At the Slightest Sound

Chapter 1-2

Hannah cursed, grabbed the pilot’s upper arm, and broke into a sprint. He wasn’t particularly steady on his feet, but his long legs helped him keep up.

She should have realized that, even rattled from the crash, he knew enough to destroy something as sensitive as a Night Stalkers helicopter. The US Army’s 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment flew very specialized and valuable equipment—none of which could be allowed to fall into the rebels’ hands. But he might have been a little clearer in warning her before pulling the pin.

“Fifteen!” She should be counting down, not up.

They sprinted back up the furrow his crash had dug through the small jungle clearing. When she’d seen the RPG take out the tail rotor on her ride home, she’d never expected to find anyone alive. Any normal, merely human pilot would have signed paid-and-delivered with that kind of damage. But he wasn’t any mortal human, he was a Night Stalker. Somehow he’d salvaged the situation enough to live to tell about it. Hadn’t crashed his sense of humor either—something far too rare in men.

“Why this way?” He seemed to be finding his stride and she had to hustle to keep up with his long legs in their race for the tall trees.

“Ten!” She was counting in the proper direction now. “They won’t expect you to backtrack toward the people who shot you down.” She aimed straight for the NERC camp, which lay less than a kilometer away. It was the best deception she could come up with on twenty seconds’ notice. The guerrillas would rush blindingly to the crash site, hoping for a hostage. Not finding one, they’d assume the pilot had continued to run away from the point of attack. They’d never guess that he—they’d be hiding out on the same side of the clearing as their own camp.

“Toward?” His voice came out in a squeak.

“Five!” She did her best to reinforce that it was far too late for questions.

“My hat!” The pilot spun on his heel.

Because she hadn’t let go of his sleeve—four—as they sprinted, she was spun around and almost flew aside. Three. Her grip held and she continued the spin to drag him back in their original direction despite his greater height and mass—two—and slammed him to the ground behind a tree.

One.

The jungle blew up!

White light sheeted into the trees, which chopped it into searchlight beams momentarily brighter than sunlight.

No need for her NVGs, she flipped them up—a massive fire now lit the entire clearing brilliantly as the helo’s fuel torched off as well with a second gut-punching thump!

Silhouetted against the glow were a half dozen NERC who had rushed into the clearing from just fifty meters past their own exit point. The force of the explosion was enough to tumble the guerrillas to the ground, but they’d been too far away to do her the courtesy of dying.

Hannah unlimbered her rifle as a secondary explosion breached a fuel tank and the helo really shredded. Two of the NERC were down from shrapnel. In moments she’d shot the two standing farthest away—one male, one female. Didn’t matter. Their troops were typically a third female, and most of them made the men look mild. They wore hard-ass chiquita like a badge of righteous honor.

As soon as the roar of the explosion had washed by—while bits and pieces of helicopter were still whistling past, catching tree trunks with harsh thwaps—the Colombian jungle roared awake. Birds, parrots (a whole separate class of animal way cooler than mere birds—she loved to watch them play when she was stuck immobile in some strategic hiding spot), shrieking monkeys (a whole class of animal she could do without), even a roaring jaguar (a beast she never wanted to meet in person), created a cacophony that would mask any sound. Not that her silenced rifle made much more than a soft click when fired.

Hannah took advantage of the distraction to drop the next two farthest guerrillas. They’d think the shooter was over on the opposite side of the clearing, taking out the nearest targets.

There was a sharp clack of metal close beside her. The pilot had just unfolded the stock of his FN-SCAR combat assault rifle.

“No!” She slapped down on the barrel as he fired.

Instead of sheeting out a gout of muzzle flame to tell the rebels their exact location, the round blasted into the dirt close in front of them. Both of them spent the next few seconds spitting out the blown-back powdery dirt—thick with the taste of loam and the high iron content that turned it rust-red.

“Not without a flash suppressor, you i***t, unless you want them to see us,” she shouted over the ongoing jungle madness. “Don’t you have any survival instincts?”

“Sorry, ma’am,” he reached into a thigh pocket and slipped on a suppressor that would also nearly silence the weapon. “S’pose I’m still just a touch rattled.”

“Lie still. Don’t do anything until I say.”

They lay in silence and watched as the lone remaining NERC wandered about the clearing. He checked his comrades. The two who had gone down during the explosion weren’t getting back up. Then he found the first of the bodies, each with two holes in his head and one in the heart. That captured his attention.

Jolting up, he began scanning the firelit far side of the clearing just as she’d planned.

Hannah could feel the pilot staring his question at her.

She just shook her head. Some itch kept her from dropping the last man. The guerrilla had no night-vision gear, so there was no chance of him spotting them.

Then, a flashlight’s beam swung by less than three meters beyond their barrels. It was soon followed by a NERC patrol. She and the pilot lay in the center of the secondary team.

This was so not good.