Perfect Stranger Read Free Page A

jungle, his remaining men following behind
him.
    The ambush had come from out of nowhere.
None of them had expected a damn thing, only reacted, putting to
use the years of training they had committed to.
    Maloney was dead, and MacKall MIA. The
hostiles had probably captured his fellow team member.
    Flashes of gunfire surrounded from all
directions as they made the road where one of the trucks waited,
camouflaged and at the ready. The smell of gunpowder from the many
explosions hung heavy in the laden air, so strong that the acrid
taste lingered on Jericho's tongue.
    At least his team hadn’t left without doing
damage. However, he needed more men, and he needed them now, before
the hostiles quickly disappeared, alerted to their presence.
Already they should have had a team on the ground canvassing the
area for those fleeing a scene that should not have happened, but
as challenged as their mission was, only one team—his team—had been
sent to the area. They needed more men to come back to extract
MacKall and… Jericho swallowed hard as he ran, thinking of
Maloney's young wife. The couple hadn't been married a year.
    Determination flared, charging his blood
with the need for retribution.
    He would see Maloney's body returned
home.
    They left no one behind.
    Jericho broke into the little clearing, his
men hot on his heels, and grabbed the side of the camo net and
pulled the cover to the ground as he rounded the truck. He slung
the leafy mesh away and threw open the door, taking the driver's
seat. The truck bounced with the weight of his other two team
members as they jumped in. Gunner took shotgun while Butler threw
himself into the bed of the truck, snapping a new magazine into his
SCAR, or Special Forces Combat Assault Rifle.
    "Goin' hot," Butler yelled, returning fire
from the back as they spun out, dust kicking up on the unpaved
road.
    Too soon did a strangled yell come from the
bed of the truck. "I've been hit," Butler called to Jericho and
Gunner.
    "Thirty-minutes ETA to safe house," Gunner
said from the passenger seat, tossing the navigational device aside
to take up an RPG from he backseat. "Can you make it?" he asked as
he swung himself halfway out the window to take aim at the jeep
trailing them much too closely for anyone's liking. Their follower
bounced along on the dirt road behind them, fishtailing in the soft
sand. One of their men got off a few more shots.
    " Hooah ," Butler called. "You're
clear," he said.
    "Rocket out!" Gunner braced himself as he
fired, stalling to watch as his target exploded and the jeep
flipped end over end.
    "They're down!" Butler shouted with a
whoop.
    A faint relief raced down Jericho's spine.
This night wasn't over yet—they had only just begun.
    "We'll grab gear and head back out," he said
to the remainder of his five-man team as they sped from the dense
jungle. The only other thing he had to do was transmit the location
of the compound back to Central and request reinforcement. "We have
a man down and one taken by hostiles. They won't be left
behind."
    The other men gave a loud, heart-felt
“hooah” in unison.
    Exactly thirty minutes later they rolled
into the small shed they used as a garage to the side of the safe
house. Jericho killed the engine as they all hopped out to shut the
shed doors so the truck wouldn't be seen.
    Not one of them wasn’t looking over his
shoulder as they started across the small yard. However, as they
all noticed the two birds in an empty adjacent lot to the side, a
deeper concern flickered through the group. The black sides of the
identical helicopters were glossed to perfection, and a pair of
pilots remained behind, though they pretended to ignore Jericho and
his two men.
    As Gunner and Butler
bemoaned what, or rather who, might be awaiting them inside,
Jericho felt pretty certain he knew exactly who waited on
them—and his timing couldn’t be worse. He shook his head in annoyance, and
with a heavy stride, he stalked up onto the small