"Lady, if there's an attitude around here, it's yours, and I'm sick of it. You don't know jackshit about me. Talk about black and white. If there's a blacker black and a whiter white than the colors you're seeing, I don't know where the hell they might be."

"Of course, I knew you'd get around to that, sooner or later. The oppressor always blames the oppressed. Resentment is the privilege of the overclass..."

The truck lurched suddenly, but she pushed on.

"You always..."

"Stop it!" Bolan snapped suddenly.

"You..."

"I heard something. Be quiet!"

The truck was leaning perilously, and the growl of the engine gradually disappeared under an increasingly louder thumping, like that of approaching thunder.

"A flat tire," she said, "nothing to worry about. It happens a lot up here."

"No, before that. It was sharper. I heard it twice, no more than that."

"Maybe..." The truck crashed into something, and Bolan was thrown forward, slamming into the front wall. The woman landed on top of him, and one elbow caught him in the temple. He saw a flash of bright light for a second, then felt the throbbing of his head.

"Are you hurt?" he asked.

She didn't answer him immediately, and he shook her by one shoulder as he squirmed out from under her. She must have been stunned for a few seconds. But as he extricated himself, he felt the cold, round mouth of the automatic press against the back of his neck.

"Don't move," she ordered.

He smelled gasoline and pounded on the front wall of the truck. "We have to get out of here," he said. He beat his fist on the wall, but no one responded. Then, off to his left, he saw the first orange flash. It flickered and vanished, like a serpent's tongue.

"Fire," he said. "We better get out of the truck. Now!"

"Don't try to fool me. I may be a woman, but I'm not stupid."

"Listen, we have to get out of the truck. It's starting to burn. If the fuel tank goes up, we won't have a chance in hell."

Something changed her mind, maybe the tone of his voice or perhaps she smelled the gasoline or the scorched vegetation wafting into the truck. For the first time since he'd met her, she seemed genuinely frightened. Her voice broke when she said, "It's locked. From the outside."

8

Bolan reached for her hand. It trembled in his grasp, but she refused to let go of the pistol.

"Let go, damn it!" he shouted. "Marisa, we have to get out of here."

He twisted her arm, and the pistol clattered onto the floor of the truck. He groped for it in the dark, conscious of how little time they had left. The orange glow was already getting brighter. He found the pistol and crawled to the rear of the truck. He was too tall to stand upright, and knelt at the crack between the two doors.

Running his fingers along the joint between them, he found the bolts holding the latch in place. He fired two quick shots, with the muzzle held nearly flat against the sheet metal. Behind him Marisa screamed.

Lying on his back, he brought both feet back and slammed them into the door, one on either side of the latch. The doors bowed outward but did not give. He could feel the heat of the flames on his ankles as he pulled them back for another try.

Again he slammed both feet forward, ramming them like pile drivers into the door. This time one flew open. A wave of superheated air surged into the truck.

"Marisa, come on," he shouted. In the dull orange glare, he turned to see her cowering in one corner of the truck.

He stuck the gun in his belt and scrambled toward her. She heard him coming, and shrank even farther into the corner. Without a word he grabbed her under the shoulders and hauled her to her feet. Bending at the waist, he pushed and shoved her toward the open door.

"Stay right there," he said, dropping to the ground.

He reached back up for her, grabbed a knee in each hand and pulled. She toppled forward, and he caught her over his left shoulder. She was heavier than she looked, and the impact of her body nearly knocked him over.

He ran into the trees and set her down.

"Wait here," he said.

"Don't leave me," she said. Her voice was emotionless, almost robotic, but he could sense the terror her inflection tried to conceal.

He sprinted back to the truck and yanked the driver's door open. The driver was slumped forward over the steering wheel. A gaping hole in his skull obscured the left temple. The bullet must have come from the opposite side of the road, Bolan thought as he pulled the driver free. The man was dead, and there was no time for courtesy. He let the body fall to the ground and reached for the second man in the cab. He, too, had been shot, through and through, also from the right side of the road. The glass of the windshield and the passenger window was a mass of cracks, glittering orange with reflected light.

As he backed out of the cab, Bolan snatched the passenger's M-16 and a canvas bag jammed down between the bucket seats. When he stepped down from the running board, he started to back away but tripped and fell. Scrambling to his feet, he noticed the flames now beginning to lick at the huge gas tank under the truck. He stumbled back into the trees, ignoring the slender branches slashing at his face and hands.

He found Marisa right where he'd left her, as if she had grown roots in the rich, loamy soil.

He dropped to the ground beside her.

Bolan reached out to pat her knee. "I'm back," he said.

She said nothing, instead placing a finger to her lips. Thinking she must have heard something, Bolan cocked his head to one side, listening to the jungle.

The only noise he could hear was the crackle of the flames.

"What is it," Bolan whispered, "what do you hear?"

As if in answer, the gas tank on the truck blew, sending a feathery plume of burning fuel high into the air. The trees between him and the truck looked black, as though they had been carved out of coal.

Marisa flinched at the thunderous explosion.

"Juan?" she asked. "Pablito?"

"Dead," Bolan said. "I'm sorry."

Marisa shook her head. "No, you're not. Don't say it to spare my feelings. They were my friends, but you didn't know them."

Bolan marveled at the toughness that seemed as much a part of her as the flesh on her bones, the blood in her veins.

"What happened?" she asked.

"They didn't suffer, if that's what you want to know."

"Thank you for that, but, no, that's not what I want to know. I want to know what happened."

"Someone shot them both. From the right side of the road. An ambush."

"And you saw no one?"

"No."

"But they are still here, the ones who murdered Juan and Pablito. They are close by."

"How do you know?"

"I know because I just heard them. I know because it is always the same."

"Many?"

"Ten or twelve, probably. That is the way it usually goes."

"Then we have to get the hell out of here. Do you know where we are?"

"Yes."

"Then you have to guide me."

"We have to follow the road. That's the only way I know to guide you."

"We can't stay on the road. If there's a dozen men out there looking to kill us, we wouldn't stand a chance."

"We don't have far to go."

"How can you be sure?"

She laughed. "I may be frightened, Mr. Belasko, but I'm not stupid. I don't mean to walk in the middle of the road. But if you look closely, you'll realize there is only one road to choose from. Since I know where we were going, I know how to get there. I don't know how far, but it shouldn't be more than three or four miles. It's too bad we don't have Pablito's pack."

"You mean this?" Bolan placed the canvas bag in her lap.

She brushed it with her fingertips, then smiled a sad smile. "So, Pablito will help us get there yet. This is his bag." She reached for the buckles holding the bag closed. One at a time, she undid the two straps, then slid her hand in under the canvas flap.