“Go get it, stupid!” Esteban snarled, then stopped as he saw a human eye blink in the carpet of leaves alongside the fallen man.
Faster than ghosts escaping from the grave, five large men in military-camouflaged ghillie suits erupted from the ground, the MP-5 submachine guns in their hands blowing flame and death. Five of the mercenaries died on the spot, the rest of the group diving for cover in the ferns and poinciana bushes.
“They’re underground!” Julio bellowed unnecessarily, the Uzi spraying lead. One of the subterranean warriors dodged out of the way. But another took a full burst in the chest. Yes! However, the 9 mm rounds only tore off patches of wet fabric from the ghillie suits, exposing some sort of molded body armor underneath.
Snarling, Esteban added the yammering fury of the M-60 with the same results. The sight sent icy-cold adrenaline into his stomach. Body armor that could stop a .308 round? These weren’t DEA agents, but U.S. Special Forces! What was going on here?
Spreading out, the five camouflaged strangers moved into the greenery, their weapons firing in short, controlled bursts. Screams of pain and bitter cursing came from everywhere. A grenade exploded, the fireball pushing back the jungle dampness for a searing heartbeat.
Bracketing the blast with suppressive rounds from the hammering M-60, Esteban knew that wasn’t one of their grenades. It was something the Army called Willie Peter—white phosphorous—and it could roast the flesh from a person in under a heartbeat.
Constantly on the move, Kalashnikovs yammered in the gloom, the fiery flowers from the muzzles strobing in the thick foliage. The MP-5 submachine guns answered briefly in return, and more mercenaries shrieked into agonizing death.
Firing steadily, Julio backed toward the truck. When the Uzi clicked empty, he dropped the weapon to draw the shotgun. Crouching, the merc leader waited for a target. A shadowy figure lurched from the dripping vines and Julio gave it both barrels. In the bright muzzle flash, he was horrified to see that it was one of his own men. Fuck! Spinning, the mercenary tumbled back into the bushes, leaving a ghastly crimson trail.
Then a big man rose from the bushes, dropping a spent clip into his MP-5. Cracking the sawed-off shotgun, Julio frantically ejected the spent 12-gauge shells and shoved in fresh ones. Raising the shotgun, he saw that the other man was holding a crossbow, of all things. They fired in unison. The shotgun blast obliterated the plants alongside the big soldier, and Julio staggered backward, the long black quarrel from the crossbow sticking out of his shoulder.
Blood gushing from the wound, Julio tried to stanch the flow with his bare hands when he violently collided with a tree, the blow almost knocking him unconscious. He lost his vision for a time period, and silence filled the world.
Sight and sound returned with a vengeance, the jar shocking him painfully alert. Machine guns and assault rifles blazed away constantly all around him, then a grenade exploded nearby and Julio weakly looked up just in time to see his brother flying limply into the air, his arms and legs traveling in different directions. Fury filled his mind, but his body refused to obey and Julio slumped weakly against the tree, tears of rage coursing down his dirty cheeks.
A few moments later it was over. Only the five strangers were still standing, the bloody ground of the crude jungle path dotted with shiny spent brass and twitching corpses.
“T.J., give me a BDH,” David McCarter ordered brusquely, reloading his MP-5 machine gun. “Calvin, see to that man! Everybody else, watch the perimeter.”
The members of Phoenix Force moved without comment.
Gingerly checking his neck, McCarter found that he was bleeding slightly from a graze along the side where one of the mercs had come too close with a thrown knife. A former member of the vaunted British SAS, and now the leader of Phoenix Force, David McCarter was surprised a mercenary had gotten that close. Most professional soldiers held mercs in the same low esteem they did body lice, just something to crush when they got annoying.
Going to the panting leader of the Puerto Rican mercenaries, Calvin James looked down at the man and said nothing for a moment, watching how the blood came from the arrow wound. It was flowing, but not pumping. No arteries had been nicked, then. Good. This guy might just live if he cooperated. The tallest member of the team, Calvin James was a Navy SEAL, the field medic for the team and one of the best underwater demolitionists his teammates had ever seen.
“Drop the knife,” James ordered, his accent a growl of pure southside Chicago. He was still holding the MP-5, but his finger wasn’t on the trigger.
Looking down, Julio was surprised to see that he was holding a switchblade knife. He had no recollection of pulling the weapon. Forcing his fingers apart, he let the blade drop into the moss.
“Better,” James said, slinging the weapon and swinging around a medical kit. “Now, I can stop the bleeding, but it’s going to hurt. And I mean a lot.”
“B-bah. I—I am not…not afraid,” Julio wheezed, sweat running down his pale face.
“You should be,” James replied stoically and, without another comment, he yanked the arrow free.
White-hot pain lanced through Julio, and he barely had a chance to scream before completely losing consciousness.
As the merc went limp, James pulled out a knife to start cutting away the crimson-soaked fabric so he could clean the wound.
With a Beretta in one hand and the MP-5 in the other, T. J. Hawkins warily approached McCarter, his expression grim.
“We’ve got a problem,” Hawkins stated. “I count seventeen dead bodies.”
Every member of Phoenix Force heard that over their earplugs and went instantly alert.
Standing with his back to a kapok tree, Rafael Encizo tightened his grip on the MP-5 just as drop of moisture fell from the leaves above to hit the hot barrel. The water sizzled into steam. A heavy, stocky man with catlike reflexes, Encizo was less than handsome, his face carrying the scars of too many battles. But the rough looks beguiled a razor-sharp mind.
“You sure about that?” Encizo whispered, studying the area.
Trying to appear casual, Hawkins scratched his nose. “Definite.”
“Shit.” Gary Manning grunted at the pronouncement. The big Canadian shrugged the massive bolt-action rifle strapped across his back to a more comfortable position. Manning was the sniper for Phoenix Force, and his weapon of choice was the infamous .50-caliber Barrett rifle. The colossal weapon fired a bullet that could penetrate most light-tank armor and blow holes through brick walls from a mile away. The colossal Barrett was a deadly machine of distant termination, but only in the hands of an expert marksman.
“Seventeen,” Manning whispered, squinting at the still forms scattered in the gory mud. “But I thought that Aaron said the Miguel brothers always rode with a crew of twenty.”
Down the jungle path, the headlights of the truck suddenly came on, bathing Phoenix Force in a harsh illumination.
“They do!” McCarter yelled, moving and firing at the same time.
As the team separated fast, the V-12 engine loudly came to life and the truck started rolling forward, rapidly increasing speed. From behind the vehicle, something even brighter flashed and smoke puffed.
“Rocket!”
