Cavanaugh threw the first fire extinguisher into the flames beyond the entryway. Frantic, using all his strength, he hurled the second extinguisher much farther. He had no idea how long it would take the intense heat to rupture the tanks, but he couldn't afford to wait. Not daring to think, feeling heat behind him about to boil his wet clothes, knowing that he'd die if he didn't move, he picked up the third extinguisher and ran toward the inferno.
The shock wave from the first explosion hit him like a punch. Continuing to run, he hurled the third extinguisher ahead of him. The next explosion stunned him, nearly knocking him down. But he couldn't relent, couldn't hold back. He entered the roaring flames, or what had been roaring flames, for the explosions and the retardant they spewed had caused a vacuum in the fire. Then the third extinguisher detonated ahead of him, and he found himself racing, breath held, through an empty corridor in the fire, a wall of flames ten feet on each side of him. He crashed through unburned undergrowth and lost his balance, tumbling down a wooded slope, the motion putting out flames on his jacket and pants while with a mighty whoosh the blaze recom-bined behind him.
He realized that the throbbing in his legs, arms, and back must have come from rocks he'd rolled over. He didn't care. Pain was life. Pain urged him forward along a deep gully. He'd lost the drenched towel he'd tied over his head. Not that it mattered, for the fire had quickly dried the towel, and the heat on his head was from smoldering hair, which he swatted with his hands and sleeves.
He fell again, rolling. He came to his feet and staggered onward into darkness. He heard the crackle of the blaze spreading behind him. But he also heard the thunder of the three helicopters moving toward the side of the bunker that hadn't yet been enclosed by the fire.
Staring up, Cavanaugh saw the flame-reflecting unmarked choppers descend to the treetops, saw ropes drop from each chopper, saw black-clad men with compact submachine guns slung over their shoulders fling themselves from a hatch in each chopper and rappel to the ground-one, two, three, four, five men from each hatch. They slid smoothly, expertly, relentlessly down. They wore helmets with earphones and radio microphones.
Then they disappeared among the trees, and Cavanaugh stumbled onward along the dark gully, but he'd seen enough to conclude that no drug lord, not even Escobar, would have quick access to that many men who looked that well trained. The only place men got that kind of training was the military, but not just any branch of the military. The men who'd rappelled from those choppers were obviously special-operations personnel, just as he had belonged to special operations.
Heart pounding furiously, he saw the choppers rise and separate, moving to equidistant points near the fire, making him realize that he was far from being safe, for the hunters who remained in those choppers had to be using thermal sensors to search for anyone trying to escape from the flames.
He didn't dare run. The moment the sensors detected a human-shaped source of heat, whoever was in charge up there would radio directions to the assault team on the ground. The gunmen would converge on that sector of the forest.
To save himself, Cavanaugh realized, he had to go back, to put himself as close as he could risk to the edge of the blaze so that his heat pattern would be disguised by the fire's. He turned and stumbled up the gully toward where trees and bushes erupted into flames ahead of him. The noises they made were like small explosions and gave him hope that when the fire extinguishers had detonated, they'd been noticed only as a seemingly natural part of the fire's progress. He felt the scorched air envelop him and tried to take heart from the thought that he was now invisible to the thermal sensors above him.
But the heat was so fierce that he couldn't possibly survive if he got any closer to it. The fire moved faster, forcing him to retreat with increasing speed as bushes in the gully burst into flames and gave the impression of chasing him. In that calculated, on-the-edge-of-death pattern, Cavanaugh shifted with the fire, moving as it moved. His vision blurred. His skin felt parched. He'd never been so thirsty. But he couldn't think about any of that, for in addition to keeping pace with the fire, he had to concentrate on the edges of the blaze to his right and left, watching for the gunmen. He assumed that they had separated to form a perimeter around the fire, keeping pace with it as he was, except they'd maintain a safe distance while they hunted for anyone the thermal sensors in the choppers failed to notice.
Pursued by fire as further trees and bushes burst into flames, Cavanaugh reached a more uneven part of the gully. His knees bent. He forced them to straighten. His chest fought to take in the little air available. His knees bent once more, and this time, he lost his balance, toppling, no longer rolling smoothly. In the shadows at the bottom of the gully he banged his side against a boulder, winced, and started to come to his feet, only to tense, making himself motionless as a man holding a submachine gun emerged from trees ahead on Cavanaugh's right, following the edge of the fire.
