"Wait here," he whispered.

Bolan started to crawl toward the fan of broad leaves, spread open like the fingers of a huge hand. Keeping his eye fixed on the center of the fan, he moved one hand, then a leg, another hand, a second leg. He controlled his breath, taking deep gulps as seldom as he could and taking care to make no noise.

Since he had begun his approach, not a single leaf had fluttered. He was starting to think he had imagined the noise when he spotted something jutting out just past the face of a leaf. It could have been a twig or some sort of weird bug. Or the muzzle of an automatic rifle. Bolan squinted to sharpen the focus, but the effort was futile.

There just wasn't enough light. Lying flat out, Bolan rolled onto his back, waited a few seconds, then rolled again to lie on his stomach about four feet to the left.

As he lay there, he listened for a long moment. The gunfire had tapered off a little, as if the men were trying to conserve ammunition. Or, Bolan though, maybe they had blown off their fear, and fired now only with some reasonable cause.

From his new vantage point, he could still see the projection. And now it looked just a little too perfect, a little too round. Back up on hands and knees, he crept farther to the left. Somehow he had to get in behind the thick leaves. Hi couldn't risk a head-on charge. Even if he didn't get himself killed, the noise of his assault would certainly draw the others.

Sharpening his angle away to the left, he climbed into crouch, moving more quickly now. Fending off the thick undergrowth with his left arm, he slithered into a clump o feathery fronds and slipped up behind a thick-waisted trunk. The tree itself had snapped-off a dozen feet from the ground, and it lay like a broken mast from some longforgotten shipwreck.

Bolan crawled under the trunk and slid along behind it. Falling more and more deeply into a crouch as the tree's crown drew closer, he kept his eyes riveted on the motionless fronds.

He was looking at them from the side now, but still saw nothing. As he reached the tangle of broken branches, he slid in among them, moving each one aside only far enough to get past it. Even the damp, rotten wood could give him away if one of the branches were to snap. He felt the slippery pulp of fungus under his fingertips, where maids of every kind slowly devoured the rotting branches.

As he bent the last branch and ducked under it, he found himself staring straight at the back of a man crouching in the shadows. Bolan cursed himself for not having the Beretta. Its sound suppressor made it perfect for use at the moment. But he didn't have it, and he was going to have to improvise.

The gunfire had dwindled away to occasional single shots. As the searchers spread out in the dense forest, the leaves mulled even those few, and they sounded as if they had come from a long way off.

Placing one foot on the thick carpet of moldering leaves, he leaned his weight forward, then tugged his other leg free of the branches. Holding the tip of his tongue between his teeth, he started forward, the M-16 ready. He closed to within five feet of the man when something snapped underfoot.

The man started to turn as Bolan took another step closer. Raising the assault rifle high in the air, like a pinch hitter conrying to loosen up, he started his swing as the man's profile emerged from the shadows. Bolan saw the mouth open in surprise and the lips begin to form a word. As the rifle contacted against his temple, the man's mouth went slack. He sank straight down, as if a trap door had opened beneath him.

He lay there in a heap. Bolan bent over to feel for a pulse. There was one, but it was going to be a while before the crumpled form regained consciousness. Quickly Bolan disentangled the unconscious man's arm from the leather sling of his AK-47, slung it over his own shoulder, then knelt to see what else of use he could find.

The man wore a Browning 9 mm automatic in a canvas holster hooked on a garrison belt.

Bolan undid the belt, tugged it loose and rebuckled it, then draped it over the same shoulder as the AK. Three ammo pouches, one small, probably for the Browning, and two larger, for the AK-47, dangled from the belt, along with a pair of M-59 grenades.

Bolan pushed through the thick, rubbery leaves and sprinted back toward Marisa. She stood where he had left her. Her head was cocked to one side, and she turned slightly as he approached, as if to hear him better. He reached for her outstretched hand and continued on past, barely slowing his pace. She spun in her tracks and fell in behind him, doing her best to match his stride.

As the slope grew steeper, she got the better of him. His weight kept him sliding on the slimy mulch while she seemed to skate on it with effortless grace. When they reached the final ascent, he had to pause for a moment. They were flush up against a vertical wall. It was a good foot taller than Bolan.

"I'll have to lift you up," he whispered. "Just raise your hands over your head and get a solid grip on something." He pressed his back against the wall of vegetation and tugged Marisa toward him. "Okay," he said, "give me your foot."

He made a stirrup of his hands and slipped it under the sole of Marisa's boot. She bounced once, twice, and on the third time, he lifted as she sprang upward. Her hand thrashed in the growth on top of the wall, and suddenly he weight started to decrease. He realized she'd found a handhold and begun to pull herself up. He pulled upward on his linked hands, and she slid up and over him. A moment later she was gone.

Bolan kicked holes in the embankment with the toes of his boots, driving them through the mushy greenery and into the sticky clay behind it. With the second toehold secure, he could reach up and far over the edge to find a sturdy bush rooted deeply enough to bear his weight.

As he pulled himself up and over, he heard the unmistakable sound of an approaching engine. It was just a notch above idle, as if the driver were coasting along, using his engine only enough to keep from rolling to a stop. Bolan got to his knees, only now aware that the jungle had fallen silent behind him. The firing had stopped, and nothing else moved among the trees. The monkeys and the birds seemed to be waiting for something else to happen. Even the tree frogs were silent.

They still had twenty yards to cover before they reached the road itself. Bolan hauled Marisa to her feet and plunged down into the thick undergrowth. He was less concerned about the noise now.

He had to admire Marisa and her people, at least for their efficiency if nothing else. The jeep was right on time. He didn't want to think about what might happen if he was wrong, if it wasn't the jeep they were waiting for. It just had to be, and that's how they were playing it.

They broke into the open so suddenly that Bolan hadn't seen it coming. In knee-high grass, he stumbled to a halt. A hundred yards away, little more than a block of shadow on wheels, a jeep rolled toward them, its lights out. Bolan fell flat in the tall grass and tugged Marisa down beside him.

"Okay," he said into her ear, "there's a jeep just up the road. See if you can raise him on the radio."

Marisa tugged the small transceiver from a deep pocket in her jacket. So softly that Bolan wasn't even sure she had spoken, she repeated the same phrase twice.

It was in a language completely alien to him. He guessed it must be Tagalog. In answer, the jeep flashed its headlights once.

"That's Carlos," she whispered.

They heard scrambling behind them, at the bottom of the wall, and Bolan decided they'd better not wait. "Come on," he said, getting to his feet.

Marisa got up without help this time. She groped in the air for his hand. When she found it, she curled her fingers around his and squeezed a moment, then let go. He nodded to himself, and started down the gentle slope to the road. The jeep was still idling its way along, and Bolan stepped into the hard-packed dirt of the road about twenty yards in front of it. He could see the silhouettes of two men in the front seat.