Jungle Hunt. Don Pendleton

Shaking her head, she held out a grimy hand.

       Bernier chuckled. “They learn young,” he said as he pulled out an alligator-skin wallet.

       “Yeah, well, she’s gonna learn what a bullet in the face feels like if we don’t get out of here quick.”

       Bernier held out a hundred dollar bill, but when the girl moved to grab it, neatly tore it in two. “This half and two more when we are safely away.”

       The girl stared at him, then nodded as she turned and began walking down the corridor. Bernier exchanged a glance with Bolan, who nodded. “She’s our ticket out.”

       The kingpin started walking down the dark hallway, with Bolan bringing up the rear, one pistol pointed ahead, the other behind him. Doorways—empty frames and also holes cut into the walls, some covered with hanging blankets, others empty and gaping—lined the hallway on both sides.

       Bolan wasn’t claustrophobic, but the narrow passage plus the lack of light and multiple attack vectors were sending his senses into overdrive. He was crazily alert to every noise in the place, and there were many—too many. The only good news was that they seemed to be leaving any pursuit behind.

       The girl led them up a cramped staircase, the steps concave, worn from years of feet tramping up and down. Bolan caught the aroma of wood smoke and vegetables sizzling—someone was cooking nearby. The stairs opened into another hallway, identical to the first one, with rooms on either side. Bolan tried to watch every direction as they went down it, but he had to trust that the girl was really taking them out—a dangerous proposition here, where both Bernier and he could disappear, their bodies never to be found again.

       Shouts and crashes echoed up the stairwell, making Bolan quicken his pace. The girl ducked under a tattered blanket into a room at the end of the hall, waving them forward. Bernier hurried to follow.

       “Wait—!” Bolan’s whispered warning came too late. He tucked the SIG away and, leading with the Desert Eagle, pushed into the room—only to feel a circle of cold steel press into his neck. Bolan froze, the Desert Eagle held with its muzzle pointing in the air as he took in the room. A frown on her face, the girl stood by a crude rope ladder leading to a trapdoor in the ceiling. Two other men besides the punk holding the gun on Bolan stood in the room. One had a pistol trained on Bernier, the other held an iron pipe, ready to reinforce either of his criminal partners.

       “Drop the pist—” was all the gunman had time to say before Bolan snaked his arm around the shooter’s wrist, levering the gun out of line on him and trapping it between his elbow and side. The moment the pistol was neutralized, he leveled the Desert Eagle and put a round into the second gunman’s chest, the boom of the .357 deafening in the small room.

       Steadying the guy with his left hand, Bolan pulled him close as he brought his forehead down, smashing it into the thug’s nose. Cartilage crunched and blood squirted as the guy screamed in agony. Releasing him, Bolan stripped the pistol from his hand as he fell to the floor, keeping it locked between his arm and his side.

       In the three seconds it had taken to do that, the pipe-wielding man charged at Bolan, wildly swinging his pipe. Trying to aim the Desert Eagle at his attacker, the end of the pipe connected with the large gun’s frame hard enough to jar it out of Bolan’s hand. The shiny pistol skittered across the floor, but Bolan couldn’t track it, as all his attention was on the man in front of him, who was already cocking the pipe for another swing. There was no time to draw the SIG again, so Bolan went for the pistol under his arm. Pulling it out, he cocked the hammer back on the revolver and snap-fired as soon as he had it out far enough to line up the stubby barrel on the guy’s face. As he squeezed the trigger, Bolan felt tape on the handle and hoped the Saturday Night Special didn’t blow up in his hand.

       It did something far worse—the hammer fell on a chamber, but no bullet fired. It was a dud.

       “Hell!” Bolan ducked underneath the man’s wild swing, the pipe coming close enough to him to ruffle his hair. He was about to step forward and hammer the pistol butt into the man’s face when the left side of his head simply exploded, demolishing his facial features, as well. At the same time, another thunderous boom reverberated in the room, painfully hammering Bolan’s eardrums. The man’s body followed his brains, toppling over on his side to the floor.

       He glanced over to see Bernier aiming the smoking Desert Eagle at the girl, who just stood and stared back at him. He nodded at the three dead men, the question obvious. Shaking her head, she spit on the nearest one, then pointed up at the trapdoor again.

       Bolan watched this all with his eardrums feeling as though they were stuffed full of cotton. Dimly he heard noise from outside, in the hallway. Bernier heard it, as well, for he walked to the doorway, stuck the pistol out and fired three rounds. Pointing it at the girl, he waved her up the ladder. She scrambled up like a monkey, pushing the trapdoor—just a piece of plywood, no doubt scavenged from a construction site—out of the way and climbing out onto the roof.

       “Go!” SIG Sauer in hand, Bolan covered the doorway, first kicking the guy with the broken nose in the head to ensure he couldn’t tell anyone where they had gone. Bernier hoisted himself up the rope ladder. Only when he was outside did Bolan holster his gun and shimmy up. The moment he was on the roof, he grabbed the rope and pulled it up after him, then shoved the plywood back into place.

       The rooftop they were on was indistinguishable from a thousand others around them. Gunshots still sounded from the street below, but they’d become more sporadic. Bernier and Bolan looked around for the best way out.

       “You have a car somewhere, right?” the kingpin asked.

       Bolan pointed. “Yeah, six blocks that way—if it hasn’t been stolen or stripped yet. We should try to find other wheels anyway. The police will be looking for newer vehicles coming out of here.”

       Bernier turned to the girl and asked her a question. In response, she held out her hand. “Damn it!” He counted off four more hundred-dollar bills, plus the torn half of the first one. “Let’s go!”

       The girl scurried off, leading the two men to the back wall, where a plank she placed between two buildings served as an improvised bridge. Although it creaked under Bolan’s two hundred pounds, it held him as he crossed.

       They went across three more rooftops, ascending the stacked buildings of the favela until coming to a single-lane road. The girl trotted past three houses until she came to what looked like a crude garage with a door made of jury-rigged corrugated tin sheets, secured with a brand-new, shiny padlock. The girl pointed to it, then held out her hand a third time.

       “Gonna be broke by the time we leave,” Bernier grumbled, but counted another five hundred dollars into her hand. “Go, get out of here, you extortionist.” The girl made the last payment disappear as quickly as she had the first one, then whirled and dashed off down an alley, gone from sight in seconds.

       “How are we getting in?” Bernier asked, pointing the pistol at the lock.

       “No! Shooting’s too loud—it’ll draw everyone to us. Just keep watch.” Bolan bent down and got to work with his picks. Two minutes later, the lock was picked. Pulling the door open revealed a battered Subaru Brat, minus the hood and with dented and rusty doors and side panels. “Haven’t seen one of these in forever. Let’s go.”

       “Can you get it started?” Bernier asked as he got in on the passenger side.

       “Of course.” Bolan exposed the steering column of the almost thirty-year-old vehicle, stripped the right wires and touched them together. The light truck’s engine sputtered and coughed. Bolan pumped the gas once and touched the wires together again. This time the Subaru turned over with an earsplitting racket—apparently the muffler was long gone, too.

       “Let’s go!” Bernier shouted. “I got a feeling this wasn’t hers to sell!”

       “You and me both!” Bolan pressed the brake, then engaged the clutch and gave it gas. The little two-seater shook its way out of the garage just as two men came around the corner, one carrying