“Be at Bolling in two hours,” John said. “I’ll get you, your team, and your gear down there. It will be up to you to get everyone back out.”
Landon nodded. “I’ll get them out.”
“And, Landon,” John said as they headed for the door. “When you get back, we need to talk.”
Landon just nodded.
“Eight of us?” Clayne asked when they got to the lobby.
Angelo was wondering the same thing. It couldn’t be any of the guys from the A-Team because they were all out in Monterey brushing up on their Tajik before the deployment.
“Eight,” Landon confirmed as he led the way to the parking garage.
Clayne grunted. “Whoever these other guys are, they’d better be damn good because we’re already going to be seriously outgunned.”
“Don’t worry,” Landon said. “They’re good.”
Now Angelo was even more curious.
Chapter 4
“Don’t move,” Declan whispered softly in Kendra’s ear.
She nodded, but otherwise remained motionless—as much as she could, considering she was probably freezing to death. Being submerged to your neck in cold water and even colder mud could do that. It didn’t help that the temperature had dropped ten degrees after the sun had gone down. But while the mud was uncomfortable as hell, it was the only thing keeping them alive right now.
The hybrids had chased them nonstop since he and Kendra had crawled out of the helicopter wreckage. It had taken every skill he’d ever learned as a forest ranger just to stay ahead of the bastards. If he hadn’t stumbled across a patch of tulip orchids and recognized them for what they were, he and Kendra would have been dead hours ago. Luckily, the hybrids’ sense of smell wasn’t much better than Declan’s, so rubbing the pungent cinnamon-scented flowers all over their skin and clothes had masked their scent.
Unfortunately, it didn’t trick the creatures entirely. Since the hybrids couldn’t seem to track them by scent, they formed a noose around the area and slowly tightened it until he and Kendra had nowhere left to run but into the stream. Instead of a shallow crossing, they found themselves hip deep in thick mud.
As the hybrids converged on their location, Declan did the only thing he could think of—he pulled Kendra against him and sank down into the slime that lined the edge of the water until only their heads were above it. Thankfully, there were enough ferns growing near the bank to hide them.
He hoped the hybrids would sniff around awhile, then leave, but almost half an hour later, there were still nearly a dozen hybrids prowling around, snarling at each other about who’d let the quarry slip through the trap.
Kendra shivered as two of the beasts moved nearer, their eyes glowing scarlet in the darkness. Declan pulled her closer underneath the water. He didn’t blame her for being terrified. Not even hanging around Tanner had prepared him for just how rabid these things could be. The reports Ivy and Landon had written didn’t do them justice.
Around them, the hybrids suddenly fell silent. A moment later, the human soldiers with them did the same.
Declan tensed.Whatthehell…?
A huge hybrid moved into the thin slice of moonlight along the shore barely fifteen feet from him and Kendra.
Damn.
The dark-haired hybrid on the far side of the stream was at least a half foot taller than Declan and a good fifty or sixty pounds heavier. He was more animalistic than the other hybrids, too. His upper fangs were so long they almost hung below his jawline, like some kind of freaking saber-toothed tiger. His claws were just as big, nearly as long as his fingers. But it was the thing’s eyes that were freaky. They didn’t simply glow red. They burned like fire. Hell, they even flickered.
“Where are they?” the monster demanded.
Every hybrid in the clearing ducked his head and stared at the ground—except one. The beast nearest the big guy stepped forward with a quick nod.
“They’ve slipped through our line. We’ve lost them, Marcus.”
The big hybrid—Marcus—turned to scowl at the other creature. But the monster giving the report didn’t back down and instead stood his ground like a man used to delivering bad news. If Declan had to guess, this hybrid was Marcus’s second-in-command.
Marcus looked mad enough to rip off someone’s head, but the second-in-command didn’t say anything else to provoke his boss. One of the men standing behind them wasn’t as wary.
“You didn’t cast the net wide enough to start with, Captain,” he said, taking a step forward. “These agents aren’t morons like the locals around here. They know what they’re up against, and I guarantee they made a beeline for the Panama border the second they got out of that chopper. You’ve let them get a good head start on us. If you would’ve just listened to me—”
The man never finished his thought because Marcus raked his big-ass claws across the man’s neck and upper chest in a strike so fast it was nearly impossible to follow the movement.
