The rain slicked the windshield in streaks and turned their surroundings into a smear of jungle green and asphalt gray. In the front seat, Sawyer’s hands were steady on the wheel. Beside him, Cormac adjusted the sling on his M4. Neither spoke.

  As they sat tucked into the jungle, lodged between the trees just off the main road, Sawyer spotted a pair of headlights traveling toward them.

  “Bingo,” Sawyer muttered.

  The GCP troop transport rolled into view. It was armored, tan, and slow. It rumbled up the wet road. The black tarp over the back billowed in the wind. Six silhouettes shifted inside. It was the unit from the nearest combat outpost, the unit they were looking for. This was the first step of their operation to dismantle it.

  Sawyer flipped the switch. The lights and sirens burst to life. The police cruiser launched from its cover. Tires spat mud as it tore onto the road behind the transport. The GCP truck jolted and veered slightly. Then it slowed, unsure whether it was being stopped or escorted.

  It was perfect.

  Sawyer killed the siren and let the car drift to a halt behind the truck.

  “Got it?” Cormac said.

  “Yep.”

  He killed the siren and let the car drift to a halt behind the truck. They stepped out into the rain wearing the uniforms they retrieved from a couple of fallen officers in the valley. Sawyer wore a police cap which sat lopsided, much too small for Sawyer’s giant head, but he wouldn’t need it for long. Even Cormac knew this plan may all fall apart in the first couple of seconds because of their poor Spanish.

  Sawyer quickly moved to the side of the truck and held his pistol behind his back. With his other hand, he waved and extended a friendly smile to the driver who peered at him in the side mirror.

  The man in the driver’s seat barked at him when he approached. “?Alto! Fuera del vehículo!”

  Sawyer raised his silenced pistol.

  But the passenger had a 9mm in his grip and fired. The shot smacked into Sawyer’s neck. He dropped to one knee and coughed.

  The men inside shouted. The driver attempted to open his car door, but Sawyer formed a fist and punched it closed.

  He stood, eyes wide and furious, and placed two rounds in the passenger’s forehead. The man spasmed and dropped his gun. The driver fumbled to reach for his own weapon but Sawyer fired again, one clean shot through his chin. The man’s body went limp.

  Voices shouted from the back of the truck.

  “?Contacto!”

  “?Nos están atacando!”

  “?Dispárenles!”

  The rattling from Cormac’s M4 sounded off. The rounds punched through the tarp and pierced the soldier’s bodies, then pinging off the metal of the armored back. The shouts of the men inside were all cut short.

  The only sound left was the rain hissing on hot barrels and Sawyer’s hoarse ragged breath.

  Cormac sprinted to him. “You hit?”

  Sawyer pressed his palm to his neck. The wound had healed. “I’m good…I’m good…”

  “Nearly took your throat off.”

  Cormac climbed up into the back of the truck and stepped over the bodies. “Grab their gear.” He handed Sawyer an M4, who took it. “These rifles are clean. Full mag pouches.” He slung one of the dead soldier’s plate carriers over his chest. “Jackpot.”

  Sawyer reached into the cab and yanked open the glove compartment. He found a sealed operations packet in a plastic sleeve. Inside was a topographical map. It was hand annotated with outpost positions, patrol routes, and one location circled in red ink.

  “There,” he said. “That's where this truck came from. It’s the closest COP. It’s two miles southeast.”

  “Then let’s deliver the goods.”

  They changed out of the police outfits and into soldier’s uniforms, then crammed every soldier’s body into the police vehicle which they parked in the jungle. Cormac lobbed a lit match into the police cruiser which lit the incendiary trap, caught flames, and burned hot.

  Sawyer climbed behind the wheel of the troop transport vehicle.

  Cormac slid into the passenger’s seat and reloaded a fresh magazine.

  As they pulled down the misty road, neither said it out loud but the plan was clear. They would strike the GCP combat outpost and leave no witnesses. They’d make it appear as if the Kestrel brothers had never even been there.

  ###

  The troop transport creaked to a stop at the edge of the half collapsed bridge that spanned a trickling brown creek. The road ahead narrowed to a first trail that nearly swallowed the jungle. It was overgrown with ferns and strangler vines, and just wide enough for motorcycles or foot patrols.

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  Cormac hopped out first. His boots struck the muck. He glanced back at the transport. “Leave it. Too noisy and we’ll be blind on approach.”

  Sawyer nodded and stepped down. His boots splashed in the mud. He raised his M4 and scouted the immediate area while Cormac pulled the truck deeper into the forest and cleared the path. They let the jungle claim it. In a couple of days it would look like it had been parked there for years.

  Weapons ready, they disappeared into the trees.

  They didn’t speak. Every boot fall was calculated. The birds quieted around them. Branches curved overhead. The combat outpost wasn’t far, less than a mile. They moved low and fast until the glint of metal came through the trees.

  Cormac raised a fist.

  They halted in the brush.

