A moment later, the distinct pop of a flare bursting open filled the night air. A bright green light bathed the jungle forest as the flare slowly descended from the sky; the tall trees sending long shadows creeping across the mucky trail. Ryan Mitchell froze in his tracks, grabbing the hand of the terrified young woman beside him. Like statues, they stood there, motionless, waiting for the flare to burn itself out. Ryan’s training told him that if they made any sudden movement, their pursuers might see them.
Barely a few hundred meters behind them, a pair of dogs barked and snarled to be let off their leashes; they had their scent.
Mitchell swore. He knew they had to keep moving, or the men following their tracks would surely catch them. Looking down, he saw terror in the eyes of the person he had come to help. He shook his head; it should have been a relatively straightforward rescue operation. Yet it had gone horribly wrong.
Susan Thomas, a lean and tall young woman, moaned as she held her hand to her side. Dark, sticky blood seeped through her slender fingers. Wounded by a shot that had grazed her during their escape, she was losing blood.
Mitchell wasn’t in much better shape. Shot in the right shoulder, he could feel a burning pain radiate out from the wound every time he tried moving his right arm. Luckily, the shot had gone right through. Still, it hurt like hell.
Gritting his teeth in anger and frustration, Mitchell doubted that Susan could move any faster than she already was. They would have to make the best speed they could, hoping that fear and adrenaline combined would keep her going until they made it to safety. He ripped off a piece of his mud-stained shirt, reached down, placed it over Susan’s wound, and then delicately placed her hand over the top to help slow the bleeding.
Five months ago, while working in Colombia with some college friends, Susan had been abducted from an archaeological dig site by thugs from a local drug cartel that had recently branched out into the more lucrative business of kidnapping, and was held for ransom. After several agonizing months of not knowing where she was or what had happened to her, the cartel contacted her parents and demanded ten million dollars for her return. To show that they meant business, she was brutally beaten. The graphic images were e-mailed to her parents, convincing them to pay off her captors. Whatever the cost, they wanted their daughter back alive.
In the darkness behind them, a threatening voice called out.
Another answered.
Mitchell swore; they were closing in on them. He spun about on his heels and aimed his Heckler and Koch 9mm pistol behind them as if expecting their pursuers to emerge from the jungle at any moment. Clenched firmly in his left hand, Mitchell wasn’t even sure how many rounds remained in the magazine. He had no extra ammunition on him; whatever was in the pistol, taken from a dead kidnapper during their escape, was all he had.
The light from the flare burnt out, plunging the forest back into darkness.
Mitchell helped Susan up on her feet. She let out a pained moan. Perhaps her wound was worse than he thought; there just wasn’t time to check… they were being hunted.
Pushing his sweat-soaked hair away from his eyes, Mitchell looked to the east. His plan, he thought, had been simple enough. When the guards were busy with some of the local prostitutes, Mitchell intended to secretly whisk Susan out of the cartel’s camp and then link up with the remainder of his team waiting for him on a prominent gravel road a couple of kilometers away. Yet, somehow, at the last minute his cover had been blown. Before he could get Susan out of the camp, a deadly firefight erupted. During the running gun battle Mitchell managed to kill four of Susan’s captors before they were both hit, slowing them down to a painful hobble.
Not far behind, a flashlight beam lit up the trail… they had to go.
Mitchell tenderly placed his left arm around Susan’s slender waist. “We need to keep moving,” said Mitchell with a wink, trying to encourage her.
With a weak smile, Susan looked up and nodded, taking another breath to steel herself against the shooting pain. She placed an arm around Mitchell’s neck for support. With a nod at Mitchell, they began to move as fast as they could down the narrow game path.
From behind, the sound of dogs snarling and barking, grew closer by the second.
Mitchell could feel the fear in Susan; her heart was racing wildly. The sound of the dogs made her shake in terror. He didn’t doubt they had repeatedly threatened her with the massive beasts. Mitchell had seen them pacing back and forth inside their fetid kennels, a diabolic cross between a wolf and a pit bull.
“Not too much farther,” Mitchell whispered, hoping that he was right.
They had barely gone a dozen meters when a root caught Susan’s foot. Tumbling forward, she fell out of Mitchell’s grasp and landed on her knees. A loud moan escaped her lips. He bent down and saw that Susan was close to blacking out. Ignoring the pain in his shoulder, he scooped her up in his arms. Taking one last look back over his shoulder, Mitchell began running as fast as he could down the slick trail.
Barely a second later, another flare opened up right above them. Shadows thrown up by the trees appeared like long, ghostlike fingers trying to stop them from getting away.
Shots rang out. A couple of bullets whipped through the branches close to Mitchell’s head. He ducked his head and then picked up his pace. He knew had to keep moving. If they stopped, a horrible and painful death undoubtedly awaited them both.
Behind Mitchell, in the menacing dark, the sound of paws running in the mud filled his mind with a primal fear.
They were coming.
The hulking hunting dogs had been let off their leashes. Snarling loudly, they sprinted down the muddy path hunting down their prey.
Mitchell’s injured body was fighting against him. The pain from his wound seemed to grow worse with every step that he took. The muscles in his legs burnt, while his lungs cried out for oxygen. It was only his fear for Susan that kept his tired and battered body moving. Mitchell broke out from the cover of the jungle; thankfully, he felt a gravel road under his aching feet. He looked around and saw that they were alone. Quickly deciding to head north, Mitchell prayed that his people would be waiting for him somewhere down the road. A quick phone call to a number monitored by his team was all he had been able to do before all hell broke loose in the cartel’s camp. He hoped that it was enough of a warning to get his people in place.
Susan cried out and pulled herself tight into Mitchell’s arms.
Mitchell’s heart leapt. Barely ten meters behind them, the massive hunting dogs, like demonic hounds from hell, were closing quickly, their sharp, white teeth gleaming in the light from another flare hanging directly above the dirt road. Mitchell knew that even without Susan in his arms he couldn’t outrun the powerful beasts. He stopped, lowered Susan to the ground, raised his pistol, and then quickly fired two rounds into the closest dog. With a yelp, it fell to the ground, dead.
Taking aim at the next dog, Mitchell pulled the trigger — and nothing happened.
Mitchell cursed. The slide on the pistol was all the way back… it was empty. Screaming obscenities, he hurled the useless pistol as hard as he could at the charging dog. Unfortunately, his aim was off. The pistol flew past the snarling dog’s head and landed somewhere in the dark.
The dog went straight for Mitchell’s outstretched arm. Trained to take down threats, the large dog sunk its teeth into his forearm like a sprung bear trap, trapping its victim.
Pain shot through Mitchell’s left arm. He felt himself dragged to the ground by the hundred-pound beast. He was forced to let go of Susan. Mitchell felt his arm being tugged back and forth, as if he were nothing more than a child’s rag doll.