Primary Valor Jack Mars (miss read books TXT) 📖

Directly across from Luke, maybe ahundred meters out, was an open rear door to the house itself. It was at thetop of about six wide stone stairs. Two more men stood in that doorway. Thesemen were larger, broad-shouldered, in civilian clothes. Luke guessed that theywere private bodyguards, Americans in all likelihood, former military, maybemen like himself.

The outbuilding was much closer. Themen were on this side of it, standing in a little bit of shadow, shielded fromthe doorway to the house. The angle suggested that it was possible to takethose guys without alerting the ones over by the house.

That meant killing three men incold blood, men in the Honduran military, who were assigned to this task, andmight not know anything about Darwin King. Young men with families, perhaps. Itwould be easier to kill private contractors.

“They know,” Luke whispered tohimself. “They know what goes on here. They witness it every day. They work forthe bad guy. They’re bad guys. It’s that simple.”

After everything that hadhappened, there wasn’t much mercy left. He didn’t need to remind himself of thegirls who had been kidnapped. He didn’t need to remind himself of BuzzMacDonald dead. He just needed to flash back to the child’s corpse in anoverlarge ice chest. Yes, that case was unrelated to this. He knew that. Heknew it rationally. But it was about impunity. This impunity in front of himwas the same as that impunity behind him. Stealing people, children, treatingthem like objects to be used or discarded.

That’s what he was dealing with.

Moving slowly, carefully, hepointed the sniper rifle in that direction. Its long snout, with the massivesound suppressor attached, poked through the bushes. The three men stoodtogether. Smoke rose between them. One said something, and the other twolaughed. Luke could just hear their low voices from here, but nothing of whatwas said.

He put one of the men in thecircle. The man’s face seemed inches away, close enough that Luke could see theblack stubble on his face. The man put the cigarette to his mouth.

This would have to go quick. Itwas a bolt action rifle, so he had to manually expel each spent cartridge. Lukepracticed changing the aim on the rifle, moving it from man to man.

He put the first man back in thecircle.

Chung!

Bingo. Luke ejected the spentcartridge and moved the gun.

The next face looked down inhorror at what had just happened.

Chung!

Luke changed the aim one lasttime. The third man was crouched, his gun at the ready, staring out into thenight, looking for where the shots had come from.

Chung!

Three men were now on the groundin a pile over there. None of them had made a sound, other than the rustlingthey made as they sank to the dirt.

Luke checked the door to thehouse. The two big men were there, impassive as before. They hadn’t moved. Okay.Now he was in business.

He left the gun in place, wentback into the bushes, and wrapped around toward the outbuilding. He darted outacross open land to the building. The three dead men were piled near thedoorway. Luke glanced in. It was just a big open space, maybe a dining hall ora dancehall or a bar at one time.

Luke took two grenades, put themboth on timers for three minutes, and tossed them inside. Then he crossed backto the copse of jungle again.

He checked the timer on his watch.Two minutes had already passed.

He went to the sniper rifle. Thetiming needed to be good, not necessarily perfect, but close to it.

Thirty seconds left.

Twenty.

He put one of the men at thedoorway to the house in the circle of the telescopic sight. He was a tall guyin a black T-shirt, broad chest, big shoulders, close-cropped blond hair, aholstered gun at his shoulder. Hard, mean-spirited eyes.

Ten seconds.

Chung!

Dead.

He tried to put the sight on thesecond man, but that guy was already gone, disappeared. Luke looked over thetop of the telescope, but he didn’t see him. The guy had training. The momenthis buddy got hit, he…

BOOOM!

There was a flash of light and aneruption of sound, like an earthquake. The first grenade went off, taking outthe far wall of the outbuilding. An instant later…

BOOOM!

The second one went off, deepinside the building.

Luke was running now, staying low,the burning outbuilding to his right, the pool grounds to his left. Hisbreathing was loud in his ears. He came at the doorway from an angle. The guardwho had ditched was still gone.

There was shouting to his rightside. People were moving toward the outbuilding from the other side of it. Hecould just see them from the corner of his eye. Something inside that buildinghad really caught fire. There was a tinkling as glass windows shattered and flameslicked outward.

He reached the doors to the houseand darted up the steps, two at a time. His pistols were out, one in each hand,his and Bowles’s, two MP5s strapped across his chest, more grenades hangingfrom his vest.

He burst through the wide doubledoorway.

Here was the man who had ducked. Abig guy in a Hawaiian shirt. He was moving down the wide hallway toward Luke. Hewas part of a group of three, two big guys, flanking a woman in a green dressbetween them.

They had guns. He had guns.

Luke aimed both his guns. The menaimed at him.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

BANG!

They all fired at once.

Luke shot them both in the face. Oneof their shots missed entirely.

The other hit Luke in the leftshoulder. It knocked him around sideways. The gun went flying out of his lefthand.

He heard himself grunt from theimpact.

He looked down at the injury. Hisvest was ripped apart there. It was bloody. A chunk of meat had been taken out.It looked red and raw. He couldn’t tell how bad it was. He couldn’t tell if thebone had been hit.

It didn’t hurt, but that was theadrenaline talking.

There was nothing he could doabout it. There was no time. The fight was on. He had to do everything now, ownthis place, sow chaos, destroy opposition, press his advantage before he lostit. Injuries would have to wait.

The woman stood there, between thecorpses of the two men who had been with her a moment ago.