By the time the sun began its final swift descent in the west it had been drained of all its harsh cruelty. The great solar orb that had the power to suck the life out of any creature foolish enough to show itself during the day was now little more than a harmless orange ball receding in the distance. Within minutes it would be gone from sight completely, giving the parched desert it ruled over by day a few hours’ respite. Sensing the coming darkness, creatures of the night began to emerge from their holes and coveys. Even before the last long shadows of daylight were absorbed by the gathering gray twilight they would be out and about, pursuing those chores that were so necessary for survival in this harsh and most unforgiving land.

Those creatures that were native to Syrian Desert could only rely upon natural skills to track prey. When they managed to comer their quarry, they had to employ their own teeth, claws, venom, and sheer brute strength to bring it down and kill it. When times were hard and victims scarce, these same predators had no qualms about turning on each other in order to survive. Under the right circumstances, any animal will turn on its own for self-preservation and survival.

Not all the predators that populated Syria’s barren landscape were indigenous. Few of the fourteen members of the U.S. Army Special Forces unit known as Recon Team Kilo thought of themselves as predators. None would have considered themselves to be the most dangerous ones in the area. But by any measure, they were. Unlike the creatures that crawled and slithered in the sands about the laager where RT Kilo’s vehicles lay hidden, the Americans conducted themselves in a well disciplined, methodical manner that thousands of years of civilized warfare had distilled into something of a science. Aided by instructional memory and state of the art weapons that enhanced their own ability to seek, strike, and destroy, RT Kilo was the tip of the mightiest killing machine ever assembled.