  The jungle ahead opened into a clearing the size of a football field carved crudely into the terrain. The dirt lot held three structures, each more pitiful than the last. One was a rusted Quonset hut with a sheet metal door which barely clung to its hinges. Another was a plywood watch post elevated on cinder blocks. The third looked like a makeshift barracks, a canvas tent with reinforced corners and patched holes.

  They split in opposite directions. They each found a tree and climbed high. Sawyer used his boot notches in the bark and old vines as makeshift rope. When he settled into position, they spoke to each other in voices barely above a whisper.

  “Kestrel-2 in position,” Cormac said through the wireless.

  “Kestrel-1 eyes on. You seeing what I’m seeing?”

  “Yeah. Outpost is held together with duct tape. Four GCP soldiers. Two are patrolling the perimeter. One is by the water barrel. Another is smoking by the latrine.”

  Sawyer peered through his scope. “They’re armed. AKs. But they’re sloppy. No overwatch. No tripwires.”

  “Might as well be summer camp in Kandahar,” Cormac muttered. “But we still go full cleanup.”

  Below one of the soldiers scratched his ass with his rifle barrel. Another one picked something from his teeth. They weren’t even close to professionals.

  But then he caught something else.\

  There was a blur of movement behind the Quonset hut. It was too fast. He wasn’t armed.

  “Hold,” Sawyer whispered. “We’ve got a fifth.”

  “Where?”

  “Behind the metal hut. Civilian, maybe.”

  “Could be an officer?”

  “Either way, be cautious.”

  “We deal with the four first. Then we handle the fifth.”

  “Copy.”

  They climbed down.

  Cormac’s descent was fast and efficient. Sawyer’s was slower and more deliberate. At the base of a tree, both men checked their rifles in the dark.

  Cormac cracked a grin. “You’re not going to go beast mode this time are you?”

  Sawyer smirked and inspected his magazine. The brass tips gleamed faintly in the moonlight. “No. The old fashioned way.”

  He slapped the magazine back into the M4.

  “Quiet. Fast. Precise.”

  Cormac chambered a round and checked his sling. “That’s how I operate.”

  They melted into the foliage toward their target.

  In the clearing ahead, the outpost stood fragile and oblivious. One of the guards scratched at a mosquito bite and leaned lazily against a support beam.

  Tonight, it was time to deliver a message.

  ###

  They didn’t sneak. They struck with intense focus.

  Sawyer charged from the tree line first. His boots thudded across the damp earth. His rifle kicked against his shoulder as he dropped the perimeter guard near the water drums with two quick bursts to the chest. That sent the soldier flailing backward into the mud.

  The sound lit up the compound. The others reacted quickly.

  “Contact!” someone screamed.

  Boots scrambled across gravel.

  Cormac burst out from their flank and slammed against the second soldier. He pinned him against the wall. The man grunted and threw an elbow wildly. It caught Cormac in the temple and staggered him. The soldier went for his rifle, but Cormac tackled him down to the ground and wrestled for it. He slammed his fists into the man’s face. The man grabbed Cormac’s plate carrier, his teeth were bared like an animal. Cormac roared and drove his knife into the man’s ribs. The soldier’s scream was strangled and cut short as he gurgled blood. Cormac twisted the blade and yanked it free, letting the body fall limp.

  Behind them, the third soldier bull rushed them.

  Sawyer turned to fire on the man, but somehow he caught him off guard and kneed him in the rubs. The air escaped his lungs. The soldier swung his fists at his cheeks and collar bone. Sawyer struggled to aim the barrel of his rifle as the man assaulted him. Sawyer could have used brute strength, but using a firearm came instinctually so he twisted, grabbed the soldier’s pistol from his belt, and shot him three times in the ribs.

  The soldier stiffened, coughed blood, and fell like a sack of meat.

  Cormac limped over. Blood truckled from a cut above his brow. “You alright?”

  Sawyer wiped his mouth. “He punched like a linebacker.”

  “His girlfriend over there tried to shoot me in the leg, but his aim was terrible.”

  Another soldier opened fire. Splinters burst into the air from a nearby palm. The muzzle flashed near the edge of the Quonset hut. Cormac dove behind a steel drum while Sawyer fleeted low and wide.

  The soldier fired his AK-47 in a wild panic.

  Click. Click. Click.

  The soldier had emptied his magazine.

  Sawyer popped up from cover and returned fire. The soldier screamed and dropped to one knee. Cormac emerged a second later and shot him clean through the head. Steam rose hot from his barrel and his chests heaved.

  “Four down,” Cormac said.

  Sawyer crouched beside one of the bodies. He saw the marks. They weren’t bullet wounds. They were two perfect punctures, just under the dead soldier’s jawline.

  “Cormac,” he called.

  His brother moved to another body and checked the neck. “Same marks.”

  They each examined the four. Every one of them had been bitten.

  “But they aren’t vamps,” Cormac said.

  “No,” Sawyer muttered.

  He stood slowly and scanned the huts. “There was a fifth,” he said. “I saw him.”

  “Where is he now?”

  Sawyer looked at the trail behind the shack. It was dark and obscured by hanging vines. Cormac’s knuckles flexed. He raised his rifle. “Let’s find him. Then we burn it down.”