The Relic Runner Origin Story Box Set, Ernest Dempsey [summer books TXT] 📗

out of view of the spy drones that constantly scoured the mountain range for extremist camps and training facilities.

Dak and Bo took the right flank and reached the top of the ridge first, nearly a minute before the left flanking pair of Carson and Luis reached their spot.

“We’re in position,” Carson breathed into the radio.

“I have one target acquired at the front of the cave,” Billy said.

“Keep him in your sights,” Dak ordered. “Take him out on my command.”

“Ten-four, driver.”

“Team two, you ready?” Dak asked.

“Ready when you are,” Carson said.

“Take out the guards. Use your knives and keep it quiet. We don’t want all Hades breaking loose before we get a chance to look around the cave.”

“Roger that,” Luis said.

The four men moved as a single, precise instrument of death. Dak maneuvered to his right toward a guard standing by a fire pit outside of two tents. The other three moved similarly to him, each taking the enemy nearest them.

The unit moved with deadly precision and the guards never stood a chance. Dak reached his target without so much as a twig snapping. The terrorist guard stood by the fire, staring into the bright orange flames. The mans hands were out in front of him, fingers covered in tattered gloves. His AK-47 hung around one shoulder from a strap, dangling low by his hip.

He never had a chance.

Dak stepped out of the shadows and inserted the sharp tip of the knife into the base of the man’s neck and drove it up into his brain, severing the spinal cord in the process before scrambling vital organ with a quick twist. Death came instantly for the guard. The most the man felt was a sharp sting on the back of his neck before succumbing to the sudden darkness.

Dak felt the guard grow instantly heavy as his legs gave out, forcing Dak to hold him tight with one arm around the dead man’s chest as he dragged him back into folds of the rocks and scraggly bushes just behind the tent.

“Target down,” Dak said into his radio.

“What took you so long?” Bo asked with chagrin. “Mine’s down.”

“Target three down,” Carson’s voice entered the conversation.

No one said anything for a long moment, and for several seconds, Dak wondered what was taking Luis so long. He maintained silence until the radio crackled and Luis spoke.

“My guy is down, though I’m not sure why I got the biggest one.”

“Enough chatter,” Dak said, a hint of chastisement in his voice. “Eagle one, what do you see at the entrance?”

“Same two targets as before, sir. Ready to eliminate them on your order.”

“Into breach position,” Dak ordered the others.

The men moved silently through the dark and met at the top of the ledge that hung over the cave’s entrance. The camouflage netting hung with stakes hammered into the hard ground. The fabric stretched out over the landing below and dropped over the next ledge, held in place on the lower side by large rocks.

From the air, the covering probably looked like nothing more than a dusty slope on the edge of the hillside.

It was nearly the perfect cover, but not so perfect that Dak and his team couldn’t find it. These terrorists were the ones responsible for an attack on a village about twenty clicks away. They’d murdered innocent people for the meager resources the villagers possessed. The only survivors were those who’d escaped or been out in the hills with their flocks of goats and witnessed the attack go down from a distance.

Their village wasn’t the only one hit.

This band of brigands was responsible for at least six such attacks on small, outlying, defenseless villages over the last month. And it was time to shut them down for good.

Dak knew that it was an endless battle. Even when everyone inside the cave was dead, another terrorist cell would pop up somewhere else in the next few weeks and the deadly game would start all over again.

There was no time to think about such matters. Dak and his team had a job to do. He inched his way forward, crouching low. He stopped when he reached the edge of the cave entrance roof. The camo fabric at his feet would do nothing to stop the high-velocity rounds from Billy’s weapon.

“Nathan?” Dak spoke just above a whisper into the radio.

“In position and ready to lay them out if anyone comes out of the cave.”

“Light ‘em up, Billy.”

Billy stared through his thermal scope at the two figures standing on either side of the cave door. He selected the man on the right first. Billy always waited for a target to turn their head when there was a choice of two. The one who moved and took their attention away from the field of vision with the other in it would be the one who lived longer, albeit only a few seconds.

The guard on the left had taken a step away from the opening into the mountain and was looking off into the ravine. Billy lined up the target, having already compensated for wind, distance, and drop.

He squeezed the trigger as he exhaled and the colorful figure in his scope dropped as a red splatter escaped through the back of the man’s skull.

Predictably, the other guard spun around quickly at the sound. He’d no sooner laid eyes on his dead compatriot when a bullet cracked through the back quarter of his head and ejected out of the front left corner.

The man dropped instantly in a heap.

“Clear,” Billy said. “Targets down.”

Dak motioned to the other three, and the four men descended onto the cave entrance.

Three

Hamrin Mountains

Bo took the point, leading the other three into the cave. Nathan remained outside, a safe distance from the entrance, but with his machine gun ready to take out any reinforcements if the terrorists were clever enough to have people in reserve.

The four Delta Force men opted for their pistols in the tight quarters of the cave corridor. While the M1s offered more firepower, they