Capital Offensive

“Drop the knife,” James ordered, his accent a growl of pure southside Chicago. He was still holding the MP-5, but his finger wasn’t on the trigger.

Looking down, Julio was surprised to see that he was holding a switchblade knife. He had no recollection of pulling the weapon. Forcing his fingers apart, he let the blade drop into the moss.

“Better,” James said, slinging the weapon and swinging around a medical kit. “Now, I can stop the bleeding, but it’s going to hurt. And I mean a lot.”

“B-bah. I—I am not…not afraid,” Julio wheezed, sweat running down his pale face.

“You should be,” James replied stoically and, without another comment, he yanked the arrow free.

White-hot pain lanced through Julio, and he barely had a chance to scream before completely losing consciousness.

As the merc went limp, James pulled out a knife to start cutting away the crimson-soaked fabric so he could clean the wound.

With a Beretta in one hand and the MP-5 in the other, T. J. Hawkins warily approached McCarter, his expression grim.

“We’ve got a problem,” Hawkins stated. “I count seventeen dead bodies.”

Every member of Phoenix Force heard that over their earplugs and went instantly alert.

Standing with his back to a kapok tree, Rafael Encizo tightened his grip on the MP-5 just as drop of moisture fell from the leaves above to hit the hot barrel. The water sizzled into steam. A heavy, stocky man with catlike reflexes, Encizo was less than handsome, his face carrying the scars of too many battles. But the rough looks beguiled a razor-sharp mind.

“You sure about that?” Encizo whispered, studying the area.

Trying to appear casual, Hawkins scratched his nose. “Definite.”

“Shit.” Gary Manning grunted at the pronouncement. The big Canadian shrugged the massive bolt-action rifle strapped across his back to a more comfortable position. Manning was the sniper for Phoenix Force, and his weapon of choice was the infamous .50-caliber Barrett rifle. The colossal weapon fired a bullet that could penetrate most light-tank armor and blow holes through brick walls from a mile away. The colossal Barrett was a deadly machine of distant termination, but only in the hands of an expert marksman.

“Seventeen,” Manning whispered, squinting at the still forms scattered in the gory mud. “But I thought that Aaron said the Miguel brothers always rode with a crew of twenty.”

Down the jungle path, the headlights of the truck suddenly came on, bathing Phoenix Force in a harsh illumination.

“They do!” McCarter yelled, moving and firing at the same time.

As the team separated fast, the V-12 engine loudly came to life and the truck started rolling forward, rapidly increasing speed. From behind the vehicle, something even brighter flashed and smoke puffed.

“Rocket!” James cursed, dragging the unconscious Julio behind the massive tree for some protection.

The fiery dart of a LAW rocket streaked down the leafy pathway and plowed into a stand of sugarcane. A split second later, a thunderous explosion tore the sweet plants apart, spraying debris into the misty sky.

Lumbering along faster, the truck kept coming, and now Kalashnikov assault rifles cut loose from behind the vehicle, the three ducking mercs only partially in view.

Bobbing and weaving among the dripping ferns, Phoenix Force arced through the jungle on both sides of the crude road, only to reappear and close upon the truck from opposite sides.

“T.J. and Gary, go!” McCarter commanded over the radio.

Rising into view, the two members of Phoenix Force hosed the truck with 9 mm rounds from their MP-5 submachine guns.

Forced to quickly take cover behind the moving vehicle, the three mercs pulled grenades from their pockets, clawing to get off the strip of safety tape holding down the arming levers. As the tape came loose, the mercs yanked out the arming pins.

That was when McCarter and Encizo stepped out of the ferns and stitched the three with prolonged bursts. Crying out in shock, the mercs threw their arms high as the copper-jacketed rounds tore them apart, the safety handles falling away free.

As the dying men collapsed, Phoenix Force rapidly took cover, and a split second later the grenades detonated, the entire jungle seeming to shake from the triple blast.

Crouching in the bushes, Hawkins grunted as something slammed hard into his belly. Slapping a hand to the spot, he quickly checked for blood, but his NATO body armor had stopped the shrapnel from penetrating. It had hurt, a lot, but he would live.

Continuing through the smoky trees, the truck jounced over the still corpses of the mercs lying in the bloody mud, until it wandered into the plants and rumbled away out of sight, the dripping leaves and flowery vines closing behind the vehicle.

“Anybody hurt?” McCarter demanded over the radio, slapping a fresh clip into his weapon. These three made twenty mercs total, but he was staying sharp in case the Miguel brothers had brought along some friends.

“No breakage,” James replied, still kneeling alongside the unconscious leader of the mercenaries. He was in front of the man, protecting him from incoming rounds.

“And the area looks clear,” Hawkins reported, scanning the jungle with IR goggles. The optical device registered heat sources, and aside from the Stony Man commandos and the sugarcane conflagration raging out of control, there was nothing within sixty yards that was bigger than an iguana.

“Stay sharp,” McCarter directed, walking over to James and his patient. The Stony Man commando had the mercenary propped up against a banyon tree, and was just finishing off a temporary bandage around the ragged wound.

“What’s his condition?” McCarter asked.

“He’ll live,” James said, adjusting the knot. Satisfied, he moved away from the man and reclaimed his weapons. Only a fool tried to heal an enemy with a gun at his side. “Just not sure how useful that arm will ever be.”

“Can you wake him?”

James gave a curt nod. “No problem.”

“Do it,” McCarter ordered.

Pulling a preloaded syringe from the compact med kit, James gave the unconscious merc a combo shot of morphine, digitalis and amphetamine, a battlefield cocktail guaranteed to rouse the dead if the bodies were still fresh.

He’ll have a splitting headache tomorrow, James thought, injecting the devil brew directly into a vein. But then again, the stupid son of a bitch is lucky to still have a head. Mercenaries he could tolerate. Drug dealers he could execute in cold vengeance. His kid sister had died of an over dose of smack, and there weren’t enough bullets in existence ever to balance the score.

With a low moan, Julio sluggishly came awake. “You…” the man mumbled in blurry recognition. “What did you give me?”

“Something for the pain,” James said, putting away the empty syringe.

Along with other things to try to make me talk, Julio rationalized, waves of soothing warmth spreading through his arm and then his chest. The pain vanished, leaving him feeling slightly disconnected from reality. Then the memory of the fight, along with the death of his brother, came rushing back and he snarled in raw hatred.

“What do you want with me, gringo?” Julio demanded, his tongue feeling thick and awkward. “I tell you nothing. Nothing! Go ahead and haul my ass to jail. I will call my lawyers and be free in a day. A day!”

“That might be true, if we were the DEA or the police,” McCarter said, glancing sideways at Hawkins.

Giving a wink, Hawkins recoiled from a corpse on the ground. “Hey, this guy is still alive!” he cried loudly.

“Too bad. We already have their leader,” McCarter said. “So we don’t need him.”

“No problem, sir.” Pulling his Beretta, Hawkins worked the slide and fired a couple of 9 mm Parabellum rounds directly into the chest of the dead man. The body jerked at each impact, almost seeming to die all over again.

The brutally callous execution caught Julio completely by surprise. These mainlanders were insane! Most definitely not U.S. Army, or even the CIA.

Crouching on his heels, McCarter lit a cigarette and offered it to the prisoner.