Unacceptable Risk by David Dun

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EXCLUSIVE EXCERPT!

Chapter 1—Part 2
Chapter 1 Part 1 | Part 2 |

Tonight it had dropped briefly below freezing, leaving the intermittent precipitation somewhere between rain and sleet. The wind whipped up a nasty chill factor. At the mouth of their log, Sam had placed a small lip of camouflage material to direct the flow of water away from their shelter. Harry was careful to keep his nose back behind the rain line. Sam hoped this small concession to comfort would not call attention to their hideaway. He looked at his watch: 5:10 a.m.

It was peculiar, he thought, how, at this moment, out of the billions of people on earth, only one man really mattered. Sam knew that every time the man called Devan Gaudet closed his eyes to sleep he felt hunted. A small comfort, but comforting nonetheless. Perhaps Gaudet retained enough humanity to realize that Sam hunted him for good reason. Still, for all Sam’s efforts to focus on his side of the battle, there remained the sobering realization that he hunted a man who in turn hunted him and all those dear to him. It was a game that would end only when one or both of them were dead. As part of the hunt Sam had decided to give Gaudet a shot at killing him. When Sam found the radio locator beacon in his car, no doubt affixed by Gaudet henchmen, he had led Gaudet and his people north from Los Angeles and into these mountains.

Although the struggle between the two men had been professional in the beginning – Sam was a contracted antiterrorist expert and Gaudet an assassin and international criminal for hire, the subject of one of his investigations – it had turned personal when Gaudet began killing people Sam cared about.

After a time Sam clicked the radio again; this time he got nothing in return. Next he did a radio check. Nothing.

Silence was trouble. Men retreating into the forest were trouble because he didn’t understand it and the worst sort of enemy was one you didn’t understand.

Pulling himself out of the sleeping bag into the cool air brought him to full alert.

Sam straightened Harry’s blanket, getting half of it under him and half on top. “Shush and stay.”

Harry scrunched down.

Sam took three steps back, put on his field pack, his Special Forces MSA Gallet TC2000 helmet complete with night vision and headlamp, and then hefted his M4 combat rifle fitted with an underbarrel flashlight and an M 203 40mm single-shot grenade launcher. On his hip he wore a Heckler & Koch .45-caliber MK 23 SOCOM pistol, twelve-round clip, with laser aiming module and sound suppressor. “Stay,” he whispered again, adding a hand signal. He knew the dog would not move.

Sam forced himself to walk slowly into the forest. If Gaudet were active, he would expect Sam to check on Paul first, so Sam made instead a giant circle in an unexpected direction, following the spotted owls.

He donned the nightvision goggles, which created a world of strange and subtle shadows. Branches hung everywhere and in places logs crisscrossed into windfalls, but Sam managed to pick his way around them. He stayed low to the ground, looking for signs of other men on foot, until he saw a lowland area ahead. It was wet with slow-flowing water in the rainy season. Traversing it without sloshing and making sucking sounds would be difficult, so he moved up toward the steep-sided rock-strewn canyons until he reached a hardscrabble path that he could use in silence.

Once on the other side he moved back down the canyon, taking only a few steps at a time. He had been moving for nearly an hour when he stopped to study a small opening near the place he imagined that the owls had gone. At that moment he heard them calling, getting closer, until they perched right over his head. He ignored them and scanned the forest. Unbelievably, he saw the glow of a cigarette well off the ground – apparently in a tree. An old road that served as a main trail ended here. No doubt the man in the tree served as a rear guard in a position so far from the expected action that he thought he could safely smoke.

Sam began a major sneak, dropping to his belly and moving inches at a time. To remain quiet in a slither meant that speed was out of the question. His father had insisted that he learn to stalk deer on his belly well enough to kill with a bow and arrow, and Grandfather had insisted that he improve his technique to the point that he could come within a few feet of a deer’s flank unawares. Men were not as perceptive as deer, especially a man foolish enough to smoke when it could cost him his life.

Near the glow of the cigarette Sam made out the vague silhouette of a hunched figure pointing a rifle at the sky. Stickery vines of wild blackberry were beginning to get hold of Sam’s clothing and he had to extricate himself. Remaining silent was frustratingly difficult and he had only the wind as his ally. When he was within thirty feet, the man put out the cigarette and adjusted himself, flapping a branch in the process. A slight opening in the canopy allowed moonlight in, creating an enhanced silhouette of the armed man. After several more minutes of slow crawling, Sam lay within twenty feet. From this position the figure had disappeared altogether. This was dangerous. If they detected Sam, then a flurry of bullets from an automatic weapon could kill him before he could react.

He made out a large tree three feet distant; he crawled to it, stood, and plastered his body tight against the trunk. He needed the man to give him a final confirmation of his motive. Searching at his feet, he found a sizable chunk of wood. He further searched and felt a stone protruding from the soil under the forest duff and patiently worked to remove it from the ground.

Before tossing the stick, he removed his old Zippo lighter from his coat pocket. He threw the branch, which landed in the bushes with a soft brushy splash. He imagined the sentry tensing and straining at the night, then pointing his rifle. Sam lit the lighter and tossed it in a gentle arc. As Sam glanced around the opposite side of the tree, a burst from an automatic weapon lit the night. Sam now threw the heavy rock as hard as he could at the shooter and heard a slight smack followed by a low groan. There was a little luck in the throw, but Sam was good with a rock and the target had been close, albeit above him. Quickly he loaded a rubber bullet into the chamber and another in the magazine. These were the only two rubber stun rounds that he carried and for that reason he had first tried the stone. After those two bullets he would be shooting hollow points and armor-piercing rounds called talons in an alternating sequence.

He waited for a moment; then the forest lit with the blast of the automatic weapon firing blindly into the night. The muzzle flash illuminated the man like a spotlight. Sam fired the two hand-loaded rubber rounds. He heard a crash followed by complete silence. Sam picked up a stick and tossed it. Nothing. He stuck his gun around the tree and fired a single lead round well over the man’s head. Still nothing. In his pocket he carried a small but powerful Nicad light. He removed the night vision. Trying to stay hidden as much as possible, he shone the light around the tree and drew no fire. The bark of the tree was uneven enough for him to pull back a flap and wedge the flashlight in place so that he could leave it and scan from the other side of the tree. He saw bushes and ferns, but no person in the deep shadows. It might be a trap, or the rubber bullets had done the trick. Either way, Sam expected to be swarmed by reinforcements drawn to the sound of gunfire like moths to a light.

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Chapter 1 Part 1 | Part 2 |