“Let me know which one so I can send flowers,” Bahn replied sarcastically. “Maybe I’ll come by and fluff his pillows, too.”
“Listen, sweetheart,” Kissinger interrupted. “When the time’s right, we’ll get him to talk, don’t worry. And you can bet your ass we won’t do it by pampering him. Got that?”
“Temper, temper,” Bahn replied with a shrug. “Fine, have it your way.”
Kissinger glowered at the woman, then jogged over to the chopper for a stretcher and Mochtar’s med-kit. By the time they returned, Bolan had managed to staunch the flow of blood from the prisoner’s wounds. Kissinger daubed the wounds with antiseptic, then quickly dressed them and kept pressure on the bandages as Bolan helped the soldiers load the man onto the stretcher. Grimaldi was waiting to help haul him up into the chopper.
“Go ahead and get these people to the base,” Bolan told him. “We’ll finish up here.”
Grimaldi nodded. “I’ll swing back later with reinforcements and some kind of morgue unit for all the bodies.”
“Before you go, hand me a couple two-ways,” Bolan said.
Grimaldi reached into a bin near the door and pulled out two high-powered two-way radios. “Good luck,” he said, handing them to Bolan.
The soldier nodded, then called past Grimaldi to Raki Mochtar. “You did good work, Rock.”
“Thanks,” the younger man replied gratefully.
“We’ll see you back in Samarinda.” Bolan saluted the medic, then stepped back from the chopper.
Grimaldi got back behind the controls and lifted off, then drifted back out over the valley. Bolan turned back to the roadway and sized up the situation.
“The truck’s not going anywhere,” he said, eyeing the bombed-out vehicle. “I say we leave it for now and spread out.” He handed Kissinger one of the radios, telling him, “I want to check out the compound. Why don’t you and Latek secure the area, then check around for more survivors.”
“Done,” Kissinger said, taking the two-way Bolan held out to him. “What about our friend here?”
“I’ll take Ms. Bahn with me,” Bolan said.
“Not so fast,” Bahn said. “No offense, but I didn’t sign up for a tour of duty here, okay? I call my own shots.”
Bolan sighed. “Fair enough.” He grabbed a stray assault rifle lying on the ground and held it out to the woman. “I could use your help, if you don’t mind.”
“That’s more like it,” Bahn said, taking the weapon.
Bolan exchanged a quick glance with Kissinger, who rolled his eyes, then gestured to Latek and the other commandos. They began to fan out in separate directions, giving a wide berth to the Bio-Tain truck, which continued to leak faintly visible clouds of toxic gas. Bolan, meanwhile, led Bahn the other way, up the road leading to the agricultural compound.
By now the Black Hawk was beyond earshot and the road was eerily quiet. For the first time since the firefight had begun, Bolan noticed a few signs of wildlife: birds, a few small gray squirrels, and a thin black monkey scrambling back and forth along the guardrail.
“I think you can take off that mask now,” Bahn told Bolan. “It’s not like we’re trapped in some kind of enclosed space.”
Bolan took off his mask. There was a faint odor of cordite in the air and he could smell smoke from the fires across the valley, but there was nothing that smelled like the chemical stench of the cloud that had nearly enveloped him a short time ago. Bolan also realized his cough had left him, as had the stinging sensation in his eyes. He’d gotten off lucky, he figured.
They walked silently for a short distance, then Bolan asked, “Are you here on your own or still working for Inter-Trieve?”
“I-T,” she replied.
Inter-Trieve was a Washington, D.C.-based bounty agency specializing in high-profile cases involving international fugitives. Bahn had joined them five years ago after stints with the Army Rangers and CIA.
“We’re on retainer with the insurance company representing that cruise liner Jahf-Al deep-sixed last spring,” she explained. “They figure the reward money’ll help offset the claims they’re paying out.”
“Provided you bring him in,” Bolan said.
“I’ll bring him in, all right.”
“You seem pretty sure of yourself.”
“Gotta be in this line of work,” Bahn responded calmly.
“I take it you’re aware that half the free world’s tried tracking down Jahf-Al with no luck.”
“Well, maybe they didn’t try hard enough,” Bahn suggested.
Bolan wasn’t about to waste his breath arguing with her. Instead, he asked the woman how she knew about the raid. Bahn shrugged, swatting away a cloud of gnats that had appeared on the roadway.
“I have my sources,” she said.
“You think you could you be a little more specific?” Bolan asked.
“Sorry,” Bahn said. “A girl needs her secrets.”
“I’m just trying to figure out who tipped off these guys that we were coming.”
“Don’t look at me,” Bahn replied icily.
“I’m not accusing you.”
“Yeah, right.”
Once Bolan and Bahn had hiked around the next bend, the road came to a sudden end and they found themselves at the entrance to the seventy-acre IMA facility. The grounds were enclosed by an eight-foot-high cyclone fence, and the entrance gate was guarded by two uniformed men in their early twenties. The men had their carbines aimed at the new arrivals, and the guns quivered slightly in their hands. They’d obviously heard the earlier assault and seemed fearful of being dragged into the bloodshed. One of them shouted a warning in his native tongue.
“I seem to remember you speak a few languages,” Bolan murmured.
“So that’s why you wanted me to tag along, you little weasel,” Bahn taunted. “And here I thought you were after my body.”
Bolan suppressed a smile. “Business before pleasure,” he responded evenly.
Bahn called out to the guards in Bahasa Indonesian, then quickly explained what had happened back on the roadway. Once she’d finished, the men conferred briefly, then one of them raised the security bar while the other waved them past.
“That was easy enough,” Bahn whispered to Bolan. “Hell, no wonder the Lashkar had such an easy time of it.”
“Ask them how many men were on the Bio-Tain truck when it first showed up,” Bolan suggested.
The bounty hunter stopped alongside the raised bar and spoke again to the guards. Afterward, she and Bolan continued up the driveway, heading toward the storage facility, a two-story building set back a hundred yards from the gate.
“They say there were only six men on the truck,” Bahn reported, “and that includes the driver.”
“There were at least four times that many in on the ambush,” Bolan recalled.
“I know,” Bahn said. “I mentioned that, but they insist they inspected the truck coming and going and there were only six of them.”
“Then there must be a camp around here somewhere,” Bolan theorized.
“That’d be my guess, too,” Bahn said, staring past the grounds, where hazy ribbons of smoke stretched over a vast sprawl of rain forest.
As