A sharp crack of blazing wood made the gunman spin to look behind him. In that instant, Cavanaugh dove to the side of the gully, toward a narrow space between the boulder he had banged against and the gully's dirt slope. He pressed himself down, desperate to merge with the terrain, hoping that the soot blackening his clothes and face would make him appear no more than another boulder or a rotting tree trunk.
If you're hiding, never look directly at a man who's searching for you, Cavanaugh's instructors had warned. The hunter might notice the glare of your eyes, or else the intensity you radiate might make him sense, rather than see, he's being stared at. Keep your gaze slightly away from him. Study him from the side of your eyes. Use your peripheral vision to keep track of his movements.
Cavanaugh did that now. Staring toward the opposite side of the gully while concentrating his peripheral vision on the right, he saw the blur of the gunman's silhouette descend into the gully. The gunman paused, as if studying the progress of the fire. Cavanaugh braced himself to shoot if the man showed any interest in the boulder Cavanaugh tried to hide behind. The man paused a moment longer. Too long. Cavanaugh was just about to pull the trigger when the man climbed from the gully, and continued along the edge of the fire.
The flames got closer. Pressed down by the accumulating heat, Cavanaugh squirmed forward past other boulders, straining to gain some distance from the fire behind him but unable to proceed with any speed lest the gunman glance back into the gully and notice movement. The heat became so intense that, as Cavanaugh breathed through his mouth, trying to get as much air as he could, his tongue and throat felt burned.
Above him, the three helicopters remained spread out like the points of a triangle, continuing to search for the human-shaped thermal pattern of any fleeing survivor. Feeling heat on the soles of his shoes, nearly overcome by the close flames behind him, Cavanaugh squirmed faster through the boulders. He was too low to be able to see if other gunmen approached the gully. All he could do was try to solve one problem at a time, and at the moment, his biggest problem was how not to get burned to death.
He came under an outcrop of earth, which past storms had formed when flash floods raged along the gully and tore a hollow along its side. Abruptly, dirt trickled onto him from the roof, the earth of which was held together by roots. His muscles compacting, Cavanaugh again stopped moving and imagined a gunman above him, aiming his weapon, scanning the edge of the approaching fire. He worried that the man's weight would collapse the roof, that his hunter would drop on him. More specks of dirt fell as the man shifted his weight. The specks pelted the back of Cavanaugh's head.
Fighting not to cough from smoke drifting toward him, Cavanaugh prepared to shoot if the man descended into the gully. Then the smoke became so thick that Cavanaugh had to hold his breath. But the man above him had to be holding his breath also, Cavanaugh knew. The smoke would soon force the man to move. The question was, Would the man move before Cavanaugh had to? During the arduous training Cavanaugh had received in Delta Force, he had once held his breath for four minutes in a room filled with tear gas, but that had been years earlier, and no matter how determined he was now, he doubted that he could hold his breath that long. Plus, he didn't know if the man above him wore some kind of mask that filtered the smoke.
Seeing the flames get nearer, almost overpowered by the heat, Cavanaugh realized that in a very few seconds, if the man didn't move, he was going to have to roll from his hiding place and shoot, then run farther along the gully so he'd be able to breathe.
And then what? Would other gunmen hear the shots and rush toward this sector? Even if they didn't hear the shots, the man would be expected to use the radio microphone on his helmet to maintain regular contact with the helicopters and the other members of his team. When the man didn't report on schedule, the other hunters would become suspicious and head in Cavanaugh's direction.
So would the helicopters. As Cavanaugh kept holding his breath, spots beginning to swirl in front of his eyes, it seemed that the helicopters were already heading in his direction, so suddenly loud did they become. They were descending toward the trees.
The man standing above Cavanaugh said something Cavanaugh couldn't distinguish. The man was evidently speaking to his radio microphone, his tone urgent. The next moment, Cavanaugh heard heavy footsteps pounding the earth, rushing away. More dirt fell. The thunder of the helicopters became even louder.
Cavanaugh couldn't hold his breath any longer. The spots before his eyes thickening, he bolted from the hollow. Scrambling to escape the dense smoke, he passed one boulder and then another, reaching clear air, and filled his lungs. Despite its warmth, the air was cooler than any he'd drawn in since he'd left the bunker. His vision became focused enough for him to see the orange ripple of flames within the smoke that he'd left. But what he concentrated on, aiming his weapon, were the rims of the gully, toward which he prepared to shoot if any gunmen showed themselves.
