Reacher counted muzzle flashes. At least eight hostiles, maybe more. They were using AK-47s, the distinctive crack of the Kalashnikov unmistakable even through his damaged hearing. The rebels were firing on full auto, spraying rounds through the jungle with more enthusiasm than accuracy. But at this range, accuracy didn't matter much. Volume of fire would do the job just fine.
A rebel broke from cover, trying to flank their position. Reacher saw him through the undergrowth—a young guy,maybe twenty, wearing mismatched fatigues and a red bandana. Communist-aligned, probably one of the FMLN fighters who'd been causing hell in the region.
Reacher put his front sight post on the man's center mass and squeezed the trigger. Three rounds, a tight group. The rebel went down hard, his AK clattering away into the brush. He didn't get back up.
"Two more on the right,” Kinsman shouted.
Reacher swung his rifle right, ignoring the way his vision grayed at the edges from the movement. Two more rebels were advancing through the jungle, using fire and movement tactics. One would shoot while the other moved forward, then they'd switch.
The lead rebel made it to within thirty meters before Reacher dropped him with a headshot. The man's skull came apart in a pink mist, and his body crumpled. The second rebel dove for cover, but Kinsman was already on him. The CO's rounds stitched across the rebel's back, punching through his spine and dropping him face-first into the mud.
"Reloading!" Kinsman called out.
Reacher provided cover fire, sweeping his barrel across the jungle, looking for targets. His shoulder was on fire now, a deep burning that radiated down his arm and across his chest. He could feel blood running down his side, soaking into his pants. The shrapnel had done more damage than he'd initially thought.
But his trigger finger still worked, and that was all that mattered.
A rebel popped up from behind a tree, his AK already firing. Rounds snapped past Reacher's head, so close he could feel the supersonic crack. He returned fire, walking his rounds up from the tree trunk to the rebel's position. One round caught the man in the shoulder, spinning him around. The second hit him in the neck. The third took off the top of his head.
"Kinsman! We need to move!" Reacher's voice sounded strange in his own ears, muffled and distant. "They're going to flank us!"
"Working on it!" Kinsman had finished his reload and was back in the fight, his rifle barking in steady three-round bursts. "We've got to get to the extraction point! Half a klick north!"
Half a kilometer. Through hostile jungle. While being pursued by an unknown number of enemy combatants. With Reacher barely able to stand and Mave?—
Reacher looked at Mave again. She hadn't moved. The blood had stopped pulsing from her wounds. That was bad. That meant her heart had stopped pumping.
A grenade landed five feet from Reacher's position.
He saw it tumbling through the air, a small dark sphere that meant death. No time to think. He rolled left, pushing himself with his good arm, ignoring the way his body screamed in protest. The grenade detonated with a flat CRUMP that he felt more than heard, and shrapnel whined through the space where he'd been lying a second before.
His ears, which had just started to recover from the first blast, went back to ringing. Louder this time. The world became a silent movie, all action and no sound except for that goddamn high-pitched whine.
Kinsman was moving, firing as he went, laying down suppressing fire that forced the rebels to keep their heads down. He got to Reacher's position and grabbed him by the drag handle on the back of his vest.
"Let’s go!"
Reacher got his legs under him. Barely. The world spun and he had to lock his knees to keep from falling. Kinsman was already moving again, pulling Reacher along, half-dragging him through the jungle. They moved in bounds, one covering whilethe other moved, a two-man tactical retreat that would have made their instructors proud.
The rebels weren't giving up. They pressed the attack, moving through the jungle with ease. This was their territory, their home ground. They knew every trail, every hiding spot, every avenue of approach.
A rebel appeared directly in front of them, materializing out of the jungle like a ghost. He was close, maybe ten feet away. His AK was coming up, finger already on the trigger.
Reacher shot him in the face.
The rebel's head snapped back and he went down, but two more took his place. Kinsman engaged the one on the left while Reacher took the right. They fired simultaneously, their rounds crossing in midair. Both rebels dropped.
"Move!" Kinsman was shouting, though Reacher could barely hear him. The CO had taken point now, leading them north through the jungle, toward the secondary extraction point. If they could make it. If the helicopters were still coming and if they didn't bleed out first.
Reacher's legs felt like they were made of lead. Each step was an effort, a conscious decision to keep moving forward. His shoulder had gone from burning to numb, which was worse. Numbness meant nerve damage and he was losing a lot of blood.
He stumbled, went down on one knee. Kinsman was there immediately, hauling him back up.
Reacher got his feet back under him.
They kept moving.
The jungle was a nightmare of green and brown, vines and roots that grabbed at their feet, branches that slapped at their faces. Reacher's vision was tunneling, the edges going dark. He focused on Kinsman's back, on putting one foot in front of the other. Left. Right. Left. Right.
