Philippine Hardpunch Read Online Free PDF Page B

pole, raising both hands clenched into fists like a man discovering his own strength
     for the first time.
    Cody hurtled over to undo the cuffs of Mrs. Jeffers.
    The sharp little metallic
snip!
sound was like someone snapping his fingers to awaken a hypnotist’s subject, the cutting loose of Mrs. Jeffers’ bonds somehow
     unfettering her physical shackles and the mental chains of shock that had almost closed her mind off altogether. Almost. Mrs.
     Jeffers blinked once, twice, and gasped when she comprehended the apparition before her of a big man in combat camou wielding
     a CAR-15. Her eyes then instinctively sought her husband, behind Cody. She ran to him, throwing her arms around him.
    “Cal… Cal! Am I dreaming? Oh, my God…”
    Jeffers hugged his wife to him.
    “No dream, honey—it’s happening!”
    He released her. They both turned to where Cody snipped apart Ann’s handcuffs.
    “W-who are you, mister?” Louise Jeffers asked in the voice of a person regaining strength by the second.
    Mother and father rushed to their daughter.
    “Call me a friend. Name’s Cody. We’re here to take you home.”
    Auto rifle fire pounded from not far beyond the walls of this hut, more than one weapon yammering angry bursts at each other.
    Cody reached down to scoop up Ann Jeffers with his left arm, hoisting her little, slim, tightly curved body over that shoulder,
     holding the unconscious lady in place, his arm looped tightly around her, bracing her to him, his hand fisting the CAR-15
     which he held levered against his right hip.
    The rifle fire from outside died down, echoing away amid the jungle denseness.
    Cody motioned the Jefferses toward the door leading out of the hut, where Rufe Murphy crouched, eyeballing the scene out there.
    The Jefferses went to the door to stand just behind Murphy’s bulk.
    Cody crossed the hut’s interior after them, halfway to the door when the ground beneath their feet shivered to an awesome
     thunderclap that gobbled up the shouting men reacting to the gunfire, everything. Cody practically ignored the big boom.
    Mr. and Mrs. Jeffers reared back from the doorway and saw for the first time the lifeless, purple-faced body of the orderly
     strangled by Cody on his way in.
    Murphy eased out of the hut. Cody joined him.
    Across the way, a flaming, smoky pile of rubble was all that remained of where the munitions shed had stood one second earlier,
     when the commandos had entered the hut.
    Rebels dashed in that direction. Confusion reigned, none of it directed toward the h.q. hut in these milliseconds after the
     explosion. Pieces of debris pitched to the ground, clouds of smoke roiling across the base to merge with the mist, lessening
     visibility ever more, adding to the confusion.
    “Uh, looks like Hawkeye and the ‘bag got themselves in a bind,” Murphy noted dryly, eyeing Cody for some indication of how
     to play this unraveling scenario.
    “Looks like our guys are getting themselves out of it, too,” Cody growled.
    Murphy looked around, followed Cody’s line of vision.
    Two vehicles burst out from the smoke and mist.
    Two Chor-7s, one zipping behind the other, both with M-60 machine guns mounted on their tail ends sped toward the h.q. hut
     from the direction of the motor pool, now hidden behind a wall of billowing smoke from the hut next to the munitions shed,
     which caught fire.
    Some of Locsin’s men reached the destroyed, flaming munitions shed, then charges within that rubble began detonating, sending
     men scurrying for cover, adding to the melee and the cloudiness smearing across the scene, again temporarily shrouding it
     from view.
    Richard Caine, in the lead, steered his Chor-7 into a skidding, dirt-flinging halt in front of the h.q. hut.
    Hawkeye careened his vehicle to a stop right behind Caine.
    “Someone hereabouts call for a taxi?” Hawkeye drawled from behind his steering wheel.
    “What about the rest of those vehicles?” Murphy growled with a nod in the