But then he heard a twig snap off to his left.
Crap. There was a sixth guy up here, and he’d come up between him and his apparent patrolling buddy. Freezing in place, he let only his gaze move. No decent cover within several yards in any direction. There was a shallow gully just by his right side, though. For lack of any better options, he eased inch by inch to the right until his body lay in the depression. Moving his hands slowly, he grabbed fistfuls of leaves and dirt and did his best to cover himself.
Footsteps scuffed to his left at a range of about thirty feet.
He went completely still, relying on the human eye’s tendency to focus on movement rather than on unmoving shapes.
The bastard walked past his head, no more than ten feet from him. Gunner didn’t even blink as the guy eased past, his boots at eye level. The hostile was lean in build, medium height. Dressed in black, but not heavily equipped. He was carrying a tricked-out Howa Type 89 Assault Rifle, however. It was the preferred weapon of the Japan Self-Defense Forces. The one this guy was carrying had a video sighting system that would allow a user to hold it away from the body and aim the weapon around corners. Not super useful out here, but hey, if it made the guy feel badass, more power to him.
Spencer and Drago wanted to capture one of these guys tonight. Question him and find out who he worked for and what the hell they wanted with a little kid. This one was a good hundred yards behind his buddy. If Gunner could take him down silently, Hostile Number Five might not realize he’d lost his partner for long enough that Gunner could drag this one away.
To that end, he let the guy move about twenty-five feet past him. Then Gunner pushed up, rising to his feet specter-like behind his unsuspecting target. He moved slowly at first, then picked up speed as he closed the last few yards.
He got an arm around the hostile’s neck before the guy had any idea Gunner was even there. But dammit, the guy had excellent hand-to-hand combat training. He flipped Gunner over his shoulder, and only Gunner’s own training allowed him to twist midair and land on his feet, still clinging to the guy’s neck, which was now bent down in front of him. He made a fast move to one side to get behind the guy again, but the idiot jerked hard against the countermove. It was the kind of flashy move a movie martial artist would make but no sane fighter ever tried in actual combat. Not if he wanted to live. Sure enough, a sharp cracking sound split the night. It sounded like several stalks of celery being snapped in half all at once.
The hostile went limp in his arms, and Gunner swore silently. The guy had broken his own neck with that stupid move, for God’s sake. He lowered the hostile to the ground as the man’s paralyzed body gurgled its last few breaths. Life faded from the man’s dark, staring eyes, and Gunner closed the guy’s eyelids with his thumb and forefinger.
Dammit.
He turned, scanning the woods in the direction this guy’s partner had gone. At least he knew that Hostile Number Five didn’t have any backup now. Maybe he wouldn’t be as stupid as this guy had been and kill himself with some ill-advised hero move.
Gunner moved off quickly, covering a lot of ground for about three minutes before slowing and scanning the forest with the heat-painting feature of his NODs. Spencer and Drago would be wearing clothing that minimized their heat signatures, but the hostiles didn’t appear to be doing the same.
He crept forward, paralleling the cliff. He was close enough to look down on the motel and started when he spotted two men emerging from the woods across the road. Apparently the hostiles were beginning some sort of assault on his and Chas’s room. Jeez. Good thing Chas and the doll version of Poppy weren’t there.
In front of him, a figure rose silently out of a bush and surprised the living hell out of him. The hostile had almost no heat signature, just his hands and throat lit up on Gunner’s gear. Bastard had been well hidden in a thick stand of brush, sitting perfectly still.
Gunner froze midstep as the hostile moved over to the edge of the cliff and trained his weapon toward the motel. This must be the overwatch guy providing sniper support. Either that, or his job was to pick off Gunner and Chas if they tried to flee.
Gunner eased slowly off to his left, counting on the shooter’s concentration on the area below to keep the guy from noticing him. When he’d traveled a ninety-degree arc and was directly behind Number Five, Gunner started forward. This time he drew his Ka-Bar knife as he approached the target.
He jumped, wrapping his left arm around the shooter’s throat and pressing the flat edge of the knife against the guy’s chin in an obvious declaration of intent to kill if the guy gave him any hassles.
Fortunately, this guy went still, his body utterly relaxed. Not that Gunner took it for surrender. Not yet.
Flipping the knife blade to place the sharpened edge against the shooter’s throat, he used his free hand to key his microphone. He muttered low, “Number Five in custody. Number Six is down.”
Two sets of clicks in his ear were all the acknowledgment he got from Spencer and Drago. Which meant both of them were close behind their own targets. It also meant they were ready to move on to the second phase of this operation—chasing off the remaining targets so they’d have time to question his captive.
All of a sudden, gunfire exploded off to his left, where the ridge sloped down almost to the level of the motel, and from the trees across the street. The man in his arms jolted violently, and Gunner pressed the razor-sharp blade harder across the guy’s throat.
There were shouts and returned weapons fire, interspersed with the distinctive double taps of Spencer and Drago’s weapons. Pop-pop. Pop-pop. Their pace of fire was unhurried, undoubtedly precise, also undoubtedly herding the remaining hostiles toward their vehicles in a way meant to make them think they were vastly outnumbered and needed to retreat if they wanted to live.
Somebody cried out below. Spencer or Drago must have decided to nick one of them. That was a ballsy call, but maybe the hostiles needed a little more convincing to bug out.
It was incredibly difficult to hit a moving target at all, let alone control where on a body a bullet struck. Shooting for the leg or head were stunts that only worked in Hollywood. In the real world, snipers aimed at the center of mass and were happy with any shot that hit a vital area.
Without warning, the guy Gunner was holding let out a shout. It sounded like he said, “Run!”
He tightened his arm across the guy’s throat until the dude was gasping and started clawing at Gunner’s forearm. The man went limp, but Gunner held the choke hold a bit longer to make sure the guy was well and truly passed out.
Then he lowered the man to the ground and worked fast to secure his wrists behind his back with zip ties. He stuffed a bandana in the guy’s mouth as he started to revive and stepped back, pointing his pistol at him. The hostile regained consciousness and glared up at him, testing the zip ties once and then subsiding.
Yippee. This one might live long enough to answer a few questions.
Gunner heard running footsteps and took a quick glance at the road below. Four figures in black were running at full speed in the direction of the SUVs, puffs of dirt kicking up behind them every few seconds. Drago was continuing to shoot at their heels, no doubt to convince them not to stop and circle back for their two missing teammates.
Engines roared to life, and the man at Gunner’s feet struggled violently. Just figured out he’d been left behind, had he? Sucked to be him.