When she withdrew her hand, she held a small transceiver. She brought the small black box to her lips and kissed it.

"You see?" she asked. "We can call the others and tell them to come get us."

"Then we'll have to stay here, near the truck. Otherwise they won't be able to find us." "S?.."

"You know damn well what I'm talking about. You said yourself there is a dozen men out there. They're looking for us right now. We can't stay here."

"We have no choice."

"Maybe you don't, but I do," Bolan snapped.

"Fine, do whatever you want. At least leave me a gun."

"Don't do this, Marisa."

"Do what, Mr. Belasko?"

"Play on my sympathy."

"I'm surprised. You don't strike me as a man who would even have sympathy. For anyone. And if you think I am not above manipulating you, you're wrong. Do as you please. But I want to warn you that you can't get out of here without our help."

"I'll take my chances on that." Marisa held up a hand. "Quiet," she ordered.

And this time Bolan heard it, too. Voices, too far away to be intelligible, but too dose for comfort. It sounded as if the speakers were arguing.

"What are they saying?" Bolan whispered, bending close to bring his lips to Marisa's ear.

"They are trying to figure out how the driver got out of the truck." She looked at him, her face asking him the same question.

"I had to move him," Bolan explained.

This time Marisa didn't bother to lean close, choosing instead to trust the air to keep her confidence. "They will be searching both sides of the road soon. You'd better hurry if you want to leave."

Bolan squeezed her hand. "No. And don't think it's charity. Listen, get on that radio. If they come too much closer, you won't be able to."

"What are you going to do?"

"That depends."

"On what?"

"On who they are. For all I know, they're the good guys."

"Trust me, Mr. Belasko, they're not. They are the Philippine equivalent of the Salvadoran death squads."

"Maybe, maybe not."

"Damn you, believe whatever you want... I don't care."

Bolan squeezed her hand again. "The radio." Then he was gone.

"Be careful," she whispered after him.

Working his way silently through the trees, Bolan got as close to the ruined truck as he dared. It was still a raging inferno, the blackened metal hulk appearing and disappearing in the very center of an orange cauldron.

From his vantage point, he spotted seven or eight men standing in a ragged semicircle just beyond the reach of the flames. It would have been a sure thing to hit them. With any luck, he could take them all out with a single burst from the M-16. But until he knew what was what and who was who, he wasn't shooting anyone, especially not in the back.

The men were talking among themselves in Spanish. His command of the language was a bit rusty, but he understood enough to get the general drift of the conversation. One thing puzzled him, though. Marisa had said there would be ten to twelve men. That left as many as four unaccounted for.

As if in answer to his question, two more shadows suddenly appeared against the orange backdrop. As they approached the semicircle, the chattering men shut up. One of the two, then, must be their commanding officer.

"Speak English, damn it," one of the newcomers snapped.

"That's just like you Americans," the other said. "So tucking parochial. It's laughable that you should be one of the two most powerful countries in the world."

"Fuck you, Carbajal. When you want our help, you speak English pretty good. Don't go giving me any bullshit about being parochial. So I don't have any Spanish big deal."

"So, where are the others, Mr. Johnson? If you know so much, tell me that."

"How the hell should I know? I already told you, they got wind of something. Everything's going to hell. The bastard the police talked to, Belasko, Belaski or whatever it was, must have known something. We almost nailed him in Manila, but he squeaked through. I'm telling you, he had to be in that truck. It's the only way he could have gotten out of Manila."

"Why is he so important?"

"If I knew that, I'd be a lot happier myself. All I know is, he was tailing Harding before the shit hit the fan at the airport. He was there when it went down. And now he runs down a tucking rabbit hole and disappears."

"And you think we should search the jungle in the middle of the night to find this man?"

"Yeah, I do. And I bet we find the broad with him," the American said.

"And if we do find him, then what?"

"Ice the tucker."

The other man sighed, then turned to the small group of men. In Spanish he ordered them to fan out from the truck and to shoot anything that moved.

That was all Bolan needed to know. Whatever the hell Marisa was up to, these guys were trouble. Plain and simple. He backed away from the burning truck, its light flickering through the shadows cast by tall trees around him.

Carefully he made his way toward the spot where he had left Marisa. Behind him he could hear the men beating the undergrowth. They were talking in loud voices to keep their fear at bay. He almost missed her as he moved past, not fifteen feet from where she lay coiled in a tight ball, trying to lend in with the floor of the forest or sink to the other side of the shadows.

Bolan moved back toward the hunters a few feet to interpose himself between Marisa and the searchers. Concealng himself among the fronds of a patch of tall ferns, he roached down and waited.

He could see one of them moving straight toward him. The others had spread out to the left. Bolan steeled himself as the searcher drew closer. The fronds waved as the man rushed into them from the other side. Bolan waited until he took one more step. As he brushed by him, Bolan snaked an arm around his neck, crushing the windpipe and preventing him from shouting.

The man tried to breathe, and the gurgle in his throat dribbled away as Bolan exerted still more pressure, bracing his other forearm against the back of his captive's skull. With a sudden jerk, he snapped the neck. Easing up slightly, he felt the head loll to one side, then lowered the lifeless body gently to the ground.

It had been too damn near a miss. And Marisa was a liability, especially in the jungle. At all costs, they had to get closer to the road.

9

Bolan hauled Marisa up the slippery incline, his feet sliding on the damp, rotten leaves. The firing continued behind them, and stray slugs whined through the branches overhead, showering them both with tattered leaves. Just ahead the lip of the incline curved up nearly vertically. From fifty feet, it looked to be about five or six feet high, but it could be more. It was going to be close.

The nearest of their pursuers was no more than fifty yards behind them. Bolan kept tugging at Marisa's arm, until he thought it would pull out of its socket.

The dense jungle behind them swallowed nearly every sound except the gunfire. Bolan crossed mental fingers, hoping that Marisa's faith in her compatriots was not misplaced. If it were, it would be too late for her to regret it. Bolan tripped over a log, nearly buried in dark brown leaves.

As he struggled to his feet, he lost his grip on the woman for a moment, and she cried out, afraid he had left her behind.

He clapped a hand, slippery with decayed vegetation, over her mouth and held it there until she stopped struggling. He leaned forward to whisper in her ear. "Come on, Marisa, hold it together. We're almost to the road. Okay?" At first she didn't respond, but when he asked a second time, she nodded as best she could.

As he let go, he heard a rustle of leaves and dropped to the round, pulling her down with him. Straining his eyes to see in the dark, he saw nothing that looked out of place. The rustling noise had stopped, but he was certain one of the search party was just behind a curtain of thick, umbrellalike leaves. A shot would alert the others, but he couldn't afford to turn his back on a threat that close.