Mac lunged forward and grabbed his assailant’s right wrist with both hands. A solid front kick drove the ball of his foot into the man’s solar plexus. The machete fell to the ground. Mac kicked out again, this time striking him in the side of the knee. The man’s leg buckled, and he swung out with his left hand. Light glimmered on a short blade. Mac yanked hard on his right arm, throwing him further off balance.

A twig snapped. In his peripheral vision, Mac saw the second man enter the clearing, an AK-47 in his hands.

The bastard who’d shot Cheryl.

Anger surged hot through Mac’s veins. The muzzle of the AK arced toward him. He whirled around, swinging Machete Man between him and the gunman as a shield. Shots burst from the rifle muzzle with orange flashes. The man in Mac’s grip flailed as the bullets cut across his middle. Something hot stung Mac in the side.

The trigger clicked on an empty cartridge. The gunman snapped the magazine off the bottom of the rifle and reached for his pocket. Mac tossed Machete Man’s dead body aside and lunged toward the machete on the ground. He snatched it off the dirt as the gunman shoved a new magazine into the AK.

The muzzle lifted. Jumping forward, Mac swung the blade. The razor-thin tip sliced the gunman’s forearm to the bone. Mac jumped closer, too close for the man’s AK to be of any use. Turning the long blade, he brought the tool up and across the gunman’s body, slicing him open from thigh to shoulder. The AK dropped to the ground. The gunman fell on top of it.

Mac wiped the blood from the machete on the ground.

He’d always wished he hadn’t grown up with a borderline psychotic and highly trained military father obsessed with turning his four offspring into a tiny paramilitary force. But the Colonel—and all the batshit-crazy survival weekends, weapons training, and combat drills he’d forced on his children—had just saved his youngest son’s life.

Mac rolled the gunman to his back to make sure he was dead. No worries. Mac’s conditioning had ensured his strike would be deadly.

The surge of relief was cut short as a sudden wave of agony sliced through his side. He put a hand just below his ribs. Hot blood seeped red through his T-shirt.

Not good. He was Cheryl’s only hope of getting help.

He ducked into the supply tent. The sat phone was gone, and the first aid kit was in the missing SUV. Son-of-a-bitch Juan. He hadn’t taken everything, just the essentials.