“Madre de dios!” Guzman shouted in surprise.
His leader’s sudden crazy move had caught the seasoned warrior totally by surprise. Guzman…everyone knew him only by the one name…tended to always fight and defend using logic, and de Santiago’s totally emotional and completely illogical response to what he had been watching had been unexpected. Now, Guzman was forced to react instinctively, impulsively, as well.
He turned to see the scorched vegetation on the uphill slope smoldering, already sending up thin tendrils of smoke. He ripped off his campaign hat and began to beat out the flames before the Apache pilots with their infrared sights could spot the smoke and retaliate.
At mach 1.5, only two seconds elapsed from launch of the Starburst to impact. The hapless Black Hawk in the Starburst’s sights exploded with a deep whoomph, raining flaming wreckage down onto the still-smoking coca field.
“Justice!” de Santiago whooped. “Let los diablos imperialistas burn in their own hellfire!”
The two-second flight of the missile was more than enough, though, for the Apaches. They were already facing that way and quickly vectored in on the launch site. One of the choppers came roaring straight toward them now, the chin turret, with its death-spitting twin chain guns, snapping back and forth like a cobra searching for its prey.
Guzman didn’t hesitate. He grabbed de Santiago by the collar of his starched khaki shirt and leaped off the trail, over the bluff and down the steep mountainside.
“Got to move!” he bellowed as they dropped into open space.
Projectiles zipped past them and over their heads as the two men fell a good twenty feet straight down, then began rolling and tumbling. The thickness of the vegetation was the only thing that kept them from falling much farther and much harder. When they finally stopped rolling, they found themselves in a thick tangle of vines as chewed-up leaves and tree limbs peppered down on them.
From above where they landed, de Santiago could clearly hear the final screams of his slower reacting troops, even over the continuous buzz saw of the chain gun and the guttural rumble of the helicopter that was now directly overhead.
It was finished as quickly as it began. The patch of mountain where the rebel leader had been standing a moment before was now gnawed down to bare rock. What remained of four of his best men lay in bloody pieces amid the litter of the attack. Two others were cowering in the brush, checking their wounds. Down in the valley, the remains of the Black Hawk continued to burn fiercely while one of its brothers hovered above, checking for signs of life. Apparently seeing none, it swooped up and followed the rest of the helicopters that were already disappearing over the ridge.
De Santiago grunted curses under his breath as he shoved Guzman off the top of him. He fought through the ferns and vines and climbed out of the small ravine where they had landed. He quickly took stock of himself. Nothing broken. Cuts and contusions but nothing that would not stop bleeding on its own. A knot on his forehead from a tree trunk he had bounced off on the way down.
“You okay, El Jefe?” Guzman asked as he emerged from the wall of green. The bodyguard limped slightly but seemed all right otherwise. He looked at his leader, tilted his head, and ventured an unsolicited opinion. “That was a very foolish thing to do, you know.”
De Santiago’s rage flared once again as he turned on his bodyguard.
“What would you have me to do? Would you have me run like a coward? Is that what you want? Look what those damned Americans have done.They will pay far more than one helicopter! I will make them pay!”
De Santiago stalked off, angrily slapping aside the vegetation, looking for the trail that led up from the field and over the mountain. Guzman shook his head. Sometimes it was difficult for him and the other rebel troops to keep pace with their leader. Years of fighting in these cloud jungles had toughened the man, given him the ability to endure pain and weariness without even appearing to be aware of it. He never noticed that even his best fighters and his rock-hard bodyguard often struggled to stay up with him.