Search and Destroy Read Free Page B

whatever fate the attackers had planned for her, or risk breaking her neck by going over the edge. An unseen rock decided for her as her ankle slammed into the unyielding obstacle. There was a moment of terror. Then she fell into darkness.

4
    The gunman known as “Mark” watched as his target tumbled out of view with a screech in an uncoordinated somersault. Another man joined him, looking over the drop. The night-vision goggles they wore turned the vista an unearthly green. They watched as the woman bounced and tumbled down the steep incline. Even from their elevated position they heard a resounding crack as she hit a rocky outcrop. Then she disappeared from view.
    He sucked air between his front teeth. “She’ll be a bag o’ bones at the bottom.”
    “You were supposed to shoot her in the leg, and only if absolutely necessary. She’s valuable until we have the package.”
    “I did. Well, I clipped her, anyway.”
    “You’d better shape up, Mark. Topcat will tear you a new one if we don’t deliver on this. You’d better not have killed her.”
    Mark shrugged, trying to feign nonchalance.
    “And your radio lead must be loose. I could hear static bursts all the way over from my position.”
    Mark tapped the walkie-talkie unit at his waist. The resulting
csssht
made him wince.
    The other man raised his own walkie-talkie. “This is Matthew. Bring up the ATVs. The target went over the edge. We need to get to the base of the hill and collect the package.” He turned to Mark. “Search the vehicle.”
    As Mark started going through the Jeep’s contents, he heard a low growl of engines. Thirty seconds later, two Kawasaki All Terrain Vehicles rolled to a stop behind the Jeep.
    Matthew spoke. “The two males are down. The girl took a swan dive over there.”
    The two men driving the quad bikes were dressed in almost identical clothing to Mark’s: dark-grey camouflage trousers and jackets. The webbing packs they wore held numerous pouches and a compact sub-machine gun lay slung across each man’s back. Their night-vision goggles were pushed back high on their heads. They both nodded without speaking.
    Mark gestured to the Jeep. “There’s nothing in here.”
    Matthew gave him a hard stare. “Look again, just to be sure.”
    Mark clenched his jaw muscles but he did as he was told. As he carefully rechecked each bag in the Jeep he tossed them out into the dirt. He swept his hands under the seats, rifled the glove compartment and checked behind the sun visors.
    “Nothing.”
    “Come on then. We better get down and finish this. Find her, get her to talk, terminate her.”
    Mark looked over at the man he knew as “John”. All four of them had been assigned tags by their employer, who himself used an alias. Topcat was one of those people that seemed to have been created in a military test tube. Every other word out of his mouth was delivered in grunt-speak. It was all military acronyms, abbreviations and warrior philosophy. But as long as he paid as well as he did, Mark would endure his staccato Patton-esque speeches. Plus, the guy knew his stuff.
    The ATVs rumbled as the two men designated as “Luke” and “John” revved the powerful engines. Matthew clambered onto the back of John’s Kawasaki, pushing his stubby Heckler & Koch MP5K firmly against his hip to stop it bouncing. Mark rode pillion with Luke, his eyes searching for any sign of movement that would indicate the woman’s location.
    The rugged treads of the ATVs kicked up a cascade of dust as the four-man team powered down the hillside.

5
    The dregs of his fourth beer had formed a small, damp Rorschach pattern on the chest of his grey T-shirt. Danny paid it no attention. He was enjoying the down time with his brother way too much to let spilled beer bother him.
    Clay grinned and continued his story, “So then the guy comes back into the bar with a six shooter and starts getting all Clint Eastwood on us.”
    “What… just because he got a slap from