Retribution Road Jon Coon (best android ereader TXT) 📖

same manner. Both went down and didn’t move. Gabe quickly checked for carotid pulses and, finding none, let them lie.

Will, the second SEAL, was breathing but unconscious. Gabe found the small first-aid kit in his pack and put a pressure dressing on the scalp wound and then turned to the Master Chief. The broken branch had gone all the way through Kurczewski’s shoulder and was protruding through his wetsuit.

“I think we should let this alone until we can get you to surgery,” Gabe said. “If I try to take it out—”

“Yeah, I get it. Can you cut off the big end and pack me so I don’t bleed out?”

“Yes, but it’s going to hurt.”

“It already hurts. Do it.”

Using the serrated back of his knife, Gabe sawed through the two-inch limb and cast it aside. He packed both entry and exit wounds with gauze and sealed both in place with what was left of the surgical tape. “That should hold until we get you back to the sub.”

“What about Ray?”

“I’ll find him. You just sit tight. Keep an eye on Will.”

“Roger that. Be careful.”

Gabe picked up his pack and MP5 and, watching carefully each footfall, limped his way through the jungle refuse toward the tent. As he approached, Ray sat up on his elbow from under a large fallen tree, his machine gun ready. Ray put a finger to his lips and pointed to the collapsed tent. Gabe stopped and listened. Voices from inside the wreckage.

A branch, two feet in diameter, had Ray’s legs pinned. Gabe looked at it from both sides and realized there was no way to lift or cut it. Ray had already started trying to dig his way out. That appeared to be the only way.

Gabe remembered seeing a toolbox on the Jeep. He told Ray to stay calm, then realized that wasn’t necessary. Ray was calm; he was just trapped.

It didn’t take long to return to the Jeep, find the toolbox, break the lock, and extract a folding shovel and a small steel bucket. Gabe was back with Ray shortly, digging from both sides in the soft jungle floor. It didn’t take long before Ray was able to crawl out. His legs were badly bruised and abraded, but not broken. Gabe gathered everything in Ray’s kit, then helped him hobble to the others.

When they were all back together, Gabe whispered, “Okay, see how this sounds. I’ll drive the Jeep in the same tracks and get you all to our gear. Then I’ll bring the Jeep and one of the scooters back here, wipe my tracks, and scooter back up the coast to meet you. We use a scooter to find the SWCS, have them come in, and surface. We load Will, get a regulator in his mouth, and get the hell out of Dodge. What do you think?”

“What about the two from the Jeep? What do we do with them?”

“Cover them with branches like the falling trees got them. But I imagine if they aren’t found by morning, the hogs will solve that problem.”

“I’m afraid I’m not going to be much help,” Ray said. “For that matter, none of us are. But I don’t want to hear any sea stories about how you rescued a bunch of Navy SEALs.”

Gabe laughed. “Believe me, that’s the furthest thing from my mind. I know who the big dogs are. This mission wouldn’t have had a chance without you.”

Three days later, Will, after surgery to stop his brain bleed, was conscious and talking. Ray, with several stitches, and the master chief, after shoulder surgery, were discharged from the hospital to medical leave. And Gabe, sworn to silence, was on a plane back to Texas.

A high-altitude flyover of the narco-sub base confirmed the trackers were working, and 24/7 surveillance began.

Chapter 39

“TOM, YOU MUST REALIZE WHAT you’re asking is totally impossible.” Henry Atkins, president of the Commemorative Air Force board, looked sternly across the table at Tom. “Invading Mexico with napalm and enough ordnance to flatten a small country—that’s insane. And it would totally destroy this organization if even this conversation made it to the press. Not only no, but hell no is the only answer I can give on behalf of this board.”

Tom looked into the eyes of his old friend and waited. He knew it was the only official answer they could give, but …

“But, on the other hand, what the individual members might choose to do, including borrowing or stealing some of the planes … well, I doubt there’s much we could do to stop that. We would just have to hope they would have the good sense to repaint any identifying insignia so as not to have the planes identified with the club. And while I, for one, could never condone such actions, if any of our planes were to go missing, I might have to go looking for them—only to help bring them safely back, you understand—from wherever they might be.”

Chuck McDaniel had been a bomber pilot along with Tom in Vietnam and was another close friend. These days he made his living as a special-effects engineer in Hollywood, stunt flyer, and pyrotechnics engineer. He chewed the ever-present unlit cigar and asked, “How soon do you need us, Tom. What’s the plan?”

“That air show is in two weeks. I know that isn’t much time, but we only need a few of the big birds, say five or six, and that should be possible if everyone helps.”

“And once we’re there, what then?”

“It should be normal setup like any other show, but that’s where the airship comes in.”

“You want to take the blimp? Why?”

“One of our agents who was recently murdered had some very sophisticated tracking devices in her earrings. We believe if we can find and track that signal, it will lead us to the viper nest. Unfortunately, those tracking devices have a limited range and battery life, so my plan is to sell the Mexican government on an aerial documentary of ancient Mayan sites