Page 97 of Out of Control

Thank God.

He reached up to his throat and depressed the mike button once. There should be at least two more hostiles out here somewhere, and maybe Hamza himself.

Drago held himself perfectly still. Not a creature was making a sound after the loud gunfire. The night itself seemed to be holding its breath as not even a hint of breeze stirred a single leaf.

The tension in the air was palpable, though.

Be safe, Spencer. Don’t do anything heroic. Get out of this alive.

He cleared his mind by sheer force of will, setting aside his desperate worry for Spencer until only the forest and his weapon were real.

And then all hell broke loose.

SPENCER CROUCHEDin the lee of a rock outcropping, holding his breath. Someone was standing directly over his head, no doubt using the high point to scan the forest. He didn’t have any angle to shoot from, and if he popped up right now with his Ka-Bar knife, the only target he would have was an ankle, which was by no means a kill spot.

A faint scuff of leaves announced that the guy had moved on. Spencer waited patiently for the hostile to come into sight, but even with his steely chill, it was nerve-racking as hell.

There. Slightly off to his left. Was that Hamza? The height was about right. But he couldn’t see anywhere near enough facial details to make an identification through his NODs.

He moved out, one careful step at a time, in pursuit of the target. The plan now was for him and Drago to close in behind the second wave of hostiles and hit them hard.

He took perhaps a dozen cautious, catlike steps toward the retreating hostile, but then, without warning, something moved fast behind him. He spun as a figure dropped out of a tree but wasn’t fast enough to stop something cold and hard—and lethally sharp—from touching his throat.

As if.

He grabbed both blade and wrist with his gloved hands, bent forward with all his strength, and tossed the fucker violently over his shoulder. The hostile slammed to the ground with Spencer on top of him. He turned the attacker’s own knife on him, slamming the blade against the guy’s jugular.

A spurt of hot blood hit him in the throat.

He leaned on the blade, digging it in deeper until a fountain of blood gushed over his hand.Nowthe guy was mortally wounded.

Spencer rolled away and, lying on his back, scanned the forest.

Shit. Two figures moving fast to the right and two more fanning out beyond that. How many men had Hamza brought with him, anyway?

He pressed to his feet and took off running toward where Drago ought to be. All four of those hostiles had been heading for Dray’s quadrant.

Gunfire erupted in front of him.

He kept running, charging straight for the muzzle flashes. Those bastards were firing athisman. He raised his weapon and, on the run, took aim. He sent a burst of lead into the back of the nearest hostile, who slammed face-first into the dirt.

But the hostile on his left was quick to respond, turning his own automatic weapon fire on Spencer.

He dived for cover behind a fallen log. Huge rotted chunks of it flew up in his face. A second automatic weapon joined the fire-fest aimed at him. This was not good. They would chew through that log in a few seconds, and then he was toast.

DRAGO SAWthe moment the two weapons on his left changed direction and started firing at an unidentified target. Spencer. Those fuckwads were shooting at Spencer.

Oh, he thoughtnot.

He jumped up, firing in a continuous burst that chewed through a good chunk of his finite ammunition supply at the two guys on his right. Both men ducked and took cover from the barrage, which gave him a few seconds to charge toward the pair firing on Spencer. He nailed one of the men squarely in the back, but the second one was too fast and spun, shooting back and forcing Drago to leap behind a tree or die.

Dammit. This was exactly the scenario he and Spencer had hoped to avoid, creeping around in the woods with a bunch of commandos playing hide-and-shoot.

He moved off to his left, circling wide of the last shooter’s position. He had to get out of a position where he and Spencer would be shooting directly at each other.

A twig snapped to his left.

Shit.

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