Hell's Inferno by Rob Jones

Author:Rob Jones [Jones, Rob]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-07-26T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Tracking the prisoners in the jungle was a cakewalk to Machete and his men. They knew this testing ground like the backs of their hands, plus, they had the sentry gun on their side. Zamkov was a strange man, but he paid well, and today he was paying them to demonstrate to the American that no matter how hard they worked, the AI gun would kill the targets first.

It was Machete’s job to prove him wrong, but he had never done it. In all the years he had hunted targets around the mesa, the AI systems always terminated the target before he or his men could do it. It was an infuriating challenge, but he got paid one way or the other, so it meant less to him than he supposed Zamkov cared.

When they pulled up at the side of a clearing, he scanned the trees with heat-sensitive field glasses. “Looks like Zamkov is playing games with us and keeping the sentry gun back.”

“He’s a crazy bastard,” one of his soldiers said.

Machete kept looking. “I don’t see the prisoners.”

“They went to the east,” one of his men said. He recognised the voice. It was Carneiro, the newest member of his platoon.

“No, they would not go that way,” Machete said. “They are ex-forces. You could tell by looking at them. They would go west. It’s easier terrain.”

He lowered the field glasses from his eyes and threw them in his pack. “We go west.”

“No,” Carneiro said. “They went east. I’m sure of it. Look at the broken plants.”

“You’re wrong. Now fall in line.”

“But they went east!”

Machete sensed what came next. It had to happen. Like Carneiro, he knew a line had been crossed. Too much had been said. The younger man moved first, darting out a clenched fist and dodging to the left to avoid the response.

Machete reacted fast. His authority had been challenged by one of his soldiers and he couldn’t let it stand. Order had to be maintained. Standing his ground, he blocked the punch and bunched his hand into a sold iron fist, ramming it into Carneiro’s face and knocking him off his balance.

The young commando brought his right foot back and stopped himself from falling over. With his eyes fixed on Machete, he wiped his smashed mouth and spat a thick wad of blood on the jungle floor.

“You want to play it like that, huh?”

Machete said nothing. He knew more talk meant less fight. Staring right into his soul with the cold, unblinking eyes of a man who had lost count of how many he had killed, he beckoned him to attack again.

“You’re a fool, Machete! You let that insane Russian treat you like shit! He treats us all like dogs and you say nothing.”

“Fight me, or shut up,” Machete said at last. “But if we fight, we fight to the death.”

A shadow of doubt passed over Carneiro’s sweating face as Machete pulled a blade and tossed it from one hand back to the other.

“Well?”

Before he could answer, they all heard the sound of a branch snapping to the west of their position.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.