He cautiously turned his head to the right, looking for James. He couldn’t see him but knew he was out there, dug into a high mound on the side of the sloping terrain. The heavy machine gun in front of him, James would have wide fields of fire once it all started. Jacob looked back to the front and heard the things on the far off lake view path pick up their trail; they were coming. The snow melted in the sun, causing a thick fog to form over the forest floor and blanket the ground to their front. He wondered if they would take the bait and make the turn toward them, or continue on past them.
“Come get us, you sons a bitches!” James shouted from somewhere to the right. Duke’s excited bark joined the man’s challenge. “Come over here, I got something for you!”
Jacob sighed as he put his head back down behind the cover of the log. “Guess that’s one way to embrace it,” he said just above a whisper.
“What?” Jesse asked from his position, hidden to Jacob’s left.
“Get ready, they’ll be here soon.”
He rolled to his left side and eased the rifle ahead before pulling it back tight into the pocket of his shoulder. Lining his eye up to the scope, he scanned. He tried to relax, controlling his breathing, slowing his heartbeat. They were moving closer. He could see their movement as they were drawn in by James’s taunts. He saw them slowly appear from the lake view trail; they made the turn toward them while they followed the fresh tracks in the snow. This pack was more controlled, not yet affected by the dioxin. They were aware and they were hunting them.
The pattern was different. They knew the team was here. They were on the attack; having already been alerted, no pair of hunters led the way. They moved in a long column stretching back. They were heavily armed, carrying all make and model of weaponry. This time would be different for all of them. This time, the Assassins were ready, and they arranged the meeting.
He signaled Jesse with a tap of his boot to start the ambush. Marks had placed the two men forward to initiate the attack and to act as scouts after. He lay impatiently listening to his friend ready the M202 FLASH. Jacob lifted his own rifle, put his eye to the glass, and searched for a target. The largest threat was a tall creature walking out front, a heavy machine gun cradled in his arms. He led the man slightly in his sights, held his breath, and waited for it to start.
Jacob pulled his rifle into the pocket of his shoulder and pointed it at the tall creature. Aiming just in front of the thing at shoulder height, he held his breath and waited. Four successive explosions propelled the sixty-millimeter rockets forward. Boom, boom, boom, boom… gray smoke twisted ahead, straight down the firing line they’d cleared with the Bobcat.
Jacob pulled the trigger and watched machine gunner fall just as the white-hot shards of flaming explosive filled the trail. The forest exploded in flame and fire. James, in an overwatch position to their right, let loose long bursts of machine fire, shredding the enemy column. Blue smoke and fire covered the terrain ahead as Jacob searched for anything still able to shoot back and picked off targets.
A whistle from Marks silenced his team’s weapons. They quickly reloaded and pressed their bodies into the earth, waiting and listening for the follow up attack. The screaming started on the trail just as it always did. The Deltas did as expected, their movement always the same. They would make contact and attack. As before, they would mass on their prey. Only now, Jacob’s group was ready—the plan was working.
Jacob listened to the Delta scream deep in the smoke-covered trail amidst the crushing and breaking of branches as the mass gathered to their fronts. Marks blew the whistle again. It let The Darkness focus on their direction, allowing them to accurately mass to their fronts. Jacob could hear the bodies pressing together while they formed up, the clanging of their weapons, and the united breathing and beating of their feet on the trail as they coiled tightly for the attack.
Then it happened… the roars—roars always preceded the counterattack. The Deltas charged forward en masse, supported by their own riflemen on the flanks. Unable to pinpoint Jacob’s men dug into the snow-covered ground, the enemy rounds went wild. The Darkness charged forward at a sprint. Hundreds of them, a horde of screaming, rage-filled faces armed with whatever they could carry. Jacob kept the tip of his trembling finger on the trigger but held his fire.
“Cover!” Marks ordered.
Jacob buried his face into the soil berm to his front, pulling up his gloved hands to cover his as the forest exploded around him and the ground beneath him protested and shuddered. He was levitated from the earth and then slammed back into it as a shockwave ripped through the ground. He felt clods of mud and ice fall from the sky onto his back. Branches cracked and popped in the distance, remnants of the trees now fully engulfed in flame.
Jacob lifted his head and looked to the front. The once thick, pristine forest was now void of life, everything decimated by the blast zone. The rows of buried 250-pound bombs did their job; the column was destroyed.
Jacob picked up his leader’s orders from a hidden position. “Jacob, Jesse. Scouts out.”
Jacob nodded even though he knew the gesture would be unseen. He pushed himself up with his hands to a kneeling position and raised
