Free Sudden Threat by AJ Tata Page A

heading back to where he had initially gained entrance to the compound, Matt retrieved his Leatherman and cut the fence. He pushed out a small section, scooted through it, then pushed the section back in, as if someone had just cut his way into the compound.
    A siren immediately began wailing in the background, and searchlights, those telescoping lights, began crisscrossing as if he were a prisoner escaping from Alcatraz. Behind him he heard the harsh commands of a Japanese guard team. His sense was that they had a general idea of his location but did not yet have a bead on him.
    With clarity, Matt understood that he was in a tenuous position. The facility behind him, teemed with armed Japanese soldiers, and the Pacific Ocean lay to his front.
    The trail on which he ran pushed him in a due easterly direction, and he could at last hear the water of Cateel Bay lapping at the shore. Two shots ricocheted through the leaves above his head. Probing. Spray and pray. They did not have a fix on him yet, he believed.
    He reached the beach, kneeling next to some chest-high scrub. Thankfully, he was in superb physical condition, and his breathing remained calm. He smelled the faint odor of dead fish, as if he was near an area where they were either dumped or cleaned. Or both.
    Listening, Matt heard the men talking in Japanese.
    “I’m getting a report of another break-in.”
    “Have the defenses go to full alert. We cannot afford a compromise at this point.”
    “Where are you going?”
    “I told you. To refuel and to inspect the fleet. I have already called for another engineer to take Abe’s place. I will talk to Talbosa about him. He is not to survive. Clear?”
    The conversation continued, but a coughing airplane engine drowned the voices.
    Matt looked all around, then into the bay, and for the first time noticed the float plane sitting about ten meters to his front. The tail of the airplane was toward the beach, and the prop wash blew directly onto him.
    He looked to the west along the trail he had traveled and saw the faint beam of flashlights sweeping and the disturbing sound of search dogs barking.
    Not good.
    Operating mostly on instinct, Matt tightened his rucksack on his back and moved parallel with the shoreline until he could enter the water near a grouping of Bangka boats. As he stepped into the bay, he could see the three men handling a small Zodiac, the sound of whose engine further masked his movement.
    By then all four turbo propellers of the airplane were spinning loudly. Matt waded behind a Bangka boat in which he had placed his rucksack and rifle. To the naked eye, the boat would appear to be drifting slowly toward the airplane, as Matt’s shoulders were just above the level of the warm water, but his head was below the rim of the boat.
    As he entered the backwash area of the propellers, he was blasted with salt water and hot air. He grabbed his ruck and rifle and pulled himself up onto the float plane’s landing gear well, which on that aircraft, was perpendicular to the fuselage as opposed to underneath it.
    He released the Bangka boat, and it blew onto the beach. Matt could still see the Zodiac making its way to the starboard side of the aircraft, so in one deft movement, he leapt inside the port cargo door and rolled to the floor. He brought his weapon up to eye level but only saw the darkened hull of an airplane and an open cockpit door.
    In his periphery, he saw the Zodiac approach. In the rear of the plane he found two pallets of combat rations, behind which he hid.
    The tall man with the pearl-handled revolver boarded and strode to the cockpit, where he entered and took a seat.
    Matt saw the man’s head swing around and stare at the rear of the airplane, directly at him. Matt tensed as he watched the Japanese man step out of the cockpit and walk toward him. The man pulled a long knife from a sheath opposite his holster as Matt cradled the SIG SAUER, his trigger finger firmly in place.
    The two pallets