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Overview
The client is the CIA, as a beautiful, seductive Company agent enlists the help of Mad Dog and his men. The assignment is Uzbekistan, where an America-hating warlord plans to assassinate the country's newly elected, U.S.-supported president. But the mercenaries don't know that they're flying straight into the nightmare of a state-sponsored double-cross. And it'll all hit the fan in an ancient walled city where a famous action director and a headline-grabbing Hollywood couple are filming a big screen epic. But this time the bullets and the blood are going to be real, and the death and destruction won't stop when someone yells, "Cut!"
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780061747724 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | HarperCollins Publishers |
| Publication date: | 10/13/2009 |
| Series: | The Mercenaries , #2 |
| Sold by: | HARPERCOLLINS |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 304 |
| Sales rank: | 795,416 |
| File size: | 882 KB |
About the Author
P. W. Storm is the pseudonym for Peter Telep, an experienced and acclaimed novelist whose books have been translated into German, French, Spanish, and Japanese.
Read an Excerpt
The Mercenaries: Thunderkill
Chapter One
Myanmar (Formerly Burma)
Near Hpakant Kyi
0632 Hours Local Time
"Blackhound One, you got three more, northeast, maybe half a klick!" cried Billy Pope over the radio. "You need to boogie right now. Wait! Two more, directly east your position. Come on, bossman! Move it!"
Michael "Mad Dog" Hertzog heeded Pope's warning and grabbed the ten-year-old boy by the wrist. They took off running along the slope, heading for a stand of trees whose branches were already alive with gunfire originating from somewhere behind them in the morning fog.
"One, this is Two, over," called Alistair Bibby, who was about twenty meters south, hauling his own British ass across the mountainside.
"What now?" Mad Dog asked him.
"Night Stalker informs me the bird is still on the ground. I say again, the bird is still down, over."
"Tell him if he doesn't get that piece of shit airborne, he's fired, out!"
A dozen heartbeats later Mad Dog and the kid reached the trees and crouched behind them. The gunfire tapered off into the faint cries of birds and the rustle of tree limbs.
For a ten-year-old caught in the middle of a firefight, Kwei was remarkably calm, his eyes steady and as jet black as his short hair. Maybe he was shocked into silence, who knew? Mad Dog reached into his ruck, withdrew a big Ka-Bar and leather scabbard. He attached the scabbard to the kid's belt, then withdrew the knife, handed it to him. "Okay?"
Kwei ran a finger along the serrated blade, testing the sharp tip as his face grew even more flush. He bared his teeth, then made a stabbingmotion and said something in a fierce tone, followed by, "Okay, I kill!"
"That's right," said Mad Dog, nodding.
Ordinarily, he would never have armed a child, but after what those bastards had done to Kwei—the mental abuse, the sexual torture—he wanted to make the kid feel as though he, too, were fighting back. Just holding the knife might help him release some of the anger.
Off to their right Heverton "Dr. Doolittle" Santiago charged up the hill, and Mad Dog felt a pang of relief as the translator reached them and crouched down to catch his breath. Doolittle was nearing forty, but only the creases near his eyes betrayed that. He had the lean physique of a marathon runner, and his speed was as handy as his language skills.
Mad Dog scanned the bush with his binoculars, then lowered them and regarded the man. "How we doing?"
The translator chuckled sarcastically. "The usual."
"How many?"
"A platoon-size force."
Mad Dog grimaced then raised his chin to Kwei. "Tell the kid not to worry. Just lie, okay?"
"Sergeant, what's with the knife?"
The translator's question struck a nerve. "Forget the knife," Mad Dog said. "Just shut up and do it."
Doolittle sighed and got to work, speaking fluent Burmese, his brown face creasing tightly as he took the blade from Kwei.
"Hey!" cried Mad Dog. He was about to wrench back the knife when he realized that Doolittle was trying to show Kwei how to grip the blade properly.
"Better he doesn't cut himself, right, Sergeant?" Doolittle returned the Ka-Bar and positioned the kid's fingers on the Kraton handle.
"Yeah."
While Mad Dog appreciated that Doolittle called him Sergeant, a tribute to his Force Recon days and their time spent working together as team leader and civilian translator, he didn't appreciate the Brazilian questioning his decision.
And worse, Doolittle wasn't the only one doing that.
Since they had come to Southeast Asia to rescue Kwei from jadeite smugglers and collect their cool million in fees, every one of Mad Dog's men had either openly or through innuendo questioned his leadership. Just the day before, Mad Dog had snapped at Pope: "I had fucking colon cancer, not brain cancer, you asshole! And I beat it! And I will lead this team!"
That was the first time he had spoken openly of his illness, though they knew about it from the reports of old Dan back home at "The Pound" on Cebu Island in the Philippines. The outburst had shocked all of them into silence.
Shit. No wonder he had become a mercenary. His temper was as short as his dick. And after living on this planet for over four decades, he knew he should know better. Didn't. Always let his trap get him into trouble.
Reports came in from Wolfgang, then Boo Boo and Drac. Sapper's report summed up the rest: "Uh, Blackhound One, this is Five. We got about twenty guys coming in from all directions. So we got about twenty seconds to get the fuck out of here. And after that? We got about twenty seconds to live. At least the wait won't be long."
The former Army engineer broke off radio contact and let a few grenades fly, twin booms shaking the hillside behind them.
Damn, these jobs always looked great on paper.
The smugglers had demanded ten kilos of fei-ts'ui—kingfisher green—jadeite in exchange for the kid. The estimated value of those rocks? Thirty-eight million.
Kwei's father, Aung-san, owned the mine and had explained in well-practiced English that fei-ts'ui jade was the most desirable imperial green jade in the world. The Chinese had named it "kingfisher" to associate it with the iridescent green neck feathers of the Chinese species of the kingfisher bird. Smugglers moved more of the stuff between Myanmar and Hong Kong than the government-controlled jade market; which, of course, Mad Dog knew, explained why the scumbags had kidnapped Kwei and demanded payment in jade instead of cash.
"All of that makes sense," he had told Aung-san. "But it doesn't explain why you're lowballing me."
He was saving the guy thirty-eight million, but the cheap bastard wouldn't pay more than one million for the safe return of his boy.
"Surely, a businessman such as yourself understands something like this."
"What I understand is that your boy isn't worth more than a million. He might be disappointed to hear that."
The Mercenaries: Thunderkill. Copyright © by P. Storm. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.