He saw Lopez hurl herself down behind a tree trunk, covering her face as chips of bark showered down across the foliage around her. The shooting stopped, the Everglades silent in the heat again as leaves and bark chips dislodged by bullets drifted down around Ethan. He squinted through the reeds and saw Purcell lying on the sand, the side of his chest a bloody mess, and he felt a crushing melancholy for the man’s tragic sacrifice. Then he saw the camera pinned beneath the scientist’s body. ‘We’ve got to get that camera!’ Ethan whispered to Lopez. ‘Where the hell’s Bryson?’ she asked in reply. Ethan aimed his rifle through the reeds, searching for muzzle flash or signs of movement. He was expecting another broadside of gunfire, not the pair of grenades that thumped down onto the sand barely ten feet from where he lay. ‘Grenades!’ Ethan leapt to his feet with Lopez and they both sprinted away from the spit of land as another hail of automatic fire swept the forest around them.
