Page 70 of Freedom Fighters
“Fine!” Adjuno screamed back,his voice hoarse. He climbed again.
They went on, Adjuno’s near-miss stirring their adrenaline and making them even more cautious. Duardo copied Emile’s movement even more carefully, testing each hand and foot hold before moving on. The pack on his back, which was a conservative thirty pounds, pulled him outward. The lactic acid build-up in his hamstrings, quads, biceps and triceps was murderous,turning his limbs into heavy iron appendages that didn’t want to work properly.
The rope connecting him to Emile tugged. He looked up. Emile laid on the edge of the cliff, looking down at him. Duardo was six feet below the top.
“Take care!” Emile called. “The edge is powdery.”
The warning was well-judged. Finding himself so close to the top gave Duardo a spurt of adrenaline and spiked his pulse.It was too easy to grow careless in the last lap. Forcing himself to move slowly, he climbed up to the edge. He put his hand over the top…only to have the earth crumble under his grip and shower him with sediment and pebbles. He turned his face away and waited.
Emile picked up his hand, guided it to a sharp rock and curled his fingers over it. Duardo hauled himself over the edge and rolled awayfrom it. The pack halted his roll, leaving him on his side.
“Help the others,” he told Emile. He gave himself a mere twenty seconds to recover, then got stiffly to his feet. It was incredibly good to stand and walk.
He picked up the rope that connected him to Adjuno and took up the slack, reeling in the inches as Adjuno got closer to the top. Then Emile reached over and guided him over the edge.
Twenty minutes later, all seven of them lay or stood on the cliff edge. Duardo let them rest for a few minutes while he studied the sky. The bright day had disappeared while they climbed. Overhead, the cloud was thick and gray and moving fast. The air he pulled into his lungs was warm. Even if he had not studied every forecast for the area he could find, the scaly clouds and the air pressure wouldhave told him a bad storm was coming.
He glanced at his watch. “Ten-forty-three,” he pronounced. “We move out at ten-fifty-five, gentlemen. We have to make the compound by eleven-forty.”
The compound was seven kilometers away. If they kept up a steady jog, which was do-able on the flat wind-swept ground ahead of them, they would make it with time to spare for reconnaissance before heading in.All of his team were among the fittest men he knew. He had confidence they would make it now. The worst of the physical challenges was behind them.
He studied once more the rate the cloud was moving and his gut tightened.
Perhaps the worst was still to come, after all.
