they continued along the river, the men spotted pigs milling near the water’s edge. As Bolan and Kissinger drew closer, they quickly scattered, squealing their way into the undergrowth. The commotion spread as a flock of small dark-feathered birds burst out of the brush with a flurry of beating wings. The men froze momentarily, rifles at the ready, wary that their position had been given away.
“I don’t know about you,” Kissinger muttered, “but this place gives me the creeps.”
Bolan nodded. He was looking out at the river.
“Look at the water,” he said.
Kissinger took another step closer and peered into the current. The water had a reddish coloring to it.
“It’s not blood, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Kissinger said. “I remember reading about tannic acid or something like that in the peat. It gets leeched into the water and turns it—”
“I’m not talking about the color, Cowboy,” Bolan interrupted, pointing farther upstream. “I meant that slick over there.”
Kissinger shifted his gaze and spotted a wide, luminescent clot suspended on the water. Even in the relative darkness, the shape gleamed, rainbowlike, as it drifted toward them.
“Gotta be some kind of fuel spill,” Kissinger surmised. “Outboard motor, most likely. I’ll bet you anything these guys use some kind of boat to haul in supplies and any other—”
Kissinger’s voice was drowned out by a faint, sudden boom. Seconds later, a vibrant flash illuminated the jungle, momentarily blinding both men with its fiery brilliance.
“Take cover!” Bolan yelled.
Even as he was shouting the warning, Bolan was lunging away from the river and rolling into the nearby foliage. His instincts were once again on target. As he and Kissinger scrambled for cover, the forest around them thundered with the incessant rattle of automatic gunfire. The fusillade was so loud and persistent it quickly drowned out all other sounds save for the muffled thud of bullets plowing into the peat banks where the two men had been standing a moment before.
“You all right?” Kissinger whispered to Bolan.
“Yeah. So far at least.”
The flare tumbled through the upper branches of the nearby trees, then dropped straight down to the forest floor, even as another was taking its place, bathing the forest with another blast of harsh light. Bolan blinked his eyes several times, then peered out through the foliage and saw enemy gunmen up in the trees, firing down at the intruders.
Soon there was yet another burst of light, this one down near the river’s edge eighty yards from where Bolan and Kissinger had taken cover.
“Flamethrower,” Bolan said.
“Oh, man,” Kissinger groaned. “Something tells me that fuel spill was no accident.”
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