Poseidon's Arrow (Dirk Pitt 22)

“You’ll be hunted down and shot.”

“No, Edward Bolcke,” Pitt said, staring at the old miner with contempt. “I fully intend to come back for you.”

He turned and dove into the jungle, scrambling from view seconds before a contingent of guards appeared. Seeing Bolcke, they sprinted up to him.

“You reported seeing the escaped slave?” one of them asked.

Bolcke nodded and pointed at Pitt’s trail, then tossed his radio at the man. “Have all available guards converge here right away,” he said. “I want that slave brought back to me within the hour. Dead.”

59

TWIGS SNAPPED AND BRANCHES SWAYED AS PITT bulled through the thick brush. He didn’t know how many men were on his trail, and since he couldn’t move both quickly and quietly, he abandoned caution and simply advanced as fast as he could.

He kept to the strip of natural vegetation that was contained by the dock on one side and the road to Bolcke’s residence on the other. When the brush narrowed and a pair of white lines appeared to his left, he knew he had to change course. He wound his way to the edge of the road, ducking under a fern and holding his breath as a golf cart with several guards careened by. The instant it was out of view, he bolted across the road and into the opposite thicket, heading deep into its cover.

After only a few dozen yards he came to a stop. Beneath a rocky ledge, the lake appeared in his path. Pitt now realized Bolcke’s compound had been built on a narrow peninsula. His only hope of escape was to travel the length of the peninsula without being detected and flee into the expanse of landscape that lay beyond.

B

reathing heavily, he pressed forward, slowing when one of the extraction facilities blocked his way. As he crept to one end, he saw a guard circling the building. He threw himself to the ground and snaked his way around the end of the building, then rose and sprinted into the jungle. At the base of a small mahogany tree, he sank to the ground and rested.

But his respite was ended by a sound that shocked him back onto the run. It was the shrill bark of attack dogs, making their way in his direction.

Pitt had seen guards patrol with Dobermans, and once with a German shepherd, but he had put them out of his mind. Now clear of the compound, they would be his most dangerous challenge.

The volume of their barking told Pitt they were no closer than the extraction facility, giving him hope that he had a safe head start. He could only trust that they didn’t have a specific scent to follow.

But his wet footprints from the dock had given the dogs a faint starting point, and they had picked up just enough scent to track him. The handlers released two of the animals to pursue him on their own, but they kept three others leashed, carefully sweeping his trail to ensure it wasn’t lost.

Dragging himself off the ground, Pitt ran. Prickly leaves and sharp branches tore at his face and clothes as he threaded his way ahead. The dogs’ constant barking pushed him forward, pushing the aches from his mind. The minimal diet he had endured the past few days quickly showed as his strength waned, producing a weariness he shouldn’t have felt so soon. But Pitt’s mental strength was a fortress, and he willed himself forward, ignoring the pain and fatigue.

Willpower or not, there would be no outrunning the pursuit dogs, they were simply too fast. Their incessant barking grew louder, reminding Pitt of a locomotive approaching a train station. He stopped and picked up a pointed stick, then headed to an open bluff to his left where he would make his stand. He barely had time to turn when two large Dobermans, running head to tail, emerged from the brush and leaped at him.

Pitt was too late in wielding his stick to spear the first dog. Instead, he had to use it defensively, ramming it across the dog’s throat as its jaws tried to snap off one of his ears. He tossed the animal aside, only to have the second dog leap onto his turned shoulder from behind. Pitt ducked his head as a cascade of sharp teeth lunged for his neck.

Pitt waited for his flesh to be shredded, but felt only a weak bite against the top of his shoulder—and then the dog fell limp. Flinging it off his shoulder, he saw a lifeless look in its eye as it fell motionless. But the first dog quickly regained its footing and sprang again for Pitt’s jugular. As it leaped, Pitt heard two soft thumps and saw a pair of red dots appear on the dog’s chest. The beast’s open jaws went slack as Pitt fended it aside with his stick, and the dog joined its partner dead on the ground.

Pitt knew the act was no divine intervention and he spun around to determine its source. Just over the rise, he saw some movement in the grass and stepped closer to investigate. A short, thin man stood up from the brush and moved to meet him.

Zhou Xing was wearing jungle fatigues and combat boots, with a bush hat pulled low over his face. He carried an AK-47, a wisp of smoke still curling from its silencer. He gazed at Pitt with a stony expression, then stepped past him to one of the dogs. “Quickly, to the ravine,” he said in imperfect English.

He grabbed the Doberman by its collar and dragged it over the rise. On the other side, the hill descended sharply, falling into a narrow ravine. A small creek trickled through the floor of the ravine, surrounded by dense ferns. Zhou dragged the dog to the edge of the precipice and flung it over. The carcass tumbled to the bottom, where it was quickly swallowed up by the ferns.

After catching his breath, Pitt arrived with the second Doberman and duplicated Zhou’s disappearing act. He then followed the Chinese agent to a makeshift camp hidden in the side of the hill.

“What are you doing here?” Pitt asked, still listening for the barks of the remaining dogs.

“Call it business,” Zhou replied, picking a laptop computer off a stump, closing its screen, and shoving it into a backpack. But before the screen went dark, Pitt noticed the images displayed: a checkerboard of video feeds showing sections of Bolcke’s compound. The agent had planted tiny wireless surveillance cameras around the facility to track activity and guard movements.

“You must keep running,” Zhou said. He scrambled to clean up his makeshift camp, rolling up his bed and stuffing its mosquito netting into his pack.

A second large backpack, its flap open, sat near Pitt’s feet. Inside he could see several packets of electronic detonator caps next to clear-wrapped packages of reddish clay-like material. Pitt had been involved with enough underwater demolition projects to recognize it as a cache of Semtex plastic explosives.

Zhou tossed Pitt a protein bar and a canteen from his pack before slipping it on. He then scattered leaves around the compressed grass where he had slept the night before. Finally, he hoisted the second pack, looking warily at Pitt when he noticed the flap was open.

“Go,” he said to Pitt. “They are less than ten minutes behind.”

“When are you going to blow up the compound?” Pitt asked.