"Sergeant, are you sure about this?" asked Rockstar.

"Of course he's sure," said Rutang. "Shut up!"

"I'm just saying--"

"Rock, I'm sure," said Mitchell, putting some real steel in his voice. "Go now!"

Mitchell took point, and they began scissoring their way through the jungle. He clutched his rifle a little too tightly, and the chin strap of his boonie hat began digging into his skin. He took a sharp turn around two trees, and the sounds of gunfire grew louder, along with the trickle of running water out there, beyond the jagged tree line.

At the next cluster of palms he called for a halt and slid back his boonie hat. Then he dug out his binoculars and scanned the area.

Despite the growing darkness, Mitchell still picked out several men dressed in nondescript fatigues with bandannas tied around their heads. They darted south, back toward Bravo Team.

He issued hand signals to Rutang and Rockstar: Got three, there, let's go!

They charged off, with Mitchell once again taking point, Rutang and Rockstar on his rear flanks, Rockstar checking their six o'clock as they advanced.

The ground was muddy, sucking too loudly at their boots as they cut through the brush, came around several more trees and clusters of dark shrubs, and right into a swarm of malaria-carrying mosquitoes that had all of them swatting at their faces. He prayed the layers of bug spray and the vaccinations would do their job.

As Mitchell's vision cleared, he spotted the three guys, ten, fifteen meters ahead, still weaving forward, seemingly unaware they had been followed.

Mitchell bolted to the base of the next tree, whose reddish brown bark was alive with ants. He signaled the others to drop and prepare to fire.

"Got one in my sight," said Rutang.

"Me, too," Rockstar added.

"Fire!" Mitchell cried, breaking the silence, but it didn't matter, because their M4A1 carbines echoed like rolling timpani drums, hungry rounds chewing through the air until they caught flesh.

"Bang, bang, bang, they're dead." Rutang grunted.

He wasn't lying. They'd dropped the trio cleanly, efficiently.

"Move!" cried Mitchell, knowing that before they could blink twice, they'd draw incoming fire.

He was wrong. It took three blinks before the trees and ground exploded as they sprinted past the men they had killed. They moved onto a steep mound, then Mitchell descended and turned back. Rutang came up hard on Mitchell's heels.

A triplet of gunfire cracked too close for comfort as Rockstar reached the crest. The stoic-faced black man gasped and shook as more rounds tore through his chest a second before he collapsed right on top of Mitchell.