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Dagger swept his gaze over the area, cataloging details with a honed efficiency. Broken fence. Overgrown courtyard. Rusting vehicles, potential cover or potential traps. A place like this didn’t just sit untouched. It was waiting. Everything went quiet as if the jungle held its breath in anticipation.
They fanned out, weapons up, scanning for tripwires, movement, anything that felt off. The ambush was coming. No surprise.
Tex’s voice was low over comms. “Brawler, take Beast and Flash, move to the rear.”
“On it,” Brawler murmured, already breaking off, his boots silent against the damp earth. Beast padded alongside him, ears pricked, the hulking dog just as aware as they were.
Tex turned to Bondo. “Sniper overwatch. We’ll handle the front.”
Bondo nodded, peeling off, climbing an abandoned scaffolding to get a vantage point. That left Tex, Dagger, Shark, and Easy to push forward.
No ISR. No drone overwatch. Too much jungle cover, too much risk of alerting Herrera’s men. This was old-school CQB, eyes, instincts, and firepower.
A flicker of movement. The glint of glass, a scope’s reflection.
Adrenaline surged into Dagger’s bloodstream like a shot of nitrous oxide into a car’s engine. “Contact!” he snapped.
Gunfire ripped through the silence. A bullet cracked past his head, punching into the tree beside him. Wood chips exploded, stinging his face, bouncing off his protective eyewear.
Bondo fired before the enemy could get off a second shot. A sharp crack split the night, pure velocity shattering the sound barrier, gone before the mind could register its path. The hostile was dead before he even heard the retort. He slipped from the rooftop and plunged to the ground.
“Move!” Tex ordered, and they surged forward, weaving between rusted-out vehicles as the night ripped apart with the sound of automatic fire, a relentless staccato of death pounding the air, chewing through the area like a buzz saw. The first wave was brutal, pinning them down with the sheer volume of flying lead.
Shark rolled behind an overturned truck, firing in controlled bursts. “You ambushed the wrong goddamn people,” he said, low and pissed. Easy flanked wide, catching a hostile breaking from cover. Dagger pushed up, squeezed off two shots, one to the chest, one to the head, dropping another enemy before he could reach a firing position. They were all in sync, solving the problem, adjusting, watching everyone’s back, and taking the fight straight to the enemy, a brutal push to the entrance. Bullets slammed into concrete, the night erupting in chaos. The moment they reached the doors in a dash for this hard-won real estate, Tex signaled.
Easy moved in with his shotgun poised, growling, “We’re about to ruin their entire night.”
“These assholes think they have the upper hand. Let’s change that,” Tex said grimly.
“Execute.”
4
Brawler crouchedbeside the crumbling wall of the hospital’s rear entrance, his pulse steady despite the electric tension thrumming through his veins. With a quick twist of his wrist, he removed Beast’s leash. Beast didn’t need the tether in battle. He knew what Brawler expected of him, and he needed to be free to make those decisions.
Flash knelt to his left, the M249 Squad Automatic Weapon, more commonly known as the SAW, braced against his shoulder. As the team’s heavy weapons specialist, he bore the responsibility of laying down suppressive fire to keep enemies pinned and buy time for the others to maneuver.
Flash’s vest was loaded with extra bandoliers of linked 5.56mm ammunition, each belt meticulously stowed in pouches along his sides so he could swiftly reload under pressure. With the SAW’s high rate of fire, he could unleash a relentless barrage, saturating choke points or covering open ground where friendlies were vulnerable. Yet even as he clutched one of the most intimidating weapons in the SEAL arsenal, he moved with the fluid certainty of a predator.
Beast, a coiled storm of muscle and fangs, stood rigid at Brawler’s side, ears forward and eyes locked, waiting for the signal. Once given, Flash would snap into action, unleashing the SAW’s roar to cut through the chaos and protect his teammates, proving just why he was the team’s indispensable heavy hitter.
The hospital’s emergency exit was sealed with a rusted security chain, its lock corroded but still intact. Brawler pulled a breach charge from his kit, and Flash grinned. “What Einstein gave you explosives to play with?”
Brawler glanced down at Beast. “Do you believe this guy?” The dog’s ears flicked in a quick response, a short chuff vibrating in his throat, pure business, no playful spark. “Just stay out of the blast radius, genius.” He slapped the charge against the door and whispered, “Stack up.”
Flash moved into position beside him, pressing tight to the wall, weapon angled high. “Is this far enough, Mommy Hen?”
Brawler chuckled under his breath. He gave Beast a silent hand signal, and the Malinois sank low, muscles tensing beneath his coat, eyes locked on the door. Shoulders rolling forward, Beast braced to launch the second the barrier gave way.
Three… Two… One.
Brawler hit the detonator.
The breach charge blew, sending metal shards slicing through the air. The door ripped open with a groan, smoke billowing from the frame.
A man inside turned toward the blast, too slow.
Beast hit him first.