Scorpion Strike. John Gilstrap

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Scorpion Strike - John  Gilstrap A Jonathan Grave Thriller

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a full accounting when we get back,” Gail said.

      With that, they turned and headed to the big golf cart. Jonathan half expected to have to fight the others from climbing aboard, but was relieved when they decided to stay in place. Gail slid into the driver’s seat and grinned up at him. “You can ride up front with me, if you want,” she said, and she stuck out her tongue.

      “Oh, so it’s going to be that way, is it?” He walked to the shotgun seat and they took off.

      The path was every bit as rough on the back half as it was on the first half. Jonathan hung on to the roof post to keep from getting bounced out.

      “I’m not used to these kinds of bumps,” he said. “Normally, Boxers drives, and his mass smooths it all out.”

      He got the laugh he was trolling for. Boxers was Jonathan’s longtime friend and battle buddy from back in the days when they were both in the Army. Nearly seven feet tall and built like a tree, he was the most lethal human being Jonathan had ever known. As much as Big Guy had no place on a romantic retreat to an exotic island, it would have been great to have him on board now.

      They drove with the headlights off, but there was enough ambient light to make out important things, like shifts in the road and obstructions. Holes were a little tougher to spot, explaining some of the bigger bumps.

      Gail pointed ahead. “Think that’s our roadblock?” The berm appeared as a horizontal black stripe across the path, maybe twenty-five yards ahead.

      “It’s clearly man-made,” Jonathan said. He whispered very softly now, his words barely audible. “Stop here and kill the motor.”

      They sat in silence in the cacophony of jungle night sounds while Jonathan listened for anything out of the ordinary. Mechanical sounds, battle rattle, voices, anything.

      “I think we’re alone,” Gail said.

      “I think you’re right. You know, we’ve never done it in a golf cart.” He got the glare he expected. “I’m going to walk up to the berm and make sure things are clear.”

      “Find a route for me to get around that thing in this thing,” Gail said.

      “Yep.” He slid out of his seat and walked down the path, using deliberate steps, heel-toe, heel-toe, in a fluid rotation that looked odd as hell to those whose survival had never depended on stealth.

      The berm was taller than he thought it was going to be, every bit of eight feet. Because this was the goddamn jungle, where if you dropped a seed today you’d have a tree tomorrow, it was thick with vegetation. It was hard to make out detail on this side of the berm because of its moon shadow, but the darkness moved as the flora moved with the breeze. He considered climbing over to peer at his surroundings from the top, but opted to walk around the side, instead. He had to blaze a trail for the cart, anyway.

      He followed the base of the berm around to the left. If Tyler and Jaime had passed this way in their carts, you couldn’t tell from the foliage, at least not in the dark. But the plant life near the base was of the fern variety—as opposed to the tree variety, which was the total limit of Jonathan’s spectrum of horticultural knowledge—so with a little momentum, the cart shouldn’t have any trouble navigating around it.

      Jonathan brought his rifle to his shoulder as he rounded the berm to the front side. Old habits died hard, and he’d never seen a downside to being ready to shoot, just in case. He moved slowly, as ever aware of his footfalls. Over the centuries, while human eyesight hadn’t adapted its acuity to the dark, it had evolved to sense motion perhaps more readily in darkness than in light. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d wandered at night with a rifle, yet without NVGs—night-vision goggles. Without that kind of force multiplier, he was just another guy with ammunition and a bang stick.

      The far side of the berm—the front side—looked pretty much like the back, with more crumbling pavement at his feet.

      He scanned continuously for targets as he advanced forward, but saw nothing but night. Finally, about twenty yards out, he found the fresh pavement of the main road. It intersected the old path at a right angle. He looked left and then right, but saw nothing worrisome. He closed his eyes and stood unmoving for the better part of a minute, letting his ears earn their keep. Nothing there, either. That was good.

      He walked back and summoned Gail to come on through.

      Twenty minutes later, the grade of the road shifted steeply downhill, and the darkness ahead brightened. “I remember this from the day we arrived,” Gail said. “The docks are just down at the bottom on the right.”

      “Look at the way they’ve got the place lit up,” Jonathan said. “They’re clearly not worried about being spotted or getting caught.”

      “Caught doing what?”

      “Well, that’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it? Can you find a spot to pull this off the road and behind some bushes? I want to approach on foot.”

      The perfect spot lay about thirty yards closer to the light, where a tree had fallen, but never quite made it to the ground because of interference from nearby foliage. The effect was to create a leafy cave that was just about the width and height of the cart. Gail pulled it in until it could go no farther, and they set off down the hill on foot.

      They walked on the pavement as close as they could to the edge. If someone approached, they could jump out of sight. That assumed that their opposing forces continued to disregard light and noise discipline.

      “Has there been much radio traffic about us?” Gail whispered.

      “They know our names—well, the names we gave them—and they’re trying to find likenesses of us. They’re not pleased to be missing rifles and ammunition.”

      “And tell me why, exactly, you think it’s important to check out this boat.”

      “To gather intel,” Jonathan said. He didn’t know how to state it more clearly, because he didn’t understand how it wasn’t obvious. “As they say at Faber College, knowledge is good.”

      “You know there’s only two of us. We can’t possibly fight them all.”

      “I don’t see that we have a choice. These people are terrorists. They’ve already killed. If we surrender, we’re sure to die. If we fight, we’ve got a chance.”

      “Just remember that I’m not Big Guy.”

      Jonathan scowled at her. “Surely, that was not an apology,” he said.

      “No, just an observation. I’m not a ‘fight first, ask questions later’ kind of girl.”

      “Got it,” Jonathan said. It was a quirk of Gail’s personality that he could not understand. He got that she was a lawyer, and that she’d cut her teeth in law enforcement and not the military, but she had trouble adjusting to the significance of her skills and abilities in the world of door-kickers. They’d talked about this many times before.

      If he had his way, they would not talk about it again tonight. They had way too much work to do.

      CHAPTER 8

      THE INVADERS’ BOAT, IT TURNED OUT, WAS MORE

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