When the ambulance hit the spike strip the ambush party had placed across the road, all four tires were ripped to shreds, the driver lost control of the vehicle, and the ambulance ran off the road and onto the edge of the high grass.
Several prison guards emerged from the ambulance with their guns drawn. However, automatic gunfire erupted from the high grass and all of the guards were killed. Then the heavyset guard, the inside asset that Steers had shown them during their planning session back in Hong Kong, climbed out of the back of the ambulance.
Peering through the high grass, Nash watched as the guard hurried to the driver’s side of the ambulance. Nash flinched when the man fired a round through the window.
The guard then opened the ambulance door, and the dead driver fell out onto the road.
The men with the automatic weapons who had dispatched the other prison guards quickly emerged from cover and rushed over to the vehicle.
Two of them slipped inside the rear of the ambulance and carried out an elderly woman in shackles. Nash had never seen Masuyo in person but had to assume that it was her. The prison guard briefly talked to the other men, and then the other elderly woman appeared from the corner of the bushes, escorted by one of the men from the first SUV. The guard unlocked Masuyo’s shackles, and two of the men worked quickly to assist the women in exchanging clothes. With that finished, the guard shackled the other elderly woman and she was put into the ambulance.
Okay,thought Nash.That was the reason for the other old woman. They’re doing a switch so it’ll look like the prison break wasn’t successful.
He had to admit, it was pretty damn brilliant.
Nash quickly lit the fuses on the four casings. He counted off seconds in his head as he flitted over to the long fuse that was connected to the half-full can of gas.
Smoke started pouring out of the casings and quickly rose above the high grass.
Nash heard people crying out, and he heard feet running toward the side of the road he was on.
He lit the long fuse and moved far away, lying flat on the ground. Some of the men fired shots at the smoke. Nash crawled to the edge of the high grass and peered out. The only man left by the ambulance was the guard. Masuyo stood beside him.
Nash sunk as low to the ground as he could and put his hands over his ears.
Five. . .four. . .three. . .two. . .one.
The lighted fuse reached the closed gas can and the concentrated vapor housed there, and the resulting explosion, equal to about thirty-five sticks of dynamite, was far more than even Nash had anticipated. He mouthed a silent prayer of thanks that he had moved so far away from the blast site. People screamed, and a flame ball soared into the sky, joining all the smoke that had been released from the four canisters. As the smoke billowed across the road, Nash heard Thura start the Jeep because the explosion was his signal to do so.
Nash jumped up from his hiding spot and ran out from the high grass. Two of the ambush team lay dead, their bodies dismembered from the explosion. Another member of the team ran screaming out of the high grass, flames dancing all over his torso. He saw Nash, who raised his weapon and shot him in the chest. The man dropped to the ground, dead. It was as much an act of mercy by Nash as anything.
A fourth member of the ambush team, blackened and gagging, hurtled out of the brush right in front of Nash. He attacked Nash with a knife. Nash blocked the multiple thrusts of the blade and then gripped the man’s wrist, torqued it back and up, tripped the man with his ankle, and drove him hard into the dirt while using the knife to strike multiple blows into his side and neck. The man was dead before Nash rose off him.
Nash’s gaze darted to the left as the fifth member of the ambush team raced across the road heading for the ambulance. The confused guard struggled to unholster his weapon, while Masuyo cowered behind him.
Nash rolled to his right, grabbed his pistol where it had fallen, came up in a crouch, took aim, and fired two shots. Both of them hit the man, one in the neck and one in the back, and he went down. Nash ran across to check on him. When Nash turned him over, the man let out one final gasp and grew still.
Nash sat there on his haunches for a few seconds, surveying all the death and destruction he had caused.
I’ve come a long way from crying over killing a cricket with my BB gun. It’s not progress. Actually, it’s the reverse.
But Nash had made a strategic miscalculation. The sixth and final member of the ambush team now emerged unscathed from the high grass. He took aim at Nash just about the time the Jeep bore down on them. A shot was fired and the sixth man took the round in the head.
Nash whipped around at the sound. Sitting in the Jeep’s driver’s seat, Thura lowered his gun and called out, “Straight and true; you’re welcome, man.”
Nash quickly searched several of the dead men and found an envelope stuffed with Burmese currency in one of their pockets. Then he sprinted across the road to where the guard was standing, still paralyzed. Masuyo was staring at Nash curiously but was now showing no sign of fear. Nash next looked in the rear of the ambulance and saw the elderly woman in Masuyo’s prison uniform and wearing her shackles. He looked between the two women and could find no discernible difference. He could imagine that the substitute had been chosen for her natural similarity to the other woman and then perhaps she had undergone plastic surgery to make their appearances indistinguishable. Otherwise, the plan wouldn’t have worked.
Thura pulled the Jeep to a stop next to them.
“When do I drive like a bat out of hell?” he said to Nash.
“Soon.”
Temple poked his head out of the window. “That was some serious shit back there, Dillon. Good job.”
“Come and get her,” Nash said to Temple, as he indicated Masuyo.
Temple jumped out, helped the woman into the Jeep, and climbed into the rear seat next to her.