They pushed deeper until the canopy began to thin and the slope changed. They’d followed the heat signature up into the western ridge basin along one of the older lava paths until the signs of disturbance began to show. Viper pointed to broken foliage, displaced soil, and a boot print half-masked by rain. “He’s close,” he said softly. “Less than half a klick.”
“Want to fan out?” Reaper asked.
“Negative. Maintain formation. He may have spotters.” They pressed on. Every step was deliberate, and every sound cataloged. The jungle quieted—the sounds of birds and insects faded away until all he could hear was the soft click of comms and the steady breath of his men. “Contact possible in five,” Viper said. He didn’t know what they were walking into, but he knew this much: they were close, and Al-Rami was out of time.
The pressure that preceded imminent battle coiled in Viper’s chest, the narrowing of his world into distance, velocity, target spread, and line of fire. The voices of his team dropped into a practiced murmur across comms and were barely audible even through the encrypted channel. He lifted two fingers.
Halt.
Trace and Juice stopped slightly behind him to his left. Reaper shifted position on the ridge to the right, zeroing in with his scope and thermal overlay. Kaze and Zero crouched low behind a berm of collapsed foliage and moss-covered rock.
Their targeted heat signature was now stationary, only seventy meters ahead. Intel showed the other two runners were circling back—one closing in from the north and the other in positional distance in a wide flank from the first. Their movements confirmed what he had speculated earlier: these were guards, lookouts, or both.
The bastard knows he’s being hunted.
Too fucking bad.
Viper touched his comms. “Split and close. Zero and Reaper sweep the left flank. Kaze hooks right. Juice and Trace, with me. Silence until breach. Hard kill if engaged.”
He listened for the confirmation clicks from his guys as he checked his rifle one last time.
Suppressor secured.
Optics clean.
Mag full.
The weight of the weapon in his hands steadied the pulse screaming in his blood. This was what they were made for. This was why the US Government called his team up when their target needed to vanish from the planet.
I will not fail those with whom I serve.
Viper and his team moved fast and low, skirting a half-dry gully that wound through a grove of stripped palms and into a bowl-shaped hollow formed by ancient lava collapse. The humidity climbed with every meter, curling around them like a wet towel soaked in ash.
Then he spotted the four camo-netted tarps strung between tree trunks, barely distinguishable from the undergrowth. Beneath them: crates, jerry cans, satcom gear, one portable stove, three bedrolls, and a folding table with a laptop, paper maps, and a field radio. And standing in the center of it all was the bastard he’d been searching for.
Al-Rami.
The asshole looked older than the image in the intel packet. His beard was shot through with grey. He was still thin, andunfortunately still very much alive. Viper’s jaw locked, and every rage-filled exhale burned his lungs.
You son of a bitch.
Al-Rami turned slightly, talking quietly to the guard with the earpiece and a semiautomatic over his shoulder who stood beside him.
Viper exhaled slowly, then tapped once on his trigger guard.
Go.
There was no shout and no call to arms—just three suppressed shots from Trace, Reaper, and Zero on the left. Both patrol guards dropped before their weapons cleared their shoulders. Then he and Juice hit the camp like a fucking hurricane. Viper cleared left, taking two shots in a tight grouping, removing both guards from that side of the field of play.
Juice flared right and caught another guard coming out of a tent. He dropped him with a round to the chest.
Al-Rami ducked low and scrambled behind the makeshift comms table, one hand going for a sidearm strapped to his thigh.
Too late.
Viper was on him in three strides. “Motherfucker,” he spat, and drove the butt of his rifle into Al-Rami’s shoulder before the man could level his weapon. Bones crunched, and Al-Rami screamed as his gun fell from his grasp. Viper followed him down, boot to his chest, rifle pressed under the chin. “Gabe Lansing sends his regards.” He had zero regrets as he squeezed his finger around the trigger.
I got him, Gabe.
