A fifth man trailed slightly behind, like he was pulling rear security. Except it was obvious he wasn’t worried about anyone coming after them. He wasn’t even paying attention to his six.
Tanner didn’t slow down as he caught up to the tail-end Charlie—the last guy in the group. Reaching around to grab the mounting post of his NVGs, he savagely twisted the man’s head around backward. The snapping sound was as loud as a gunshot in the relatively quiet forest but disappeared into the shadows like a ghost before the body had even hit the ground and the other four men had spun around to see what the hell happened.
Tanner hoped for a few seconds of what-the-fuck confusion. But at least one of the remaining men knew what he was doing. He immediately ordered the others to drop the unconscious baggage they’d been hauling, then spread out and get to their SUVs fast.
His inner beast growling in irritation, Tanner stepped out from behind the tree he’d been waiting behind and started popping off shots at the retreating figures. He hit two of them, though not mortally. Unfortunately, they all retained discipline, the injured duo laying down a heavy suppressive fire in his direction while the healthy ones helped them keep moving.
Spencer and Malcolm showed up then, but the bad guys made it to their vehicles anyway. Tanner charged forward and put a few more rounds into one of the guys as the bastard clambered into the SUV. The instinct to chase after fleeing prey was tough to ignore—not to mention the desire to go after the shitheads and end this right now—but he wasn’t there to kill people; he was there to save some. At the moment, he was more worried about the two unconscious preppers lying on the ground in the middle of the crossfire than in getting revenge.
He put enough rounds in the escaping vehicles to discourage them from stopping, then ran to the injured men along with Spencer and Malcolm. He knew there was something odd going on the moment he approached the deathly still men. Both were young and healthy, strong looking and in their late twenties. There were no obvious wounds on them, but they weren’t moving. Even their heartbeats were slow. Too slow.
Spencer and Malcolm must have thought the same thing, because they looked worried as they kneeled beside the unconscious men. Tanner frowned as he realized he recognized both guys. He’d talked to them more than a few times since moving back to the forest. They were good people.
“What’s wrong with them?” Malcolm whispered.
Tanner was about to say he had no idea and that they should get both men back to Zarina as fast as they could, but then he saw a flash of metal buried in one of the men’s coats. Curious, he reached down and pulled a pencil-thick metal tube with a needle on the end. Even in the pitch blackness of the heavily forested area, he could see the little bead of milky white liquid dripping from the tip of the needle. He sniffed the air, not wanting to get too close to the stuff. He had no idea what it was, but it had a distinctly medicinal stench to it.
“I think they’ve been drugged,” he said. “Tranquilized.”
Tanner checked the second man and found a similar dart.
“Holy crap.” Spencer growled. “They were darted like frigging animals in a zoo.”
While Spencer and Malcolm picked up the unconscious men and headed back to the Pyramid camp, Tanner searched the man he’d killed, hoping he’d find an ID. Unfortunately, he didn’t have any on him. In fact, he didn’t have a damn thing in any of his pockets. That, along with the military buzz-cut hairstyle and the army infantry badge tattooed on the left side of the guy’s chest, told Tanner everything he needed to know. The guy was former military for sure, which meant he could be a mercenary or even a fed. The gear and submachine gun were certainly top-of-the-line stuff that the government might issue.
Back at the Pyramid camp, Tanner discovered the rest of Chad’s men had arrived and were loading the injured preppers into the backs of the pickup trucks. He glanced at the blond woman he’d seen out in the woods earlier. She’d been hit in the shoulder and was bleeding badly. It looked like a serious wound, and they made sure she was in the first vehicle heading back to Chad’s camp. Other than the hair color, the woman didn’t resemble Zarina at all, and yet she reminded Tanner of her anyway.
Swallowing hard, he turned away, watching as people ran around the camp, helping the wounded and consoling crying children even as they packed up to move everyone to Chad’s camp. Tanner wondered if they realized how lucky they’d been. They’d gone up against five heavily armed men who were much better trained and equipped than the preppers would ever be. If those men had wanted to, they could have killed every man, woman, and child in this camp.
But for some reason, all they had done was tranquilize and drag away two of the healthiest males, like they’d been culling the fittest members of the group. Or merely trying to scare the shit out of these people by showing they could walk right in here and waltz out with anyone they pleased.
Another possibility suddenly occurred to Tanner, freezing his guts. What if this had been nothing more than an elaborate distraction staged to get everyone running in the wrong direction? If so, it had worked, because at that moment, most of the men from Chad’s camp were here instead of protecting their