None did. To his right, the close roar of the helicopters made him peer warily over the slope's rim. The fire showed the helicopters a hundred yards away, above the trees. The gunmen seemed to be magically levitating toward hatches in the choppers, although they were actually being drawn up by power-driven cables. It was one of the smoothest extractions Cavanaugh had ever seen. In what felt like no time at all, each of the helicopters raised five men, and even before the hatches were closed, the helicopters pivoted, veering past the fire, heading west toward the denser sections of the mountains. Their thunder receding, they vanished into the darkness. Then the only sound was the roar of the blaze, which Cavanaugh was now free to get as far away from as he could.
Staggering away, reaching cooler air, he heard explosions that rumbled from the direction of the bunker. Obviously, the fire had detonated the munitions inside. He plodded past more boulders, over fallen tree limbs, through dense bushes and intersecting evergreen boughs. His loss of blood made him so weak that he was tempted to sit and rest, but he had to keep moving, had to muster all his discipline to put more distance between him and the fire. A new sound now intruded. In the distance, he heard a faint, shrill, high-pitched wail that gained volume, coming nearer. An approaching siren. No, he told himself. Several sirens. No doubt the state police and emergency crews. From a narrow paved road that went through the nearest town, eight miles away, they'd be rushing up the barely noticeable tree-flanked dirt lane that led to the bunker, which they didn't know existed but which they'd have no trouble finding now because of the fire.
The idea of plodding toward those sirens, of reaching the lane and waiting for the headlights of the emergency vehicles, was powerfully tempting. A chance to rest. To get his injuries treated. To gulp water-how thirsty he was, his tongue so dry that it felt swollen. He'd done nothing illegal. He had every reason to go to the police and get help.
But then he imagined all the questions the police would ask him. They'd keep him in protective custody, which, from Ca-vanaugh's view, meant no protection at all. They'd try to guard him at a hospital and then at police headquarters, or at their own version of a safe site, which wouldn't be safe. They'd probably suspect him of being part of the massacre, and proving his innocence would take more time, causing further delays before he was released, putting him at greater risk. Prescott had wanted him and the rest of the team dead. The son of a bitch. Until Cavanaugh had a chance to clear his mind and get his thoughts straight-Who were the men in the helicopters? Were they military, as he suspected? What did they have to do with Prescott?- the most cautious thing he could do was to make Prescott and the men in the choppers believe that every member of the protection team was dead, including him. Otherwise, if they learned that he was still alive, they might make another attempt, although Cavanaugh had no idea why the hell they wanted the protection team dead. Duncan, Chad, Tracy, Roberto. The litany of lost friends made Cavanaugh want to scream. His head pounded harder from too many questions he couldn't answer. All he knew for sure was that until he understood what was happening, he had to make it seem that he had, in fact, died.
I'm a corpse, he thought. A walking corpse.
No, not walking. Staggering. He needed all his discipline and strength to place one foot in front of the other and keep moving. The duct-taped wound in his shoulder kept aching. The skin on his hands, face, and scalp smarted from having been too close to the flames. Nonetheless, he mustered every residue of energy he could, straining to walk straighter and with more control.
Pretend you're at boot camp, he thought, attempting a joke. Or better-and this wasn't a joke-pretend it's your first day of Delta Force training. As he recalled Delta's isolated compound at Fort Bragg, a powerful flood of nostalgia seized him. Make your instructors proud, he thought, and walked more firmly.
The sirens approached on Cavanaugh's right. Keeping a distance from them, using them to determine his direction, Cavanaugh continued working through the dark forest. I'm going to need help, he thought. I look like a war atrocity. The instant I show myself, somebody's going to scream and call the police. Who's going to help me?
He thought of the man who'd initially been part of the extraction team, Eddie, the gum-chewing, pun-making-"These pieces'll soon be in pieces in a sewer"-driver who'd taken the black car away. Wary of a possible location transmitter, he'd intended to abandon it far from the airport. Cavanaugh had worked with him several times. As soon as Eddie learned what had happened, he would drop everything and come to get Cavanaugh as quickly as possible.
But something about that plan didn't feel right. Suppose Prescott and/or the men in the helicopters had an informant in Protective Services. Suppose they knew that Eddie had been an initial member of the team. To assure themselves that Cavanaugh and everybody else had been killed, they'd maintain surveillance on Eddie. A phone call that summoned Eddie to a town near the destroyed bunker would be an obvious indication that not everyone on the protection team had died.
Can't take the chance, Cavanaugh thought. Need to be invisible.
Then who in God's name am I going to ask?
No matter how he calculated it, he always came back to the same answer: the one person in the world he didn't want to contact and the only one he could.