Hostage Zero (45 page)

BOOK: Hostage Zero

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C
HAPTER
T
HREE

Jonathan tightened his grip on his weapon as the bus’s folding door opened and four armed men rushed out. All of them wore ancient M81 woodland cammies, and were armed with MP5 submachine guns, no doubt courtesy of a happy gun store owner in Texas. They moved with choreographed precision that demonstrated a level of training, albeit to a level that didn’t concern him much. The four took up defensive positions on each corner of the bus and waited while a fifth guy—the driver of the van—hurried forward to join them. The bus driver remained in place behind the wheel.

With everyone in position, they held for a few seconds, and then the fifth guy moved forward, his weapon pressed to his shoulder, his eyes scanning for threats. He clearly had spotted the backpack.

He’d walked maybe a half dozen steps when a high-caliber rifle shattered the silence of the afternoon and brains spattered the interior of the bus’s windshield. The shot came from the guy on Jonathan’s right, and half a second later, he heard the whip crack of Boxers’ incoming round as it sheared the shooter’s head from his shoulders.

Then the world erupted in gunfire.

In the space of a heartbeat, the five kidnappers opened up on the jungle, firing randomly at targets they couldn’t see. Farther away on Jonathan’s right, the rest of the newly arriving shooters returned fire, proving that whatever their skills might be, marksmanship did not rank among them.

Jonathan fired a three-round burst and dropped the terrorist at the right front bumper. Two seconds later, he was under fire from his right, his position being raked by the late arrivers. He slapped his transmit button. “I’m under fire,” he said.

He’d barely released the transmit button when Boxers started stitching the area with .30-caliber rounds. Whoever they were, they didn’t have the stomach for a protracted gun battle. As loud as they had been coming in, they made a hell of a lot more noise as they ran away.

In a perfect world, Jonathan would have caught them in a cross fire to keep them from getting away; but today those people were just a distraction. His real targets were down there on the ground below.

Jonathan’s worst nightmare would come true if the soldiers on the ground turned their attention to the bus. In the twisted logic that was hostage negotiation, they had every right to do so. They no doubt felt both betrayed and doomed. It only made sense to take the hostages with them.

As if on cue, two of them turned their weapons on the bus and opened fire. Boxers was already a beat ahead. Jonathan couldn’t hear the Big Guy’s rifle, but he recognized the marksmanship. On the far side of the bus, a spray of blood marked the demise of one gunman, and before his buddy could even react, he, too, dropped dead.

Jonathan went to work, too. He killed the bagman first, with a double tap to the chest, and then he moved to the two on this side of the bus, killing them with two shots apiece.

Then it was done. All the bad guys were dead, and the whole gun battle had lasted less than ten seconds.

Half a tick later, Boxers nearly shouted over the radio, “What the hell’s going on, Boss?”

Jonathan pressed the transmit button to respond, but froze when he heard more gunshots. These seemed muffled compared to the others, and they were followed immediately with the sound of screaming.

“Shit!” he spat on the air. “There’s a shooter on the bus.”

Tristan had never seen so much blood. The spray of bone and brains went everywhere, misting the windows pink. An instant later, the world outside erupted in gunfire. He looked out the side window and saw the soldiers or the kidnappers or whatever the hell they were shooting long blasts of machine gun fire into the jungle.

“They’re going to kill us!” Allison screamed.

And then the guys outside spouted blood and fell to the ground.

Paul McDaniel, another jock, shouted, “Get down!” and then the loudest bang Tristan had ever heard startled everyone into silence. And there was more blood in the air. Tristan could taste it.

People started screaming. Danielle Taylor was next. Tristan had never gotten to know her very well, but she smiled a lot. He’d wished several times that he could have been handcuffed to her instead of to Allison. The soldier at the front of the bus knew none of this, of course, as he pressed his rifle against the side of her head.

“Please don’t,” Danielle begged. “I—”

The kidnapper pulled the trigger.

At least she died fast.

What surprised Tristan the most was the clarity of it all. It was as if time had slowed to a heartbeat every five seconds. As the gunman strolled casually down the center aisle, Tristan’s brain recorded every detail. The muzzle flashes. The way people just went limp when their souls were blasted out of their heads. Always a head shot, always a dead body.

With Danielle gone, the soldier pivoted and leveled his rifle at Ray Greaser. Tristan had never liked Ray, but right now, he felt like a brother. He started to cry when the rifle turned to him. “Please don’t,” he said.

Good guys never pleaded for their lives in movies, Tristan thought, yet everybody pleads when their time comes. Even as his heart hammered in his chest hard enough to break a rib, Tristan wondered what he would do when his time came.

This was so unfair. They were all handcuffed together, and the soldier with the rifle could move as fast or as slowly as he wanted. Every advantage lay with the murderer. That just wasn’t right.

The soldier was about to kill Ray when someone yelled, “Hey, asshole!” It was in English, and when the gunman pivoted and pointed his gun at the shouter, Tristan was shocked to realize that the words were his own.

But they were, and he was already in for a dime. Now it was time to be in for a dollar. “You don’t have to do this,” he said in Spanish. As the words left his mouth, he caught movement off to his right, outside the bus.

“Yes, I do,” the soldier said. He murdered Ray, and then his gaze followed Tristan’s. First his eyes, then his head, and finally his rifle. Someone was storming the bus.

The gunman flipped a switch on the side of his rifle. Tristan knew he was going to die now. He hooked his free hand around Allison’s neck and he pulled her to the floor.

The shooting became insane.

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