights in the rearview mirror.
“Boss!” Davis shouted from the seat beside him.
“I see them.”
The engine coughed, missed, and started again. The grove they had entered was dense and dark. He floored the accelerator but the truck didn’t gain speed. Forty appeared to be as fast as it could go.
Crocker cut the headlights and turned onto a dirt path that continued for a hundred feet into the forest, descending sharply and becoming narrower and overgrown. He pushed the truck through and down a steep embankment that stopped at a dark body of water.
“Why are we stopping here?” Neto asked.
“Because this thing won’t float.”
He had to jam the door into encroaching high bushes to get out. The canopy was so thick they couldn’t be spotted from above. Moonlight shone off the surface of the water. Frogs croaked.
Rampant foliage cloaked the lake, making it a good place to hide. He thought, A lake this size is probably fed by a stream or river, which means that there’s some form of town or hamlet nearby.
He looked at Davis’s gaunt, bruised face and said, “Help everyone get out. You’ll wait here while Neto and I get help.”
He pocketed the BlackBerry, then released the truck’s parking brake and with Neto’s help pushed it into the lake. Turning to the four men, he saw they looked weak and dehydrated. He tried the water, which tasted clean.
“Drink,” he whispered. “We all need water.”
The water seemed to revive them. They circled right into even denser foliage and stopped. Cal, who Crocker had been carrying, continued to slip into and out of consciousness. His heartbeat seemed normal, but his pulse felt weak. No apparent fractures to his skull; no major wounds to his body.
Must be some sort of blunt force injury or concussion, Crocker concluded, holding Cal up, giving him water, and washing the shit off his face.
Cal opened his gray eyes, blinked, and asked, “Boss, where are we?”
“You’re gonna wait here with Manny and the others. I’m going to get help.”
“I want to come with you.”
Crocker smiled to himself. “No, you stay here.”
He led the way through the shallow edge of the lake to the other side, then up an embankment to a spot that was heavily wooded and defendable.
Cal looked around and asked, “Where’s Sanchez? We forgot Sanchez. He was with us.”
“Sanchez is dead,” Neto said, clenching his jaw and looking down at his feet.
They left two of the pistols with Mancini and Davis. Crocker and Neto took the other pistol and the knife, slid down the embankment, and found the feeder stream, which they followed for half an hour to a small village.
Crocker said, “You take the knife and see if you can find a phone.”
Neto: “Where should I tell them to meet us?”
Crocker: “Tell them we’ll be waiting by the path that leads into the forest. If you’re coming from the prison, it’s about thirty yards after the first big bend in the road. Tell them to flash their headlights three times and I’ll come out.”
“Got it.”
Two and a half hours later, just as the sun was starting to light up the sky and men with dogs and flashlights were searching the other side of the road, Crocker saw three black SUVs stop about two hundred feet away. After the lead vehicle flashed its lights three times, he stepped out onto the road and waved. They pulled closer, and six heavily armed men dressed in black emerged to start loading them in. No questions asked; no words exchanged. They sped twenty minutes to an airstrip, where the four SEALs and Neto boarded a Gulfstream IV.