Season of Harm

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“Powerful,” was all Peng would say. That meant, to McCarter’s thinking, that the devices were probably powerful enough to reduce their SUV to shrapnel, to say nothing of Phoenix Force inside it.

Peng used the tip of the knife in the sheath around his neck—a small stainless-steel fixed blade with a cord-wrapped handle—to pry open the cover on the back of the disk he was holding. He reached inside and did something that McCarter could not discern. Then he simply tossed the disk to the ground.

McCarter flinched. Nothing happened; no explosion came.

“We may go now.” Peng shrugged. “You may drive over it.”

“You certain of that?” Hawkins asked as McCarter, Peng and Manning climbed back into the truck.

“I am sure,” Peng declared. “It is harmless now.”

McCarter wasn’t certain, but he thought he heard Hawkins let out the breath he’d been holding after they safely drove over the first clump of mines.

What could have made for relatively slow going proved not to be too bad, with Peng quickly and quietly defusing each set of mines when he reached whatever count he was keeping in his head. Phoenix Force, with their largely inscrutable guide leading the way, managed to traverse most of the access road without incident. Peng finally called a halt, not more than one hundred yards after defusing what he said was the last set of mines, as they reached a sharp curve in the road. The dirt trail narrowed significantly here.

“We must get out here,” Peng said. He climbed out and McCarter followed him. “Beyond this narrow part,” Peng went on, “one half kilometer, is an opening. Machine-gun nests are there. The drug plant is beyond. It is surrounded by a pit dug for the length of its perimeter. Take the path on the right. There is a footbridge. Turn left when you see the shoe.”

“The shoe? Peng, what—” McCarter started to say.

Peng nodded and, without another word, melted into the trees.

“Where’s he going?” Calvin James asked as he walked up, carrying his Kalashnikov.

“Bloody well wish I knew,” McCarter said. He swore softly to himself.

“Are we blown?” Encizo asked. Phoenix Force, weapons ready, assembled around McCarter, careful to watch the trees around them.

“We could be,” McCarter said as he shook his head, “but I’m going to trust my gut on this. We go, lads. Keep it tight.”

With McCarter in the lead, Phoenix Force moved out.

The reached the clearing Peng had warned them about. It was not just a natural clearing; it was a kill zone, from which brush and cover had been removed to give the machine gunners a clear field of fire. Encizo, with a pair of field glasses from his gear, paused to get a close-up look at the enemy.

“I’ve got two…no, three men in each nest.” The machine-gun emplacements were pits dug into the ground, around which sandbags had been piled. Each nest also had a corrugated-metal roof set on four stout posts, probably to keep the rain off the guards inside.

“How alert?” McCarter asked.

“Not very,” Encizo said. “But moving around enough. They’ll see us if we try to rush them, I’d bet.”

“Then subtle is out,” McCarter said. He looked at Manning. The big Canadian nodded and deployed his 40 mm grenade launcher.

“Ready,” Manning said.

“Do it,” McCarter ordered.

As the other Phoenix Force team members spread out and took combat positions, Manning targeted the first machine-gun nest. He slowly and carefully checked his range and his angle…and then pulled the trigger.

The grenade was away and Manning was already reloading the launcher before the first round hit. When the explosions came, they ripped apart the machine-gun nests from within. Manning fired twice more, making sure, obliterating the nests and taking the gunners inside with them.